Central Sheffield; Some crackin' ales, Part I...

I arrived in Sheffield after a decent enough journey, despite the rain, and OK, most of these photographs were taken the next day, but it was dark and wet, and a mobile phone isn't too good at taking night-time photographs, at least mine isn't... 

  

Started off with food, not a bad idea, meeting up with my good friend and ex-colleague, Debra, at Mama's and Leonie's, my favourite restaurant in the whole wide world! It's a great place to eat, where you can either book an upstairs table, take a risk to find an ad hoc table downstairs, or sit at the bar and watch your food being prepared, and chat to staff, when they're not too busy, that is...

Most of the staff stay here for years, an excellent sign, and it was great to chat to Debs, of course, but also to their Head Chef, John, and  the second John, and other chefs I know, plus with the lasses who, though not all working this one shift, obviously, I still saw a few, including ones I've known for more than 15 years, the lovely Josie and Tracey, who is to become a mother to a second child. The food is excellent too, me eating my usual Warm Chicken and Bacon Salad, which is heaped into a big dish and takes a while to finish! If in Sheffield, this is the place to eat; situated between the Crucible and the Winter Gardens.

Next, I was meeting up with Will at the Bath Hotel behind the old Glossop Road baths. This used to be run by the ebullient Brian, who has since leased out the bar to Thornbridge Brewery, who have taken over a few pubs in Sheffield. This used to be Will's local, but not being enamoured by ales flavoured with American hops, unlike me, he has been put out by the change, life. Indeed, I hardly recognised anyone there! 

So, 6 ales served by handpump, including 3 guest ales and 3 of their own. The 3 Thornbridge ales were Black Harry, a 3.9% deep dark red coloured ale, with a very roasted malt flavour and a nutty aftertaste at £2.70 a pint; Hopton, a 4.3% pale bitter, though a bit thin, with a hint of roasted malt in the flavour at £2.90; and the 4.8% Jaywick, an 'American Pale Ale' at £3.10 a pint, which was my favourite of these, not a surprise, with a fruity aroma and peach flavour coming through. Also, if you drink here before 7pm, you get a 10% discount if a card carrying CAMRA member, sadly, it was just too late in the evening to take advantage of that deal. 

We briefly popped into the Red Deer, just off Glossop Road, which appears to now be a student pub, though there have always been many students in here, just even more now... very busy and very loud (I am getting older, tsk...). This used to be run by another reyt miserable old git, but now has a 5% discount for card carrying CAMRA members, so not so bad, though we didn't notice until we were already drinking. Anyway, from their array of ales, we both chose well known ales, which suggests it is a pubco pub, though I cannot be bothered to confirm that. Will drank Moorhouse's Pride of Pendle (4.1%) and I enjoyed the Yorkshire brewer, Copper Dragon's Golden Pippin (3.9%), another favourite brewer of mine! 

We visited the University Arms, that used to be a staff social club at the university, but is now a public house, primarily to chat with the manager and partner, Tom and Brigitte, so I was surprised a wee bit to find out they are no longer here, but they now have a pub that I will mention in my next Sheffield blog. It was quite busy, not so noisy though, so we could talk quite easily. We drank Welbeck Abbey Red Feather, an OK 3.9% bitter (well, that's how I made the note) and the reliable Crouch Vale Brand X, a 4.5% lovely pale fruity bitter with grapefruit aroma and flavour. 

Our penultimate ale house for the night was The Hop, Devonshire Green, a relatively new pub (used to be a wee supermarket, there's irony for you) run by Ossett Brewery, where I first drank in on my last visit to Sheffield, and which was very noisy with music this time. It's big and spread out, with a much younger clientele at this time of a Friday night. Anyway, there was an array of Ossett's own ales, as you'd expect, plus a few guest ales. The Ossett ale I tried was the Big Red, a venture away from their majority paler ales, 4% and a well-balanced maltier ale than I usually enjoy. 

I also had to try the Steel City Unholy Trinity, a 6.66% (and if you believe they can be that accurate, you're very naive) very dark beer, with chocolate and coffee in the taste, and very tasty, I have to admit. Indeed, I've never had an ale from the lads who brew under the moniker, Steel City Brewing, that I've disliked; they do like using hops!  

Our final destination of the evening was another pub with loud music, and mostly younger customers than us, though we do like to mix with the youth of Sheffield to maintain our own youthful outlook! The Old House in Division Street, sells its ales at a reduced price in the late afternoon/early evening, but, of course, we were much too late for that again; so we missed out on 3 deals in total that night... Anyway, I cannot remember what Will drank, but I had another decent Yorkshire brewery, Salamander's Piper's Son (4%), pale, and not quite so bitterly hopped as I usually like, but I seemed to enjoy drinking it...

Anyway, that's it for now, but more to come in Part II, cheers!

HOPS! Crackin' ales from Sussex and much further afield...

Where to start, and apologies for being away this last week, but so much more for me to publish over the coming days... So, to start with, here is a photograph of Adam, from the FILO Brewing Company based at the Old Town Brewery in Hastings, and of the First In Last Out Pub (FILO), High Street, Hastings 'old' town, wearing a Beermeister polo shirt, nice one! As are their ales... 

OK, this isn't one of the FILO ales, but I have mainly been drinking their own wonderfully flavoursome Our Auld Ale (6.5%), see earlier blog, since it first was served at the FILO pub, of course, as a seasonal beer, it won't be around for much longer, so hurry up if you want to drink it! However, there has appeared to be an influx of  ales into South East Sussex from the ever reliable Lincolnshire brewer, Oldershaw, including two I have had at the FILO. Oldershaw Great Expectations (4.2%) is a very good bitter, pale and hoppy with a dry aftertaste, and Newton's Drop (4.1%) is another reliable pale bitter all the way from Lincolnshire. The FILO also has a regularly changing Belgian beer on draught, at the moment it is the rather too easy to drink 5.7% Palm Dobbel, which means "dice" or "gamble" in English.  

Moving on to the ales depicted in my previous near-blog and the Dolphin, opposite the fishermens' huts and beach, 'old' town too. Like at the FILO, I have had an Oldershaw ale here too, among the many ales available over a few visits, ie Oldershaw Old Boy, a 4.8% copper coloured dry ale with a malty and bitter aftertaste. Also available on that visit, Crouch Vale Yakima Gold (named after the valley where hops are grown, apparently, and from a native American name/word), a 4.2% refreshing and very pale, fruity bitter, with a peach flavoured aftertaste, very good. 

Another visit since, provided the ales featured in the previous blog's photograph and the one above, including the Yorkshire brewery, Saltaire's Blackberry Cascade, suspiciously named as if blackberry fruit and cascade hops were used in the brewing process ;-) A pale amber coloured, lovely dry bitter with a hint of grapefruit and bramble flavours, very nice indeed... In addition, 2 ales from reyt further up north than Yorkshire, ie Orkney St Magnus, a 5.2% slightly malty darkish amber bitter, and the 4.8% Orkney IPA, a pale dry bitter with a hint of maltiness, good body and a malty biscuity aftertaste.     

Further along the coast westwards in Bexhill-on-Sea, at the RAFA club, The Albatross Club, where, in addition to the local brewer, Rother Valley Level Best (4%) and Copper Ale (4.1%), there was, from Lancashire, OSB Absent IPA, a 5.5% deep coloured amber bitter, very good and with a dry aftertaste. There was also, and me drinking a dark ale yet again, as you can see from the photograph immediately above, the Manchester brewer, Privateer Dark Revenge, a 4.5% very dark bitter, with an oatmeal head, and a hint of liquorice and a fruity aroma, nice one.

Time now to look at my regular luvverly pale hoppy ale provider, the Tower, London Road, upper St Leonards/Bohemia, Hastings. 4 ales on offer usually provide at least 2 Dark Star ales, with American Pale Ale (APA, 4.7%) as its regular ale, as people will no doubt be aware by now... BUT! There's a 'new kid in town', another Sussex brewery producing ales with loadsa hops, ie Burning Sky! Not really all that new though, as the brewer there used to work at Dark Star, and was the originator of the Hophead recipe, and many of their other excellent ales... Burning Sky Plateau 'Pale Ale' is a 3.5% pale hoppy ale, very bitter, and with a grapefruit aroma and taste which takes the Michael out of the strength, I love it! 

... and what Dark Star ales has Louisa been providing at the Tower recently? Of course the APA and Hophead (3.8%), but also a variation on the Hophead, ie using the same grist, same strength, but with flavours and bitterness coming from different hops, Simcoe and Ahtanum, and with a pale green coloured pump clip. Believe it or not, I prefer this to the usual Hophead, which I've detected as a wee bit more malty flavoured lately, or is that just my taste buds forever evolving? Version 2, whatever you want to call it, is pale, bitter and dry, of course, and even more fruity than the original, with bitter orange peel and not so much the grapefruit, excellent Louisa, ta... and I haven't even mentioned the excellent 5.7% revelation that is Revelation, which I have written so much about before, spoilt for choice!

More to come soon, first from Sheffield, and my visit to the self proclaimed "Beer Capital of the World", cheers! 

More, much more, to come...

Including ales from Sussex, and London, and Sheffield/South Yorkshire, the North West, etc etc... but you'll have to wait a few days or so, sorry... 

Can't wait, myself, cheers!

5 Favourite (some old favourite) pubs in London...

So, not all the pubs I drank in on this visit to London, but all have had a few pounds sterling spent in them by me over the years...

The Harp, in between Charing Cross and Covent Garden, is an excellent pub to start off at, certainly when it's not too busy, and it does get very busy; this fact supported by them selling 9 real ales, and one of them, the Hophead, leaves 2 of their handpumps at the rate of a Barrel a day, ie 36 gallons+! Their 3 regular ales are Harveys Sussex Best, and two Dark Star ales, all have been reported on many times, Hophead (3.8%) and American Pale Ale (APA, 4.7%), both the Dark Star ales selling at £3.45 a pint, that ain't a bad price for a central London pub. 

Oh yes, and 6 guest ales, that included Sambrook's Junction (4.5%), and there is always an ale from the Battersea brewery, Sambrook's, regularly on sale here too; Crouch Vale Brewers Gold (4%) and Blackwater Mild (3.7%); Palmers Dorset Gold (4.5%) and Best Bitter (4.2%); and the West London brewer, Weird Beard's collaboration with BrewDog Kentish Town Beard, a 5.2% "American Wheat Ale", pale, a bit cloudy, hint of tangy orange, dry and quite bitter, liked it!        

My previous blog deals with most of the (new) pubs I drank in on this particular London visit, so a bit of time walking included in my day. Anyhow, although I didn't go into The Old Bell, Fleet Street, which was built by Christopher Wren for the builders who worked on St Bride's church, that is situated in a wee alley behind the pub, anyway, I had to photograph it. This was a regular lunchtime haunt when I worked opposite the Old Bailey in my youth, in the days when people still imbibed copious amounts of alcohol during work lunch breaks. This is now a Nicholson's pub, and credit has to be given to that pubco for taking over and preserving some excellent ale houses, and providing decent ales and food too. 

In my day, as far as I remember, there was only one real ale in here, the excellent Worthington E on draught; not one of the poor keg beers that proliferated at the time, but a genuine real cask conditioned ale. I know that people have conjectured over the years whether this was just re-badged Bass, but it most definitely was, and still is a different ale entirely, with its own recipe, and now brewed at, I believe, the old Bass Museum brewery in Burton; now owned by Coors, there's a surprise! I wish I'd gone in for a drink, but I was restricted for time on the day, so a potential target for the future.    

Not far away is another Nicholson's pub, and one I have reported on not too long ago, The Blackfriar, an Art Nouveau masterpiece built at the beginning of the 20th century, but with a hostelry on the site for over 400 years. I've written about this before, on here, and on facebook, and shall no doubt visit again sometime soon, maybe when I go to The Old Bell, and I have happy memories of using this pub as a quiet wee place to visit with female friends, though not so quiet these days... 

I crossed Blackfriars Bridge to the South bank of the Thames and turned left/east towards Borough Market. As can be seen above, it was starting to get dark; in this photograph is The Rake to the right, with the market behind, and Southwark Cathedral in the background, where a forebear of mine was married (when it was still a Parish Church, pre-promotion). I popped into The Rake, but the 3 ales on sale were either not interesting to me (2 of them), or too strong, the other being about 14% or something! So I wandered through the market to... 

The Market Porter, which I could have published a darkened photograph of, but I haven't, as it was my last ale before I visited the new Mansion House in Kennington (see previous blog), and a photograph of a dark ale here, just to prove I don't only drink pale hoppy ales! Many ales available as ever, including ales from Triple fff, Peerless, and Coastal Brewery, but this was my choice: Leeds Ale Mary, a very pleasant 4.5% dark ale with a hint of liquorice in the flavour. From there to Kennington, and my first bus of the day, and already written about...

Cheers!   

4 new pubs in London...

Well, not quite all new pubs, though one of them is, but all new to me, and the first 3 I hadn't been to before are all in CAMRA's Good Beer Guide 2014, so a promising day was ahead... 

After drinking elsewhere (the Harp, more of soon), I wandered down to The Edgar Wallace, Essex Street, in the Temple area. This is a good looking building and has a lovely comfortable feel to the interior, though the downstairs bar area is smaller than I'd imagined before entering, there is also an upstairs area (tables and seating) that would feel as comfortable as being at home when dining here! 8 real ales on sale, which come from the Enterprise standard list, sadly, so not too many micro ales. Anyway, 2 regulars, their 'own' Edgar's Pale Ale (3.5%) brewed by Nethergate, so presumably their own IPA, an OK bitter, but a bit thin, and the rather good Crouch Vale Brewers Gold (4%). The other ales you wouldn't be surprised by...

My next visit was to The Castle, in between Fetter and Chancery Lanes, and a 'Red Car' pub, a small pubco that appears to have a background in Redcar; certainly the landlord here comes from up there. A more varied selection of ales here, though, coincidentally, their 'own' ale was brewed by Nethergate! That is, Red Car Best Bitter (3.9%); this time, presumably Growler Bitter. A nice Victorian pub, with a very pleasant Kiwi behind the bar, Lauren, who is going home to New Zealand in a months time, though may be back, no problem, as her parents are both Brits. Other ales included London Pride; Abbey Ales Bellringer (4.2%); Dixon's Hoppy Daze (4.2%), brewed by Riverside brewery; Spitting Feathers Farmhouse Ale (3.6%); and Atomic Brewery's Dark Matter (4.1%) and Strike, a 3.7% quite sour pale bitter, not bad. Missing you already Lauren... 

My third 'new' pub was just up from Smithfield Market, the Old Red Cow, another run by someone from up int' North, so much so that they didn't take the tight sparkler off when I asked them to whilst pouring my ale! The barstaff were friendly enough, though, and 4 ales on sale, at a quite high price, mostly over £4, and some 'craft' beers on at over a fiver; this isn't a cheap pub to visit. There were 2 pale bitters, Windsor & Eton Windsor Knot (4%) and West Berkshire Full Circle (4.5%), Signature Brew Bad Carols (5%), and Alchemy Five Sisters, a 4.3% 'red' ale with plenty of roasted malt flavour. The prices and tight sparklers mean I shan't be returning too soon... 

My final new pub, is a new pub called The Mansion House, near to Kennington tube station, round the corner from where I used to live, and opposite the church I first got married in! It was dark by now, so the photograph taken with my mobile phone of the outside is pretty poor, but it's a new building as well, so not that exciting, lots of glass, you can guess. This is the fourth Oakham Brewery bar, as far as I can tell, and, like the others, (the Bartons Arms in Birmingham is the other I've visited before), all seem to sell Eastern food, an 'oriental' restaurant being incorporated here (site). I also met up with 3 members of the Musicians Union NEC, so intelligent conversation was enjoyed too, as well as the beers of course!

Sadly, though, I needed to catch a bus back to Clapham Junction from outside the nearby Imperial War Museum, and from there to catch my late-ish train home, so I could only have a couple of ales. As you'd expect, there were all the regular Oakham ales, spoilt for choice really: JHB, Inferno and Bishops Farewell, but Citra only in bottles, and a real cider of their own. They did, though, have a rather lovely 6% ale brewed with Citra hops, Green Devil IPA, pale, dry, fruity aroma and taste, grapefruit++, plenty of body, and pretty damn good! They also had a guest ale from Blue Monkey Brewery, another 'Black' IPA, which I shall one day be dedicating a blog to, Bonobo (5.3%), as with other black IPAs, dark, tasting lighter than you'd expect, though, of course, not anymore now I'm used to them. A bit too easy to drink...

Cheers!

Christmas Day in Calcutta...

Not me, but my brother, the Routemeister himself, Dan...

Dan wanted a quiet Christmas, and was over in Bombay for a wedding following Christmas, so thought he'd pay a visit to Calcutta, having never been there, and also, not one to be unhappy missing Christmas celebrations. First of all, we've had a wee chat over a few ales since, but second, he doesn't take photographs. Now I really fancied the idea of writing a blog for India, so I've had to do internet research myself, not too easy, but not the hardest research. Anyway, Dan reported, despite not having too many Christians in Calcutta, nearly everyone was wearing silly Christmas hats; apparently, they like to find any excuse to party! On the 25th, though, Dan wandered Calcutta for about 11 hours before settling down for his Christmas 'dinner' at the bar in the Broadway Hotel, Ganesh Chandra Avenue, see above. 

OK, not the most charming looking hotel from the outside, and having looked elsewhere, the bedrooms look pretty bog basic too, but it does seem to get good reviews, and, never having been to India, who am I to judge? The bar itself, and some other internal features, eg the stairways, are quite art deco in style, and Dan reported it being very friendly. Anyway, his 'Christmas Dinner' was a sandwich and a 650mls bottle of Kingfisher Extra Strong lager, which he enjoyed, saying it had much more flavour than the usual Kingfisher, and, at 8%, so it should, and at just 120 Rupees, or about £1.20 a bottle, a bargain! 

Cheers Routemeister!

Sad news re the Lass O'Gowrie, Manchester

One of my least favourite brewers are quickly falling even lower in my estimation following their projected vision of the Lass O'Gowrie, one of my favourite pubs in Manchester, well it was anyway, see report. 

For those who have never been there, a wee appraisal of my own... When I first visited, they used to brew their own ales, as well as feature many guest and regular real ales, then, I remember their having Titanic as a regular, and I think Titanic were brewing for them too, now we have Greene King to (not) look forward to!

I have been here when just visiting Manchester, when carrying out research up there in my academic days, to eat lunch, for football reasons (they do have 2 big clubs!), before and after, and some good pals of mine in the Manc Rs used this as their 'local' to meet up in, so I shall have to find out where they will drink now.

Why do Greene King, and other larger brewers and pub companies, mess up good pubs, and without giving their licensees a chance to carry on and try to make up for lost business themselves? I doubt I'll ever visit the Lass again now, especially as there are other very good pubs in Manchester, shame...

Best wishes and good luck to Gareth Kavanagh!