Using rauchbier to fake barbecue-smoked meat is a clever idea. We’ll certainly be giving this a go.
Using rauchbier to fake a barbecue
February 8th, 2010I should be on that train
February 6th, 2010
The Sheffield Tap, the newish Thornbridge-affiliated pub on platform 1 at Sheffield’s central station, is a very, very dangerous development.
It’s very easy to find yourself standing at the bar with a half-empty glass of delicious, crisp Thornbridge White Wild Swan watching your train leave without you. And the worst thing is, you don’t even care. Trains are ten a penny, but beer this good is hard to come by.
Seriously, this pub is excellent. It has a beautiful interior, incredible cask beer and (although we didn’t count) what might be the best range of bottled beer in the country, all available to take away.
Now let’s have one of these at every station in London, please.
With thanks to Pete Brown for the tip off. Pretty much all the other bloggers went together a few weeks back and seem to have enjoyed it too.
Control beer
February 4th, 2010noun. A beer so familiar and consistent that it can fairly be used as an indicator of the quality of an unfamiliar pub. For example, Young’s Bitter.
Back to Oxford
January 31st, 2010It looks like we’ll be in Oxford at around this time most years now as a friend of ours who lives there has decided to make his anti-January-blues party a fixture in the calendar.
Between the station and his house last night, we took in a few pubs we missed last time round.
The King’s Arms on Holywell Street is a cosy, crowded boozer decorated with brewery memorabilia. It’s a Young’s pub but with three guest ales. Bailey went for Winter Warmer and thought it was good this year. Boak went for Bath Gem, an old favourite that we haven’t come across for a while, which was just about OK if perhaps a little tired. The pub is so full of character, though, that the beer’s almost irrelevant.
The White Horse on Broad Street is really a long, cluttered corridor, but is also very cosy. We were drawn in by the Brakspear sign but the lack of that beer was more than made up for by two excellent microbrews. Prospect by the Shotover Brewing Co. (who are new on the scene, apparently) was a beautiful hoppy, flowery beer, powerful enough to overpower a bag of particularly lethal, hairy pork scratchings. Can anyone tells us which particular variety of hops give that wonderful elderflower flavour? In contrast, Winter Solstice by Vale Brewing was all about the malt: caramel with a hint of chocolate. It was also excellent, but it was Prospect that really knocked us for six.
Far from the Madding Crowd had six ales on tap including Oakham JHB, another classic we’ve not had for a while. Wow. What a beer — incredibly drinkable. Easy Rider from Kelham Island was another corker with a slightly (and very pleasantly) sulphurous aroma. The pub itself was lacking in atmosphere, somewhat resembling a community centre. Those of you who are sceptical of our ability to taste anything through the pork scratchings in the last pub will be glad to hear we didn’t indulge in the cockles in offer here…
Beer festivals are growing on us
January 28th, 2010
At a loose end, we decided to pop to Manchester for the weekend, taking in the National Winter Ales Festival, of which Tandleman was one of the organisers.
After startling him with our unannounced arrival (he made a very effective bouncer) we made our way upstairs to the main hall. Our first impressions were of a relatively young crowd with the kind of male-female mix you’d expect in the real world. The atmosphere was like that of a large, busy, if rather brightly lit pub. Or, with people sat on the floor in groups, was it reminiscent of a music festival? We felt very comfortable and soon completely forgot we were in a wedding banquet hall on an industrial estate in a city we hardly knew.
We headed straight for the German rarities. Uerige Sticke Alt, which we’d been wanting to try for a long time, had the trademark Uerige bitterness, although after such anticipation, it was a little disappointing. Schlenkerla Urbock (or did the label say Eichbock?) (6.5%) was clear and syrupy and, frankly, balanced too much towards sweetness for our taste.
A brief detour to Bohemia next with Bernard Kvasnicove took the idea of unfiltered beer to the extreme: there was a bit of wood in it. It was mellow and, again, sweetish. It wasn’t warm, but it could have got away with being two degrees colder.
Lowenbrau Buttenheim Bock didn’t taste as strong as 6.5%. It was very nicely balanced, clearly a well crafted beer, and far from bland, but we wanted a bit more zing.
We went closer to home for the next round. Broughton 80 Shilling was bland; Acorn Gorlovka Stout astounding. What a contrast. We were sceptical as to how a 5% beer could lay claim to the ‘imperial’ moniker but this beauty did it, through hop bitterness, chocolate intensity and a very heavy, chewy body. It was the stand out beer of the evening.
JW Lees Darkside was really interesting — so fruity and sour that if someone said it had plums or maybe even cherries in, we’d believe them.
Red shield, White Shield’s weaker, blonder, cask-conditioned cousin, could have borne a lote more hop aroma and came off as a bit boring in comparison to, say, Dark Star Hophead or Marble Pint.
Marble Madness
January 25th, 2010
After reading various people raving about Marble for the last couple of years, a visit to their brewpub was always going to be a top priority for our visit to Manchester.
First up were, pints of, er, Pint and Bitter which we found to be very similar. Both were bitter and grapefruity almost to the point of astringency, but not quite. Differences did emerge after a few more comparative slurps — Bitter was marginally darker in colour and balanced a touch more toward malt than hops. We were very impressed by both.
Lagonda IPA looked similarly yellow at first glance but was sweeter, fuller bodied and noticeably stronger at 5%.
Then something that wasn’t yellow: Stouter Stout, which was profound. Thick, roasty, chocolatey and filling — damn near a perfect specimen. Trying Chocolate next to it was a little surprising, being silkier but actually less chocolate-like.
We’ve had Ginger before and it was just as good as we remembered. We took the advice of the chaps at Blogobeer and also tried it mixed with Chocolate and it was indeed delicious — not unlike Jamaica Ginger cake. Yum.
The enigmatically named Brew #14 was yet another yellow bitter ale, but this time with a more English hop character, very evident dry-hopping and some pear-drop character.
Dobber, despite being 5.9% and a little heavier and fruitier, was, yes, you’ve guessed it, yellow and hoppy.
As for the pub, it’s a great building and has a real buzz. We ate in the back room and service was a little slow but friendly (had someone failed to turn up for their shift?).
In summary, a good pub, with great beer, but (like Hopback) they could do to make the differences between some of their many yellow beers a little less subtle, or simply ‘consolidate the range’ as a management consultant would say.
Shameless Fictional Beer
January 24th, 2010
The brilliant Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester has an area put aside for displays about specific communities in the city. When we visited (this weekend — we’ve just got back) it was Wythenshawe’s turn. Because the Channel 4 show Shameless is filmed there, they had a display of costumes and props from the show, including some brilliant fake beer cans.
Anyone fancy a Stelberg Louis or an Ashbury Export?
We’ve written about fictional beer before and we’re not the only ones who are fascinated by this kind of thing.
Lots more on Manchester to follow in the next day or two.
Don’t leave that!
January 21st, 2010We took a six pack of Anchor Christmas Beer to a family do just before Christmas, knowing that the host was keen on beer.
We then watched with dismay as a grumpy uncle poured a bottle into a glass and spent the next hour ignoring it while he read the paper. When he left, it was more-or-less untouched and had gone flat. Could he not have ignored a cheaper, less interesting beer instead?
Canterbury
January 19th, 2010
Canterbury is on the tourist trail from London and takes less than an hour to get to on a high speed train from St Pancras. It’s a fascinating place with a proper ‘altstadt’, unlike most British cities, and plenty of pubs. A bit of online research before our day trip took us to the following which were reckoned by various sources to be the best.
1. The Parrot, Church Lane, is a Young’s pub with a commitment to guest beers carried over from its days as a free house. On our visit, we were blown away by Hopdaemon Incubus (4%) which is a dark but nonethetheless flowery, hoppy thirst quencher. The pub itself is a 14th century building and full of character with low timber ceilings, nooks and crannies and soft lighting.
2. The Unicorn is also wooden beamed and cosy but (as the euphemism goes) very much a local pub. There was a mixed crowd including skint students (“Shit, I’m 5p short!”) and a group of amusingly grumpy blokes at the bar who the bar staff refered to as “the sad shelf”. The beer on tap was pretty boring (Shepherd Neame Masterbrew, Deuchars IPA) but there was more Hopdaemon on tap and in bottles. A pint of Golden braid was OK and not unlike one of the lesser beers from Hopback. Green Daemon Helles was like one of our homebrews (so, nice enough, but with rough edges). Their famous Skrimshander IPA was malty and biscuity but a bit muted. Maybe bottling doesn’t suit it?
3. The Cherry Tree is a very odd place. It looks like a scuzzy student pub, with a knackered tiled floor, dirty tables, loud metal music and some astounding offers on vodka shots. Despite that, along with the rock chicks and lads with face piercings, there were a few CAMRA types and couple of pissed blokes in their fifties chaining Kronenbourgs. The ales were mostly forgettable, except one called Harrier which was a deliciously roasty, mellow mild. Shame we didn’t manage to get the name of the brewery.
Get your dranken geers round this lot
January 17th, 2010
At 9am, Brussels is full of trucks delivering beer to bars and restaurants.
A truck full of Duvel, Orval, Troll, St Bernardus and Bush beers.
The man driving this truck actually did look like the cartoon on the back.
