Sussex Beer Festival, Hastings, starts tomorrow! 20-21 September...

Well, not actually a beer festival, but at the Hastings Seafood & Wine Festival, the FILO has a bar in the main marquee, with 12 different ales brewed in Sussex + more! Here you can see the bar being constructed yesterday... 

So? What ales are there? 

From Hastings Brewery, there is their Porter, and 2 of their 'Handmade' ales, number 5, the single-hopped Galaxy Pale Ale, and number 14, their 3 Cs American Pale Ale. You can find reviews of them elsewhere within my blogs, nice and hoppy! 

From Long Man comes their very good Copper Hop and darker Old Man, similarly reported on before. 

Dark Star provide their ever hoppy Hophead and Vice Beer, a new one for me! 

Of course, the FILO Brewery are also providing 5 of their lovely ales too: Gold, Crofters, Old Town Tom, Churches Pale Ale and Bourne Blonde, so a good variety of their ales, indeed! 

Come and enjoy, cheers!

Portobello - Newish West London brewery

A visit to Pissarros in Hastings, and what did I find?  Only an ale from W10, West London, ie from Portobello Brewing Company, which I believe started brewing at the end of 2012, or thereabouts.  As I live so close to the bar, I have to visit fairly regularly, obviously, despite they're not selling Hophead, and, on this occasion I was served by the delightful Czech lass, Lucy, cheers m'dear...

So, 3 ales on, 2 that appear to be regular now, certainly the ubiquitous Harveys Sussex Best (4%) is, and I drank the very good Long Man Old Man (4.3%) on my last visit, so must be fairly regular now. Yesterday, though, I tried the Portobello Star, a 4.3% "amber ale", which was certainly a good pint of bitter, not bad at all for a new recipe, which I presume it is; good things come from West London, cheers! 

Friday 18th January, Pissarros, Hastings, real fire, and more...

Managed to get to Pissarros today, even though I hadn't planned to drink this Friday, but an error with my heating meant I didn't really want to sit in a cold flat, and I was very happy I did visit.  Pissarros now has 3 real ales served from handpumps, sells decent food, part of the building being a restaurant, as well as being able to eat in the bar area, and accommodation, which looks comfortable, and good value for Hastings (see website).

The ubiquitous Harveys Sussex Best (4%) was available, as usual; a guest ale at £2.95 a pint, all the way from Cheshire, the 4% Beartown Brewery's Kodiak Gold, a pale 'gold' coloured bitter; and my choice for the day, as I've had it before at the Dolphin, in Hastings medieval 'old town', Long Man Brewery's (see website) Old Man.  This was excellent, a dark, deep red coloured 4.3% old ale, with a strong roasted malt flavour; and it appears to be a semi regular at Pissarros too, I'll have to watch out for it more, as I do often walk by this bar on my way to and from the railway station, the only negative being it's relatively expensive price at £3.50 a pint.

I also took advantage of my CAMRA membership at Hastings' Wetherspoons, the John Logie Baird, with my 50p voucher that knocked the price down from an already good value £1.99 a pint to drinking my pint of Spirit of Kent having spent just £1.49, cheers Mr Tim 'spoon!  This is a 4% "XXX Pale Ale" and it did what it said on the label, it's a decent pale bitter from Westerham Brewery in nearby Kent (see website).

I finished off the day drinking in the Dolphin at Rock-a-Nore, by the fishermens' huts at the seafront below the 'old town', insufficient snow for me to get a decent outside shot, but a nice photograph of the fireplace, which was very welcoming, the strong wind making the sub-zero temperature feel even colder. Of course, being very obvious, of the 6 cask ales available, I mostly drank the Dark Star (see website) Hophead, talked about many times previously, pale, hoppy and bitter.  I  also had a pint of the only change to the beer menu from my last blog, ie the Loxley Ale being replaced by the 5.2% Laughing Frog, brewed by the Sussex-based 1648 Brewery (see website); 4 of the 6 ales on offer coming from local Sussex breweries.  The Laughing Frog is a far too easy to drink full-bodied bitter, nice one.

 

Then, back out in the cold... Cheers!