Yorkshire Beer Festival

The Bricklayer's Arms in Putney does some fantastic beer festivals and this wasn't any different apart from the weather being some what chilly.... Well ok, freezing! The beer kept in the outside tent was chilled almost to the point of Wetherspoons beer which is impressive as it was all natural but did mean you had to warm your beer up before drinking it.

 

We arrived ahead of our friends so could nab a table for all of us with ease, the pub was surprisingly empty at 1pm but then we passed a lot of football fans heading towards Fulham's grounds so this could be a reason as the pub soon filled up after 2pm as if folk were avoiding the fans before heading here.

First beer for me was Acorn Brewery's impressive Old Moor Porter, not a new beer to me but a favourite and I can't resist having a quick half of this before I started on the new beers. It didn't disappoint either cold or warmed up and set me up for my next half which was Ebony Stout from the Wood Street Brewery. This is a new brewery and this stout was one of the stronger beers on at 5%, nice liquorice finish to it.

Junga from Acorn was next and to be honest they should have called it Paddington as it was extremely marmaladely but a rather pleasant beer, now the marmalade flavour was there in another beer called Golden Lion from Bob's. Both good beers but really reminded me of Fullers and this is no bad thing.

Next up for me was Idle's Black Abbot which was a huge roasty beer with a fantastic aftertaste and continuing the dark beer theme one of our table got Sportsman's Pidgeon Bridge Porter which was a lovely chocolately beer, so nice I ended up getting this one next too. Old Mill's Porter was a nice Bertie Bassett of a pint and I will be looking out for this one again.

Beers that didn't work for me were Cap House's Fox Hunter, which to be honest smelt like wet dog and tasted how I imagine that smell would taste. And the other was Concertina's Bengal Tiger which was soapy and seemed like a pint that had white wine spilt in it. Neither were good for me but this is the first time I have tried these breweries and with none of their other beers were here so I will keep an eye out to try some of the others.

All in all it was a great little festival, although we were extremely grateful to be sitting inside! The poor staff looked frozen if cheerful though.