Categories
pubs

Canterbury Tales

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.

Categories
Belgium photography

Get your dranken geers round this lot

Beer delivery truck in Brussels, Belgium
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.
A truck full of Duvel, Orval, Troll, St Bernardus and Bush beers.
Beer delivery service logo -- drayman carrying barrel.
The man driving this truck actually did look like the cartoon on the back.
Categories
design

Thoughtful beer geek gift

Bailey’s little brother had a fit of thoughtfulness and for Christmas this year got this very nice chap to engrave six beer glasses with a version of  the graphic from our blog’s header.

Drinking our own brews out of our own branded glasses is very satisfying indeed!

Categories
bottled beer buying beer london

Bottled Beer at St Pancras

Just a quick one — if you find yourself passing through Kings Cross St Pancras Station and in need of a decent bottle of beer or two, then Sourced is a wee shop with a pretty impressive selection. Impressive for a train station, anyway.

Categories
london pubs

All over Battersea, some hope and some despair

The weekend before last, we needed to get out and about and stretch our legs, and what better way to do it than a pub crawl in South London?

Walking from Pimlico and through Battersea Park, the first pub on our hit list was the Merchant, a sister pub to the Florence. It has a similar range of bottled beer and, on tap, their own brew and two from Sambrooks. What we said about the Florence applies pretty much word for word here, although it was a bit cosier.

The Goat on Battersea Rise wasn’t on our list but we were intrigued by the building (see picture above) — what exactly is a Temperance Billiard Hall? Inside, it reminded us of a German bierkeller, with low lighting and cosy spaces. Unfortunately, the ale was absolutely appalling. Brains Party Popper and Ryedale Winter’s Tale both tasted like buttery popcorn with a hint of cardboard. A bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale rescued the day. The staff could not have been friendlier and with such a great building, it’s a shame no-one was actually tasting or looking after the beer. Nonetheless, we bet it’s heaving on a Saturday night.

Then on to Northcote Road, famously home to dozens of dull bars, and into Clapham. We popped into the Holy Drinker which boasts a large range of beers but were baffled to find that they were all in bottles. That and the fact that the bloke on the bar didn’t bother looking up to say hello made it very easy to turn round and walk out. It’s odd — we’re always banging on about how pubs should have more bottles, but if all they have is bottles, we can’t really see the point.

Finally, to the Eagle Ale House on Chatham Road, which we loved, mostly because we got to sit next to and play with the open fire. Meantime Cask London Pale Ale was also a bit of a draw (“we’re the only place they sell it to as a regular”) and was fabulous. The barman absolutely insisted on serving it with a sparkler even though we told him not to go to the trouble of attaching it (“it needs it for the body”). None of the other beers (Loddon Hoppit, Downton Quadhop, Ringwood Best Bitter) were really very interesting but all were in very good condition.