Despite having the reminder of a cold, I headed up to this festival with some friends for a good afternoon of beer drinking, comparing and chattering. The beer was reduced by the Saturday but not as much as the March festival where I am sure they were caught out by how successful the beer festival had become by word of mouth.
This is a great venue for a festival although I wish they would clear the restaurant area and allow folks up there earlier rather than confining folks to the bar and garden. However this is only a small niggle, as the festival is always friendly and charming with great people working behind the bar.
Ascots’ Anastasia Stout was a real highlight for me, probably my beer of the festival. Thick syrupy style of stout that coated the mouth in it’s gloriousness of taste. So good we ended up getting it again later on in the afternoon. Ascots’ Double Trouble was a good example of a Belgium style beer but it was too flat, it needed the fizzy bubbles of a Belgium beer to lift it in my opinion. However the Penguin Porter was termed as a hug in a glass by our table, warm and comforting. It would be perfect for a cold winter’s day to curl up beside the fireplace with.
Blindmans Brewery did extremely well at our table; their beers were all consistently good. Eclipse being my favourite with its Green & Black’s chocolate style top notes, Icarus was a good second and Siberia coming last even though we all enjoyed the beer it just wasn’t as good as its stable mates.
Moorhouse had a very good showing at the festival too; Black Cat is still the best mild in the world for me despite good competition from Sarah Hughes. I know that definitely one of our group will not agree with me on that one but that’s the great thing about beer you can disagree but still enjoy the beer.
All in all we had a great time at the festival, lots of new beers tried and enjoyed. A few beers we couldn’t get, but are available as bottles for us to track down, an idea was mooted for our own beer festival which if it happens could be an interesting time. I just wish my cold hadn’t removed a vast amount of my sense of smell which impaired my sense of taste for the festival. We were going to head to Putney the following day for the Cider Festival at the Bricklayers but the Saturday night was a bad one with the revenge of the recurring cold so we had to give it a miss but maybe next time.
The glass was a nice addition to my growing collection, although one question: Is it a ‘northern’ style glass? As the gap between the one pint line and top of the glass is over half an inch which I feel, would allow for a larger fluffier head than I’m used to in a pub.
Showing posts with label Festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Festival. Show all posts
Monday, 1 November 2010
Monday, 27 September 2010
York Beer & Cider Festival 2010
Meant to post about this last week but with one thing and another it didn’t happen. If you think when you get married that ends all the time consuming stuff of marriage, forget it. It doesn’t.
Anyway when we were in York on our mini-moon we had the luck to see a local Camra magazine in one of the pubs which was advertising this lovely event. Normally we only get to go to beer festivals on the weekend when a lot of the more unusual beers have gone but this time we were able to attend the first day which was great. Even better as we weren’t Camra members we were first of the first in, as for this event they split the queue into members and non-members, at opening time we were one couple of four in that line and the Camra queue was a lot longer.
The event has encouraged me and Mr Meer to be joining Camra, it was quite possibly the best event I have ever been too. Well run and organised with lots of friendly staff behind the bar. In a way a lot of the choosing had been decided for the both of us as we concentrated on breweries that we don’t see in London with only a couple of exceptions. Breweries such as Bird Brain, Brown Cow, Old Mill and Hambleton are all based various parts of Yorkshire but all new to me.
Old Mill’s Yorkshire Porter was a lovely example of a dessert beer, sweet and dry perfect to go with a cheese board. Brown Cow’s Thriller in Vanilla was a good working vanilla stout, unlike Artisen’s ibeer which we tried in Battersea. The chocolatey Thriller stout was brought out by the sweet vanilla which makes it an enjoyable half, not sure I would drink a full pint but as a half very nice. Hambleton Brewery’s Nightmare was also a delight, dry hoppy first taste but tempered by the coffee roasted flavour that comes though. All in all we tried some fantastic beers which don’t make it down here that often. We didn’t have any of the Yorkshire Breweries beers at the festival but then we were drinking them all week in pubs.
Of course the good thing about festivals is the fact you can try beers for a very reasonable third pint that are normally quite expensive and with this in mind the strongest beer I had was Brewdog’s Paradox Smokehead at 10%. Normally I just don’t get their beers, buy a bottle try it and usually half goes down the sink but this was a beer I really enjoyed. Oily thick texture with an intense whisky stout taste, beautiful. However my partner did buy me a bottle of this as a present at the end of the mini-moon which I found wasn’t as nice as the cask. Perhaps it’s the bottling that affects the taste, I don’t know. It means I will just have to keep a look out for it in a pub or another festival for another try.
They even had entertainment in the form of Balloon Platoon, (http://www.balloonwiz.co.uk/) this guy was brilliant. Many a glass ended up with a balloon bug attached to it much to the amusement of the bar staff and I ended up with a balloon wand which was very swish and proving I probably do have a child’s mental age sometimes. But what a great way to provide off the cuff entertainment! Fantastic.
The plastic glasses due to licensing laws in York was good for us too as we had to transport the glasses back to London later that week.
Great festival, great people. If you find yourself in York when this is on again I would go, it will be a great day.
Anyway when we were in York on our mini-moon we had the luck to see a local Camra magazine in one of the pubs which was advertising this lovely event. Normally we only get to go to beer festivals on the weekend when a lot of the more unusual beers have gone but this time we were able to attend the first day which was great. Even better as we weren’t Camra members we were first of the first in, as for this event they split the queue into members and non-members, at opening time we were one couple of four in that line and the Camra queue was a lot longer.
The event has encouraged me and Mr Meer to be joining Camra, it was quite possibly the best event I have ever been too. Well run and organised with lots of friendly staff behind the bar. In a way a lot of the choosing had been decided for the both of us as we concentrated on breweries that we don’t see in London with only a couple of exceptions. Breweries such as Bird Brain, Brown Cow, Old Mill and Hambleton are all based various parts of Yorkshire but all new to me.
Old Mill’s Yorkshire Porter was a lovely example of a dessert beer, sweet and dry perfect to go with a cheese board. Brown Cow’s Thriller in Vanilla was a good working vanilla stout, unlike Artisen’s ibeer which we tried in Battersea. The chocolatey Thriller stout was brought out by the sweet vanilla which makes it an enjoyable half, not sure I would drink a full pint but as a half very nice. Hambleton Brewery’s Nightmare was also a delight, dry hoppy first taste but tempered by the coffee roasted flavour that comes though. All in all we tried some fantastic beers which don’t make it down here that often. We didn’t have any of the Yorkshire Breweries beers at the festival but then we were drinking them all week in pubs.
Of course the good thing about festivals is the fact you can try beers for a very reasonable third pint that are normally quite expensive and with this in mind the strongest beer I had was Brewdog’s Paradox Smokehead at 10%. Normally I just don’t get their beers, buy a bottle try it and usually half goes down the sink but this was a beer I really enjoyed. Oily thick texture with an intense whisky stout taste, beautiful. However my partner did buy me a bottle of this as a present at the end of the mini-moon which I found wasn’t as nice as the cask. Perhaps it’s the bottling that affects the taste, I don’t know. It means I will just have to keep a look out for it in a pub or another festival for another try.
They even had entertainment in the form of Balloon Platoon, (http://www.balloonwiz.co.uk/) this guy was brilliant. Many a glass ended up with a balloon bug attached to it much to the amusement of the bar staff and I ended up with a balloon wand which was very swish and proving I probably do have a child’s mental age sometimes. But what a great way to provide off the cuff entertainment! Fantastic.
The plastic glasses due to licensing laws in York was good for us too as we had to transport the glasses back to London later that week.
Great festival, great people. If you find yourself in York when this is on again I would go, it will be a great day.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Wetherspoon’s Beer Festival
As you can see from the attached photograph I do write notes on the beers I try, usually on the beer lists, not sure if this is including in the definition of ‘beer ticking’ but it did cause my partner to laugh whenever he saw the booklet and pen (yes, I have spare pens in there as well) come out of the handbag. Whatever you call it at least I have a good list for ordering beers off the internet when I have spare cash.Unfortunately due to the way the pubs local to me selected their beers for this festival I didn’t get to try all the ones I wanted, however I did try 9 out of 16 short listed by myself and another 5 on the list. All in all is not a bad attempt. One thing I like about these festivals is due to the fact the beers shift faster in the festival they are usually in better condition for us drinkers.
Highlights for me were Goose Island’s Honker’s Ale which we got from the cask at my partner’s local Wetherspoons, malty scent, with fruit cakey tones to it and a lovely smooth sweetish bitter taste which had a long finish to it. St Peter’s Old Style Porter which was rather gorgeous it has to be said. Nethergate’s Red Poll which was certainly a bully pint although I just didn’t get the liquorice notes in either the taste or scent. Phoenix’s Black Shadow was the best mild I have tasted in a Wetherspoon’s festival to date and last but not least Cairngorm Brewery’s Culloden was a lovely morish pint with a wonderful portique toffee scent which again we tried from cask rather than pump.
The only real let down for me was the Maui Brewery’s Coconut Porter, it started nicely with a gentle coconut tint to the coffee porter taste but then right at the end of the finish it hit you with a bang of a bitter acrid taste which was hard to shift from your palate even with numerous cups of tea. I wondered if this was a problem with shifting the brewing location as it such a discordant note it can’t be on purpose. One day I will get to head over to Hawaii and try it brewed in its proper brewery and then I will give a final opinion on it. It was a lovely beer up until that bang.
I enjoyed the festival a lot and even now there are still festival beers on the go at various pubs so it is worth a trip to see if you can catch any of them.
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