March 15th, 2010
With apologies to Paul Trevillion and based on incidents witnessed in the course of our pub-going.
A large group of students has been drinking in your pub for a couple of hours. One of them has just enough money to buy a pint which he takes off to the back room. Moments later, he returns with an empty glass and says he spilled it. He asks nicely if there’s any chance of a replacement on the house. One of your regulars chips in sarcastically: “I accidentally drank mine. Can I have a free one too?”
What would you do?
Tags: silly stuff, you're the landlord
Posted in pubs | 6 Comments »
March 14th, 2010
We’re big fans of experimental beers made with a single hop and (so far) have yet to have a bad beer from Barnsley’s Acorn Brewery, so we just had to try Motueka IPA at the Pembury Tavern.
The beer was fantastic — quenching, herbal and dry, with perhaps just a hint of banana in the aroma — but, on this showing, we’d be hard pressed to identify Motueka hops if we came across them again without a bloody great big sign telling us they were there. We tend to hop from beer to beer if there are several on offer but went back for more of this, Tandleman-style, which must say something.
For more single hop action check out Geoff’s fascinating homebrewing experiments.
Tags: acorn, hops, ipa, motueka
Posted in beer reviews, real ale | 3 Comments »
March 13th, 2010
On the same day we visited the Dove, we also made it to another legendary west London pub, the Bricklayers in Putney. It’s beautifully done out, being neither trendy nor grotty, although it was bloody cold.
It was the week after their beer festival and the garden was full of spent casks — “Beer Fail!” Nothing was going to waste, though and anything left in the garden was going at a pound a pint.
We were excited to see a huge range of Timothy Taylor’s beers and didn’t even bother trying anything from the guest pumps or the garden. We’ve heard a lot about the legendary Dark Mild, and it is indeed fabulous: chocolate and vanilla and at only 3.5%. Ram Tam is a wonderfully fruity dark beer, also very special, with blackcurrant and clove notes. Why aren’t Tim Taylor’s other beers as well known as Landlord?
Tags: mild, timothy taylor
Posted in london, pubs, real ale | 1 Comment »
March 11th, 2010
Tags: bruges
Posted in Belgium | 13 Comments »
March 10th, 2010
You may have noticed we’ve been out and about a lot recently. Although we were in London for the first full weekend for ages, there was still a nagging wanderlust, and so we headed out to west London. After a nice amble along the river we made our first ever visit to the legendary Dove.
As this was the first sunny Sunday for several months, most of London had descended on this fairly small riverside pub for lunch and it was in meltdown. The staff were stressed, the food was a long time coming and there was a long queue of people who had apparently never been to a pub before and so didn’t really understand how it worked.
We escaped straight for the tiny public bar (the smallest in the world, according to Norris McWhirter) and observed the chaos. We overheard some good dialogue: “What’s your thickest beer? The creamiest?” (Quick, Fullers, time to bring out that smoothflow!); “When will my food be ready? Only I really am tremendously hungry.”
They were doing a roaring trade in Aspell’s cider and White wine, and the biggest selling ale seemed to be Discovery. So, Fuller’s know their market after all. We enjoyed someone bringing a pint of it back and kicking up a right fuss because it was ‘flat’. We think the word she was looking for is crap.
Despite the punters’ lack of interest in it, the ale is, on the whole, great. We drank the best London Pride we’ve had for ages and also got to try Bengal Lancer, their new 5% IPA. We enjoyed it immensely. It looks like Pride, has characteristic Fullers’ marmalade flavour, but with a much more pronounced, tangy, spicy hop flavour. We’re excited at the prospect of this becoming a regular.
Here’s a trivia question: how many genuine riverside pubs are there on the north side of the river between the Dove in Hammersmith and the Town of Ramsgate in Wapping? The rules are that the pub genuinely has to be directly on the riverside, with no road inbetween.
Posted in Uncategorized, london, pubs | 11 Comments »
March 9th, 2010
There are some breweries whose rise to prominence are a source of irritation (Innis and Gunn, anyone?) but we really wouldn’t mind if every pub in the country was selling Thornbridge. That’s just as well, because it seems to be getting that way.
In recent weeks, we’ve had the opportunity to try a whole lot of Thornbridge’s beers. In this post, though, we’re going to highlight one that works briliantly and one that really doesn’t.
First up, the success story. Exposed is a stout brewed with pink peppercorns and strawberry. It sounds gorgeous even just from the description on the bright red and pink pump clip. For starters, it’s a good solid stout. With nothing else done to it, it would be a winner. The subtle addition of exotic flavours, however, makes it something really special. If we hadn’t known, we wouldn’t have been able to name those additives, but they were certainly there providing beguiling, tantalising hints of their presence in a tingle on the tongue here and a raspberry/cider sourness there. This reminded us of a Belgian beer, only Thornbridge have got the recipe bang on, first try, rather than needing 200 years of experimentation to get the spicing sorted.
Then, sadly, on to a beer which didn’t work as well. Halcyon is a 7.7% strong IPA made with green hops. Sounds exciting, right? It certainly smelled incredible — exactly like sticking your nose into a foil packet of hops when home brewing. Sadly, it tasted like sugar syrup laced with hop tea, astringent and overbearing.
We guess the latter is the price you pay for successful experiments like the former.
Tags: thornbridge
Posted in beer reviews, real ale | 21 Comments »
March 7th, 2010
A couple of weeks back, we heard that the Kelham Island Tavern had been named CAMRA’s pub of the year for the second year running and, at a loose end on a wintry Sunday afternoon, we popped up to Sheffield to give it a go.
There were friendly staff and a mixed crowd. The pub is definitely characterful — not sterile, but not grotty either.
We hadn’t tried any of the beers on offer, and weren’t overly familiar with any of the breweries, so chose more-0r-less at random. Midnight Stout from (we think) ‘the Brew Company’) was had those vanilla and chocolate flavours of which we’re so fond; white rose Bucking Blonde (eugh — what an awful pump clip!) was a delicious pale and hoppy beer with a pleasingly sulphurous aroma.
Finally, the best of the bunch. We’d had heard of Pictish Brewing, of course, because Tandleman mentions them in glowing terms from time to time. Brewers Gold was truly excellent, hard not to down in one, it was so crisp. One of those beers which both creates and quenches thirst. It had zing up the wazoo.
We liked this pub a lot and it’s certainly convinced us that we need to check out the runners up for pub of the year.
Our views on the nearby Fat Cat and some thoughts on Thornbridge to follow in later posts.
Tags: sheffield
Posted in pubs, real ale | 2 Comments »
March 3rd, 2010
While in Bruges, we found ourselves near what we think ought to have been the the Gouden Boom brewery, responsible for Brugse Tripel and Brugse Tarwe amongst other beers. What we found instead was a demolition site. The gleaming copper in the picture above was atop the one remaining tower and exposed to the elements.
Does anyone know what’s going on…? The beers were certainly still available all over town.
Posted in Belgium | 4 Comments »
March 2nd, 2010
De Garre, a stone’s-throw from the market square in Bruges, comes across nonetheless as being aimed more at locals than tourists. The menu is in ‘Nederlandse’ only, for one thing. That’s not to say it’s unwelcoming for English speakers or tourists, though.
De Garre tripel is the house brew. It’s a very spicy, alcohol-fuming beer which was almost too boozy and raw, but very welcome on a stormy night.
We also took the opportunity to complete the Struise cannon with Rosse which was, sadly, a bit of a dud — sweet rather than spicy and with a vaguely cardboard-y off flavour.
Round three included Deugniet, which tasted like lemon barley, and Hopus from Lefebvre. Hopus is advertised widely and comes with a very elaborate presentation — the beer is in a tall stem glass, the dregs in a shot glass, with a stern warning from the waiter that the yeast is ‘powerful’ and might ‘mess you up’. It tasted a lot like a cask ale, maybe because of the bottle-conditioning and the earthy yeast flavours. From something at 7.5%, however, you expect more than to be reminded of a 4% British session ale.
Posted in Belgium, beer reviews | 5 Comments »
March 1st, 2010
We’ve just come back from a long overdue weekend in Bruges. Summary: why have we been settling for Brussels for so long when a city this beautiful and this friendly was only another hour away?
On Friday, after a longer-than-necessary train journey (Eurostar’s been up the creek since the big train crash near Brussels a few weeks ago) we were ready for a beer, and so went straight to Cambrinus Bierbrasserie. It was cosy, busy and with a huge menu of well-chosen beers. As one punter said to us: “You English guys like beer, right? Well good luck because here, we got four hundred of ‘em!”
They have two house beers, blond and bruin, which both tasted like bang-on exemplars of those ’styles’. They weren’t challenging, but nor were they at all unpleasant. How do the Belgians do it so effortlessly?
Next we moved on to offerings from De Struise, appealing both because of the reputation of the brewer and the need for something coming in at under 6% to keep us in the game. Kloeke Blonde had that dusty hop flavour we associate with Poperings Hommelbier, but was slightly sour, and very interesting too. Struise Witte certainly wasn’t a Hoegaarden clone — it had pear and/or pear drop flavours, and was also rather dry.
And, finally, Pannepot was flavour of the month a year or so ago. Late to the party, as ever, we decided to give the 2008 edition a go. Wowzers. This was like a very fruity stout with an intense, slick creaminess and no sharp corners at all, despite its strength (10%). Proper dessert beer and a great way to wrap up a long day.
There’s more on Bruges to follow in the next week or so.
Tags: struise
Posted in Belgium, beer reviews | 8 Comments »
