Returning via the White Horse and Bricklayers Arms, and more...

When we left Earls Court, our initial target was to walk down to the White Horse on Parsons Green, which the Pubmeister, Mark, had never visited before. Obviously, I felt obliged to aid his learning experience, and it is a mighty fine pub, so we headed southwards, however, on the North End Road, we had to make a logistical stop, OK, had to use a loo, so we stopped in a pub, that I shan't tell you any more about, as I'd hate for anyone to think I was recommending it, which I wouldn't. What we did have was London Pride without any pride or life in it, oh well, at least we felt more comfortable, if aggrieved, when we continued our walk to the White Horse.  

Here, we were served by the excellent Michelle, who went out of her way to find out some important information for me.  Anyway, we sat outside at the front, under one of the umbrellas provided, drinking our choice from the White Horse. This was an interesting beer from another 2011 founded micro, the London Brewing Company, called Zingibier (5.4%), a ginger flavoured beer, very fresh and bitter too; now, we had had a few by now, but I can read my notes easily, so still intelligent analysis, and I drew a smiley face next to my notes, noting that plenty of ginger flavour "but still a beer". There you go, we liked it, and the Pubmeister liked the pub too! We now were heading further south (slightly west of south actually) to Putney...

The Bricklayers Arms in Waterman Street is, what I like to think of, as my Putney 'local', even though it's my brother, Dan the Routemeister, who actually lives near it, though he only comes here when I visit him. So, I surprised Dan when I telephoned him from the White Horse to say we were in the area, would he fancy meeting up? Consequently, we met the Routemeister at the Bricklayers.  Here, from the 12 ales available, we tried two of them, the Aylesbury Pure Gold (3.8%), a pale golden session bitter, pretty good, and the stronger Vale Brewery Gravitas (4.8%), a 'fresh' pale bitter, dry and bitter, but without as much flavour as I'd expected for its strength. Anyway, Mark found this to be his favourite of the pubs, indeed, he's since repeated a couple of times how much he liked it, so that's a "nice one" to the Bricklayers!  

We caught the 337 bus from Putney to Clapham Junction, where we were catching our train back to Hastings, and had a final London drink of the day at the Falcon, on the corner of St Johns Hill and Falcon Road, a Victorian Nicholsons pub, carefully preserved, with 20 or so ales, and the longest continuous bar in the country, so say the Guinness Book of Records. The Pubmeister was impressed by the building and its interior too, and we tried 2 of their ales. Both were pretty interesting, Itchen Valley Belgarum (3.9%) was described on the pump clip as having a "twist of honey & elderflower" flavour; I didn't really pick up the elderflower, yep, it was pale and hoppy, and a bit sweet, not bad, but... The second beer was Box Valley Brewery Funnel Blower (4.5%) a "dark vanilla porter", though I picked up a chocolate malt flavour rather than vanilla, the aroma being more vanilla; very nice too! 

So we caught the train back to Hastings, and managed to get back to Mark's pub, the Dolphin at Rock a Nore, in time to catch a bit of the 'Irish' music and I drank the Dark Star Red Shift (5.5%), which I've already reported about, ie it has a dark ruby colour with a blackcurrant aroma, plenty of body, very nice. The Pubmeister had a half of the Salopian Oracle (4%), another nice pale, dry and bitter ale. So we ended the day still drinking excellent ale... 

Though my day wasn't quite over as I decided to walk along the beach back to my flat, it was a lovely clear sky, and I wanted to see if I could spot any meteorites, as the previous night had been widely reported that many sightings of 'shooting stars' or whatever, I'm not sure of the physics, had been made. This was coming close to midnight now, and there were quite a number of fishing boats out to sea, I could see their lights. I may have seen a meteorite or two, I certainly made out a bit of activity in the sky, but my most interesting find was 2 badgers foraging in a bin near the beach (I forgot to change my mobile phone camera to 'night' so was unable to capture a photograph). Anyway, I hadn't seen a live badger since I lived in Devon a few years ago, and now 2 turn up at once... 

That's it for now, cheers!

Monday 11th February, up the Junction and on to West London

So, back to London, via Clapham Junction, a bit dark and dismal, with a little snow too, however… My original plan was to be accompanied, but, sadly, alone again, consequently, rather than go straight through to Victoria, I decided to walk to Hammersmith from the Junction, via Battersea High Street, The Thames Path, and Parsons Green, first stopping at the Candlemakers in Battersea High Street.  My having gone to school in Battersea High Street, and now living on the coast of East Sussex, a pub in that road, that is linked to a Brighton brewpub, well, it had to be a stop for me, yet again, and, yet again, Freddie was working there, good to see a friendly face. 

5 handpumps on the bar, usually serving 4 real ales and a real cider, which on Monday yielded their regular ale, from their own brewery, The Laine Brewery Laine’s Best, a 4% bitter described before here. Also, 3 guest ales, Sambrook’s Pumphouse Pale Ale, a 4.2%, slightly sweet ale with a bitter aftertaste, and 2 from Dark Star, the excellent Hophead (3.8%), so often mentioned here, and, as only very recently mentioned on this blog, their excellent 3.5% The Art of Darkness, which, despite being near the end of the firkin, was still fresh, easy drinking, though maybe a touch more bitter than my last pint of it, very nice, thank you.

Next, I wandered along the Thames, over Wandsworth Bridge, past an old flame’s home to the White Horse at Parsons Green, and served by the enthusiastic and very friendly Australian barmaid, Brook.  They had 8 ales on, as usual, including their regular, Harveys Sussex Best (4%), and… Milk Street Mermaid, a 3.8% “malty nut brown beer” and Zig Zag, a 4.5% “dark chocolaty stout”; Adnams Broadside (4.7%); Moorhouses Black Cat (3.4%), a very well known dark mild; Windsor & Eton Conqueror, a 5% “black IPA”; the always excellent Oakham JHB, 3.8%, pale and hoppy, another favourite bitter of mine; and Hopfuzz Veteran, a 4.2% very pale and refreshing ale. Oh yes, and they also have about 30 Belgian beers, and a good number of ‘craft’ beers on keg too…

Then? Well along to the Dove, another favourite pub of mine (NB the close proximity to William Morris’s 19^th century home) which nestles by the Thames, just to the west of Hammersmith Bridge on the north side of the river. Served by Lisa, who has been here for well over a year, though I seem to have missed her on my more recent visits, and I had a good chat to Matt, the manager here, the lucky lad having the opportunity to live above the pub!

So, a Fullers pub of great history and reputation, serving, ahem, Gales Seafarers, Fullers London Pride, Honeydew, and a new Fullers ale for me, the 4.2% Black Cab Stout.  I was very disappointed I had missed their London Porter, only recently available here, and probably my favourite regular porter, but the Black Cab was a very nice drinkable new beer for me, dark and quite light to drink, so not too disappointed! Oh yes, a Guinness Book of Records noted “smallest bar”, by the way, see above.

 

From here, it was a walk up to Stamford Brook station, and the Raven, which had 6 ales on, that regularly change, but usually from a short list of brewers. Monday, there was Sambrook’s Wandle and Junction, Marstons EPA and Pedigree, and Ringwood Best Bitter and Fortyniner, all in good form.  I also found out the Pope was resigning at the end of the month, whilst drinking here (it was on the tv), I thought it was a first, but my brother has since assured me it isn’t (pope to resign).

 

Before leaving West London for Putney, I had to drop into the Bree Louise’s sister pub, at the Stamford Brook end of Goldhawk Road, the Duchess of Cornwall, where they gladly offer a 50p a pint discount to us CAMRA members, nice one, thank you muchly! I also met up with Simon, the landlord, again, and had a great first chat to the landlady too, Ruth, who has plans, though not yet fixed, to start brewing on the premises herself, which has to be looked forward to.   

 

As mentioned before, there are 6 handpumps and the potential for 9 ales straight from the cask, though, being a Monday and early in the week, just the 5 gravity fed beers available, plus those delivered from handpumps. There were a number of rugby union inspired beers, including Milestone Luck of the Irish (4.8%) and Scotland the Brave (4.1%), but I settled for a pint of Plain Ales, a brewery I’d first experienced beer from at the Bricklayers in Putney, Arty Farty Firkin, a good 3.9% pale hoppy bitter.  As usual, I look forward to returning to these pubs in West London very soon…

 

However, I then finished drinking at the Bricklayers in Putney, and this day’s and last Thursday’s visits there, will have a blog all of their own, very shortly… cheers!

23rd October - SW6 and W6

Two blogs about Tuesday, one covering Parsons Green and Hammersmith (this one), and one to come to cover Stamford Brook and Turnham Green (tube station), ie W6 and W4. I'm starting at The White Horse on Parsons Green for this blog, a pub with good memories, particularly when I popped in before visiting my mum (RIP) many years ago. At that time, they regularly had Traquair House Ale (7%) served as a cask ale, not an easy ale to find as it's usually only available in bottles and still available in bottle here. Anyway, the gentleman behind the bar at the time said "Sorry, it's not on yet, but, if you don't mind, I can bring it up from the cellar", I snapped his hands off! I'm always happy to have ale straight from the cask, and it was absolutely gorgeous, so I had 2 pints; this pub has always been one I like to visit, sadly, not often enough!

Good lad behind the bar today too, very interested in his ales, and good chat. Can I get away from it though?!? Sussex Best was here! Anyway, a number of other ales too, 6 in all, including one of my old favourites, Oakham JHB (3.8%), and they'd just had Dark Star Smoked Porter (5.4%) on too. The White Horse is having an Old Ale festival on 23-25 November for those lucky enough to be in the area, with the restaurant being converted into a 'festival' hall bearing over 60 ales! See the website for more information.

 

2 excellent Fullers pubs in Hammersmith, as you'll be aware of by now, down by the river, The Dove, with the usual London Pride and ESB on, plus Gales Seafarers, which appears to be regular here now rather than Chiswick Bitter, and one of my favourite Fullers' ales, the 5% Bengal Lancer, excellent! Great service from Blake behind the bar, I just escaped as a coachload arrived (well, it seemed like it, though you'd never get a coach down here), met the manager, Matt, very briefly too, and Blake suggested a pub I'd never been to before in Goldhawk Road to visit, The Raven, cheers for the specific info Blake.

I then went on to Stamford Brook, more in my next blog, but towards the end of the day, also visited The Salutation, Kings Street, Hammersmith, my second favourite Fullers pub, and both in Hammersmith! The above photograph is of the entrance hall, it's certainly a building with interesting architecture, and particularly wonderful tiling outside and here.

 

Sadly, Amy has moved on, and is now managing elsewhere, good luck to her, I'll miss her! The manager is now Mary-Francis or Fiona, I believe, but the manager wasn't around today, not sure about my notes, but I think the other name is of the person who is now her deputy! Anyway, ESB, London Pride, and the crackin' Bengal Lancer on here, and, yes, I drank the Bengal Lancer, have to take advantage whilst it's in season, cheers!