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beer reviews pubs real ale

Traps for drunk people

The fruit machine at the White Lion Hotel, Bristol. WTF?

The White Lion Hotel in the centre of Bristol is an outlet for Gloucestershire’s Wickwar Brewing, which is what lured us in.

The pub itself is very strange. It has a tiny public bar and, when we were there, the clientele comprised hard blokes, mad northern ladies in hats, and French labourers drinking Grolsch. And (surely this is more trouble than it’s worth?) there is a rickety, wobbling, narrow spiral staircase leading to the gents toilet downstairs. It nearly did for Bailey and we can’t help but wonder how many people have died happy clattering drunkenly down it over the years.

As for the beer,the award-winning Station Porter was the standout — intensely fruity, with a sour blackcurrant flavour. Like Fuller’s London Porter, it seems to be a beer that ripens when it’s been in the cask for a while. We’d say it was on the very edge of being off, but we think we caught it just at its peak. It’s also just nice to see a porter on offfer on the pumps in a more-or-less normal pub.

Banker’s Draft is the one they’re really pushing with posters all over the place. ‘Wacky’ topical name aside (it’s not their worst) it probably deserves the hoo-ha, being a very drinkable, somewhat interesting pale, fruity, sweet ale with an elderflower-like hop flavour.

Wickwar are clearly a sort-of OK brewery who’ll we’ll look out for in future.

Categories
beer reviews pubs

Where's me pilsner to, my luvver?

zerodegrees

It may seem odd to go all the way to Bristol and then make Zero Degrees our first stop, given we have a branch of the same brewpub in London. The shameful truth is, though, that we’ve never been to the one in Blackheath,  despite hearing great things about the beer from bloggers and friends.

On this occasion, the decision was made for us when we’d dragged ourselves up the charming, Dickensian Christmas Steps and spotted that the place was opposite, just as we started to feel peckish and thirsty.

Despite the late-90s trendy warehouse look and aspirational dance-jazz soundtrack, the first thing that struck us was how many families were in, contributing to a German brauhaus atmosphere. The staff were extremely friendly, too, although that seems to be true of Bristolians more generally. We got a smile on approaching the bar; a “be with you in a minute”; a bit of banter during service; and some apparent expertise when it came to the flavour and manufacture of the beer. Impressive stuff.

We started out with the pilsner and one of the specials, continental blonde. The pilsner was bang on, if mainstream — something like tankova Urquell.

The continental blonde was fascinating and delicious. Despite the colour, we think it was actually a clone of a Belgian pale ale, but much fresher tasting than any example of the real thing we’ve had. It was spicy with hints of banana — an absolute treat.

The wheat ale was Belgian style and utterly delicious. Again, the freshness and condition was outstanding. The dark lager was also of a superior quality, as good as the wonderful Bernard Dark, with a besutiful balance of treacle and bitterness. It might almost be as good as U Fleku.

The prices, as Jeff has noted of the London branch, were very competitive for such an apparently swanky place, with regulars at £2.60 specials at £2.90.

A minor quibble, though: does the name refer to the temperature of the bar? Brrrrrr….

Categories
beer reviews breweries london

We take it all back

villageipa

No sooner do we have a go at their selection of beer than the owners reinvent Eat17 in Walthamstow as a sort of lounge/bar/cafe/restaurant kind of thing, with its own locally brewed house beer.

Eat17 IPA is made by Brodie’s of Leyton, a brewery we want desperately to succeed, although the beers aren’t always to our taste. With this beer, they’ve really struck gold — it’s very pale, spritzy and floral and really very much like a cask ale.

We’ll stop going on about Walthamstow now.

Categories
beer reviews bottled beer Spain

Craft-brewed beer from Toledo

Domus 'artesanal' beer from Toledo

Spanish version here.

Domus is an ‘artesanal’ beer from Cerveza Regia, Toledo. It’s bottle-conditioned, top fermented and available in various trendy bars in its home city. The marketing and packaging are fabulous, just screaming quality.

Unfortunately, the beer itself is a lot like one of our less successful homebrews: too fizzy, too thin and a little grassy. As it warms up, the toasted flavours come through a bit and it’s nice to have something with veritable hops, but unfortunately they have a way to go before we’d choose this over a glass of bland but pleasant fizzy Spanish lager.

Is it a step forward that something like this even exists in Spain? Our fear is that if someone does stray from a fizzy lager to try this they will simply be  put off craft beers and ales forever.

It doesn’t help that the bar staff have no idea how to handle it, shaking up the yeast and expecting us to drink it from the bottle which is (of course) the cool thing to do with ‘premium’ beers in Spain.

Categories
beer reviews Deberes de español Spain

Cerveza artesanal de Toledo

Domus 'artesanal' beer from Toledo

English version here.

Domus es una cerveza artesanal de alta fermentación, elaborizada por Cerveza Regia, Toledo. Se la puede encontrar en muchos bares modernos en la ciudad. La comercialización y etiqueta son maravillosas – eso, y el hecho de que sea refermentada en la botella implica que es una cerveza de calidad.

Desafortunadamente, la cerveza en sí era como una de nuestras homebrews de menos éxito: gaseosa, espesa y sabía a hierba. Cuando se caliente, los sabores tostados aparecen un poco, pero tiene que mejorar considerablamente antes de que la elijamos en vez de una caña de lager refrescante / insípida.

¿Es bueno que esta cerveza existe en España? Lo que mas nos preocupa es esto; si alguien la pide, para probar una cerveza artesanal por primera vez, le desanima tanto que no quiere probar otras cervezas artesanales y ales.

No sirve que los barmanes no tengan ni idea de cómo servirla. Nuestro barman agitó la botella (y la levadura) y no nos dio un vaso – por supuesto, teníamos que beberla directo desde la botella, como con otras cervezas de “premium”.