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beer festivals london real ale

Another London beer festival

Sadly, we didn’t make the Battersea beer festival this year (work and family stuff) so we were delighted to notice last night that the Castle in Walthamstow, East London, is having a beer festival. It’s running on the 15-17th of February.

It’s supported by the local CAMRA branch, and promises, in massive lettering, “Ales, milds, STOUTS and PORTERS”. I’m hoping the massive letters mean an emphasis on warming, wintry brews.

The Castle itself is the sister pub of the Nag’s Head, although it’s struggling to build up quite the same level of buzz or custom. Surely worth a visit when there’s a festival on, though, and one of a few pubs in the area with potential.

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The Castle is at 15 Grosvenor Rise, Walthamstow E17 9LB.

The picture above isn’t of the Castle — it’s an old one from this post, also about Walthamstow.

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Germany london pubs

German pub in London

Zeitgeist at the Jolly Gardeners, Vauxhall, South London is absolutely bizarre and absolutely brilliant.

We frequently get “homesick” for Germany, despite being from the UK. When we heard about Zeitgeist through Metro, the free newspaper they give away on London Underground, we got very excited. Tonight was our first visit. It won’t be our last.

It’s run by two expat Germans from Cologne and offers 36 German beers, with at least 10 on tap. They took over in October 2007 and reopened the pub in November. Some of the reviews on Beer in the Evening paint a picture of a pub in the middle of a terrifying council estate. Having grown up on a terrifying council estate, I’m less scared of working class people than some, but the fact that you can almost see Big Ben and MI6 from the pub makes it even less of a worrying prospect. It seemed like a perfectly nice area to us.

The pub itself was excellent. Definitely a pub, but equally surely a small piece of Germany 15 minutes from Westminster. The landlord and landlady were both dressed in German football shirts and the barmaid spoke to us in German — that’s the default language. During our stay, the place filled up with expats keen to watch the Germany/Austria match on a big screen.

What about the beer? Well, here’s the menu. Nothing staggeringly exciting for any tickers out there, but all are in great nick, and with most of the common German beer styles represented. We were especially excited to find a decent Koelsch on tap (Gaffel). If you want to know what the fuss is about Koelsch but can’t get to Cologne, here’s your chance to try the real deal nearer to home.

We were amused to see British customers getting full glasses with tiny heads, plus an apology the glass wasn’t completely full, which German customers were served tiny glasses with towering, frothy ice-cream heads. What’s the German for: “I’ll take mine like a native, please”?

The food was good, too. The menu divides it up by region. Notably, there are at least twelve schnitzel dishes on offer, as well as Nuernberger sausages and Cologne potato pancakes.

In short, we’ll be back. This pub deserves to be a big success.

Notes

Zeitgeist is also known as the Jolly Gardeners, and is at 49-51 Black Prince Road, Se11 6AB. Map here. Closest tube stations are Vauxhall, Kennington, Lambeth North, and Westminster.

Bailey

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beer reviews london real ale Somerset

A good pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord

postll.gifA while back, I moaned that it had been a while since I’d had a good pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord. Well, I’ve broken my run of bad luck — the Nag’s Head in Walthamstow, east London, served me a beauty this week. It was fresh, full of flavour and, just as important, bursting with exciting aromas.

The ale in the Nag’s Head hasn’t always been on great form, but  in the last year or so has seemed to be much more reliable. And we’ve never had anything but a cheery “thanks” when we’ve taken a dodgy pint back.

There are usually four or five cask ales on offer, including Mighty Oak Oscar Wilde Mild and Sharpe’s Cornish Coaster and/or Eden.

This comes hot on the heels of my parents excitedly reporting that they’d enjoyed TTL at the Vintage in Wellington in Somerset a couple of weekends ago. My Mum isn’t a big fan of real ale, but she says a pint that good could win her over. My Dad is a fan of ale and a former pub landlord. He says it was in perfect condition — “perfect temperature, long lasting head, a really good pint of beer”.

So maybe it does travel after all.

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beer reviews london pubs

Shepherd Neame Porter

shepherd_neame.jpg

The White Horse and Bower on Horseferry Road in London is a pretty decent pub. When I was there last night, I was very impressed by the incredibly friendly and helpful staff, the cosy atmosphere and the condition of the beer.

The main event for me, though, was drinking Shepherd Neame Porter for the first time in about three years.

It’s a completely different beast to Fuller’s London Porter*. SN’s Porter is lighter bodied and, despite the “Winter Hop Ale” tag, I was hardly aware of any hops at all. It’s distinctly mild-like, in fact, although at 4.8%, stronger than it tastes.

If I was feeling less charitable, I might say it was a little bland, but I can honestly say I enjoyed every sip, and wasn’t even remotely tempted to try anything else all night.

It’s great that there are now pubs in London where you can drink dark beer other than Guinness. Now it would just be great if all those Young’s pubs would get the Oatmeal stout on the pumps, or at least back in bottles behind the bar.

* We had Fuller’s London Porter at the Plough in Walthamstow on Monday night. It was supposed to disappear at the end of December, but the landlord has a bit left in his cellar and assured me that Fuller’s also have more in their warehouse, which he’s going to try to get his hands on. It’s tasting very nice now it’s matured a bit more!

Categories
london pubs

Pride of Spitalfields – a great little boozer

We seem to be connected again, so I can quickly post a few notes about the Pride of Spitalfields, in Shoreditch / Whitechapel.

I used to go there quite a lot, around five or six years ago. Then I changed jobs and wasn’t in the area so frequently. In fact, I don’t think I’d been there for three or four years until I visited a couple of days ago. I was delighted to find it was as friendly and welcoming as ever.

It’s interesting – if you read the reviews, lots of people contrast this “traditional east end boozer” with unfavourable comments about trendy pubs and Nathan Barley types further up the road in Shoreditch.

But actually, there are a fair few trendy types that visit this pub too (we even spotted Tracey Emin once). And that’s my favourite thing about this pub – the fact that it’s genuinely welcoming to all. They don’t care if you’re a bearded CAMRA member, a “suit”, a local trendy or even an avant-garde British artist. They don’t judge you – or at least, if they do, they don’t let on.

The beer’s great too – as well as London Pride and ESB, they also had Crouch Vale Brewer’s Gold, an excellent beer in excellent condition. Oh, and there’s a fire and lots of cool photos of the East End. What more could you want?

It can get crowded towards the end of the week, but it’s just far enough from the City (10 minutes walk from Liverpool Street) for it not to become unbearable.

It’s the kind of place that I’d move near so it could be my local. Easily one of my favourite pubs in London.

Notes

The Pride of Spitalfields is at 3 Heneage Street, about 10 metres off Brick Lane. For transport details and map, see the Beer in the Evening review, although please note that Shoreditch station no longer exists.

If you’re a beer enthusiast in the area, you should brave the curry touts on Brick Lane to take a look at the old Truman Brewery buildings. It’s all bars and studios now, but most of the original buildings are still intact, and it’s quite awe-inspiring to see the size of the place. And of course, there’s plenty of curry around for before or after — my favourite places are on Whitechapel High Street rather than Brick Lane itself, but I’m sure you’ll find something tasty.

Boak