Thornbridge Competition

After driving to Bakewell and dropping off my Vienna IPA entry into the National Home Brew Challenge, I figured that most likely it would be the last I'd hear about it. Being a rookie home brewer, only in my wildest dreams did I harbour thoughts of actually winning.

Obviously I'd tried the beer before entering - it was clean and tidy, I was happy with it and in all honesty, I had felt that it may do okay. I always believed though, that there was bound to be a few absolutely stand-out entries and that one of these would inevitably triumph.

It came as a bit of a surprise then, to find a missed call and voicemail from Thornbridge's Alex Buchanan one day in mid-August, asking if I could call him back. It could only really be one thing, so I shakily dialled and spoke to Alex, who said that after much deliberation, my beer had come out on top!

Since recovering from the initial shock, it's been a fantastic experience to be involved in helping Thornbridge's brewers scale up the recipe and make the beer. I discussed the recipe via email with Rob Lovatt and visited in early September for the brew day.

Receiving my certificate and cheque

The kit at Thornbridge is bigger and more automated than in other microbreweries I've helped out at. They have a 30 barrel plant with separate mash and lauter tuns, a copper and a Rolek Hopnik.  Add 18 conical fermenters and it's quite a setup. The brewers were unfailingly friendly and helpful and it was good to put faces to names. James Buchanan took me off for a tour round the old brewery and the grounds of Thornbridge Hall, including the statue of Flora, a photo of which adorns every bottle.

Walking under some of the fvs

Flora, Roman goddess of flowers

The grain is delivered to silos in bulk so only the speciality malts and the hops are handled manually. All the vessels have clean-in-place (CIP) systems so this frees up the brewers, allowing them to focus on measuring and monitoring rather than wearing themselves out shovelling used grain around and cleaning up.

The whole process is managed from a pc in an air-conditioned brewing control room. On its monitor, this shows a schematic of the brewhouse with quantities, temperatures and other critical information displayed alongside each vessel. A click of the mouse is all it takes to start each part of the brewing process. Behind the control room is a laboratory, where the brewers take samples to be analysed at certain points in the brew.

Will Inman checks the pitching rate of a batch of Halcyon

Every brew gets tested for limit of attenuation, dissolved oxygen, pitching rate and a host of other variables and it's this culture of constant quality monitoring that in my opinion sets Thornbridge apart from most other UK micros.

Rob stuck to my recipe as closely as he could, making changes where necessary to allow for their different kit. A small bittering charge of T90 pellets was added to the copper at the start of the boil and a 6 grams per litre (30kg) charge of Columbus, Citra and Ahtanum was put into the Hopnik. This is a vessel through which the hot wort is circulated after the boil is finished. It's the most efficient way of getting the volatile hop flavours and aromas into the beer and much of the bitterness is derived here as well.

Once brewed, the beer was left to ferment for a week and condition for a further two then I visited again later in September to see it being bottled. The beer tasted fantastic - a flavoursome, amber-coloured IPA with the big Columbus and Ahtanum aromas particularly evident. I've recently developed a bit of an obsession with looking at the best before dates on beer so it was a privilege to sample some within minutes of it being bottled.

I could tell it was the same recipe as my home brew but as I expected, Thornbridge's superior processes and their attention to detail had taken it to the next level. There were a few little things I would have changed about my brew and Thornbridge had done it. This was the beer I was trying to make - ten thousand bottles of it!

That just over two months after driving to Bakewell with my entry, I'll be able to go into Waitrose and buy a bottle of the beer with my name on the label, made to my recipe, is pretty amazing. I hope the beer is well-received by the Waitrose customers and I'd like to extend my thanks to all involved in organising and running the competition.

Having a well-earned beer back home

Brew 18 - Divine Hammer

10.5% Triple IPA

Brew date 28/7/14

This was my first attempt at making a really high strength beer and it was a special request, with the finished result destined for my mate Nick's 40th birthday weekend.

I wanted to make a big double or triple IPA, with multiple dry-hop additions and dextrose in the boil, to boost the ABV while keep the body light. I called the beer "Divine Hammer" after the song of the same name by excellent 90's band The Breeders.

With the strength so high, it was always going to be a bit of a step into the unknown so I wasn't going to get too precious about hitting numbers spot on. The starting point was simply to make an educated guess about the maximum amount of grain I could fit in my mash tun. I'd used 7 kilos before and there was some room left, so I guesstimated at 8.5 kg being the limit.

I came up with a simple recipe: 8200g of low colour Maris Otter and 300g of Caramalt (that's 3.3%). I added 700g of brewing sugar to the boil, to make 9.2kg of fermentables.

The mash tun looked like this:

Pretty full. It was all dribbling over the edge at the beginning so I'm satisfied I've found the limit. I did the usual big 0 min addition and 60 minute bittering addition to make up the IBUs. The bittering addition was really big: 314g of Cascade, Columbus and Citra, using up a few bag ends along the way. Added to the kettle, it looked like this:

I stirred it in and let it all stand for 20 minutes before turning the cold tap on for the cooling coil. The OG was 1.088 and I used 3 packets of US-05 yeast for the fermentation. That's still probably nowhere near enough but it's what I had and this brew was also an exercise in using up some old ingredients.

Hop schedule

The fermentation went ok, if maybe a bit slow, taking about 10 days to bottom out at 1.008. This was much lower than I'd been expecting, giving 10.5% ABV. In hindsight, I think I got carried away with the dextrose in the boil, resulting in wort which was a bit too racy.

I'd figured that this beer would be made or broken by what happened after fermentation finished, with good dry-hopping technique being really important. I did two separate additions, all T90 pellets, with the first being 100g of Columbus and 100g Citra into the primary FV and the second 100g of Citra and 100g Ahtanum into a secondary vessel after doing a transfer.

I cold-crashed in the second vessel and didn't add finings as I wanted to retain every last bit of flavour. The beer tasted brilliant at this point; like an orgy of hops.

Unfortunately, it went a little wrong from then on. I transferred into an open bucket for bottling, adding enough priming sugar to get 2.4 - 2.5 vols of carbonation. However, the tap got clogged up with hops and after trying in vain to find another way, I ended up having no choice but to blow down the tube to clear the blockage if I was going to get the beer out. The bottling went fine but I tasted a bit of the beer at the end and sadly it was already a bit tired and oxidised; definitely not as good as it had been a day or two before.

Fast forward two weeks and there was no sign of any carbonation. I emailed Dom Driscoll from Thornbridge and he confirmed my fears that 10.5% ABV is just a bit too big an ask for tired US-05 to bottle-condition. He suggested opening the bottles and dropping some fresh champagne yeast in each one.

I'm a bit annoyed with myself for not seeing the problem coming but as they say, you live and learn. I'll do the champagne yeast thing but I'm already itching to just re-do the brew with the schoolboy errors ironed out.

For the record, next time I would:

• Aim at a little lower ABV, say 9%, for the next one
• Use less dextrose in the boil
• Use wet yeast - a big dose of WLP001
• Do all the dry-hopping in primary
• Be more careful not to oxidise the beer during transfers
• Possibly re-seed with fresh yeast before bottling

In hindsight it was probably a bit ambitious to try and make a beer over 10% this early in my home brewing career and I've learnt that it's definitely not the sort of brew you can just do on a whim, with loads of careful planning needed if you want the best results. There is certainly a lot to catch you out when venturing into this territory and the one thing that stands head and shoulders above the rest is the importance of dissolved oxygen control. It's always important to minimise O2 takeup after fermentation is complete but these super-hoppy beers really show you up if you don't.

This is one area where a homebrewer has a serious disadvantage over a professional. It's so much harder to keep oxygen out of a small batch than a big batch because the small batch just has a higher surface area-to-volume ratio. There are steps, such as purging tanks with CO2, that can be taken to help minimise the problem but it'll always be a struggle.

There is one key advantage a homebrewer does have over his or her professional counterpart though: we don't have to make a profit. This beer had a stupid amount of hops in it: 21g/l in dry-hopping and 12g/l in the late kettle addition. Sadly though, if the technique isn't spot on, the amount of hops counts for nowt.

Brew 17 - Vienna IPA

5.9% IPA

Brew date 27/6/14

This was my entry for The Great British Homebrew Challenge 2014, a competition run jointly by Thornbridge Brewery and Waitrose. The winning entry would see their recipe scaled up and brewed by Thornbridge and stocked in Waitrose stores nationwide. Quite a prize!

The first major hurdle with competitions is deciding what to enter, so I thought hard about what kind of beer might have a chance of success. I figured the beer would have to appeal to a wide cross-section of drinkers and therefore be commercially attractive. So no rhubarb and marmite-infused saisons then. I thought it should also be at least a bit different to any of Thornbridge's current offerings.

I narrowed it down to two possibles that appealed to me; a Belgian golden ale or an IPA made with Vienna malt. As I had never used Belgian yeast before, I opted for the Vienna IPA as a safe choice because I could just use WLP001 yeast and hopefully hit the numbers pretty well.

I wanted to make it quite full-bodied, not too dry and quite dark in colour for an IPA, with a complex flavour so I added a bit of biscuit malt and some caramalt. I decided upon using Columbus, Citra and Ahtanum hops as I thought they would create a good range of taste and aroma, from dank through to floral. A pale ale water profile was used, high in sulphates to keep the bitterness from becoming too harsh.

Again, I went for just three hop additions; at 60 minutes, 0 minutes and a dry hop. The bittering addition was a small amount of Columbus and the big 0 minute addition was 1/3 Columbus and 2/3 Citra, providing about 60% of the IBUs.

I'd been a bit disappointed not to hit the numbers very well when making my last beer, so I put some considerable effort into researching brewhouse efficiency and attenuation rates and such things. It turned out that to end up with a 5.9% ABV beer I would need to collect 32 litres of wort with a pre-boil gravity of 1.046. There should then be 26 litres left in the kettle after the boil is complete, with an original gravity (OG) of 1.057. This should then ferment down to 1.012, giving a 5.9% beer. Quite a tall order!

Happily, this brew behaved itself impeccably and hit every number spot on. Seeing the hydrometer bobbing about at 1.057 after hours of toil was a very nice sight. The pH of the mash was even 5.2, exactly as it should be. It was as though the stars had aligned and everything fell into place.

I bottled with 100g of dextrose, enough to get a carbonation of about 2.4 vols. After two weeks it was lovely and fizzy and tasting delicious. This beer definitely has the best hop aroma out of any I've made, with the Ahtanum quite prominent. The Columbus and the Citra seem to play very nicely together as well. I'm really pleased with how it turned out and hopefully the judges think so too. Fingers crossed!
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Edit: They did think so! 

Magic Rock - Un-Human Cannonball

Magic Rock have long been the subject of my main brewery man-crush. They have the best name, the best branding and make some of the best beer so when this year's release of Un-Human Cannonball came out, I had to get a bottle.

MR have a pretty logical way of classifying their pale beers by strength. 5% is Pale Ale, 7% is an IPA, 9% is a Double IPA and 11% is a Triple IPA. Quite neat, really. An 11% ale isn't exactly going to be a mass-appeal drink, so to keep it special, the brewery's triple IPA, Un-Human Cannonball, only gets made once a year using the freshest hops.

It came in a 660ml bottle, costing £12.85, which is a ludicrous amount to spend on a bottle of beer in the cold light of day. Such was the excitement surrounding this year's release though, I had to have a bottle and the price was not a consideration as I simply trust Magic Rock to deliver something worth the money. Such a special beer deserved a special occasion so I waited until Giggsy's first game as manager to crack open this beauty.

The sense of occasion started well before the moment the cap came off. The bottle itself was beautiful, with the Richard Norgate artwork screen printed directly on the glass and the cap being symbolically held in place by a sticker in the shape of a pointing finger wrapped over the top. A nice touch.

My one and only criticism is that the yeast used seems to be so flocculant that it forms really big clumps in the bottle, which just don't settle and stick to the bottom. I stood my bottle in the fridge for 24 hours but it made no difference, the yeast just stubbornly hovered a centimetre above the bottom of the bottle and some inevitably made its way out into the glass.

The beer poured a lovely light amber colour and the carbonation was spot-on, with a fairly vigorous pour releasing all the aromas and resulting in a moderate, velvety head. The first sniff was fantastic, unleashing an all-out assault of hop aroma. I had to have about five big sniffs, it was so good, leading to some funny looks from across the room.

The taste was incredible - I struggle to describe tastes, suffice to say that it was a fantastic onslaught of hops. The most remarkable thing though, was how easy it was to forget that this was an 11% beer, it was so easy drinking. It was clearly a very strong beer, with the warm alcohol sensation never far away, but if asked, I've had said it was 8 or 9%.

I polished the bottle off no problem at all but have to admit that the football was getting a little out of focus by the end of it. Un-Human isn't exactly the sort of beer you'd drink regularly but once a year, it really is a special treat.

Huddersfield pub crawl

Last Saturday saw a rare treat for me - an actual good old-fashioned pub crawl. Dave (@belmontrivera) and Nige from work are fellow beer geeks and suggested a trip to Huddersfield, where there are meant to be a few good real ale (is that still an acceptable thing to say?) pubs.

There's something quite exciting about catching a train to go boozing in another town, with all day in front of you and no timescale to adhere to. It's the kind of thing I used to do all the time but in the days of jobs and families it now tends to happen very rarely.

We had the pleasure of sharing the journey with the "White Army". I knew it was them, because like Craig David, they liked to sing about themselves quite a lot. All the way to Huddersfield, in fact. I'd never been to Huddersfield before and have to say I was quite impressed with the place. The train station is the focal point of the town, spilling its passengers out into a lovely square.

The White Army took themselves to the Wetherspoons and we went to the HDM bar, as it was only a few hundred yards from the station. It was small and had a weird bar, which was about five foot six high for most of its length, leaving you with your nose at countertop level. There were a few keg beers and a couple of handpulls, with most of the offerings from the HDM brewery. We had a Monkey Loves Hops, which was a fine pale ale, really clean and tidy if a little restrained. It was a lovely session beer but considering the name, my impression was that it could do with more hops.

We moved on to a HDM Red Saison, which was very good indeed. Zesty and refreshing, with a hint of sour zing to it. I think we may have had something else there but to be honest, I can't remember. I do remember though, that we exhausted the beer list pretty quickly and felt the need to move on.

Next stop was The Grove. Boy, what a pub this place is. It's slightly out of town and the building itself is pretty nondescript; a typical corner boozer. The beer list though, was out of this world and by a country mile the best I've ever seen. The website says there are 18 handpulls and 14 keg lines and I can vouch for this. The range of beer was fantastic too, with everything from pale ales to barley wines on offer.

Being the massive Magic Rock fanboy that I am, I started with a Villainous IPA. Needless to say, it was sensational, with fresh fruity zing almost crackling out of the glass in the way that Magic Rock do so well. It did, however, do that thing where it shares characteristics with other beers from the same brewery, meaning this was unmistakably a Magic Rock beer. I'd previously put the distinctive MR taste down to the use of Golden Promise malt but this is apparently made from Vienna malt, so there goes that theory.

Next up was a cask High Wire, which was really bloody marvellous but not quite as good as it is from keg.

Then it was time for a Jaipur. This was the beer that started my newfound love of ale but in all my travels, I had never once seen any Thornbridge beer on draught in a pub until now. When you live in a small village with only a Robinsons and a Mitchell and Butler pub, then the opportunity to have any decent beer is pretty limited. Add to that the fact that the craft beer bars of Manchester and Macclesfield never seem to stock Thornbridge beer when I've been, and I'd started to think that Jaipur in a pub was just an urban myth but obviously not, and here was the proof:

In bottles, it's extremely impressive, with a hop aroma that stays fresh even after a month or two and is very hard to beat. On cask however, it was more restrained. It was slightly cloudy, which I don't mind at all, but that was in contrast to the bottled version, which is always totally clear. Like the High Wire, it was still a marvellous beer on cask, but (CAMRA members look away now) just not as good as from keg or bottles.

The Kernel Motueka IPAwas next. This was from keg and was bloody brilliant, with the light, lemony hop aromas fizzing out of the glass.

I'm starting to see a pattern emerging now. Keg is simply a better way of serving beer than cask, certainly for hoppy pale ales, which is what I would like to drink most of the time. There.

Having said that, it was time for a change of direction and Dave and I moved onto some more challenging styles. I could not leave without having tried a Sierra Nevada Bigfoot barley wine. I'd seen a video of this fermenting earlier in the year and was keen to try some.

I would usually use "malty" as a pejorative term but in this case it would be an accurate description of a fantastic beer. It was the kind of beer I could imaging drinking on a cold Winter's night, with its cozy warming alcohol kick. For something that was a complete change of style, I really liked it.

There was time for one last beer before we had to reluctantly leave the Grove and I opted for a Thornbridge Imperial Oatmeal Stout, which at 11% was a bit of a beast.

It was everything you would want an imperial stout to be, with a luxurious silky texture and a cacophony of roasted malty flavours. It says a lot about the quality of beer on offer when High Wire, my favourite beer, was probably the least memorable one of the visit. The Grove was truly special and I hope it's not too long before I can go back.

We staggered back across town to The Sportsman. It was really busy and we had to stand up outside. I'll be quite honest and admit that I can't remember what we drank in there but it was perfectly nice. Things were stating to get a bit spinny by then.

The train ride back to Piccadilly was again spent in the delightful company of the White Army. Once back in Manchester, we headed for one last beer at Port Street, where I remember having a Quantum Black IPA. Sadly, the next thing I remember is a train guard waking me up at Crewe Station, before I embarked upon the now customary taxi ride back to Holmes Chapel.

All in all, it was a really nice day. Huddersfield seemed like a decent town and was certainly a splendid venue for a good old drink, with seemingly a pub on every corner. In a rather selfish way, I'm glad that The Grove is slightly out of town though, because that will stop it from being rammed full of punters. Being able to sit down and work through a beer board as extensive as that was a real treat.

Pressure Drop - Bosko IPA

This had a really nice aroma, which I had as Amarillo, although I may be wrong. It was a very nice 6.5% ale and the carbonation was just right. The main thing that struck me though, was that the colour was too dark for an IPA, which is what it is described as. As far as I'm concerned an IPA should be fairly pale but this was a kind of dark amber colour. Still, it was very nice.

Brewdog - Hardcore Imperial IPA

The loudmouthed Scots do cop a bit of flack in craft brewing circles. Some criticism is deserved but some is rather unfairly directed, in my opinion. Frankly, I'm not too interested in the politics but one thing's for sure, Brewdog still know how to make cracking beer.

Hardcore IPA is proof of that and at 9.2%, it's a bloody brilliant. It's the kind of beer that makes you go "oof!" when you take the first gulp. It's big all round. A monster IPA with a great hop profile and that lovely, warming alcohol feeling that only comes from high ABV beers.

Weird Beard - Amarillo Belgian IPA

Weird Beard are one of my favourite UK breweries, mainly because they make some quite unusual beers and they like a good bit of carbonation. With this 7.5% offering, they've really excelled themselves on those two counts.

First, the carbonation. Now, I like my beer to be cold and fizzy but this was way over the top. It had to be poured in a few stages, allowing the foamy head to recede between pours. When that happens, I reckon the carbonation is just too high. Rather than being a pleasure, just pouring yourself a glass of this is rather a faff. Easing off on the carbonation would be of benefit here, and I don't often find myself saying that.

That aside, this is a really interesting brew. The Belgian yeast flavours were strongly evident, sitting right alongside orangey, citrus hop notes. This made for a very unusual beer as you don't normally get big hop tastes and Belgian yeast together, but it kind of worked.

Beers of the year - Nelly

Better late than never, here's my verdict for beers of the year 2013. As most of my drinking gets done at home, I'll do a top 3 for bottled beer and a "special category" for best beer from out and about.

Bottled Beer:

3rd - Thornbridge Jaipur
As Chris rightly said, this is the beer that started it for us. It has a superb hop aroma that I find is still rarely surpassed but best of all, it's quite obtainable, being sold in Waitrose. Jaipur will be responsible for introducing many, many people to craft beer and for that, I'll always doff my cap to it.

2nd - Marble Lagonda IPA
I'm very partial to a big, hoppy IPA and Lagonda is one of the best. It's good enough to come straight out of the fridge and still retain a beautiful complex taste and aroma. A little darker than Jaipur, it has a more rounded, interesting taste and a big, citrusy bouquet.

1st - Fyne Ales Jarl
I'll be quite honest - I only bought this because it was voted best golden ale at the Champion Beer of Britain awards. I'm glad I did jump on that particular bandwagon though, because it was superb. Jarl is not a strong beer, nor does it assault your senses with a big American hop profile. What it does do, is set the standard for what a great golden summer ale should be. Pale, grapefuity and light, it almost bounces down your neck with carefree abandon. Hell, it would probably get your wallet out for the next round if it could. Really marvellous stuff and my bottled beer of the year.

Out and about:

Magic Rock High Wire
2013 was the year I discovered craft beer and it was also the year Magic Rock nearly drove me mad. Very early on in my Beer Adventure, I read great things about this fledgling brewery from Huddersfield. It was unanimous - everyone agreed that MR make liquid gold and High Wire was the best of them all.

Only, you can't have any because nowhere sells it. I trawled the beer shops of Manchester and Cheshire looking for a bottle and there were none. Their own website had no stock and even the online beer suppliers seemed to have run out. Yet their website suggested vast quantities of the stuff being made. I came to the conclusion that they just don't like to see it leaving Yorkshire. Either that, or they operate the Eric Cartman "You Can't Have Any" sales strategy.

I think the real answer is that there's so much demand for their produce on draft that they just don't have the capacity to do much bottling. It was months before I finally managed to track down some MR on keg at the Young Pretender in Congleton. It was Cannonball, their 7.4% IPA. I won't go on about it, suffice to say it was insanely good.

I had to wait until IMBC in October to get myself outside some High Wire and boy, was it worth the wait. I love American pale ales and this is the best of the bunch by a big margin. I suspect a better APA can only be found by actually getting on a plane and heading West.

Worst Beer of the Year

I have to pick two beers here, for different reasons. First up is Tetleys Original, which was just amazingly flat and malty, but then I wasn't exactly expecting great things. The biggest disappointment for me was Thwaites Old Dan, which I thought was going to be so much better. I found it to be heavy and quite hard work. It also seemed to leave a sticky residue on the lips after each mouthful, like there was quite a bit of sugar left behind.

Lesson of the year

Drink 'em young. I bought a fresh bottle of St. Austell Big Job in the Summer and it was great - fresh and hoppy. A bottle from the same batch several months later was quite a disappointment though, with virtually no hop aroma left.


So what will 2014 bring? It'll certainly bring more homebrewing, that's for sure.
My esteemed colleague Chris and I have got a few lads' weekends planned as well, so there may even be some joint blogging. Should be fun.

Meantime IPA

On the suggestion of Nelly (before he'd reviewed it), I'd bought this bottle and it had sat on my shelf for a few weeks till I found the right point to open it.

Well, I've had a long hard day today, and this had migrated to the fridge, so I thought I'd give it a go.

Sadly not pictured above is the top, which is a champagne-style cork with a wire cage. It is, quite frankly, a gimmick, and probably contributes to the price - and when I opened it the beer spurted out like champagne all over the sodding worktop. Now, it's pretty gassy as it is, but this was just annoying. With the usual caveat that I know sod all about beer (but I know what I like, etc), was it that the poncey lid was making it extra fizzy?

Anyway, the beer itself - really bloody good. Hoppy, fizzy, immensely tasty; not the sharp, overpowering nose of a Jaipur, but fruity - orange, marmalade, freshly-cut grass, and a lightly bitter, caramel aftertaste. Extremely quaffable, which I guess is why it comes in a big sodding bottle; the plus side of this being that I could have a pint and Mrs W could have her fair share without nicking mine (her review - "yeah, I liked it" - first day back at work and all that, she's a bit tired, bless her).

So - no Jaipur, but pretty darn good.

Thornbridge - Jaipur

Woose

Nelly's been banging on about the general marvellousness of "Jaipur" (5.9%, Thornbridge Brewery), so I thought I'd give it a shot as the first beer to be reviewed on these hallowed (er, eventually) pages.

It's not the first time I've sampled it - Nelly brought a crate on a recent drinking walking weekend - but it's the first I've tried not as part of a mammoth boozing session. And quite frankly, I couldn't remember what it was like (which is hardly surprising had you been there).

So what's it like? First impressions were surprising - I know it's a Pale Ale, but it was almost lager-y in colour and well carbonated, albeit with a decent, thick head. The smell was impressive; tonnes of hops coming over the side of the glass. It's extremely fruity to the early taste, with citrus fruits and tropical notes (grapefruit, orange). Let's be honest here - it's delicious, smooth and drinkable for such a strong beer. I dread to think how I'd cope if faced with it in a pub of an evening; as it was, it came from Waitrose at £2.05 a bottle; not cheap, but worth the extra pennies.

For the ultimate test, it passed it over to Mrs Woose for her opinion. "That," she said, "is bloody lovely."

And - not for the first time - she's absolutely right.