Timothy Taylor’s Landlord — A Polyptych of a Pint
I.
“I’m told you serve the best pint of Landlord in Sheffield,” I say to the person behind the bar of The Sportsman on Benty Lane.
“Well we definitely serve enough of it,” they reply with a smirk and a shrug as they hand me my copper-hued pint.
The stares of a group of men seated near the bar are beginning to make me uncomfortable, so I aim for a table around the corner, hidden from view but still warmed by the fire. Once I am sat, I slowly rotate the glass clockwise, and then anticlockwise. The colours change with the movement—chestnut glints into amber, glints into cinnamon. I take a sip and I am greeted with thick slices of toast generously spread with a whisky marmalade, the sweet squidge of malt loaf, the reassurance of blood oranges in the depths of winter. The tension in my shoulders begins to dissolve. I can see why so many view this pint as a friend. I have taken it in my hand and it has placed an arm around me in return.
***
Photography by Matthew Curtis
II.
The rain in Yorkshire is relentless, shimmering down from heaven to earth like static on a television. In the relief of thirst about to be satiated, the soil does not shy away from the rain, instead it embraces it, absorbs it, and it is in the greedy, generous nature of this soil that the rain can pervade deeper and deeper. As it gravitates towards the centre of the earth the water becomes a thief, taking tokens from the rocks it passes through, a mineral here, a mineral there, leaving its impurities behind as it does so. Sins exchanged for salvations. The water continues to cleanse itself in this way until the subsumption is put to a halt, by rock that is hard, steadfast, impermeable in nature. This does not deter the rain for it is here, at this impenetrable surface, that a congregation begins to collect.
The barrier holds, an aquifer forms, the pressure builds, a spring bursts.
The water of Knowle Spring in Keighley is said—by head brewer Andy Leman—to taste like melted snow, a result of being filtered through layers of black rock and limestone as it forms its aquifer. If I close my eyes I can taste it, head towards the thick white sky, tongue offered out, the sharp cold of the snowflakes submitting to the warmth of my tongue. Situated within feet of the brewery, Knowle Spring has been the source of water for Timothy Taylor’s beers since 1863. It’s what makes the taste of Landlord so consistent, they tell me, this reliable source of theirs.
***
III.
According to census, Keighley, in West Yorkshire, is home to 57,000 inhabitants. Often described as a market town, if you take the time to look closely, Keighley reveals itself to be a patchwork of individual hamlets, villages and localities that have found strength through connection over time; a size dictated by the demands and demise of the transport and textile industries.
The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway line was founded in 1867, funded by the wealth of local mill owners, not to invest in the town of Keighley, but to invest in the production of their products, whose manufacturing increasingly relied on supplies of coal. First there was cotton, Low Mill was the name for not just the first industrial building in Keighley, but of the first cotton mill in Yorkshire. Cotton production quickly spun into wool; worsted wool, a smooth, firmly twisted yarn used for quality tailoring until the wool industry began to unravel on itself, too. The railway line declined with it and was closed in 1962, reopening six years later thanks to the efforts of a preservation society created to fight for the history and heritage the line represents, continuing the tradition of transportational service to communities across the Worth Valley.
Now the thriving industrial jewel in Keighley’s crown is not to be found in spinning wool or steaming trains, but in brewing beer. Founded in 1858, nine years before Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, only Timothy Taylor’s has stood the test of time.
***
IV.
Golden Promise is a wise and welcoming barley, first introduced to the UK in the 1960s, it is beloved for its ability to harmoniously blend with the water characteristics preserved and manipulated in brewing. Not all that glitters is golden, however, and the maturity of Golden Promise makes the barley more susceptible to disease in comparison to younger strains. The shallow nature of its roots also means it requires a solid, reliable foundation—nothing too sandy or loose. Over the course of its growth Golden Promise proves costly to care for and, for those who manage to do so successfully, it provides smaller yields than had they prioritised more modern varieties. Yet it is the only barley used in Timothy Taylor’s Landlord. Only Golden Promise will do.
“I call Landlord the Burgundy of real ales because I think it has the richness and fullness you get from a Burgundy wine.” Tim Dewey, who’s been chief executive at Timothy Taylor’s for the past decade, tells me. “I don’t think we would get that richness and fullness without Golden Promise because that’s what it delivers”
I am offered a handful of the malt as we tour the factory floor, it nestles in the palm of my hand and I pick out a single grain, place it between my teeth and use the slow clench of my jaw to crack into it. I smile. It tastes soft and sweet and like taking a long walk through the countryside in the height of autumn. Later, as I sip a half pint of Landlord at their Keighley-based tap room Taylor’s On The Green I taste it again, that malted sweetness. It’s more developed now—warmer, kinder, wiser—time has been good to it.
***
V.
How strange it must be to have built a legacy so strong that when people hear your name, over a century after your passing, they don’t think of any of your personal characteristics—your sense of humour, your intellect, your patience, or lack of it—but of scanning your eyes across the offerings of a bar, of pints of cask ale and of drinking them in the pub amongst friends. Timothy Taylor ceases to be a person—whether he likes it or not he is a brand now—synonymous with beer and British heritage, an indicator of tastes, a name held in reverence or ill regard not for who he was and what he stood for but for the recipience of the pints his name emblazons.
Perhaps sacrilegiously so, I have started referring to Timothy Taylor as Timmy T. I notice many others affectionately do the same. I wonder if he would have scowled at a woman referring to him as that, or whether he would have softened at the sound. Having died many decades ago, we shall never know.
***
VI.
You’ll find the hops at the top of the brewhouse—three storeys the bales have to be hauled up to get there. A combination of whole leaf Whitbread Goldings, Fuggles, and Savinjski Goldings are used to make Landlord, and I prise one from the sage green buckets they have been decanted into, grinding it between my thumb and forefinger. As I tear the hop apart, a pungent yellow powder smears my fingers and I am overcome with the aroma of freshly zested lemons, their fragrance perfuming my skin.
I’ve not seen whole leaf hops used in brewing before, only ever pellets. Pellets are cheaper and more convenient, there’s a reason they're used so widely, but the concentrated nature of their form aesthetically separates them from the agriculture they originate from.
“The Landlord recipe when it was developed in the 1950s used whole leaf hops,” Tim tells me when I ask on the insistence to use an ingredient more expensive and more difficult to handle. “I wouldn’t want anyone to think our brewers aren’t open to new ideas. They did try beers with the hop pellets but they just didn’t feel it gave them the depth of flavour that they got from whole leaf hops.”
When faced with the scale of the whole leaf hops before me I can see with more clarity the bines and twines they were harvested from, the fields in which scaffolding and structures are set up row after row to house them, the farmers who tended to them. Work acknowledging work.
***
VII.
I tell my Dad I am writing about Landlord and he tells me a story in return:
Well, once we moved from Scotland I was brought up in Coventry and then I went to college in Birmingham so the only bitters I knew were M&B Brew XI and Ansell’s Bitter, just about every pub there was serving those two. Then one of my good friends at college—a guy called Anton from Keighley—well he used to just moan repeatedly about the beer, just say how crap it was. And he would go on and on about his pub. Now I remember it being called The Cemetery, but I think I may have got that wrong, or it might be the nickname or something, but he said the best place to drink in the world is this pub—that I’ll call The Cemetery—in Keighley, where they serve Timmy Taylor's Landlord, and it just knocks these other beers into a cocked hat, you know. Well, his language was a bit stronger than that, as you can imagine.
Then eventually he said, well, look, you're gonna have to come up. I want you to come up to Keighley next time I go home, and I'm going to take you to my local and we’re going to drink Timmy Taylor’s. So I did, I went up—this has got to be about 1977, or maybe 1976—and he took me to his local and they poured two pints of Landlord and I just remember standing there and drinking it and thinking: what on earth is this? It was absolutely beautiful. Just the taste, the body, the look of it, it was gorgeous. And we were up there for a couple of days and we spent every lunchtime and every evening there before it was time to go back to Birmingham. And that was my introduction to Timothy Taylor’s.
***
VIII.
There is something quietly captivating about watching yeast froth and foam as it feeds in an open fermenter. There must be about eight of them in the room, all at different stages—if I climb one, two, three steps on the ladder I am suddenly above them, a bird's eye view, and I can tell you which is further along from the others by the state of the foam.
When the yeast—a strain aptly named Taylor’s Taste—is initially added to the cool wort it begins to grow. I think of the fairytale of The Magic Porridge Pot I read when I was younger, about the porridge that grew so much it consumed a whole town. Taylor’s Taste is not a fairytale of course—we are dealing with science here, not magic, we are no children—and it expands only so much before it begins to feed. The yeast feeds on the sugar and gargles as it does so, creating a thick sheet of sponge-like texture across the surface of the fermenting liquid. Waves upon waves of this foam form and I think to the thick scum of the seashore, but to others it appears like lots of little cauliflower heads and they describe it as such.
The yeast is harvested from the top, leaving only a thin, protective layer behind, and this harvested yeast will be used next week in another brew and it lives on like this, the same cells gorging and growing, creating the alcohol that we will gorge ourselves on in return. Beer and bodies united by our hunger.
***
IX.
“I think Timothy Taylor is the champagne of ales.” — Madonna, November 2005
The cellar is vital to a Champagne, legally it cannot be sold without serving its time. The cellar is vital to Landlord, too.
“We can do all these things in the brewery, but if the people who purchase the beer—the publicans—get it and they don’t do their piece, all we’ve done is for naught,” Tim tells me. “That’s because we’ve got the vigorous secondary fermentation—it’s a real ale product—and so they have a role to play. We’d be nowhere without all that effort: the publicans, the farmers, our own workers.”
Landlord requires at least 48 hours of cellaring before it can be served—Tim even suggests leaving it a week. Once begun, the cask is only good to pour for about three days, time becomes the fifth ingredient.
The cellar has a choice, it can become a place of transformation, or a place of ruin. Casks put on too quick, or served for too long, can leave a sour taste in a person’s mouth. The name Timothy Taylor becomes forever associated with a bad pint. It is a supply chain of trust, the production of real ale. A brewery reaches out to a pub and asks: will all my work be for nothing at your hands?
***
X.
They’re not making it as good as it used to be, y’know.
An inconsistent pint.
I avoid it now, not worth the disappointment when it’s done badly.
Used to be much better, didn’t it.
Haven’t had a good pint of Landlord in years.
Every religion has its doubters, all faiths must learn to stand strong in the face of questioning. But a beer is no deity, a brewery no God. The real of real ale is in its humanity, in the ease in which cask can succumb to the flaws of those who handle it, nature battles over nurture but it is nurture that holds more control. Beer is an industry, after all. Do those who hold Landlord in such reverence hold the brewery in their gaze or the cellarman? Are people let down by the brewers or the bartenders? Which is it, the pint, or the pub?
***
XI.
Ok Rachel… It is such a pleasure to be talking about Timmy Taylor’s Landlord, which is a beer very close to my heart. In fact it is my favourite beer in the whole world, when poured from a hand pump, with a sparkler (Northern styles!), from an establishment that knows how to look after their beer.
I am corresponding with Dave Huff, the brewery manager and self professed yeast whisperer of Urbanaut Brewing Co in Auckland, New Zealand. I was told by a mutual acquaintance that if I was writing about Landlord I simply had to speak to Dave:
For me Timmy Taylor’s Landlord is an absolute belter of a beer. It is the epitome of what an English ale should be. Landlord is not just a great beer, but it holds a great deal of nostalgia for me. I was born a stone’s throw from the brewery in Airedale Hospital.
And it’s the poetic pull of nostalgia that saw Dave going to great lengths—over 11,000 miles—for Auckland to be the recipient of the first ever cask of Landlord to be exported outside of the UK:
About thirteen years ago I was at a beer festival with my boss and we overheard a beer distributor talking about airfreighting a cask of Timmy Taylor’s Landlord direct from the brewery to New Zealand. This idea sounded so ridiculous I had to be a part of it, so we asked to increase the order to two casks. When it arrived at the brewery I put my cask husbandry skills to good use, tending to the beer to make sure its drinking experience reached its full potential. My boss organised a lock-in at the brewery taproom and invited all the local brewery/beer industry bigwigs! It was a splendid affair, as I got the opportunity to share my favourite beer with my peers in New Zealand, a rare opportunity that will probably never be repeated.
Funnily enough the other cask ended up at a malt distributor Christmas party, and sadly didn’t have quite the same love. They tapped directly from the cask on the back of a bar above a glass washer, which was constantly heating up and creating convection currents within the cask.
***
XII.
The sapphire blue motif that adorns the exterior of The Boltmakers Arms holds your gaze amidst the sturdy Yorkshire stone of East Parade in Keighley. As we enter we are beckoned into the corner by the landlady. She has just received a painting of the interior of the pub, so fresh it has yet to be framed. People are pictured on every seat, they are crowded around the bar, gathered in doorways, dogs play at their feet. Her hands run along the faces and she places a name on every single one—dogs and all—before pointing to herself behind the bar. “I asked if they could make me taller and thinner,” she says with a deep laugh, “they did a good job.”
Perhaps this is what Landlord proposes, a community not just bound by a brewery, but an acknowledgement that their beer is nothing without the people who surveil over their casks and those who congregate to drink it. An offering made to their precarious reliance.
