Categories
buying beer london

Scottish beer in London

royalmilewhisky1

If you’re interested in getting hold of Scottish beer in London, Royal Mile Whiskies at 3 Bloomsbury (near Holborn) looks like a good place to start.

It’s a touristy-looking off-license that we just wandered by last night on the way to the pub. We stopped dead in our tracks and stared at the window, where beers from Broughton, Cairngorm, Williams Brothers, Orkney and Brewdog were on display.

It was closed, sadly, so we didn’t get chance to go in and nose around. Who knows what other wonders might lurk within?

On a related note, any suggestions as to where we can find an 80 shiling on tap in London?

Categories
london pubs

Stout at the Speaker

The Speaker in Westminster (one of our favourite London pubs, in a funny kind of way) is having a month of stouts, porters and wheat beer. Here’s what they’re expecting to serve up throughout January:

Acorn Gorlovka Stout 6%
Allendale Tar Barl Stout 4.5%
Brysons Patrick Stout 5%
Burton Bridge Bramble Stout 5%
Dark Star  Espresso Stout 4.2%
Hop Back Entire Stout 4.5%
Itchen Valley  Treacle Stout 4.4%
Little Valley  Hebden’s Wheat 4.5% (Cloudy)
Mauldons Peggoty’s Porter 4.1%
Milestone Raspberry Wheat Beer 5.5%
TSA Scotch Mist 5%
Westerham Puddle Dock Porter 4.3%
Wylam Haugh Porter 4.6%

We’ll try to pop in once or twice as we’re wholeheartedly in favour of every pub serving up at least one dark beer at all times and, as TV’s Dr Tanya Byron would say, we want to reinforce this positive behaviour.

Categories
Beer history breweries london pubs real ale

Badger Pickled Partridge at the Mason's Arms

We’ve been down on Badger beer since a holiday in Dorset last year where we struggled to find a decent pint of anything, and where even Badger’s own pubs in the area were serving dish-watery, boring, stale beer which made us feel a bit sad.

But the Mason’s Arms (recommended by Jeff “Stonch” Bell here) is a Badger pub which knows how to look after its ale. The seasonal beer, Pickled Partridge, is a dark, 4.6% ‘winter warmer’ and very, very drinkable.

The emphasis is on fruitiness and hop flavour, with very little bitterness — just enough to make it moreish. There might be some spices in there somewhere, but subtly done, with none of the overwhelming cinnamon and cloves that have ruined so many Christmas beers over the years.

In short: a nice cosy, quiet pub, and a very nice beer! Badger are back in our good books.

We’ve spent a fair bit of time on Seymour Place recently, for no particular reason. The Mason’s Arms, the Carpenter’s Arms and the Austrian Imbiss are all good reasons to visit if you’re in the area.

Categories
london

Austrian Imbiss near Marble Arch

Hirter Korchl dark lager
Hirter Morchl dark lager

UPDATE May 2012: the Imbiss sadly closed at some point in 2010 or 2011.

Who opens an Austrian cafe in London? Seriously?

Imbiss is hidden away on Seymour Place, a back street near Marble Arch, in London’s West End. It’s next door to the Carpenter’s Arms.

Stepping inside is like travelling abroad. The staff are distinctly Germanic; there’s a huge display of various lurid leberkaese (meat loaves); and baskets full of pretzels. It’s minimalistic and bright, offering quite a contrast to the wonderful but gloomy Zeitgeist.

The food tastes authentic, too — i.e. processed, meaty and bad for your health — and it’s pretty reasonably priced, making Kurtz and Lang‘s overpriced sausages look a bit redundant.

The authenticity continues into the beer selection. Stiegl lager and wheat beer are available on tap, both fairly bland but crispy fresh, and much nicer than Stella Artois and Erdinger respectively. There’s a rotating range of bottled beer from Austria, too, including a selection from Hirter Morchl, whose dark lager we’ve enjoyed in the past. A quirky organic hemp beer is also on the menu.

If you’re jonesing for Mittel Europa but can’t get away from the UK, this is the perfect substitute, and deserves more custom than it seems to be getting.

It’s closed on Monday, but open until 11ish the rest of the week.

Categories
beer reviews london pubs

Brewed on the premises – William IV, Leyton, London

The William IV is about 15 minutes walk from our house. We used to go there quite a lot. It was friendly and pioneered poncy beer like Leffe and Hoegaarden before they became ubiquitous. It also had its own beer, which was tasty and cheap. We stopped going around five years ago when (a) the microbrewery stopped producing (b) we were made to feel distinctly unwelcome by some aggressive locals and an indifferent barman. Its fall from grace corresponded with the opening of the Nags Head [sic], and we never went back.

When we were tipped off that the place had started brewing again, we should have been over there like a shot. The fact that it’s taken us a couple of months is testament to the fact that a bad customer experience can really put you off a pub.

Still, we finally got round to it this evening, and we’re dead pleased we did. There are three local brews on tap: an IPA, a mild and a ‘red’. The standout brew is the red. It’s intensely fruity and bitter — think burnt redcurrant crumble, in a good way. We could drink pints and pints of the stuff, and almost did (but got all grown-up and responsible and started thinking about work tomorrow). The mild has nice sour notes, and at 3.6% is a good session beer. The IPA is definitely on the hoppy side, but at 4% is also quite sessionable.

Can we wholeheartedley recommend it? Well, it’s a great Victorian interior, with some fabulous Truman, Taylor Walker and Ind Coope memorabilia inside. There’s a fire, and a cat. But they’d do themselves more favours if the barman was a bit friendlier, and the clientele is currently mostly single men watching the football or reading the paper. It’s definitely a typical white working class East London boozer, albeit one that happens to brew its own beer.

We’ll be going back, though, and bringing our friends.

The William IV is at 916, HIgh Road Leyton, E10 6AE (Beer in the Evening review here).  It’s a 15-20 minute walk from both Walthamstow Central (Victoria line) and Leyton (Central Line) tube stations, and there are frequent buses from both. If you’re going to the Pig’s Ear beer festival in December, it’s about a ten minute bus ride on the 48 and probably worth the trip.