Roger's Bodgers, Chiltern Brewery

Roger’s Bodgers (8.4%)

Chiltern Brewery has done me the great honour of making a special edition of one of its beers to thank me for my support for independent craft brewing over many years.

You may consider it something of a backhanded compliment when you learn the beer in question is Bodgers Barley Wine. But Tom and George Jenkinson assure me that years ago bodgers was a term meaning craftsmen who built chain-link fences in the Chiltern beech woods.

Tom and George have taken over the mantle from their father, Richard, who launched the brewery in 1980 in the village of Terrick between Aylesbury and Wendover. It’s one of the oldest independent breweries in the country.

The family’s success, aided by their one pub, the medieval King’s Head in Aylesbury, has seen the brewery expand several times to cope with demand. It supplies around 100 outlets.

In spite of a formidable strength, Bodgers – first brewed in 1990 to celebrate the brewery’s 10^th anniversary -- is enormously popular and sales have grown in recent years. In keeping with all the Chiltern beers, it’s brewed with all English ingredients – Maris Otter malting barley and Fuggles and Goldings hops.

Roger’s Bodgers was tweaked and has a touch of crystal malt to give the finished beer a bronze colour. Endeavour and First Gold hops were added for additional aroma and flavour.

First Gold was the first “hedgerow hop” grown in England. It grows to half the height of conventional varieties, is easier to harvest and is less prone to attack by pests and disease.

Endeavour is named after the fictional Chief Inspector E Morse, who was known to enjoy a pint or three. It was discovered when he died that the E stood for Endeavour, bestowed on him by his Quaker parents.

The new batch of Bodgers was brewed on April the First but it was no joke, with mashing starting at 6.30am. It was a double mash brew, half going to the main brewery and the remainder – destined to be Roger’s Bodgers -- to a small pilot brewery, used for short-run beers.

The Maris Otter barley has a special significance. It’s grown on the vast Waddeson Estate on the Bucks/Oxfordshire border. The estate is owned by the Rothschild banking dynasty, pioneers of “regenerative farming”.

The aim is to improve the environment by avoiding fertilisers and chemical sprays. The surface of the soil is covered and two crops are grown side by side. One is not harvested but is left to feed the soil and capture sunlight.

The Maris Otter barley grown at Waddeson goes to Warminster Maltings in Wiltshire to be turned into malt with fermentable sugars. It’s a traditional floor maltings with grain germinated and turned by hand. Warminster has been at the forefront of maltsters and farmers who campaigned to save Maris Otter, which is now both widely used and exported.

This is all Bodgering at its finest, as is the production of Chiltern’s barley wine. Following mashing, which takes several hours as a result of the high level of grain needed to produce such a strong beer, the worts or sugary extract were boiled in coppers with whole leaf hops.

The hopped worts were then cooled and pumped to fermenters where an ale yeast culture is added. Fermentation lasts for seven days or “two Sabbaths” in brewer-speak.

The beer was then conditioned in tanks before bottling and left to mature until late September. The bottles contain live yeast and will improve with age. The Roger’s version is in 1,000 numbered bottles. It has a rich, vinous aroma and flavour of honeyed malt and blackcurrent fruit, balanced by peppery, spicy and herbal hops.

It costs £3.50 a bottle with a 10 per cent offer for six or more: £18.90 for six. Regular Bodgers costs £3 a bottle.

•Brewery shop: Nash Lee Road, Terrick HP17 0TQ. www.chilternbrewery.co.uk.