PLUS ONE MAGAZINE: 2016

Brewed & Reviewed: Verdant Brewing Co.

We’re back with the latest edition of Brewed & Reviewed, and as you may have already guessed, this edition is all about Verdant Brewing Co. Now I know Plus One Magazine is a Yorkshire based magazine, but that doesn’t mean we have to solely feature Yorkshire breweries, right? Well I don’t care I’m doing it anyway, and they’re based in Falmouth, Cornwall, some 350 miles away. Seriously though, we strive to bring you the very best up and coming breweries wherever they may be and we think you’re really going to want to try Verdant, if you haven’t done so already.

What better way to make your weekend last that little bit longer than to go and watch a bit of live music on a Sunday evening? Coincidentally, last Sunday marked the quarter-century almost to the very day since the release of Teenage Fanclub’s magnificent breakthrough album Bandwagonesque.

The brewing industry in the UK is booming and the nation has never been more in love with craft beer and real ale. Cities have seen an increasing number of craft beer bars and brew pubs opening up and nestling in with more established traditional boozers. York is a fine example of this and provides the thirsty beer seeker with a lavish choice of micro-breweries, tap rooms, traditional real ale pubs and modern vibrant craft beer bars. Using the luxurious and convenient York Marriott hotel as a base, we explored the historic city of York and its perimeters to find out more about the beer being brewed here and some of the places you can discover it in.

It’s fitting that in the aftermath following the re-election of Jeremy Corbyn we should be putting some questions to ‘She Drew the Gun’ a lo-fi Merseyside quartet who recently performed at rallies in support of the newly reinstated leader of the opposition.

Here's an opportunity that we simply couldn't let pass by. With an ear to the ground via twitter and lips smacking at the thought of their beers from comments we'd read here and there, we've been taking note in recent weeks of a rather new and exciting brewing venture going by the name of Odyssey Brewing. Great reviews and positive words of praise have been popping up all over the internet for a good while now. When we got wind of a tap takeover by them and a meet the brewer experience at our favourite local place to be – Northern Monk's refectory here in Leeds, we hurriedly put it into our diaries and made our way along a couple of Saturday's ago.

As far as the city of Leeds goes, it’s had far worse days, Roundhay Park returned as a live music venue, the sun shone throughout as people turned up in droves, no doubt taking advantage of the fine weather to make a last minute decision to attend...

A decade into their career, at time of writing, Texan quartet White Denim are crossing the USA en-route to the UK and Ireland, promoting their latest album ‘Stiff’ a deliciously chaotic collection of tunes. James Petralli, Steve Terebecki, Jonathan Horne and Jeff Olson have the enviable knack of creating records containing the perfect blend of songs that either blow you away first take like the white knuckle blues of ‘Holda You, (I’m Psycho)’ or creep up and bite you on the ass such as the proggy, riff-laden ‘Mirrored in Reverse’.

"...The bands brief hiatus in 2013 was thankfully short-lived and their return to live performances sees quite the shift in personnel. Two drummers share center-stage flanked on either side by Dwyer (left) and bassist Timothy Hellman (right). More of 'AWE' get turned loose on to the up for it audience including a monstrously powerful sounding 'Gelatinous Cube', the dual drummers hard at work trading rhythms..."

"...Life stuff, side projects and more besides means we’ve only had 2 'Fannies’ albums in the last decade, that silence finally broken by ‘Here’ with supporting Autumn dates in North America and the UK to boot..."

Leeds International Beer Festival is back again for its 5th year this September. The magnificent building that is Leeds' town hall will host some of the world's finest brewers who are bringing some of the tastiest beers you could wish to sip. Plus One Magazine is giving you the chance to win some amazing prizes at the event,courtesy of some of these fine brewers. Here's how to enter..

The more we obsessively dive into the brewing industry here at Plus One Magazine via both our 'Triptick' and 'Brewed & Reviewed' series, the more we uncover some of the most passionate and creative brewers around. For this feature of Brewed & Reviewed I discovered such an individual brewing right under my nose, in Kirkstall on the outskirts of Leeds.

I’ve always loved urban parks and Leeds boasts one of England’s very finest at Roundhay. For over a century those 700 immaculately kept North East Leeds acres have provided welcome sanctuary to generations of the city’s inhabitants, hosting a number of hugely popular events, most recently a leg of the ITU World Triathlon Series, ecstatic crowds witnessing a home grown one-two, the Brownlee brothers putting the rest of the field to the sword.

"...the most ambitious number of all is the three-part break up piece ‘Je Voulais Te Dire’ a 7-minute mini epic containing a slow burning start, a dissonant angry middle, with the end fizzling out somewhat appropriately".

"...Roach shows her political side on ‘Poem’, sounding not unlike Amy Whinehouse doing Billy Bragg, nothing but a gentle guitar riff in the background..."

As a huge beer fan and contributor, a lot of my spare time evolves around social media. Countless times a day I can be found uploading to Instagram, checking Facebook, looking at Untappd, browsing online beer retailers and filling up baskets that most the time never get checked out, and apart from actually drinking the stuff, the internet is the best way to gain knowledge on all things hoppy. On one of the many fore-mentioned platforms it was Facebook that I found the brewery for this instalment of Brewed & Reviewed. During one of my check ins on one of the UK’s craft beer communities I kept seeing one name crop up time and time again. Lost Industry.

"...Album opener ‘Back Together’ effortlessly fuses choppy guitar interspersed with sun-drenched synths, all propelled along with an urgent driving rhythm, and adding still further to the 1980s feel, ‘Miami Logic’ provides the listener with another taut bass, this time wrapped around and somewhat oriental sounding Rio-era guitar riff..."

"..Birra Gjulia continue to impress with their varying styles and experiments with grain and grape! The packaging and labelling are exceptional and not to mention wonderfully eye-catching. Already distributed across the restaurants and wine shops of their home country, Gjulia are looking to export not just their products but an expression of fine Italian drinking culture..."

"...Album highlight ‘Lost in a Crowd’ delightfully combines the funereal paced fury, staccato piano dancing in and out of a bluesy riff, with a disarmingly heartfelt chorus providing a much needed ray of hope..."

"...‘Verbatim’ completes the panoramic yet down-tempo denouement, the soothing outro bringing to mind a sunset on a deserted beach..."

"Fermentation may have been a greater discovery than fire." - David Rains Wallace.

For it is the fermentation process we have to thank in turning natural sugars into alcohol that occurs when making our favourite beer isn't it? As a nation of beer lovers, times are currently at an all time boom for our beloved drink. Never has there been such an abundance of different styles, varieties and strengths available from such a wide selection of outlets. Thanks to the ready availability of various grains, a world-wide selection of amazing hops and the all important yeast strains, established and new brewers are cooking up all manner of lovely delicious ales, lagers, stouts and much more besides.

"...The catchy road-trip feel of lead-off single ‘California’ resembles a contemporary take on a 60s psychedelic throwback, also arguably the pick of the tunes here, a crisp Byrdsy jangle interspersed with a thrillingly ethereal urgent vocal..."

Here at Plus One we love to keep it local (not ‘The League Of Gentlemen’ sort of local) so we were thrilled when Yorkshire based brewery 'Roosters' sent us over a trio of tipples to enjoy. Roosters have been around for quite some time now in the grand scheme of things, 1993 they first hit the scene starting off with an all cask affair. Since then however they have been keen to stay relevant, adding keg, cans and bottles to their range in 2014 after investing in a canning line.

'Craft' beer in supermarkets is nothing new, after all Brewdog have had a presence in Tesco for over six years, but recently there appears to be a concerted effort amongst the big five (and discount retailers) to supercharge their beer aisles. With sales of beer stagnating across larger food retails outlets, it's about time there was a more diverse offering, and generally speaking, most drinkers are as receptive to a bargain pale ale as they are to a limited release Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout.

"...The closing half is more stark and thoughtful, perhaps a reflection of subsequent relationship difficulties, not to mention the effect of finding himself cocooned within the Big Apple where the latter material was put together".

"Brooding opener ‘Shattered’ stalks through a minor key on the back of industrial synths still twisting hip-hop past its comfort zone, and ‘Critical’ bristles with even more latent energy..."

"...Whether old or new, what is in no doubt is that all Bulat’s songs are beautifully written as well as nailed to within an inch of their lives on stage tonight..."

Plus One Magazine is proud to present to you, the first in our new series of articles; Brewed & Reviewed. We’ll be bringing all the latest beers from your favourite U.K based breweries, as well as news, reviews, opinions and anything else in between.

"...Next up is the excellent ‘Charm Offensive’ perhaps the pick of the songs tonight as the twin guitar assault works in perfect harmony, keeping together the mid-paced yet fleet footed rhythm with the electronica effects making nice noises around the edges. The sultry slow burner ‘The Great Void’ is one of the EP tracks as is also the fine closer to the set ‘Do Nothing’..."

It has been a nail biting four year wait, but the fourth studio album from experimental rockers Yeasayer is finally here. The Brooklyn-based trio will release their distinctly named record Amen & Goodbye via Mute on 1 April 2016. Expect psychedelic pop beats and rippling harmonies in abundance...

"...Halfway through the set Cole simply stops playing mid-song as he clutches his head turning away from the crowd. A few awkward moments later he turns back wiping away his tears. ‘This is so embarrassing,” he tells the crowd. From this point on and for the rest of the set he barely faces the crowd again..."

Seeing Diiv live was met with a certain level of intrigue as I wondered through the doors of The Belgrave Music Hall to an already packed out room. This is a band that never seem too far away from controversy. With Zachary Cole’s heavily publicized drug problems, Devin Ruben Perez dubious on-line comments and Colby Hewitt dismissal having all hit the alternative press headlines.

"The rather splendid ‘Stiff’ is bought to a close by the appropriately titled ‘Thank You’ again a song that rapidly metamorphoses, veering from skittish jazz-rock to shimmering lounge tinged soul..."

"Kicking things off with ‘Herd of Creeps’, a hypnotic looping track with Arabic overtones, squiggly sax underpinned by a driving rhythm section, maintaining its urgency throughout..."

Rye beers are possibly some of the most under-rated beers on the craft market at the moment, usually flying under the radar to many shoppers when filling their basket with big hitting IPAs and rich stouts. I’m here to tell you just why you need to start enjoying these delicious beers and in usual Triptick style – letting 3 of them battle it out.

"There’s rawness encapsulated throughout these songs redolent of perhaps a blend of Stooges, Cramps, Femmes and Pussy Galore at their collective madcap pomp..."

"Despite the lack of audience tonight, Heavenly Records have clearly signed a rough diamond in Palehound and if tonight simply constitutes more stage time then on what is the band’s first overseas tour then that can only be a good thing..."

"..Poliça's sound is so hands-on and heavily immersive; the band have claimed that United Crushers was conceived as “modern protest music”, fashioned in the midst of rioting in its hometown Minneapolis..."

"...The pace picks up on ‘New Bird’ and ‘Out of the Dark’ is expansive and gorgeous, flying on the wings of a brass section and an earworm hook which makes it one of the standout cuts on the record..."

"...The decidedly debilitated ‘Healthier Folk’ smacks of B-Movie sleaze balls as swampy acoustic guitar goes head to head, with batshit redneck electric, becoming more unhinged by the second..."

"Pick of the sextet is arguably penultimate track ‘Blowin’ Up My Mind’, full of cunning linguistics and driven by a Wurlitzer straight off the set of Phoenix Nights .."

Hewn from the same school of Cambrian quirkiness that blessed the music world with Super Furry, Gorky’s and Cate Le Bon, Sweet Baboo, (aka Stephen Black) has been ploughing his own like-minded idiosyncratic furrow for the best part of a decade. He can also boast a pretty impressive productivity rate, the six-track ‘Dennis’ is EP number four, again released on the Adrian Pike founded London based label Moshi Moshi, and that’s not half of it, with a clutch of albums on top of that, the dude must have songs coming out of his ears!

This TripTick’s theme is cans, big ‘uns too! The proper beer canned market is growing, and I’m more than happy to see these tallboy cans popping up from breweries outside of America too. As it happens I picked up these three from Tallboys Beer Market in Leeds, finally living up to the name!

"...the deadpan delivery of the sampled audio commentary adding to the soothing effect, the packed house respectfully silent, presumably preoccupied with digesting the sensory overload..."

Three months ago Public Service Broadcasting were forced to reschedule their eagerly anticipated Leeds University Refectory gig, leaving oneself truly utterly bereft, having been chomping at the bit to see them in the flesh, knocked out by the twin assault of their otherworldly ‘The Race For Space’ album combined with the gripping footage from their BBC 6 music festival performance in Newcastle.

A three-beer study into Vocation Brewery - Based in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire

Wherever you turn online in beer circles at the moment, you will find pictures, opinions and positivity revolving around Vocation’s entire range of brews. I’m literally yet to see a negative word said about them. The power of the internet has obviously worked its wonders on me, and with that, I had to have some.

"The 6-song encore includes the sun-drenched ‘Loco’…..you can positively smell the Tequila, as the gents also tear-up the Barry White tribute ‘Love Unlimited’..."

Half a century ago the LP as we know it finally came of age with the releases of ‘Pet Sounds’ and ‘Revolver’. For the next 30-odd years, its position as the definitive benchmark against which every serious popular music performer would be judged remained unchallenged until the digital age suddenly gave the listener the power to slice and dice their audio product, threatening to make albums an irrelevance overnight. Thankfully, the art form fought back partly due to the resurgence of vinyl, also because digital streaming sites like Spotify, suddenly meant listeners could plunder back catalogues at will as opposed to simply ‘Best Ofs’. Performers also started playing their most feted works in their entirety during live shows, not lost on Fun Lovin’ Criminals who’ve chosen to do just that with their stylish and urbane debut, first appearing in record shops some 20 years ago this month.

"...obviously you want to make sure you start off with a lighter beer, something that's not too strong ABV wise. You don't want to start the night 'all guns blazing' and nod off before the half time spectacular after all"...

Brace yourselves Britain, we are about to be hit by a storm drifting over from the US. No, its not Gertrude or one of the other comically titled storms, but the annual extravaganza that is The Superbowl. With the game underway on Sunday 7th February from 11:30pm GMT, its time to put on the sick voices and let work know you wont be coming in on Monday.

"Listening to Loloismo from start to finish is a genuinely unique experience, in the true sense of the word – whatever you fill your ears with..."

As a writer traditionally very suspicious of bands with punctuation marks in their names, my taking on of a Za! record was always going to be a risk – what if my grammatical prejudices ruined the review? What if my judgment was clouded by preconceptions? But it is impossible to be prejudiced against the Spanish duo because their music fundamentally sounds nothing like anything else.

Two decades ago New Yorkers Fun Lovin’ Criminals gatecrashed a UK Britpop party seemingly in full swing, their debut treating the listener to a heady blend of rock, blues, hip-hop and jazz-funk, a welcome antidote to what had become an increasingly bland array of mod-lite bands, determined to flog to death every last drop of repackaged 1960s Cool Britannia.

In a humdrum world, there is always !!!.

January 19th saw the release of indie-punk band !!! (Chk Chk Chk)’s comic video for their new single ‘Every Little Bit Counts’. Zany and fun, with a whiff of abnormal, the video epitomises everything this band is about.

Premiered with Funny or Die, the video features input from the talented Casper Kelly, mastermind of Adult Swim’s video sensation “Too Many Cooks”. Frontman Nic Offer plays the eclectic Willie Wonka in an unremarkable world, combining “Zen calm with boyish enthusiasm”.

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