Ramblings In Brighton - The Evening Star

There can't be many pub or beer lovers in the country who haven't heard of The Evening Star near Brighton Railway Station. It is the only other pub I went to in Brighton. I wish I'd gone more often but it was a good walk from the hotel.

Back in the 1990s it was one of the pioneering real ale pubs selling rare beers from the length and breadth of the isles. Drinkers flocked there from all over in search of their ticks and scoops.

Then Dark Star Brewery and its offshoot Skinners went into production in the cellar, and guest beers were less prominent. Having said that though Dark Star and Skinners produced loads of different ales to keep the scooper satisfied. Skinners fell by the way side and Dark Star relocated, and their beer range diminshed but the pub still carried on as a beer lovers haven, still in the Dark Star estate.

Nowadays there are six or seven real ales available (about half from Dark Star), a couple of real ciders, a couple of keg Dark Star beers, a few foreign draught beers and a selection of around 50 bottled beers from Germany, Belgium and the US. All the beers are carefully chosen with definitely no crap.

To my mind as a foreign beer lover, the beer range now is better than it's ever been. Of those foreign draught beers two from USA were available when I visited last week: Sierra Nevada Bigfoot and Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA. I have never seen either of these beers available on draught in the UK before and suspect if they have been it has only been in The Rake.

It's testament to the excellent beer range that the pub always seems busy. The clientele is reasonably diverse but one thing they all seem to have on common is the love of a good pub and good beer. If you're reading this in the UK, the chances are you've visited the pub before. If you haven't been then what are you waiting for?

Northampton BF - Final Beer List

All the beers are stillaged and ready to roll for Thursday's big kick off at the Northampton Beer Festival. I've updated the beer list which is now final. It can be found at the previous post.

Ramblings In Brighton - The Hand In Hand

The Hand In Hand was my local whilst in Brighton, being just 200 yards or so from my hotel. For that reason it was the pub I visited the most and the pub I watched The Champions League Final in.

There is no doubt that the pub has some interesting clientele. I first visited the pub in the 1990s and shared the window seat with two old toothless soaks who seemed like a regular fixture. I've not seen them since; they are probably in boozy heaven, but there is still the odd fascinating character to make people-watching fun.

Before writing this, I had a read of Beer In The Evening to read their comments. A lot of those are negative, but I have always enjoyed myself and have only once had a dodgy pint. This week there was two of their own Kemptown Beers: Kemptown Bitter and Ye Olde Trout, together with two from Dark Star: Hophead and Festival, and Cains IPA, which was a long way from home compared to its companions on offer. There are a dozen or so foreign beers including draught Bacchus Kriek and Hacker-Pschorr beers from Germany.

I stuck mostly to the sublime Hophead although I did have a couple of pints of Kemptown Bitter as well for old times sake. Between our group all five beers were tried, and there were no complaints

You wouldn't know it if you'd never been before but the pub has actually been spruced up over the last few years, with the smoking ban making a vast difference. It used to be very dingy, now it's only pretty dingy! The picture at the top shows it being yellow; I'm not sure it still is, but not taking my camera doesn't help.

This is a really good pub well worth the twenty minute walk from the railway station. Like a lot of Brighton pubs it is small (it claims to be the smallest in the city), and is all the better for its intimate size. The pub has been for sale and still may be, I am lead to believe, so changes may occur in the future. It would be a shame if the pub were to change very much.

Ramblings In Brighton - Night One

I didn't get to nearly as many pubs as I'd planned during my five nights in Brighton. It's not easy when you're in a group who, in spite of being beer drinkers, are also reticent to walk very far for their imbibing. Fortunately we stayed within 200 yards of one of Brighton's better pubs so I was happy to spend a great deal of time in there.

Arriving first on Sunday with one travelling companion my priority was to get a few pubs in before meeting up with the others when they arrived. We headed therefore for the North Laines for a wander.

The first pub we nipped in was The Heart & Hand as pictured yesterday. This is obviously attractive from the outside, and quite interesting on the inside. One roomed and furnished with a rare vinyl jukebox, it's a little bit of a throwback to another era. The pint of Harveys Sussex Best was in great nick.

From there it was to The Great Eastern, entering by one of the narrowest front doors I've ever been through, this pub was long and narrow and the chap next to me's roast lamb smelled nice. My pint of Pilgrim Porter was really good.

Onwards to The Lord Nelson. This looks like a small pub from the outside but goes back pretty far. The real draw to this pub is excellent Harveys ales. I had a pint each of Knots Of May, a 3.0% light mild, and Olympia Golden Ale. Harveys brew some great stuff, and although these are not perhaps up to their highest standards, I still enjoyed these two.

We then sadly had to leave the laines fo the town centre. Two more pubs were visited: The Bright Helm, one of the worse JDW's known to man. Eight pump clips welcomed the customer, but only one of them was on. "Our area manager tells us to keep the clips showing", I was told. My statement that Tim Martin says otherwise was met with a blank face. I was in no mood to change the look on his face but wish I had.

We moved over to the very busy Fiddlers Elbow for more Harveys Sussex Best in the company of our now arrived colleagues. The beer again was in great form. Bed beckoned after this pub, but in night one I had visited five pubs. All the beers I had were lovely, and rarely found in my neck of the woods which is a nice treat.

I was only to visit two more pubs all week. I'll write about them both tomorrow.

Northampton Beer Festival 2008

The Northampton Beer Festival runs from this Thursday at 5pm and is then open all day in Friday and Saturday. It is at Delapre Abbey and my report of last year's festival can be seen here. I'm working the day sessions so cannot sure how many of the list of beers below I shall get to try. The list is looking pretty good.

Abbeydale Moonshine
Abbeydale Absolution
Alehouse Commercial Mild
Alehouse Smokey Joe
Alehouse Rauchbier
Anglo Dutch At t'Ghoul & Ghost
Atomic Fission
Bartrams Suffolk N Strong
Bartrams Premier
Beowulf Beorma
Beowulf Spring Tide
Beowulf Dark Raven
Beowulf Dragonsmoke stout
Beowulf Finshalls Porter
Beowulf Chiller
Beowulf Mercian Shine
Black Country Pig on the Wall
Black Country Bradleys Finest Golden
Blythe Chase Bitter
Blythe Ridware Pale
Blythe Staffie
Blythe Palmers Poison
Blythe Johnsons
Brewsters Hophead
Brewsters Marquis
Brewsters Cheval Mort
Brewsters Daffy's Elixir
Brewsters Hop a Doodle Doo
Brewsters Bathsheba
Bridestones Pennine Best
Bridestones Pennine Gold
Bridestones Sandstone
Bridestones S Special
Buntingford 92 Squadron
Buntingford Golden Plover
Buntingford Pargeter Dark Mild
Buntingford Oliver Cromwell
Buntingford Knight Templar
Crouch Vale Anchor Street Porter
Crouch Vale First Gold
Crouch Vale Brewers Gold
Crouch Vale Essex Boys Bitter
Digfield Fools Nook
Digfield March Hare
Digfield Barnwell Bitter
Digfield Shacklebush
Digfield Mad Monk
Digfield Dumpy's Special
Eastwood Stirling
Eastwood Best Bitter
Eastwood Gold Award
Eastwood Black Prince
Elgoods Double Swan
Elgoods Cambridge Bitter
Elgoods Black Dog Mild
Elland Born to be mild
Elland Eden
Elland Nettlethrasher
Elland 1872 Porter
Empire Entente Cordial
Empire Shrikes Back
Empire Crusader
Empire Drystone
Fenland Rabbit Poacher
Fenland Sparkling Wit
Fenland Raspberry Stout
Frog Island Best
Frog Island Shoemaker
Frog Island Natterjack
Frog Island Fire Bellied Toad
Frog Island Croak & Stagger
Funfair Meteorite
Great Oakley Welland Valley Mild
Great Oakley Wot's Occurring
Great Oakley Wagtail
Great Oakley Harpers
Great Oakley Gobble
Great Oakley Delapre Dark
Great Oakley Tailshaker
Great Oakley Festival Special
Hambleton Stud
Hambleton Nightmare
Hambleton Stallion
Harwich Town Mayflower
Headless Owd Reg
Highwood Shepherd Delight
Highwood Harvest
Highwood Old Timber
Hoggleys Phipps Triple X
Hoggleys Northamptonshire Bitter
Hoggleys Kislingbury Bitter
Hoggleys Mill Lane Mild
Hoggleys Resevoir Hogs
Hoggleys Pump Fiction
Hoggleys Solstice Stout
Hoggleys Mick's
Hoggleys What Knees
Hopshackle Shacklers Best
Hopshackle Shacklers Gold
Hopshackle Momentum
Iceni Crocus
Iceni Woolly Mammoth
Iceni Roison Dubh
Iceni Ported Porter
Iceni It's a Grand Day
Idle Idle Landlord
Idle Idle Chef
Idle Idle Sod
Idle Idle Dog
Idle Idle Cricketer
Idle Idle Boggin
J.Church Parsons Nose
Little Valley Sixpence
Little Valley Mild
Little Valley Tods Blonde
Little Valley Hebdens Wheat
Magpie Dark Secret Mild
Magpie Full Flight
Magpie Fledgling
Magpie Thieving Rogue
Maypole Maybee
Maypole Gatehopper
Milestone Rich Ruby
Milestone Somers Wheat
Milton Icarus
Milton Jupiter
Milton Sparta
Milton Cyclops
Naylors Pinnacle Mild
Naylors Pinnacle Porter
Naylors Old Ale
Naylors Special Brown Ale
Naylors Blonde
Naylors Pale
Nethergate Three Point Nine
Nethergate Augustinian
Nethergate Mary's Ruby Mild
Newby Wyke Summer Session
Newby Wyke Kingston Topaz
Newby Wyke Slingshot
Newby Wyke Puffin
Newby Wyke Marie Celeste
Nobbys Wet Spell
Nobbys Claridges Crystal
Nobbys Wild West Ale
Nobbys Best
Oakham JHB
Oakham White Dwarf
Oakham Bishops Farewell
Oakham Inferno
Oakham Haka
Oakham Mompessons Gold
Oldershaws Pearl
Oldershaws Mowbrays Mash
Oldershaws Old Boy
Oldershaws Decadense
Poachers Shy Talk
Potbelly Best
Potbelly Aisling
Potbelly Ambrosia
Potbelly Pigs do Fly
Potbelly Beijing Black
Potbelly Inner Daze
Potbelly Crazy Daze
RCH Steam Pole
RCH Pitch Fork
RCH East St.Cream
RCH Double Header
Red Squirrel Prohibition
Red Squirrel Dark Ruby Mild
Rockingham Forest Gold
Rockingham Dark Forest
Saltaire Cascade
Saltaire Million Ale
Saltaire Dark Mild
Saltaire Blonde
Shardlow Locking Down
Spire Chesterfield best
Spire Sovereign IPA
Tring Side Pocket for a Toad
Tring Jack O'Legs
Tring Tea Kettle Stout
Vale Black Swan Mild
Vale Black Beauty Porter
Vale Grumpling Old Ale
Vale Gravitas
Vale Special
Vale Spring Gold
Warwickshire Lady Godiva
Warwickshire Falstaff
Warwickshire Golden Bear
Warwickshire Kingmaker
Weatheroak Ale
Weatheroak May Day, May Day
Weatheroak Keystone Hops
White Horse Bitter
Wolf Prairy Gold
Wolf Straw Dog
Wolf Wolf Ale
Wolf Wolf in Sheeps Clothing
Wolf Granny Wouldn't like it
Wolf Coyote
York Yorkshire Terrier

Defunct Livery In Brighton

One of the things which sets me apart from pretty much all of the other British beer bloggers is my camera skills. Those skills can be broken down into two components:

Skill number one - the ability to take my camera anywhere with me.

Skill number two - the ability to take a decent picture even if I remember my camera.

Whilst out and about in Brighton last week, I saw three great examples of defunct livery on the front of pubs. First was The Kemptown Brewery (not the one still in existace) outside The Bulldog on St James Street. A distinctly drabby looking pub which I didn't venture into.

Second was the beautiful green tiled frontage of The Heart & Hand in North Road in the North Laines advertizing United Ales and Stouts which was actually The Portsmouth & Brighton United Breweries Ltd. I did go in to this quaint characterful pub and had a lovely pint of Harveys Sussex Best, which almost matched the tiles.

Third was the old Tamplins pub, The Victory in Duke Street. I've been in here before - it's crap, so didn't venture in this time.

There are plenty of other examples in Brighton, as can be seen here. They are all for another time. The photographs aren't mine, but borrowed from the aforementioned site.

Champions!

Watching United win The Champions League is sweet.

Watching United win The Champions League with six pints of Dark Star Hophead is very sweet.

Having fun in Brighton, but no time to blog properly. Normal service should resume at the weekend.

Off To Brighton

I'm off to Brighton in a couple of hours and won't be back until Friday evening. I may or may not post to the blog, apparently Brighton is the sixth most covered town in Europe for free wi-fi access.

I'm looking forward to going to The Evening Star where I haven't been for a couple of years, and I intend a quick trip to Shoreham where there are a couple of GBG pubs that look worthy of a visit. I shall also have a pint of two of Harveys Armada, one of my favourite cask beers,

See you all soon.

A Little Bit Of Bamberg In England

One of my readers, Hughie, lives in Bedford, which is just over 20 miles from where I live, but, I must admit, is a place I rarely visit. As of yesterday, though, I'm quite jealous of Hughie because I found out that Bedford's twin town is Bamberg, possibly the finest beer town in the World.

I don't think various rauchbiers are available in your average corner shop in town, but the spring festival certainly appears to be an occasion where the beer flows freely if the pictures in the article are anything to go by.

I'm not sure why Bedford is the chosen twin town of our beer loving cousins from Germany. I would imagine Bamberg should be able to do much, much better than choose the home of Charles Wells. Burton-on-Trent would surely have been a better choice.

Actually in a delicious twist of irony I read that one of Burton's twin towns is called Rochefort, but is no relation to the Belgian monastery. It's a funny Old World.

What Do They Drink In Bury St Edmunds?

I had to laugh on Monday night, whilst watching The One Show. The reporter went to Bury St Edmunds, primarily to visit England's smallest pub The Nutshell, which I have blogged about before.

First though they went to everybody's favourite brewery Greene King to show what modern Bury is famous for. Then we saw all the various pub signs in town with the Greene King name (note though, that these were not the new style GK signs with just the brewery logo), then we went to chat to The Nutshell's landlord and get out our tape measure to prove its diminuitiveness.

Finally we chat to two regulars who proclaim their love for the pub and the various characters who pass through its doors in the name of tourism. A closer look though reveals that these regulars are not drinking the local ale, but Guinness!

So after a few minutes of wonderful advertizing for GK, we are left with the two customers who won't touch the stuff. What does that say I wonder?

My First CAMRA Meeting

I didn't get to write a post last night to celebrate my first birthday, because I went to my first ever CAMRA meeting!!

The meeting was partly a planning meeting for the Northampton Beer Festival in a couple of weeks time, which I am not only working at, but helping to compile the tasting notes for the programme.

I was lucky in that the meeting was held walking distance from my house, in my village, at the Wootton Working Men's Club. The club presented with the Branch Club of The Year award on the night. It is rare that a WMC has six real ales on, and the beer quality is certainly very good.

I enjoyed the meeting a lot, and met some nice people who are very keen on their real ale.

The meeting was chaired by the Great Oakley brewer whose Wagtail was in sensational form, so much so I had three pints of it, which hasn't happened with any beer for a very long time. It's a beer he should be very proud of.

I'm looking forward to working at the festival for the first time, even though I'm promised it's going to be bloody hard work!

I'll be putting updates on the plans for the festival here as I get them.

My One Year Anniversary

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of starting my blog. I was too busy to do a post in celebration (more on that later), but I'd like to now thank everyone for reading my little part of the internet.

It's pretty amazing that I've stuck such a project out for a year already; normally my will power means I stick with something for a very short period before getting fed up and ceasing. I think it's testiment to you guys though and your interesting comments that allow me to enjoy doing this as much as I do.

There's a fair few British beer blogs now, all of which I read and enjoy. I think we all write with diferent styles but there's definitely a place for that.

Hopefully I'll still be around in twelve months time for my two year anniversary.

Cheers to you all.

Dog Beer In The UK

Apparently if your dog watches you drinking beer (s)he will want to too. I know animals like to copy but I'm not sure they're particularly bothered what they are drinking as long as they've got something to wet their whistle.

In spite of this, the Dutch introduced Kwispelbier last year, which is designed as a beer for dogs. Now though, that very same beer is available in Pets At Home stores in the UK. Imaginatively renamed (or should that be rebadged) as Dog Beer, this dealcoholized beer can be bought for £1.99 for a 330 ml bottle.

I haven't got a dog, but if I did I'd give him real beer if he really wanted it rather than this effort. Actually, I'd be more inclined to try it myself; well it's another tick!

The Best Food Pubs In The UK

Eat Out Magazine has compiled a list of the 100 best food pubs in the UK. Using evidence from its readers as well as the media they have come up with The Olive Branch in Rutland as its number one pub.

It's nice to see that as well as good food, the pub takes a positive attitude where its beer is concerned, favouring local brewers.

As the crow flies it's one of the nearest pubs on the list to my home, although I've never been. I'm not at all surprised that no Northamptonshire pubs appear on the list.

Reading Beer Festival - Huge Queues

I didn't get to the Reading Beer Festival this year. Actually I didn't go last year either, but I did go in 2006 and was very impressed with the vast range of beers, both British and foreign, and what is probably the largest range of ciders outside GBBF.

I read today that 14700 visitors drank more than 55000 pints of beer and 10000 pints of cider. That's an impressive statistic, and it's obvious Reading festival really does draw in the crowds.

I have heard from friend though that they queued for more than two hours, and in one case I've heard three and a half just to get in. That can't be much fun! Beer festivals really can be ridiculously popular, but I harp back to a previous article I wrote. I much prefer going to the day sessions. It's very rare you need to queue to get in during the day.

Beer Of The Month - April 2008

Sixty six new beers for me in April. Around half of these were at two festivals whilst most of the others were in various pubs. I drank very little at home during the month for some reason.

To be honest, quality wise it was a below average month. Only two beers from the bottle are worthy of particular mention. I had an unseasonal bottle of Corsendonk Christmas at the beginning of the month. This is one of those rare beers that actually deserves to have the word 'Christmas' in it, being nicely spiced. Good brown fruits also. This was bettered by the bottle of Mikkeller Santa's Little Helper which Phil smuggled into Coventry Beer Festival. Phil stated this was a couple of years old, and that bit of age and maturity could be tasted. This is a 10% beer from Denmark brewed in the Belgian style, and has some very rewarding malty and yeasty flavours. It is a deserving winner of bottle beer of the month.

From the cask, I enjoyed Oakham Quint whilst on a stroll around Leicester. Oakham never fail to impress, and later in the month I enjoyed No Bully Dozer also. Both beers are hoppy as expected. Coventry BF provided the four other really nice cask beers of the month. Two porters in Fullers London Porter, and Bazens Knoll Street Porter; a hoppy Alehouse Sauvin So Good, and Dark Star Over The Moon Mild, all vie for top spot, but it's the Fullers which gets it.

As stated it's the first time I've tried it in years, and it's almost as good as I remember. A complex fruity, roasty, smoky porter with some chocolate and caramel edges. It just goes to show that Fullers can brew some great stuff when they put their mind to it. This wins not only cask beer of the month, but the overall prize too.

The Session #15 - How It All Started

November 1992, I get a phone call from my parents asking if I fancy a few days in the Lake District between Christmas and New Year. That sounds like a nice idea; let's go for it says I.

I'd never really been bothered about beer before. Sure I drank it, and 'bitter' was my choice over lager, but I wasn't that concerned about the nuances of the drink. I knew I enjoyed Wells Bombardier, Marstons Pedigree (believe me, it was nice in the early 90's) and I'd had some lovely Boddingtons in a pub near Manchester once, but ask me to name a few other good beers and I honestly couldn't.

So the trip to The Lake District ensued, and, for some reason I cannot remember, we visited The Masons Arms in Strawberry Bank. A remote pub, but famed the nation over. A quick look at the bar revealed a few real ales and books on the tables showed that the pub had a pretty good range of foreign bottled beers. I don't think we were aware before we got there, but the pub brewed its own beers back then, but one beer, or to be precise its name and pumpclip, just said 'drink me'.

That year Mauldons Black Adder had won Champion Beer Of Britain; an award I'd not even heard of. The pumpclip proudly advertized this award, and added to the fact that Blackadder sounded like a pretty cool name (the television programme hadn't started yet), we had to order some. It was delicious. A roasty full bodied dark stout. It seemed very complex and so flavoursome. This was probably the best beer I'd ever had the joy of tasting.

It was wonderful. But, it would have been rude not to try the home brewed stuff, so we then had some Amazon Bitter. To be honest after the Black Adder, this was really bland. From memory it was just an ordinary bitter with sessionable qualities, but it couldn't stand up to the stout we'd just had.

So a third beer was called for, and especially for the season, the pub had their homebrewed Damson Beer on. Now this sounded both wierd and exciting. I didn't know about fruit in beers, and I don't even think I'd ever eaten a damson in my life. The beer itself was a potent 9%, and quite strange to my tastebuds, it was pretty sour, and I'm not sure I liked it.

But I'd tried three beers, all very different. I'd been shown in one lunchtime session what a versatile and exciting drink beer is, and I wanted more.

We had a few more beers that holiday, mostly from Northern breweries, and although nothing matched the beauty of that Black Adder, I enjoyed each and every one. A hobby was born, and thousands of different beers later, I'm still discovering new things.

That's how it started for me. Mum and Dad - it's all your fault!!!

Mild In May

Today marks the start of CAMRA's annual mild month. During this month pubs make an extra effort to put more milds through their pumps, and events are held to celebrate this much underrated drink.

I'm a big fan of mild and am lucky to have two of the very best brewed on my doorstep: Potbelly Beijing Black, and Great Oakley Welland Valley Mild. There will, no doubt, be an abundance of these two beers in my local decent freehouses. I would prefer it however if a changing mild was a permanent sign at better pubs. The volumes drank during May suggest that it's an admired style, and the (usually) low alcohol content makes it an ideal beer for a session.

I'm not sure who is to blame for the relative scarcity of mild during the other eleven months of the year. Is it the consumer who would rather drink other types of ale; the publican who is nervous whether it's salable; or the brewer who doesn't produce enough of it.

I think that the current fashion of calling mild by another name as Lees have done with their Brewers Dark, and Everards have done with their latest beer is probably going to see an upturn in sales.

It's a real shame though that brewers feel that they have to do this. I prefer to call a spade a spade.

I've not been to a pub today but I'll try to keep an eye out for milds during the month, and let you know the best I sample in early June.