The Real Ale Girl

It's a kinda magic!

2012-02-09T21:21:00.000Z

About three weeks ago I travelled to Brewster’s brewery in Grantham, Lincolnshire with fellow beer loving ladies Marverine Cole and Jane Peynton. A hectic few weeks since mean I’ve not been able to write about it yet, but actually it hasn’t made a difference to the enthusiasm and energy I felt that day- it is an experience that will stay with me; I could be writing about it in three years’ time and it would still feel fresh and exciting to me.

The three of us dreamt up the idea of brewing a beer together when we went on a beer drinking spree in Marverine’s Midlands stomping ground. It was at the Stourbridge CAMRA beer festival as we worked our way through all the dark beers on offer; through the stouts and porters, to the dark milds, that we realised a beer made by us three would be darn good beer. None of this pale, honey light-struck stuff that female beer drinkers are expected to choose.

We just didn’t ever imagine we’d actually get to make it.

I do remember drunkenly suggesting the idea to Sara Barton from Brewster’s at a project Venus launch party at The Rake and I thought no more of it. Then Jane did a bit of her schmoozing, visited Sara to discuss her beer recipe brewing competition for women and came back announcing we were making the thing! Us three! A bunch of three very different women, with very different lives and very different backgrounds, with a huge shared passion for beer.

And so we went. After 187 emails. Emails to decide on when to go, the beer style, the recipe, the ingredients, the logistics, the travel, the food on the day and of course, what to wear. But we made it, on a very drizzly, early Saturday morning in deepest, darkest January.

Thanks for letting me steal your photo, Marv. Me,
techical equipment and large vats of hot
liquids would'nt have been a good combination.

I am not going to describe all the processes and the steps involved, except to say that the whole brewing thing is genuinely marvellous. A lot of very accurate, exact skill, perfected by absolute scientists, mixed in with a huge amount of magic. Put simply, if such a precise practice can be put simply, it is alchemy.

I learnt a lot that day. All of a sudden all those terms, like sparging, wort, early hop/ late hop, finings- all features of brewing that I have heard of, know the definitions of and have seen where they happen, only now make magical sense. I can see the meaning behind the definition.

I also learnt that I could never be a brewer. I could help out, clean the mash tun, measure the malt, weigh out the hop varieties and so on, but I learnt that day that you have to be thorough, calculated, precise and patient to brew successfully. Not to mention physically fit. I am not any of these things, and watching the phenomenally skilled Sara, Rich and Sean do their own magic, I have a whole new respect for brewers.

Right now, the result of our alchemic day out is maturing in cask, letting all the exciting ingredients we merged do their full flavouring business, ready for our beer launch party at Tap East on the evening of Tuesday 6th March. We would all love to see you there, and share with you the fruits of our hard, very fun, labours.

How to survive the sales (clue: Tap East)

2011-12-31T13:38:00.001Z

A day at a shopping centre. As potentially divisive as the keg debate or the smoking ban. ‘Oh it won’t be that bad, we’ll get a bargain’ can be heard all over the country as, despite having spent the previous month shopping for Christmas, people are lured back in for the sales.

The ladies go shopping. The blokes moan and mope and whine about going to the pub. Or so the stereotype would have us believe.

I’m a young female. Which means I love shopping, right? Well, no. There are a lot of girly things I enjoy; early John Travolta films, glittery nail varnish, Gok Wan TV shows. But hours ambling around in a soulless, Americanised trading emporium? Not one of my hobbies.

Then Tap East was born, hiding in a sneaky little corner of the new shopping kingdom that is Westfield Stratford, in the heart of 2012 Olympic domain. From the people that brought us The Rake (in Borough Market- another retail mecca, but as dissimilar to Westfield centres as you can get), Tap East was made for girls (and boys) like me. For those who accompany shopping frenzied pals on their pilgrimages to in-store gift wrapping, loyalty cards and personal shoppers, wishing they were in the pub instead, sipping on something dark and silky (I am talking about beer, thank you). We all have to go shopping sometimes, and admittedly, it is also occasionally useful to have a few stores in one place, under one roof. I stress occasionally. But it isn’t pleasant. After a couple of hours of traipsing around with heavy bags, sore feet, a streaming nose caused by heating contrasts and an extremely irritable demeanour, you need a light at the end of the shopping tunnel.

Tap East is an extremely beery light at the end of that tunnel. Microbrewery, ale bazaar and beer geek heaven, all packaged up in Westfield friendly coffee shop-esque décor, with sofas and bookshelves and soft lighting.

Westfield Stratford should be screaming Tap East’s presence from its roof- it is certainly the only reason I choose to shop there. Normally, I stick to my local shops, or at a push head to Oxford Street, but the lure of Tap East pulls me eastwards to Stratford. My first visit was the weekend after the launch of the microbrewery’s first beer- the Extra Stout at 6.6%- sneakily strong, it manages to be incredibly refreshing, while retaining the spice and chocolate of its beer style. It certainly did the trick of washing away all those shopping aches and pains. Over my subsequent visits, they have also had several beers by Brodies, Titanic, Thornbridge, Hawkshead and more of thier own microbrewery delights.

More than enough to make me head to the shops more often. Any Londoners who have visited the Microbar in Manchester’s Arndale Centre will have been filled with envy that we didn’t have something similar here to sooth our shopping pain. But now we do. A message to all shopping centres, high streets and markets across the land- get good beer in, and we will come running.

Read (or write) all about it

2011-11-30T22:19:00.000Z

Writing about beer can be pretty darn cool for someone like me with a day job and a normal life. Random, friendly people say hello at beer festivals, sometimes brewers give you free beer, you may get to see your work printed in publications you read all the time and you often get invited to groovy parties like the launch party, last month, of the luscious Melissa Cole’s new book, where those in attendance got to schmooze in the good company of other beer geeks and publishing folk, delighting in the mini beer fest that Melissa had provided.

However, the greatest motivation for writing about beer is knowing your thoughts may be being read by lots of people, that they enjoy it and that it may enthuse them to love drinking beer as much as you do. These sentiments are celebrated at the biggest beer writing shindig around- The British Guild of Beer Writers’ annual awards dinner, taking place tomorrow night.

The evening will celebrate all the things that make beer writing great, and praise the people who do it best. Proof that beer lovers can actually scrub up quite well, attendees spend the evening in fabulous company, eating sumptuous food, matched with gorgeous beers, nattering about their favourite topic before the high drama of the awards announcements. The exciting thing about the awards is that there are so many people now doing such great stuff that there are potential winners across all the categories, although I will be thoroughly relaxed and sitting back watching all the nervousness as I didn't enter this year).

Who will win Beer Writer of the Year? I don’t know, but I do know we’ll all leave looking a little less pretty, and much less scrubbed, than when we arrived.

By the way, I was going to link to my latest 'A girl walks into a bar' London Drinker article but have discovered that the editors have bizarrely reprinted the one that went into the April/May edition.
Oh well, if you missed it first time round, here it is http://www.londondrinker.org.uk/.

Its good up North!

2011-10-29T13:09:00.000+01:00

I had another moment of North envy this week. I can remember two occasions when I have suffered from this affliction before.

First, was North London envy, when for the only time ever, I wished I lived north of the river. Nothing to do with living near a tube station or any of the rest of that North/South of the river divide nonsense.No, it was because The Southampton Arms is in North London and I wanted to be near it so that I could go there everyday and bask in its loveliness at every opportunity. Life would just be so much better if spare moments were spent there, rather than Lewisham Wetherspoons.

Then, this Northern desire stretched a bit further, up into the North of the country, on a trip to Sheffield. Here was a city which knew what is was doing in pubs and brewing- even the student bars had a huge range of ale, and the city is bursting with pub heritage gems and microbreweries. I blogged about my awe and wonder at the time- here it is if you fancy it.

I wasn’t expecting to have one of these Northern urges this week. After five hours on a delayed, stinking, sweaty coach from Victoria, we pulled into Manchester Coach Station and I was fed up, not excited. I had discovered through Twitter, on the way, that The SIBA Great Northern Beer Festival was in town during the trip but we were visiting a friend who isn’t currently drinking much, who had also put thought into planning activities for our trip. I had the distinct feeling I wouldn’t be going to that festival.

And then, about seven minutes later, I felt like a selfish, ungrateful cow for even letting these thoughts enter my mind. Not only did he think we could fit the SIBA fest in, we were also scheduled a visit to the Didsbury Beer Festival, a Manchester city centre pub crawl, a drive around hard to reach village pubs in the Peak District, and to start it all off, a crawl from the City Centre to Didsbury, where he lives, stopping at six pubs between the two. I guess this friend does know us well- after 50 hours, when boarding the coach back down South, we had visited 25 different pubs, two beer festivals and had 69 different beers.

And here is where the envy sets in. I remembered the feeling from Sheffield- walking into a pub that from the outside looks like a dull old boozer which my have a couple of common ales on to please the old locals, only to find three, five, eight or more pumps with beers from local breweries seldom found in London, seasonal specials and rare delights.

The city centre to Didsbury crawl took us into the Friendship Inn, full of students watching football, and drinking Hydes’ Hubble Bubble Halloween special. In the Victoria, in Withington, we had Queen’s Peach Treat and Hornbeam’s Top Hop Bitter. The old blokes at the bar were drinking Guinness, even though Hydes’ Owd Oak was on.

The next morning, our not-drinking-much driving friend had devised a mother of a peaks drive, which took in swooping lanes, sudden fog, thousands of sheep and some absolutely amazing pubs.

My favourites were both called The Old (or Ye Olde) Cheshire Cheese. One was in Hope, with ales from Bradfield Brewery, 5 Rivers in Sheffield and Peak Ales. The other was in Castleton, a pretty, touristy village, absolutely brimming with pubs. Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese had more from Bradfield and Peak Ales, as well Wincle and Thornbridge beers. Another village pub, The Nags Head, had a ‘Beer Tapas’ scheme, allowing you to try third of their ales, served in a nifty wooden glass holder. There are no Castleton pubs in the Good Beer Guide, proof that you can’t just live by the book.

Friday took us into Manchester City Centre, and there really are pubs everywhere you look. The Mancunians are a spoilt bunch, they really are- from cool beer dedicated bars like The Knott, Cask, The Port Street Beer House to more traditional boozers like The Ape and Apple and The Rising Sun, not to mention a beer haven in the Arndale Market, the Micro Bar (three dark ales on, in an indoor market!)

We made it to both the Didsbury and Great Northern Beer Festivals, by the way. There were fun, they had spectacular ranges of lovely Northern beer and they could easily warrant a blog post of their own. However it was all those pubs that really gave me the North envy this time; who needs beer festivals when you have this many great pubs on your doorstep?

Good beer comes to town!

2011-10-12T21:39:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time, on a Friday night about 3 years ago, we had no plans (a rare phenomenon, one which leaves us feeling quite discombobulated). We decided to go on a pub crawl along one of the local main roads, which had, at that time, 5 pubs along a walkable stretch. Now, please bear in mind this was a few years back, we were young and delirious with Friday night euphoria and keen to get just a bit merry. So we banned any drink that we normally order, ruling we must choose the weird, the unusual and the usually downright avoidable. This was also because we knew there would be no decent beer available in any of these pubs, having stood at their bars with a choice of Carling, John Smiths or Guinness on many occasions. Therefore, we consumed WKD blue, Archers and lemonade Malibu, pre-mixed Sex on the beach and Snakebite. The hangover was hell. But we had a lot of fun, met some pleasant landlords and played the most despicable game of pool ever. But the sad part of this tale is that we were not alone in our weird drinking- we were among many drinking WKD that night. There wasn’t a lot of choice, to be frank. Good beer was hard to come by in Lewisham in 2008.

We had a similar night last week, but this time round, we tried no less than 11 different cask ales across three pubs all within a mile of our flat. Ok, two Wetherspoons in the midst of their ale festival featured , but I know of at least four more local pubs where we could have had more, had we had more time (and weren’t quite so drunk already).

The current popularity of cask beer is well documented and much discussed, but I can’t pretend I didn’t feel more than a little bit excited being able to stroll into The Ravensbourne Arms at 11.20pm and see delights from Daniel Thwaites, Brewdog, and Redemption on the bar. Within walking distance! A mere 0.8 miles from my sofa. A sofa I will be spending very little time on now that we have local pubs rocking good beer.

A most dull blogpost.

2011-09-21T17:23:00.002+01:00

10 beer related things to do when you are off sick.

Read beer blogs. I caught up with Boak and Bailey and their trip to Exeter, Beer Justice’s honourable work curating the Art by Offenders , Beer Birra Bier’s dream beer festival line up (prompting me to think about my own) and Tandleman’s thoughts about the idea of the Campaign for Really Good Beer.

Go through your twitter account. I found a few new people to follow and stopped following some beer folks who actually only talk about transport difficulties.

Find yourself on the internet. I found a picture of me, Real Ale Bro and Real ale Husband on the St Alban’s beer festival flyer thanks to a twitter tip.

Search ‘beer’ on the BBC news website. The most recent mention (15^th September) was a US Marine being awarded a Medal of Honour after sharing a beer with Obama, followed by a far more interesting story on the same day about West Yorkshire brewing more beer than any other county, according to CAMRA.

Try to get to the kitchen and look at what beers are in the house while waiting for the kettle to boil. I found a bottle each of Badger Hopping Hare, Sharps DW (75cl), Kernel Suke Quto Coffee IPA, Brewdog Hardcore IPA, 2 rogue cans of Carlsberg and a mini bottle of Kronenberg. Not sure where they came from.

Wonder when you will be well enough to drink what you have found. Even the tea didn’t go down well.

Admire your shrinking beer belly- one of the few plus sides of a messed up digestive system.

Try to spend your CAMRA online shop vouchers. Tricky. All the clothes are designed for old men and all the books are already on my bookshelf. I don’t have much use for either a CAMRA tie or pub food tea towel.

Make a tweet cloud. My most written word was beer, obviously, followed by thanks, night, London, stout. I’m quite pleased. Last time I made one it featured the words fabulous, blimey and Wetherspoons.

Look at your blog stats. I have quite a large readership in South Korea, apparently, and someone in Indonesia read my blog today. Hello, and thank you!

Here come the (beer-drinking) girls

2011-09-10T18:11:00.000+01:00

Every now and then I have a moment when I realise that being a beer drinking girl isn’t that weird anymore, and yesterday, on a normal Friday night out, I had several.

We went to some friends’ birthday party in Katzenjammers, a Bavarian Bier Keller style bar near London Bridge. An Oompah band play disco and pop tunes (a genius combo- I wonder how many people here have ever danced to a French Horn on a night out before) and everybody drinks beer. The novelty of steins in London means even those who say they don’t like beer drink it anyway, including the girls. Those people drinking wine or spirits stuck out like Jedward at Glyndebourne. After the Paulaner Dunkl, which wasn’t very dunkl but still very lecker nonetheless, I ordered a bottle of the 8.2% Schneider Aventinus which the barmaid assured us was the darkest beer available. It got a rapturous reception from a friend who was bored of Paulaner Hell lager after necking more beer than she had drunk all year. Yet more evidence for my mounting campaign on the success of getting girls into beer through dark, malty, roasted flavours rather than pale, hoppy ones. This was the perfect dark what beer, tasting just like barbequed bananas.

It continued on the way home. We walked past the All Bar One which lurks in the shadows of the ever growing shard, and there was a girl outside drinking London Pride from the bottle with a bloke who had a glass of rose. I love stereotype reversal!

On the train, some girls were continuing their evening with Marks and Spencer’s Cherry Wheat Beer. Which is housed in their station Simply Food next to the single serving bottles of wine and cans of Gin and Tonic.

Its all happening, lasses are exploring a wider range of beer styles and I am very excitexd to feel not quite so weird anymore.

The Rare Ale Girl

2011-08-13T13:52:00.000+01:00

So GBBF is gone for another year, and next year us young'uns get the pleasure of seeing the fest hit Olympia for the first time.

We had a pleasant, if rather warm, day at GBBF this year- I was accompanied by Real Ale hubby, Real Ale brother and Belgian Beer Girl. We only managed to go for one day, but if I had danced to a band that vigorously for more than one night, I might have need medical treatment (we rather enjoyed the jolly Jewish wedding music of Thursday's evening entertainment, Stan's Magic Foot). I was also delighted to win a colour changing light up rubber duck on the tombola.

But what about the beer, I hear you cry? Well, we drank lots of it. Running into Des De Moor (I do like a good name-drop) he asked us what we were mostly planning on drinking. To my reply of real ales we haven’t had before, he said ‘that shouldn’t be too difficult’.

But in fact it actually was. Don’t get me wrong, I am not claiming to have drunk all of the 700 odd beers available, but when you go to as many pubs and beer festivals as we do, it gets trickier to find new beers to try, although all the new breweries popping up are helping. One of the reasons I think it is getting harder to find new beers to try for me is that I am such a lover of the dark beers, the porters, stouts and milds, and while lots of the new breweries make luscious versions of these, there is also a huge trend for hop experimentation at the moment. I appreciate the genius involved in brewing a hop heavy IPA (and I know this makes me sound way older than my years) but I struggle to drink them over long periods of time and after a few I find myself feeling a bit more like someone on the first episode of Dancing on Ice than a Real Ale Girl. So I head for the darks.

Yes, we went on hat day.

Find some we did, however and I think Blackbeck’s Black Beck Belle was my beer of the festival, followed closely by Earl Soham’s Gannet Mild (yes I like mild and I’m not ashamed to say so). Meanwhile, Bowman’s Southsea Spice, the first beer I tried all day, and Enville’s Cherry Blonde did a go job of tempting me away from the dark side, an accolade indeed for them.

One festival that knows what its doing in sourcing the rarest, most exciting, hardest to find beers is the glorious Egham Real Ale Festival, and the 9^th one is this week. Just check out this list, and maybe I’ll see you there.

*Ascot Ales – Camberley, Surrey (2007)

Single Hop Sorachi Ace – 4.6% - Single hop

Single Hop Apollo Ace – 4.6% - Single Hop

Coconut Cayenne– 4.6% - Festival special

Chilli Exile Stout – 5.0% - Festival special

Red IPA – 5.5% - Brand new India Pale Ale

Last of the Blue Devils – Cherry Imperial Porter – 8% - Festival special

*Betjeman Brewery – Wantage, Oxfordshire (2011) (Cuckoo Brewed)

Wantage Bells – 5% – Hopmonster

Slough Bomb – 6% – IPA

Sebastopol – 7% – Imperial Stout

*Bingham, Ruscombe, Berks (2010)

Doodlepitch – 5% - Stout

Ginger Doodle – 5% - Ginger Stout

*Black Cat Brewery – Groombridge, East Sussex(2011)

Black Cat Hopsmack – 4.0%

Black Cat Original – 4.2%

*Braydon Ales, Preston, Wiltshire (2009)

YerTiz – 4.1% – Triple Hopped bitter

Galley-Bagger - 4.3% – Summer Ale

Pot Walloper – 4.4% – Ruby Coloured beer

Gert Ale – 4.8% – Russett coloured strong ale

*Brewshed, Bury St Edmunds (2011)

Pale Ale – 3.9% – Pale ale

Best Bitter – 4.3% - Best bitter

*Byatts Brewery – Coventry, West Midlands (2011)

CoventryBitter – 3.8% - Golden hoppy session bitter

Phoenix Gold- 4.2% – Blend of 3 American hops golden.

Urban Red - 4.5% – Dark Ruby best bitter

*Canterbury Brewers – Kent (2011)

Foundry Man’s Gold – 4.0% – Golden ale

CanterburyWheat - 4.4% – Wheat beer

Foundry Torpedo – 4.5%

Street Light – 5.8% - Porter

Canterbury Haka —x.x% - Pale Ale with NZ hops

*Chester Ales – Chester (2011)

Gladiator – 3.6% – Session beer.

Corvus - 4.6% – Dark.

IPA – 5.2% – IndiaPale Ale.

*Complete Pig Brewery - Britwell Salome, Oxon (2010)

Hallacre Gold - 4.2% - Golden

Red Lion Best - 4.2% - Best

Oxfordshire Black Porter - x.x% - Porter

*Devilfish, Hemmington, Somerset (2011)

Devils Best - 4.2% - Best bitter

Blonde Bombshell - 4.5% - Blonde ale

The Gold Devil - 4.2% - Golden

Stingray—5.5% - New strong Ale

*Halfpenny Brewery - Lechlade, Glouc (2008)

Four Seasons - 4.3%

*Loddon, Dunsden Green, Berks (2003)

In Yer Face IPA - 6.0%

*Longdog, Basingstoke (2011)

Golden Poacher - 4.2% - Golden

Brindle Bitter - 4.2% - Best Bitter

*Old Dairy, Rolvenden, Kent (2010)

Heffer Weiss - 5.5% -Wheat special

*Old Forge - Coleshill, Oxon (2010)

Old Ted - 3.6% - Dark mahogany mild.

Anvil Ale - 3.8% - Amber.

Blacksmiths Gold - 4.0% - Golden.

Hammer & Tongs - 4.2% - Chestnut.

Sledgehammer - 5.0% - Ruby bronze.

*Rectory Ales - Hassocks, East Sussex(1996)

Harvest Ale - 4.0%

Mild Pilgrimage - 4.5% - Mild

Rector's Celebration - 5.0%

Rector's Revenge - 5.4%

*Sherfield Village Brewery, Sherfield-on-Loddon, Hants (2011)

Threesome - 3.0% - Session beer.

Hindsight - 4.2% - Amber Bitter.

Solo Motueka - 4.3% - Single hop pale.

Solo Quintessential - 4.4% - Copper-coloured beer.

Pewter Suitor - 4.4% - Amber Bitter.

Foursight - 4.5% - Copper-coloured beer.

Pioneer Stout - 5.0% - A black stout.

Solo IPA—5.5% - IndiaPale Ale.

*Waylands Sixpenny - Sixpenny Handley, Dorset(2007)

Addlestone Ale - 4.2% - Pale copper best bitter.

Rushmore Gold - 4.3% - Golden ale.

*Westerham - Edenbridge, Kent (2004)

Bohemian Rhapsody - 4.0% - Pilsners lager.

India Pale Ale - 4.0% - India Pale Ale

National Trust Viceroy IPA - 5.0% - India Pale Ale.

Audit Ale - 6.2% - A strong ale.

Zoos, bars and fields- My Beer Summer Part 1

2011-07-09T12:12:00.001+01:00

Yo! As pressure in the day job begins to ease off for another year, and all the deadlines have been met, I am back, with a little slice of summer beer lovin', my summer so far, punctuated by beers.

My last post (yes, I know it was ages ago) was on the hot, quickly turning icy cold, topic of cask v keg and my opinions, morals, hunches and taste buds were tested to the maximum when I volunteered on The London Brewers' Alliance Bar at London Zoo Lates.
Arriving on a rainy evening in the middle of June, we wound our way through summer dress and deck shoe clad visitors, snuck a peak at the new penguin beach, and found ourselves behind the bar, alongside the legend that is John Cryne, expert on all things CAMRA, and Andy Moffatt, mastermind of Redemption Brewing Co.
All the breweries invloved pledged to work behind the bar for 3 nights each over the two months of Fridays, and we chatted away with Nicola Chase, who works for Fuller's but also writes her own unrelated blog on ale, http://www.hop-on-fuggles.blogspot.com/.
I couldn't get enough of Twickenham's new Honey Dark, and neither could the punters as it was one of the first to go from the range of cask and keg- Camden Hells Lager, Windsor and Eton Knight of the Garter, Fullers London Pride and Honey Dew, Zero Degrees Pale Ale, Wheat and Black Lager, Redemption Alexis' ale, Sambrook's Wandle Meantime London Lager. I know I've forgotten something- feel free to fill me in if you were around.
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Real Ale Girl in keg serving shocker!

John Cryne and I eyed the keg dispenser warily; I have served many a cask ale at beer festivals but this keg lark is an entirely different matter, taste debate etc aside- its just harder to pour! You find yourself faced with spraying froth, fizz, tilting glasses, crazy heads and bizzare splutters when it reaches the end... but I felt all proper barmaid after serving a couple of pints, and it cerainly helped me understand the difference between keg and cask from the more scientific, dispensing angle.

We left our posts for a wander, and I have to say, despite it costing the paying public around 18 quid for entry to the late opening, it really was quite something watching a tiger sleeping two foot away, a crisp pint of Redemption Alexi's Ale in your hand, fairy lights twinkling above and live acid jazz behind you.

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Craft Beer Co. -Just go!

The following week saw the opening of the much hailed, much documented Craft Beer Co bar in Clerkenwell. I am not going to do some major review on here, many others have and will continue to. Meanwhile, I am simply going to continue to drink there, and all I will say at this point is, if you haven't been there yet, just go!

Then last week, one of the highlights of the year for me and my Paddock Wood dwelling family, the Hop Farm Festival. We set up the tent, stocked to brimming with cans of BrewDog Punk IPA. These little turquoise gems do the job perfectly; small enough to sneak in in your handbag (I only tried this once, late on our last night, and shocked myself with the thrill, as I am one of the most law abiding folks you’ll find) and they taste a darn sight better than the canned versions of cask beers that are readily available.

Once inside the arenas, we were initially dissapointed to see the ale offereing was Shepherd Neame Spitfire. Nothing against the brewery, or indeed the beer, but it is far less exciting than the Gadd's Festival and Sesider available last year.Then, at about midnight, we found a smaller bar, by the late night disco tent, serving Gadd's festival itself, a perfect choice for the chilled madness (if that combo is possible) of a festival, with vital rehydration powers!

caskkegcraftbloggerattiCAMRAnoisesomebloggersblahblahblah

2011-06-06T18:12:00.002+01:00

Right then. I suppose I better stop drinking this Meantime Chocolate. I guess I shouldn't have given Real Ale Husband a bottle of Camden Wheat Beer for his birthday. Maybe I shouldn't have had that Cerveza Artesanal on my trip to Barcelona last week. In fact while we are at it, I better ban myself from drinking wine, vodka, maybe orange squash. Oh and what about tea?
I suppose I need to do all this because I call myself The Real Ale Girl. And I'm a member of CAMRA. So therefore, I must only enjoy Real Ale.
Or so it would seem. The grand caskkegcraftbloggerattiCAMRAnoisesomebloggersblahblahblah debate. I've had enough, to be frank. I think I might take a couple of years off reading blogs on the topic until its all blown over. As if this issue will ever actually be resolved.
I joined CAMRA in 2004 as I wanted to find out more about this lovely liquid that I'd just been introduced to. I had enjoyed going to a few CAMRA beer festivals and was attracted by the prospect of reduced entry, copies of their publications in the post and meeting other people who might be able to introduce me to more ales. While I recognised that CAMRA was founded at a time when keg was king and cask on the way out, I was also aware that it British brewing was on the way up and I was excited to be drinking beer at a time when it was all getting interesting.
I want to drink beer. I want other people to drink beer. I want other people to enjoy drinking new beers, exciting beers, beers with flavour and character and oomph. It may well be that many of those beers in the UK are served in cask form, but we can all think of some bloody good beers that aren't. And to tell you the truth, I like beer too much to deny myself a new one just because I can't tick it off in my Good Beer Guide.
Campaining for Real Ale, enjoying Real Ale, writing about Real Ale, should not mean demonizing every other beer around. It just means Campainging for Real Ale. That's it. In some circles, Real Ale enthusiasts are inadvertently making Real Ale (or its drinkers at least) the demons. I have never been embarrassed of my writing name, I just hope that we can keep it that way.

Live Beer Blogging!

2011-05-21T17:33:00.002+01:00

So here it is- the infamous Live Beer Blogging Event- brewers come and effectively chat you up for a few minutes and convince you that their beer is the best. When I say live, I mean live, so please forgive grammatical errors, bizarre punctuation and mad statements!

On my table are:

Mark Dredge www.pencilandspoon.com,

Nathan Nolan www.mrdrinkneat.com

Des De Moor www.desdemoor.co.uk

Tim Holt from The Brewery History Society

Check out their tweets and blogs to see their thoughts too.

4.36

Abbaye de St Martin Dark with the lovely Mark McLain from the Brunehart Brewery in Belguim.

4.38

A tongue party- what a zing, unsual in something this colour.

4.41

Something very old fashioned about this beer, the bottle even looks like its been in a cellar for a few years.

4.43.

Bad Attitude Brewery- Lorrenzo , an Italian irritated by the dull scene in Italy at the time. Made cans before BrewDog.

4.44

Two Penny Porter (Birra Artiginale.) Love the bottle, would make The Sex Pistols proud. Doesn’t taste 8.15% I get the impression this has been going down a storm around the room.

4.46

Windsor and Eton.

4.47

Conqueror Black IPA. Ive had this one before- yum yum yum! As they say, not what you’d expect, Nathan next to me just made an exclamation of surprise.

4.48

‘Changing perceptions in beer’ Paddy the brewer says. Hugely popular, will other brewers be making it?

4.49

Des De Moor says ‘It does challenge perceptions- it’s really strange!’

4.51

Brains- SA Gold. Ffion Jones says ‘5.7% Golden Ale , developed 5 years ago.’ Its more popular in England than Wales.

4.53

Mark Dredge asks ‘what would you pair it with? Ffion says’ fish’ Nathan and I say shellfish’

4.56

Innis and Gunn- Canada Day special (who new Canada was Innis and Gunn’s biggest market?

4.58

Tasty! Smoky, bourbon sweetness. Delicious.

4.59.

Blown away by this beer! Why do we never see the wider range of Innis and Gunn?

5.00

There is a hit of fruit after too- 8.3% This has really changed my views of Innis and Gunn.

5.02

Gerry from Wychwood with his own beer pouring goblin. Hobgoblin 5.2.

5.03

They make 11 million in bottle, 6 million in cask. First brewed for a local publicans’ daughter’s wedding. Weddings with Beer- one of my favourite subjects.

5.06

Adnams and Broadside with the charming Fergus.

5.08.

Fergus explains its tasting notes etc, including that it can be used to make Christmas puddings with. I made my Christmas pudding last year with Broadside!

5.09.

Just found out Dark Star were supposed to be here and haven’t made it! Darn it!

So far at the Beer Blogger's Conference...

2011-05-21T13:52:00.002+01:00

Just over half way through The European Beer Blogger's Conference in London www.beerbloggersconference.org

What I've learnt so far:

Happy bloggers are better than moany bloggers.
Red Shield goes well with salmon and parnsip.
I'd like to go to a Brewdog bar and sit next to old couples who've been shopping.
I quite like the flavour of diacetyl.
Sharps brewery are up to some very exciting, little known, cool stuff.
Rhubarb and custard sweets are tasty with a hangover.
Pilsner Urquell's new advert is beautiful and is guarnteed to make anyone want to visit Pilsen.
I could be more open- minded "Beer isn't bad just because you don't like it" said Kristy (Molson Coors)
Beer folks should remember it is fun 'Its not the Middle East issue' said Darren from Beer Sweden.

More later. This is fast paced!

And one thing led to another...

2011-05-02T22:09:00.002+01:00

I don’t really go in for all that detox lark but if ever my body has been crying out for one it is now. What a mighty few weeks we have had. Any normal person would have come back from a weekend of 60+ different beers in Sheffield (well documented in my previous post) and drunk tea, eaten toast and watched some telly. We proceeded to fit in as many pub trips and beer festivals as we could without causing our relatives to stop speaking us.

A trip to do a boot sale near my parents’ in Kent led to a mega cider tasting (and purchasing and then drinking late into the night) at Middle Farm somewhere in Sussex.

A cooking class in Central London led to a visit to the new Old Red Cow in Smithfield Market. Well worth popping into, this is the brain child of the marvellous folks behind the glorious Dean Swift near Tower Bridge.

Meeting up with an old pal led to the pub quiz at the Grape and Grain in Crystal Palace, packed to the rafters, triumphing in such sad times of pub closures.

A casual night round Real Ale Bro’s led to a mega tasting sesh of his Meantime College Beer club wonders.

A couple of days later, we moseyed on over to the (Stoke Newington) Jolly Butchers’ first birthday party with its amazing range of special, made for them, birthday beers, where I fell in love with Evin ‘Kernel’ O’Rhiordan’s baby.

With the brewers from Ascot and Windsor & Eton
and 'Beer Justice' Steve at Ehgam Beer Festival

Then came the Egham Beer Festival, and boy do those dudes know what they are doing. £1.35 a half for the some of the most unusual, exciting, beautifully crafted beers around. I go to a lot of festivals and I drink a lot of beer. I often struggle at festivals of this size to find anything new to drink. I struggled to find something I’d heard of, it was that well sourced a range. So good, that the brewers themselves turn up to see how their beers are going down! I’d read about Egham fest but never made it before. If similarly, you’ve never quite made it I urge you to go. They make it easy by having three fests a year. And I promise you I am not on any sucking up mission or on any commission, just p***ed off it took me so long to go.

Then to Planet Thanet in Margate (via the Sportsman in Seasalter for a gourmet father-in-law’s birthday lunch and the delights of the gorgeous Lifeboat in Margate itself). Since our last visit to the festival a couple of years ago, the organisers had come to their senses and let us outside and also came up trumps with an impressively diverse beer selection. The Wantsum and Ramsgate joint venture Low & Behold, a 2.8% tax reducing beauty, was the perfect beer for basking in the sun- bags of flavour yet light enough not to exacerbate the sun stroke.

Back to work for a few days, and all the fun started again with Bexley Beer Fest at Sidcup Rugby Club. I wrote in depth about this lovely festival last year and again they did’nt disappoint. The added oomph of Royal Wedding brews went down well and 6 of us did a conga to the folk band while everyone looked at us with scared bemusement.

The Royal Wedding day itself saw us drinking cans of Brew Dog Punk IPA in Hyde Park at 9.30am. Quite an experience, especially as the cans look like cheap lemonade.

I woke up the next morning craving ginger and couscous (is that my own detox recipe, afterall?) Bt instead we had more beer. Hiding in the tasting rooms of the Draft House on Tower Bridge were Melissa Cole, female beer writer #1, Stuart Howe, head brewer at Sharps, and a whole lot of secret, and mightily strong, special Sharps’ beers. Stuart entertained us with his amusing stories of wierd beer creations and boy, did the selection he brought with him change my mind about the sort of beers available with a Sharps label (Massive Ale, Top to Bottom 69 Hop, Monsieur Rock... who knew?).

Finally, with the Sharps 23% Turbo Yeast Utter Abhorrence From Beyond the Ninth Level Of Hades II (yes, the full name) doing its thang, we headed over to Leyton for Brodie’s Bunny Basher Festival. I’ve never been shy to bang on about my love of these guys and their wonderfully weird and ever inventive ales. It now seems that this quirkiness has spread into the food offering too- rabbit burgers on the BBQ? Weirdos.

So, the bank holidays and random days off are all done and dusted. Back to a more sensible level of beer consumption then. Head says ‘Darn it’, liver says ‘Hurray’.

Who needs an AGM?

2011-04-16T22:18:00.005+01:00

As we speak, Sheffield is rocking under the weight of the CAMRA AGM, a weekend of beer bonding, beer pilgrimage, beer exploration.
I did my own such pilgrimage last weekend. Never having been known to do things in the normal, easy way, we (Real Ale Bro and I) went to Sheffield on our own steam, for our own mega beer weekend- not an agenda in sight.
Saturday 9th April, our train pulls into Sheffield at 12.15pm, we are in The Sheffield Tap by 12.17. Having spent many an hour in The (lovely) Euston Tap, this was bigger (not difficult), brighter and simply the best station bar the world must have ever seen. We had 6 beers here, while it quickly became clear just how many amazing beers we were likely to come across his weekend.
Checked in, (9th floor- amazing views) we spotted The Rutland from our window. Four ales (from local breweries Raw, Brew Co. and Blue Bee) slipped down perfectly in the sunshine filled garden and before long we were at The Kelham Island Tavern. Approaching, we stepped into the photo that has been used in all the CAMRA pub of the year articles and on entering, there we were inside the Beer Tickers film. It is a weird feeling to actually, finally, be inside a place you have seen, read, heard so much about and wanted so much to go to. When you get there, the feeling is a strange mixture of cocky and smug, with awe and humbleness.
The rest of the weekend took us to The Fat Cat (which I think I actually liked more- its got more quirk, more heritage, and on our visit, a more exiting beer range) and then The Harlequin, where we enjoyed the bounty of cellar runs for porter, a beautiful Roast and chat with Pete, the brewer at Brew Co.
We made it over to the Devonshire Cat, where real ale pub meets student union meets world beer emporium and later, The Old House- funky, cool, with vinyl on the wall, but still all about beer.
The Bath Hotel was a 1930's treasure, and we squeezed in to listen to the live blues on Sunday night, the Derwent Dark Mild fitting the aura of the place so well.
A bus ride to the Rising Sun, and a bar lined with beers by Abbeydale and more, and a huge box of used pump clips looking for caring homes, started off Monday beautifully. We popped into The Red Deer on the way back into the city. A pleasant pub, but in a city where most places have a beer selection to blow your mind, this pub just felt a bit too much like the less adventurous of the pubs we find at home.
Walking back into the city, we spotted a Thornbridge logo flying in the sky. In reality, it was on the side of a whitewashed bar, Trippets, which treated us to some of the rarer Thornbridge ales and a room full of beery, quirky memorabillia.
The Good Beer Guide unfortunately led us to The Musuem, a souless city centre Greene King pub, and so we hotfooted it back to the Rutland for a range of beers completely different from those we'd had two days before. Finally, grabbing our cases, back to The Sheffield Tap.
One weekend, 65 different beers and some truly amazing pubs.
I'm sure those AGM folks are having a whale of a time (judging by the tweets, the conference deabating is just about being outweighed by exploring the beer delights).
However, we certainly got quite a kick out of doing it ourselves. And felt more than a touch of envy about those who live in The Valley of Beer. Do they know how good they've got it?

P.S Hope you like the new look. There are photos of this trip on a memory card about a mile away from where I am now, some will be added soon.

Let's hear it for the girls

2011-04-07T21:02:00.000+01:00

Early this week, I got a bit star struck. I'd been invited (get me) to the launch of the Project Venus Collaboration beer Venus Jade, a beautiful beer made by an equally beautiful gang of lasses- female brewers from across the UK and Ireland: Sara Barton from Brewsters in Grantham, Grainne Walsh from Metalman Brewery, Waterford, Eire, Sara Carter, from Triple FFF, Michelle Haylock Kelsall, Offbeat Brewery, Crewe, Cheshire and Kathy Britton from Oldershaw Brewery also in Grantham.
Off to The Rake we went. Now those of you who have met me in person will know I'm not usually described as shy and retiring. But here I was, lurking in the corner- not knowing how to approach this group of groovy women who spend all day, every day creating beauty in a glass for us all to enjoy, while I just stand about drinking it. Listening in, I waited for an opening to join in the conversation- nodding and smiling while they discussed how many kilos of hop were required in the morning. All of a sudden, my beer knowledge and passion didn't matter anymore- these ladies make the stuff. What do I know?
But, inevitably, I got chatting (thanks Jane www.school-of-booze.com and Marveline www.funf-media.co.uk/beerbeauty/ for coming to get me!) And several pints of the gloriously summery, way too easily drinkable Venus Jade later, it was like an episode of Loose Women but without Jane McDonald, thankfully.
You don't need me to bang on about the role that women have in beer today. Its all been said. But what this beer did was actually show it. And show it off, in all its elegance and style.

L-R: Sara from Triple FFF, Kathy from Oldershaw, Real Ale Girl, Grainne from Metalman, Sara from Brewsters

Humbled, and in awe of these groundbreaking, creative, collaborative beings, I ambled into the Market Porter. Knocking me right out of my pondering was a copy of the new London Drinker. With an article by me. Nothing anywhere near as cool as creating my own beer, but its a start. Strange how it has a pink cover this month...

We know where it's at!

2011-03-27T15:08:00.001+01:00

Another blogpost, another Friday night. I do go out on other days of the week, honest. But this particular Friday night could not possibly go unblogged. For this Friday night saw me waiting under the clock in Waterloo. Not for a romantic liaison, but for Real Ale bro to appear so we could wing it on over to La Gothique for the Wandsworth Common beer Festival. Now the history of the place is indeed fascinating, what with its Crimean war orphanage, trench recovery hospital, World War 2 interrogation centre and the detention of Rudolph Hess. It is also architecturally intriguing, this eerily lit chateau sitting in the middle of blocks of flats, criss-crossed below by train tracks and the common.

But we all know what the real draw is. That beer list, is quite simply, dudesome. Twitter has made it impossible not to hear about all about the cool niche scene happening right now; collaborations, limited editions, quirky versions of established beers. However, hearing about the beers is one thing, getting them is another, especially if you don’t have the sort of life that means you can jump on a train at 1pm to get to the launch before it all runs out. These beers also bring a whole new slant to Beer Ticking. There is nowhere to tick ‘em- they aren’t listed anywhere! Which all adds to the exclusivity, the feel of the hunt, the buzz of actually finding one.

Or all of them, in a courtyard in Wandsworth as the sun set after a spring day that was dressed up as summer. The sneaky Dark Star Hophead Citra version, Oak matured casks of Sambrook’s Wandle and Junction (the cutest little 36 pint casks ever seen!) Summer Wines’ Apache APA, Redemption Trinity Pale Mild, Windsor and Eton Conqueror Black IPA... It was like stepping into the last few weeks’ hot topics in the beer realm of Twitter, without needing to go to work with a hangover or trekking to a pub on the other side of London only to get there two minutes after the cask is drained. Although, we did miss the Hophead Citra, by just one pint. That’s the last time I am honest when the barman says ‘Who’s next?’

This really is a beautiful time to be a beer drinker in London. Yesterday, I was performing in Verdi’s Requiem at the Blackheath Halls and post performance, gasping and in need of a major beer style quench, R.A bro produced the most beautiful selection of brown bottles that he’d picked up on a quick afternoon hop to Kernel’s Saturday shop.

Imperial Brown Stout, on its first day of release, was just what Verdi himself would have chosen, I am sure. Followed by Suke Quto Coffee IPA, Dark Star/Kernel Imperial Marzen and blissful mainstay, London Porter. I am saving the Redemption and Kernel collaborative Mild until after tonight’s performance.

It’s all going on in London town- these limited editions and collaborations, as well as all the launch nights, make the beer scene here ever changing, innovative and, well, darn good fun. But thank goodness for festivals like Wandsworth Common’s, for giving those of us with day jobs the chance to get hold of them!

The perils of a night with no real ale

2011-03-06T14:15:00.001Z

Friday night. Real Ale Husband isn’t home yet, it’s been a busy week, and it’s time for a rewarding drink. I look at our bottled ale selection- some fine specimens. And herein lies the rub. These beers are treasures R.A.H and I bought in a delightful farm shop on the outskirts of Oxford. (When I say farm shop, it was more posh supermarket in the middle of nowhere, but being a Londoner, anywhere that sells carrots with the mud still on feels rustic. If you ignore the woman flogging loyalty cards.) Anyway, the beers we purchased in this Waitrose in disguise were lovely specimens. Beers we can’t easily get in bottle form round these parts. (I’ve yet to enter the world of online beer ordering- it still pains me to picture the lonely landlord round the corner twiddling his thumbs while mine are twiddling on computer keys ordering beer to drink at home.) However, these beers we bought as we simply couldn’t resist- Hook Norton Double Stout, Wickwar Station Porter...

So as I said, this was my problem come 6.30 on Friday night. I couldn’t open one of them without the presence of R.A.H. These were treasures discovered together, to be enjoyed together. So now what? Aha. A wilting bottle of Sainsbury’s basics cider lies half full (or half empty? You decide). That’ll do. That’ll clear the stresses of the working week and I am sure you will agree that there was no way the hubby would mind that disappearing.

Then he arrives home, and a bottle of Cava flies down our throats during dinner. We get rather excited about the line up of the upcoming Hop Farm festival and dance around the flat to Iggy Pop, and the party mood tempts us into a shot each of something bright blue and raspberry flavoured lurking in our drinks cabinet. (It’s more of a shelf, actually- it doesn’t have the doors that are surely prerequisite for a cabinet.)

We head on out into the Lew-sharm night, armed with a drink for the train journey (Boris hasn’t banned us from drinking on this form of transport.) So, this pre-party tipple should have been one of the aforementioned bottled beers, I agree. However, something in the Lust for Life lyrics subconsciously made R.A.H reach for the vodka and make a portable Moscow Mule in a bottle of ginger beer.

We arrive at the party. In a wine bar. No real ale (or in the words of the dear ex-bus conductor ticker, Clippie- NORA), nor any beer that wasn’t Becks. Hell, I’d already started on the vodka, I better carry on. Vodka and Tonic please. Next- this is a wine bar- let’s get wine. Then- Oh look- you’ve got a Portuguese Bock- do you want to swap it for the rest of my wine? And then I stumbled, got a bit loud(er) and declared I needed to go home.

A hangover like no other ensued. My head was yelling "What are you doing to me, carzy woman? This is not the usual cosy yummy beer stuff that I am used to!" My stomach was equally unforgiving, "How dare you, Real Ale Girl! I will make you pay!" And I will keep the rest to myself.

I tried toast. Paracetamol. More sleep. Hot chocolate, tea, ginger tea, lemon green tea. And then I went to the pub. To the beer festival at The Grape & Grain in Crystal Palace, to be precise. One half (North Yorks.' Flying Herbert) and all was well with the world. Hangover gone. Kapoof.
The moral of this long and winding story? Only drink real ale. That’s it.

Giving something back...

2011-02-17T20:38:00.002Z

Cor blimey, you may recall me last month (yes, it has been a while) complaining of being a widow to my dear husbands other love, football. Well, I’ve gotta take it all back as he has been a beer widower on many occasions since that last post. But what is the point of drinking all this beer if there is no time to write about it? (Well, there’s lots of point to drinking beer other than writing about it, but it’s darn frustrating, I can tell you.)

'Volunteering' with the lovely Bill at Pigs Ear 2009

It all started with a fateful night at The Dog and Bell in Depford, when, at a SE London CAMRA branch, fuelled by one too many Rudgate Battleaxes, I agreed to do take over the branch newsletter. All very well and good until less than a week later, after several Ringwood Fortyniners at the Ladywell Tavern, I ended up on the branch’s Beer Festival committee. (May 28th and 29th, Beckenham Rugby Club, by the way. I’ve not been put on publicity for nothing, you know.)

I’ve also been beavering away on pub surveys for the Good Beer Guide- I think I’ve saved up 5 years of branch volunteering and shoved it all into one month. I don't think I can count working at CAMRA festivals working, you are paid in beer!

I know I have some readers who are quite anti- CAMRA (and some who would rather see the whole organisation shoved into a mash tun and left for the enzymes to go to town on.) I agree there are some elements of the St Albans crusade that can be a tad out of date- believe me, of all folks, I would know. On the other hand, this is part of the charm. I love hanging out with the old school dudes at a festival. At Battersea last week, I ran into Malcom who holds me responsible for the fact he has worked at 25 festivals in the last year. (Not as creepy as it sounds- I put him in touch with the staffing officer at Pig’s Ear for his first festival volunteering experience and he’s never looked back). I had a good old natter about stout with Paul, who always wears shorts, and compared festival planning notes with the dude that is John Cryne (fresh off his appearance in the BBC news.)

However, I am all too aware that these festivals can turn as many people off as on. Which is why I get involved.

“We need you- you know cool people!” The festival organiser cried when I said I was too busy.

“You’re mates with the man from the Dean Swift and went to the Kernel Black IPA launch” said another. “You know how to use twitter!”

What persuasion. How can a girl say no?

Let's all club together

2011-01-09T12:22:00.001Z

This week, you could call me a football widow. Real Ale Husband had training on Thursday and matches on Friday night, Saturday afternoon and is currenlty out for a Sunday morning match. However, I don't like the term football widow. It implies I'm sitting around weeping at him leaving me alone (well, I only do that occasionally). It gives the impression that he's out having fun while I'm at home oslaing over a hot stove (actually, that was only during the Friday match, and the homemade burgers were bloody lovely.)
Football widow does not suggest the fun that I have as a result of all his running around fields pretending to be a professional footballer and taking it all a bit too seriously.
I am not left behind at all, oh no, because I have discovered THE CLUB.
Occasionally, I think I'll go along and support the lovely South East Athletic boys as they battle, week in, week out, after the holy grail of Bromley and District Football League glory. Occasionally, I make it for the match. Often, I turn up sometime during the second half. However, usually, I scrape into the bar about the same time as the boys emerge from the showers.
The John Roan club house. A place of big screen TVs and piles of kit bags, of geezers who knew my Grandad and sepia team photos from yesteryear. And of ale. Great ale. Even if it seems to be only me, Real Ale Husband and occasionally, Real Ale Father-in-law drinking it- apparently lager is more refreshing after hard graft on a muddy pitch. I wouldn' know. But what I do know is that love this place. I love the ever changing seasonals from Harvey's and Batemans, I love the bargain dinners (Shepherd's pie, chips and beans for £3.50- carb overload, but athletes need sustenance, I suppose). I love the little boys throwing footballs about inside and smashing glasses. And I love the fact they make me feel like I belong there despite often being one of only a couple of women in the place. Maybe its the Grandad connection. Maybe its because I drink their ale and bang on about how good it is. Or maybe it's just because it's a welcoming, opening place, doing a brilliant job of serving the players and WAGS. Although I can't help thinking probably owe them some sort of membership fee...!

Way out West-erham

2010-12-16T22:24:00.000Z

I'm not a country girl. I am city born, my lullabies are the sounds of sirens and 3am revellers. Four years living in Cambridge, albeit glorious and the location of my discovery of real ale, often felt like clasutrophibic village living to me. Meanwhile, my friend from rural Devon thought she had arrived in a dangerous, graffitti- ridden metropolis.
So it was with a mix of intrigued trepidation that I allowed myself to be driven down the deepest, darkest lanes of Kent towards the Westerham Brewery. When I say I allowed myself to be driven, I should admit, we actually managed to convince Non-drinking Mum to drive us there, pay £8 for a shandy and stand in a cold barn. She didn't get the reward for the crazy journey, pot-holed driveway and snow-ramped car park that we did, as we heaved open huge sliding doors to find a brewhouse brimming with jugs of beer, the glitter of fairy lights bouncing off mash tuns and hundreds of balding heads. We paid eight quid, we poured unlimited ale into our non-plastic compostable cups and we merried ourselves squeezing into nooks between pieces of brewing equipment.
We made our way along the jugs, from the refreshing 1965 Special Bitter, the William Wilborforce Freedom Ale (mixing demerera sugar- fairtrade, of course- with Kentish hops), past SPA, British Bulldog, Finchcocks Orginial and Grasshopper, to the Christmas brew God's Wallop and the relatively new Double Stout. We had an 18 pint box of God's Wallop last Christmas (it goes very well with turkey, in fact, the food offering at the brewery itself were baps of turkey marinated in the stuff). This year, we will be making our way through an 18 pinter of the Double Stout- a beautifully rich and fruity, yet smooth, easy drinking beer full of winter warming oomph.
Westerham is a brewery which, from the farmyard location and open-air gents, appears quaint and old-fashioned but in reality is at the forefront of innovation in beer. Robert Wicks, the brewery's founder, peppered his tour with nuggets of the future- his sccience geek 'hoprocket' system (oo-er), the eclectic, up-coming international beer style specials, the ethical and environmental credentials of the brewery, all the while singing of the health benefits of ale. They have recently started growing their own malt and use almost entirely Kentish grown hops, being loyal to the beer heritage of the local area both through the ingredients sourced and by creating beers to old recipes from the archives (and the original yeast) of the famous Black Eagle Brewery.
A unique experience: a glimpse of the future, in a dark and muddy farm, while handling the biggest jugs around. (Ahem).

All Hail The Harp

2010-12-01T16:40:00.002Z

I just had one of those lovely moments where you exclaim out loud with glee and want to tell someone the news. I had one such moment this morning when a text arrived saying not to go to work because of the snow. But that's not the one I wanted to tell you about. This particular exclamation happened when I finally got round to opening this month's What's Brewing.
Behold, on the front page, a most marvellous piece of news-The (glorious) Harp on Chandos Place, London, has made it into the final four for the CAMRA best pub in the country. I always look at the pubs who win that accolade with a sense of wonder and intrigue- they must be spectacular enclaves of beer joy, full of ale loving pilgrims clutching their Good Beer Guides with rapture. But they are always so darn far away an I find myself asking the inevitable questions- will I be able to go there on a weekend away? How far is it from the nearest train station? When I get there will the punters look at me like I shouldn't be there (or offer me a glass of rose)? Before the cries of complaint at my naive comments leap from your mouths, I will confess to never having, to my knowledge, been to a CAMRA national pub of the year. Not even The Kelham Island Tavern. Indeed a travesty, and a black mark on ale loving credibilty.
But- oh! The Harp! Its 15 minutes on the train from my gaff! It's a mere delight filled skip from Charing Cross! And they never look at you like you haven't got the right to be ordering a stout with bosoms, a good figure, and no memory of the '70s, as the staff are in the same boat! This place is girl power Real Ale Stylee, a place I love so much that I will risk every elbow in the rib, every sweaty armpit up the nose, every moment of missing out on a bar stall, just to be inside. It was the first place I tried the heavenly Old Chestnut by the lovely dudes at Dark Star, and Sambrook's Powerhouse Porter, hot off the press in its first couple of weeks. The beers are reliable, exciting, beautifully served and varied, served to locals, commuters and Japanese tourists in equal measure, making it truly cosmoplitan whilst endearingly quaint, charming and well, bloody small.
Bigup to the lasses at The Harp- a well deserved place in the final four.

The Tale of The Real Ale Girl and the Psychic Cellarman

2010-11-22T22:08:00.002Z

Lewisham Wetherspoons. Friday, 9pm and I have the distinct feeling thre is a psychic about. One who can read into the depths of my dreams and who, for some reason, wants to make all my wishes a reality.

At the official end of the latest Wetherspoons Real Ale festival, I had had 39 of the 50 beers. A memorable evening around The City's selections kicked it off, followed by several trips to our locals, Lewisham and Lee Green. We made a couple of stop offs in Mark Dredge's haunt Tonbridge, spent an evening in our wedding venue The Knights' Templar (where I was given a festival T-shirt which I am going to turn into the coolest bag around) and finished it all off on the last official day of the fest with an eye opening (and nostril torturing, in some) Northern Line JDW crawl. And with that, I thought it was over and I'd get all ticked off in my Good Beer Guide, with Wadworth's stunner Pixley Blackcurrant Stout getting my vote for beer of the festival.

But lo and behold- the wizard that is the Lewisham cellar manager must have snuck a peak over my tasting note booklet and decided to reward me for getting through another week with five festival ales. Four, beautiful, untried, pristine pump clipped ales that I had not yet ticked off in my guide. (I say ticked-the black paper made ticking impossible, so I used glittery little star stickers, making my fest notes more glam than Cheryl Cole).

Okay, so I understand neither Mystic Meg nor Professor Dumbledore were skulking outside Primark and Iceland on Lewisham High Street on Friday night wating for me to appear before running into 'Spoons and bewitching the mnager into putting my need-to-try beers on. I admit that deep down I know that they have a tactic of ridding their festival beers from the cellar to make way for the rather exciting looking Christmas brews. And also being able to charge 30p more for them post-fest.

But I'm going to indulge myself in the fantasy that we were being rewarded for trudging from pub to pub, clutching our untickable tasting notes on bus, tube and train, only to find the same three beers on as in the pub before. The fantasy that if you look hard enough, work hard enough, wish hard enough, you may just find what your looking for, even if it is just a beer called Black Squirrel.

The Good Beer Girl

2010-11-08T22:08:00.001Z

I write as the Real Ale Girl. I am a member of CAMRA, I tick off every ale I drink in my Good Beer Guide and cask ale is my drink of choice 99.9% of the time. If you have read any of my previous blog posts, you will undoubtedly be aware that I'm just a little bit keen on real ale. So, yesterday, I moseyed on over (well, ok, I took the Northern Line, but moseying sounds more jolly, it's raining out there, we need cheering up) to the brand new Euston Tap: an ingeniously renovated architectural beauty stocked to the very atmospheric rafters with beers. Beers of such variety, origin and type that even a very hard to please Real Ale Girl had her mind well and truly boggled. Of course, we started on the cask ale. We tasted the wares of Bristol Brewing Co., Marble, Bath, among others and we compared the 10% Brew Dog Paradox to the very limited edition 9% Thornbridge Bracia and decided the Thornbridge boys won hands down. And then we moved on to the rest; a rather marvellous rest; huge accessible fridges stocked with the rare gems and firm favourites, and witty range of taps (indescribable- you'll have to go), serving an intriguing mix of draft beers from around the world. When I say we moved on to the rest; we actually managed about 5 more between us, it was a Sunday after all. Darn it, we'll just have to go back.
After The Why Cask Ale Rocks collaborative posts, we got many comments about why we stuck to cask- 'isn't it just a method of dispense?' etc. My response to this is that Belgian/ Czech etc etc beers don't need promotion, they don't have an image problem in the way real ale does in this country. However, overwhelmingly, it seemed from people's comments that there is an assumption that being passionate about Cask Beer means a deep hatred and spurning of all other types of beer.
A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post featuring the Draft House bar in Tower Bridge. A respected blogger and hugely experienced real ale drinker posted a comment saying it was disappointing there was only one real ale when he went to visit. On my own visit I experienced this too, but took it as a great opportunity to try something different and have become a little addicted to German Rauchbier ever since.
Real Ale Husband plays football 3 times a week. But he also loves a good tennis session and is rather good at cricket. Real Ale Brother used to DJ and loves house music. But he can also regularly be found watching The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and saw Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Paul McCartney this summer.
And occasionally, I like to drink beer that isn't cask.
Cask Beer is not always good beer. It's not a secret that I find several of Greene King's beers quite undrinkable and would rather have a vodka if they are all that's on offer. The pub I frequent most Friday afternoons with colleagues does such a bad job of looking after its cask beers that I usually, embarassingly, end up on Strongbow. Good beer is good beer. Well kept beer is well kept beer. Cask beer is cask beer. That is all. Sometimes, those three happen simultaneously and the result is orgasmic. But sometimes, just sometimes, even a Real Ale Girl can find joy in a bottle that has travelled halfway around the world and tastes of pumpkin, not a cask in sight.

Why Cask Ale Rocks

2010-10-26T12:01:00.000+01:00

Cask ale is important to each of us in very different ways. In this collaborative blogging effort me, Mark (homebrewer), Mark (beer writer), Glyn (bar manager) and Kelly (brewer) say why it's important to us.

I am not usually an arrogant person; colleagues and friends often say I’m quite self deprecating. But here goes anyway: I am fashionable. I am funky. I am hip (if you can still be hip having used that word). I have been on clubbing trips to Ibiza nine times, I can understand the appeal of both jeggings and jumpsuits (though have not chosen to wear either), I can name all the contestants on the last series of Young, Dumb, Living off Mum and shop for clothes around Spitalfields. I also happen to enjoy drinking Real Ale. Regularly. And I know quite a lot about it.

So how did this come to be? Isn’t ale just for beardy people? Isn’t it impossible to be a size 12 ale drinker? Don’t I have to hang out in dingy backstreet bars or country pubs to sup the stuff? Do I need to spend all my time with old men? Well, to put it simply, no, no, no, no.

I discovered Real Ale at university. The city I partied, studied and loved in for my four student years just happened to have a perfectly timed CAMRA beer festival at the end of the summer term exams. It was (and still is) held in a pair of marquees in a park by the river and was the perfect place for a student to kick off their summer. Everyone went. The beer wasn’t even that important; it was just somewhere outside, in the sun, where we were allowed to get drunk without getting a ASBO. We lasses mostly stuck to the cider, some played it even safer at the English Wine stand. And then, at the end of my third year, it happened. A friend bought me a pint of something so dark and thick looking I expected it to taste of marmite. My friends just expected me to throw-up; it was called Skullsplitter, after all. They held a collective breath as I stepped up to the dare. It was… well, sublime. Strong, yes, but still the most intriguing liquid I had ever tried. This made champagne feel like orange squash- there was so much going on, such depth, such flavour, yet still so refreshing. To the bemusement of my friends, who were used to me wearing pink boob tubes and dancing to S Club 7 at cheese nights (this was 2004, remember), I drank the lot. And then demanded they take me to pubs where I could try more. And maybe some that weren’t 8.5%.

I’ve never looked back. I love the fact that there is ale for every occasion; a 3.5% biscuity brown ale allows me to drink 5 pints on a week night and still wake up feeling spritely, while a cherry chocolate stout gets me in a party mood. But the best thing? There are no rules. You want a midnight black porter on the beach? Perfectly refreshing. A golden IPA on Christmas day? It goes really well with turkey. You want to drink a real ale while dancing to Deadmaus? Why the hell not. For me, Real Ale is about choice- choice for free-minded people, to choose to drink something exciting, something local, something crafted with love and care, something retro. Something...(dare I say it?)... Cool.

Check out Why Cask Ale Rocks from four more young cask ale lovers:
http://rabidbarfly.blogspot.com (Glyn- bar manager)
www.pencilandspoon.com (Mark- beer writer)
http://beerevolution.wordpress.com/ (Kelly- brewer)
www.beerbirrabier.blogspot.com (Mark- homebrewer)

All the young dudes

2010-10-17T12:46:00.003+01:00

We all know how much I love a good old fashioned pub. Friends frequently get frustrated with me as I badger them away from a groovy bar into a backstreet local. My pals have long since learned never to scorn me for ordering ‘an old man’s drink’ but they will occasionally allow themselves a rant about my choice of venue. Having said that, on a recent pub crawl round Forest Hill, South-East London, it was the time-warped Forest Hill Hotel, with its distinctly early 90’s karaoke set up and faded flowery seat covers, which had everyone hooked. Except me, as there was no real ale.

But there is real ale a-plenty around London today. In cool, funky venues with quirky design and young, interesting staff who know what they are talking about.

For the past two Saturday’s we have found ourselves in the shadow of Tower Bridge, in the delightful Dean Swift and the much talked about Draft House. We found them both through sheer fluke last weekend but returned entirely intentionally this time round.

Last Saturday was a landmark day for Real Ale Girl. We spotted that our 2^nd closest brewery, Kernel, is open every Saturday to buy their beer directly (for those of you interested in such things, Meantime’s new brewing premises is 3.6 miles away from my gaff, Kernel = 5.6.). So off we sped, traipsing round the back arse of Bermondsey, carefully tracing our route alongside the railway arches, repeatedly mistaking mechanics for our destination. But boy, what a destination. We sat on a wooden plank, admiring the fashion for cool young lads to make themselves look as geeky and unstylish as possible, and marvelled. We made our way through as much of the exotic range as we could manage in half an hour, and chatted to Evin, the brewer, who made my year by recognising me. I am officially cool.

Evin recommended the Dean Swift to us. They sell his bottles, and even the occasional rare cask. He told us how to find it and told us they serve good beer. He didn’t tell us just how darn hip it would be. It is stylish, it is quirky, it was full of groovy young folks. And I loved it. They indeed serve good beer. Not just cask, but a carefully selected range of draft beers from around the world- beers for the connoisseur and the casual beer drinker alike. The bottled beer list is split into styles and features a Wheat beer from Corsica. The place is quite simply very cool. They know their stuff- about both beer and what makes a pub attractive to young people, and are combining the two perfectly. And I am going to keep going back.

Round the corner is the much hyped Draft House, but hyped has negative connotations. Hyped implies an exaggerated reputation, and that when you finally go yourself, you’ll be somewhat disappointed by the reality. But I didn’t get that with the Draft House. I got some amazing beer- the Rauchbier is pure heaven for a smoky beer lover, and I got to sit in a New York loft-esque space marvelling at their witty marketing and Ghostbusters wallpaper.

What is exciting about these bars is not just the beer. And it’s not simply the style. It is the combination of the two. Looking around both bars yesterday afternoon, there were groups of friends having lunch and nursing hangovers. Drinking exciting, unusual beers. There were cool couples on their way home from Spitalfields. Drinking exciting, unusual beers. There were family groups having birthday lunches, drinking exciting, unusual beers- not a glass of wine in sight, the grannies were drinking Belgian fruit beers. And there was me. In a state of excitement that beer really is getting cool. About bloody time.

A small step for real ale-kind... A giant leap for a John Smiths drinker.

2010-09-30T22:03:00.002+01:00

Monday saw the launch of The Cask Report 2010 and I found myself in the heart of Brew Wharf for the shindig. Well, it was more of a presentation, but when I'm drinking ale and sneaking more than my fair share of canapes with the bigwigs of the UK's beer industry, I'm in shindig frame of mind. It did feel a bit like stepping into an edition of The Publican, but all the pictures were alive and talking to me.
(The delightful Jo Theakston from Black Sheep and I pondered what life would be like if a bomb fell on the venue: we'd all have to be drinking Guinness.)
But have no fear- the gravitas of the report wasn't wasted on me. Sitting next to Marverline Cole (aka Beer Beauty, who I want to be my new best friend) I contemplated the lack of real ale in the O2 despite it being the biggest entertainment venue in Europe and the fact that I met a woman the other day who refused to accept a free sample of real ale, saying 'I don't drink bitter.' She was drinking John Smiths.
I sincerely agree with Maestro Brown (Pete, by the way, not Gordon/ Bobbi/ Derren) that educating folks about Cask Beer is key to its continued growth. People don't hate the stuff, they just don't always consider it worth a try or understand why it’s such a special drink.
Which is why I was delighted to see exactly that education going on in one of my local Wetherspoons (oh yes, I'm lucky enough to have two within ten minutes walk from my gaff.)
This is a pub that could reap the benefits from ale educating; not lectures, nothing forceful, but friendly, free exposure to real ale’s delights. The pub itself does well with ale- they have regularly changing guests from an exciting range of microbreweries. They organise brewery tours and advertise ale events on behalf of others. So some people here must drink it. I just seem to always be at the bar next to the person who is ordering Tuborg and yet more John Smiths. It’s not a particularly glamourous area, lots of punters come to the pub alone and its really not the most stylish or inspiring of joints.
So, on a miserable Wednesday evening, in the midst of a power shower level downpour, just what everyone needed was a bit of a freebie and some friendly banter. It came in the form of a meet the brewer evening with a lovely chap from Hogsback and some dapper gents from Itchen Valley. Punters approached with inquisitive intrepidation- some were regular cask drinkers, others were after a free drink. We all sampled the wares, discussed the beer, compared the breweries’ artwork, enjoyed the raffle (Real Ale Brother securing tickets for the Hogsback fellow from Sainsbury’s over the road) and admired the stylish shoes bedecking the feet of Gary and Mark (not from Take That, but Itchen Valley). It was low key, it wasn’t groundbreaking, it won’t make a massive impact on the market value, but if it just makes one person switch from John Smiths, just once, and helps turn 8.6 million cask ale drinkers into 8.7, then it was worth the boys making their rainy journeys.

A very important arrival

2010-09-20T21:54:00.002+01:00

The nights are beginning to draw in sooner, the mornings are a bit crisper and we have just had gammon for dinner. It must be Autumn. But I don't mind. And not for the reasons you might expect (chestnut ales, a multitude of marvellous ale festivals, being able to wear your favourite cardigans...).
No. These are all glorious reasons for celebrate the arrival of the season of falling leaves. But none bring me as much joy, as much tingling anticipation, as much sheer, erm, delight as the sublime feeling of a pristine, factory smelling, uniform paged, unspoilt spine of a new Good Beer Guide (picked up from the sorting office after an agonising two weeks).
Blog will go on a back burner, emails will be ignored, texts will lie unreplied to, skincare regime will suffer, and washing up will sit festering (actually, this is always the case, new GBG or not.) There is important updating to be done.
With each page turn of the beautiful Breweies section, tanatlising teasers spur me on. Which breweries are no longer listed? Which previously unlisted beers are now included? What ticked beers have disappeared? What's my total tally this year? Not to mention all the thrill and excitement of flicking through the pubs section (which Real Ale Husband dutifully maintains now that I spend more time on beer ticking than sleeping.)
So, I'm off. Off to get on with it all, giving my ticking hand repetitive strain injury and potentially casuing Real Ale Husband to wonder whether he made the right desision when he said 'I will' in August. And, of course, to forlornly fondle Roger Protz's signature in last year's edition for a few more times before the tome goes to GBG retirement home (underneath the coffee table.)

A real ale girl's guide to weddings

2010-09-08T21:22:00.002+01:00

So due to popular demand, having been married for a month and one day, here is the ultimate 'nuptiale' guide.

How to realaleify your wedding:

1. Choose a pub for your reception which will let you select the ale. And taste it. And pay you lot of compliments on your choices. Ours was the stunning Knight's Templar in Chancery Lane, which got almost as much praise as my dress.

2. Create your own tasting badges to go with said beers- e.g. dark and fruity, a bit like us.

3. Ask your favourite, friendly local brewery (in our case, Brodies Beers) to brew up a special beer for the day. Proudly display your personalised pump clip (in our case, featuring a London bus in-keeping with our other theme) and plug it mightily throughout the day.

4. Make serving the first pint of your special ale be as important as cutting the cake. (Which incidently had hidden pint glass shapes and a sneaky CAMRA logo.)

5. Get commemorative pint and half pint glasses created to serve all the beer in and allow your guests to take them home as a souvenir. (Tip: keep about 100 for yourself- if you are anywhere near as clumsy as me, you'll smash, on average, one every 3.2 days.)

6. Find a beer related 'favour'. (In our case, personalised beer mats/ pump clips as coasters, matched to the person's name/ job/ personality etc. A hell of a lot of work, but well worth it. (By the way, thank you to The Southampton Arms, Kentish Town, The Admiral Hardy, Greenwich, Wetherspoons Lewisham & Greenwich, Bexley Beer Festival Tombola Men, The Alleyn's Head, Dulwich, many folks on Ebay and course, The Knight's Templar for supplying them. You'd have thought they were gold plated by the ripples of joy spreading round the tables as people discovered them.

Why you should realaleify your wedding:

A longer lasting bar tab (ale is bargainous in comparison to wine)
Very happy musicians (if they are a 70 year old 60's band as ours were)
A more gradual rate of drunkeness (weaker than spirits) meaning you abd your guests can enjoy more of your special day and be more likely to remember it all.
Tons of wine and vodka drinkers discovering the joys of ale because they wanted to try the 'special wedding beer'.
Merry people who don't get aggressive (who does on real ale?)
A microbrewery being discovered by a massive pub chain.
Fabulous quirky photos (who normally gets to pull a pint of their own beer together as newlyweds?)

The Real Ale Girl and the Real Ale Husband are available for wedding/Christening/BarMitzvah realaleifying. Oh, and if anyone is after hundreds of beers mats/ pumpclips, I'm your girl. There were quite a few that were too boring for our guests.

Girls: Chocolate Stout v Banana Bread beer?

2010-08-02T09:25:00.003+01:00

This wedding lark don't half get in the way of blogging, you know. Its hard to frivolously blog my thoughts away while the fiance sits in a pool of table settings and italic pens. However, have no fear; the next edition will be entitled How To Real Aleify Your Wedding. I can't reveal too many deatils yet as one or two lucky followers also happen to be guests at said wedding on Saturday. So you can hear about it all post honeymoon.
All this place card writing and favour wrapping however, have given us the perfect opportunities to sup our way through a Welsh Ale Selection box, bought for me as a leaving gift from work by an immensly insightful, beer appreciating colleague, who shall be named as The Belgian Beer Girl. Monty's Midnight has been the stand out so far, but we've got some way to go before there is only polystyrene left in the box.
Its been a fortnight of big events and acievements; starting a new job, winning the newly opened Grape and Grain quiz without brilliant brother and fabulous Father in Law to be planning this phenonomenal wedding, surviving (just) my amazing hen do (lots of vodka, champagne,and cocktails, with a bit of ale thrown in at the end), However, my biggest achievements in the last two weeks have been my Real Ale Girl Evangelism. Last week, on my hen do, Wine Girl (bridesmaid and cousin) drank a whole bottle of ale, to herself! Once she a had a sip of Wells and Youngs' Banana Bread beer, I didn't get a look in and was stuck with Skinner's Cornish Knocker. I also introduced at least one other wine drinking buddy the delights of ale (again with a Youngs'- have they found the secret to beer for women?) at our work party last week. Do all women love chocolate? I don't know, but Young's Chocolate Stout sure is a great way to lure female drinkers. Just be aware of the rather erotic sounding groans they may emit whilst discovering the joy. I will leave you with that thought.

Good, strong stuff.

2010-06-23T17:32:00.000+01:00

So, in the post football come down, its impossible to get any real work done, sio here I am with my first blog post in zeons. My apologies for lack of bloggage, I can't really explain why I've been quite so busy, so that will have to be that. Let's hear no more about it. Although if someone wants to by me an iphone, I'll gladly blog a whole lot more.
So what's been going down? I've been drinking a lot of strong stuff, that's what. The lovely ladies at the glorious Royal Oak in Tunbridge Wells gave me an exclusive, top secret, tight lipped tasting of BrewDog's 41% (or is 42%?) Sink the Bismark. Now give me that over whisky any day (and I like a good whisky). It goes down like a dark velvety dream, without the vinegary bite you get from beers a fifth of that strength. Still, don't know if I'd be up to paying 40 quid for 330ml- is is a beer after all! I thank the Royal Oak landlady for her generosity and interest; people: go to that pub!
Another crew who know how to make a goo9d strong beer are the folks at the HardKnott Brewry. Having been given a pair of limited edition bottles at the Ale v Lager evening at the White Horse ages ago, I was eager to get stuck in. Howver, I soon realised I have night in and nights out. I have nights in for recuperating, for doing a bit of out of hours work, for cleaning, for laundry, all that dull stuff, washed down with beers of around 4%. I have nights out for drinking strong stuff that leaves your lips numb. So here was a conundrum. I was home on no evening that was suitable for a 10% + beer. These glorious Cumbrian ales sat untouched, waiting for a Friday night in. It did'nt come. They eventually came on the train with us (Boris hasn't killed that joy) on our way to the magnificent Dartford Working Mens' Club a couple of weeks ago.It was 7pm, the commuter looked at us as if we were bonkers, as we exclaimed the tatsebud beauty that these beers brought with them. Strong, yes. Lip numbing, yes. Drunk making, absolutely. Vinegary and eye watering, not at all. If I manage to get hold of any more of Dave's beers, I better plan some nights in.

George and The Duck

2010-05-09T09:59:00.003+01:00

Cast your mind back to 23rd April. I was St George's Day, it had been sunny during the day, but the evening was a bit nippier. We embarked on a feat so daring, so risky, so intrepid, we may as well have been dragon slaying. Oh yes. We were on the way to Dartford Working Men's Club.

Invited along to their St George's day festival by the lovely manager Nick, we were not sure what to expect but had to take him up on the offer- this place is legendary, multi multi multi award winning and once inside, I could'nt beleive it had taken us this long to hop on the train here. As we entered, we thought we had landed in Skegness with all the old ladies playing bingo (taking it very seriously indeed.) But this place is huge, and once in the back room, all thoughts of demon old dears faded away- this was an ale den, masquerading as a working men's club. (They even had a seafood man with a wicker basket like pubs had in the good ol' days. Yum!)

Ushered in by Nick, we were shown straight to the bar, where a fabulous range of rare and wonderful 26 English ales made it impossible to choose. So we had them all. St George's brewery (based in Worcester) provided incredibly tasty beers with marvellously english names (Friar Tuck, George & Dragon).

Sharing a long table with people who were drinking lager at the the start of the night and ale by the end, we settled in to watch the entertainment. Now what live music do you have on St George's Day? Morris Men? A colliery band? Madrigals playing Greensleeves? No no no. A German Beer Hall Oom-pah band. Genius. Dressed in Lederhosen with German Flag decorated music stands, the boys were perfect for the event, encouraging normally apathetic club goers to swing their glasses above their heads, chant toasts in German and grab the thighs of strangers.

Nick gave us a tour of the cellar and a history of the club. This man knows what he is doing and well deserves the many awards the club as won- his committment to ale in this unlikely setting is astounding, and he is nowhere near as scary as he looks.

The following day, we headed down to The Chequers Inn in Ladingford for their beer festival- always good fun, with thousands of young people geting wasted on ale for the first time, and a band who played the time warp live. The only issue is that bere tokens means you end up buying way more than you can actually manage, which makes you talk to strange people and get stuck in the mud in the garden. But hey, I was drinking a beer called Drunken Duck.

Oh, hope the layout is more suitbale, hard of sighted ones. x

A perfectly lovely beer festival.

2010-04-13T12:02:00.000+01:00

Thursday night took us to the first day of the Bexley Beer Festival, so keen we were that we arrived twenty minutes before it opened. We were not alone, however, three young drinkers amongst a fellowship of retirees who clearly bought their Beer Fest T-shirts before they drank this much beer.
Bexley has always impressed me as a festival that manages its stock well- they always have all the beers on at the start of the festival, and despite attracting some crowds (it is only Sidcup), they usually manage not to sell out too quickly. I didn't find out how long it lasted though, standing in front of the bar with ten other keenos at opening time in a state of ecstacy enduced by a full range to choose from. And I'd only had about 15 of the 60 or so beers tempting me. Good going Bexley dudes- rare beers from mini breweries from all over the place. I appreciate all the benefits of Locale, don'y get me wrong, but it is so nice to go to a London area festival and not be confronted with just Sambrooks and Shepherd Neame.
Williams from Alloa impressed us with both the Ceilidh Lager and Midnight Sun Porter, two very different but equally yumscious beers, one straw pale and nutty, the other with just enough ginger to give a sunny kick in the dark. Another bonza of this particular festival- they always get in lots of dark beers, milds, stouts and porters- when will other festival organisers realise just how popular they are now?
As the beers wowed us, I wowed everyone else with my badge making skills. The lovely Adrain, manning the make your own badge stall seemed suprised I'd never witnessed the machine's glory at a festival before. Has anyone? I'd love to hear from any of you who have made your own beer badges at a fest, we had slightly too much fun making ours, or maybe that when we knocked beer all over the stand playing the wooden slot game (what is that called, people?) Anyway, I am now sporting a rather fetching yellow Real Ale Girl badge with a home made caricature of myself. I might have to get myself one of those machines.
Had a good chat with the lovely man who runs the Dartford Working Mans club, and having established that the train goes there (!) will be attending their St George's day festival- come on down if you want to see my badge!
Anyhoo, better run, am in Swansea at the moment, and there is Rhymney to be consumed. But not before I say, big up Bexley dudes, hope the rest of the festival went well.

A Pineapple, a mug tree of beer and 5pm dancing. Easter!

2010-04-08T12:12:00.000+01:00

Most folks spend Easter eating chocolate, but of course, for me, it is prime beer drinking time. A long weekend with beer festivals left, right and centre, with the odd sprinkling of sunshine to remind you that there is a use for beer gardens other than freezing smokers' asses off.

We kicked off our festivities at the Pineapple in Kentish Town on Good Friday. With casks setup in the garden, and pie ploughmans' platters, I thought we'd stumbled our way to Kent itself. But the hip and groovy yoofs told us otherwise, even if only 1 in 5 of them were brave enough to move away from Stella. After being shouted at by a punter becuase I was lucky enough to get money off using my CAMRA card, we proceeded to drink our way through all 24 beers available that day. Surprisingly for me, I went with a popular choice for my favourite of the festival- Derventio's Cleopatra- fruity (masses of apricot silkiness), pale and girly- all the things I usually avoid in an ale. But this one was something special, a perfect Easter treat. You could almost see the bunnies and chicks frolicking in it.

I also made a new celebrity pal, with Suggs being intrigued by my beer ticking antics - he'd clearly never met anyone who gets kicks out of trying new beers, and bombarded me with questions about festivals and ale, declaring to the barman "That girl has got it right! What a hobby!" He stuck to Hop Back Crop Circle for the afternoon, signing my beer list, rather than starting his own!

We finished off a perfectly good Friday wih another trip to the glorious Southampton Arms, where we made it through all the beers and most of the ciders. And still had room for some chocolate on the way home.

Saturday, and we are off to the airport, to Geneva, and the Alps. An Exmoor Gold in the Gatwick North Terminal Wetherspoons started off a trip of great beers- who knew the Swiss had so many beers around? The Austrian Gosser was a perfect accompaniment to fondue whilst Switzerland's own Feldschlossen Lager, whilst a bit bland and fizzy, was a treat after climbing 300 odd steps up the cathedral towers. We found two amazing brewpubs in Geneva, who mercifully both did tasting selections. At the brasserie du Molard, these tasters came on a mug tree for beer, and contained the intriguing Ambree, which was so good, even my mum had one.

At Les Brasseurs, they had a special seasonal beer on, a bright, bright, bright red 'Spice beer' which was flavoured with what tasted like jalapenos and cinnamon. It was both delicious and hideous at the same time, I never quite decided whether I loved it or hated it.

From Geneva, we wound our way up and up and up into the Haute Alps and the land of ski, and more importantly, apres-ski. With a bit too much Grimbergen wiggling around inside, we made our way in a cable car from Brides les Bains to Meribel, the heart of SkiBunnyVille. Not wishing to take part in any activity involving voluntary breaking your own bones whilst hanging out up a mountain, the apres-ski is what I'm interested in. Especially when it invloves dancing to live music, drinking Mutzig Old Lager, at 6.9 % at 5pm. If it weren't for all the skiing, I could get into that lifestyle.

Its all about London beer!

2010-03-30T16:41:00.000+01:00

Two London Breweries, two very different experiences!

On Thursday night, we finally managed to get to Meantime’s new joint, the Old Brewery at the Naval College (well, it had been open since Tuesday). At 8%, the specially brewed Hospital Porter was a major triumph, and went down nicely when supped whilst getting in the way of diners so we could read the amazingly comprehensive history of beer timeline. The manager thought I was joking when I suggested they reproduce this timeline on tiles so I could have one in my kitchen. I wasn’t. Maybe I’ll just have to make indents in some copper to make it look like beer bubbles and put that on the wall. Oh, they did that too.

Did I ever mention Brodies and the wedding beer? A couple of weeks ago the lovely James confirmed they would make us a beer for our reception, which led to many squeals from me, at work, where no one else understood what a phenomenal prospect this was. Heathens.

So, on Sunday, we went over to Brodies Bunny Basher Festival, and worryingly, drank about 12 different beers before we finally met with Jamie. Who gave us lots more. And free T-Shirts. Mint Chocolate Chip Stout led to many squeals- mint aero in a glass. Blue (a blueberry wheat beer)- cue more squeals. And then one beer got an accolade rarely awarded by Real Ale Girl. A Ten. Olde Ardour (was it brown ale, was it old ale?) was perfection in beer form. Get some somehow, people; those Brodies know what they are doing. And so, the wedding beer. After much deliberation and argument… well, I’m not going to give it away on here, am I?

Tonight, we are off for a schmooze at the White Horse for their Lager V Ale shindig- Pete Brown invited me after the writing comp. I just hope I don’t swoon over Roger Protz like I did last time I saw him. Oh, bugger, what if he remembers me, the mad girl who got giggly over him signing her Good Beer Guide? Well, at least I can feel more like an equal- I just got invited to join the Guild of Beer Writers… again, all down to that competition entry. You’ve got to be in it to win it.

Right there, under my nose.

2010-03-21T22:52:00.000Z

I think of myself as quite adventurous, fairly quick on the uptake and keen to venture into new places. So, why was it only this weekend that I discovered the joys of Crystal Palace's Grape and Grain, and The Harp, near Charing Cross? I did consider making out that I'd been to both of these gems before, out of sheer embarassment, but then my excitement would give me away- nothing beats that fluttering buzz of finding a phenomenal real ale pub.
So imagine this. It's Friday night. I've come straight from work, having gotten changed in the coat cupboard and put lipstick on in the dark, as everyone else had left and I was concerned that turning the light on might trigger an alarm. I'm due to attend a special one off pub quiz put on by a friend's church, and I need somewhere to while away half a hour or so while I wait for fiance. I had heard about this place, the Grape and Grain, but I'd heard about it from CAMRA ticking friends, and was apprehensive about the presence of my short skirt in such an establishment. I've still got a CAMRA card, miniskirt or not, I thought, as I pushed on the heavy door, escaping the drizzly rain.
And there it was. Pub heaven. 8 real ales, Locale and microbreweries. Arm chairs. Discounts for CAMRA members. Wood panelling. Menus in LP covers. In SOUTH EAST LONDON! I have a feeling that miniskirt may become a regualr feature at the Grape and Grain.
Pity we had to leave to go the quiz, although we had a marvellously civilised time and busted all competition with our music round prowess and ended up winning. The quiz, by the way, was at The Rosendale, in West Dulwich. My pal's pals had hired out the upstairs. Meanwhile downstairs, in the main bar, I reluctantly ordered one of my least favourite ales (from a choice of one), Adnams Broadside. The serving was laughable, I flagged down the nearest barmaid for a top up (it was missing about 40p worth of beer, at these prices) and she topped it up with Murphys. It might be worth avoiding the Rosendale if you like your ale without an Irish stout top.
Saturday brought with it an early meeting at our wedding reception venue- quarter past eleven isn't too early for a half, is it? Cottage Ex Mayor or Itchen Valley Godfather? Ok, then. Both.
Meeting down, and fiance off to football, I had a good few hours to fill, and so took a stack of work to the Baker Street Wetherspoons. The barman serenaded me as I ordered Welton's Sweet Chariot- any guesses what he sang? And soon it was time for my Harp adventure. Bro took me round the houses (well, the side of the Colliseum, in truth) to find the back entrance- which was well worth it. The Narnia effect of pushing open the unmarked door and stumbling into the warm bustle of the tiny bar made me want to run aroundand say hello to everyone. Redemption's Urban Dusk just added to the glowing loveliness of this place, and after 4 ales, I vowed to come back again soon. I had'n' expected it to be the next day. A very dodgy play in Kentish Town put us fabulously close to the Southampton Arms, my previous pub heaven discovery. A local played rock and roll on the peiano, we shared a bench with Helen Mirren lookalikes and we made our way through all thier ales and a selection of their ciders, but let me say- a green beer should not taste of egg, Stonehenge Ales.
Sunday- and we paid a visit to our wedding chapel, followed by a tour of Wembley Stadium (we really do get up to all sorts, don't we?) We jumped off the tube at Finchley for a Wetherspoons Sunday lunch, and then hopped off again at Euston to pop into the Bree Louise. Hopback's Back row was the most exciting of an already outdated range of Six nations themed beers, but we had a lot of fun playing bankety blank with the menu. Who would ever guess garlic loaf?
And as if by magic, we were back at Charing Cross, and our legs led us subconciously back to The Harp. Some Dark Star wares and dry cider finished off my weekend of surprised discovery. Do you think I can stumble across two stunning new pubs every weekend? I'll give it a good shot.

(2nd) Prize winning beer writer, anyone...?

2010-03-14T21:29:00.001Z

After an ale free night on Tuesday at the Brockley Jack, I was up for the South East London CAMRA branch crawl in Sydenham. The chat was good, the ale disappointing; we got a Young's Bitter in The Bricklayers, a dodgy Tribute in The Windmill and left The Woodman out entirley due to no real ale- how did that place end up on the itinerary? Lucky we started the night off in the Capital with B & T's sublime SOD- how can something with that name taste so good?
Having not be to the Brockley Jack for ages, we were back again on Thursday, this time en route to Justin Lee Collins at the Rivoli Ballroom. I still had no ale, though- I just can't bring myself to pay for a Greene King beer.
No matter, however, for Friday night was London Drinker night. Swinging my way into the weekend with the news of my second place in Pete Brown/ The Publican's new beer writer competition (check out petebrown.blogspot.com for the details) I was up for some classic beer fest fun. I got it, in the form of chats with lovely CAMRA friends, reunions with pals we had not seen for ages, Tombola fun, and of course some yummy ol' beers. But the organising dudes still need to learn to get more dark ones on; they all disappear so quickly! I even managed to kit Lorraine out in a pair of the highly desirable and hard to come by CAMRA earrings- all cool real ale girls should own a pair.

Dresses, beer, dresses, beer

2010-02-28T22:11:00.000Z

What else could a girl have in hand when trying on wedding dresses than a botte of ale (this time, Maypole Mild from Oakleaf) which was the last of a fabulous Christmas present, a box of ales from realale.com. Winter really must be over- the box is now empty.
Friday, late afternoon, and I was squished inside the Market Porter, drinking something lovely, but I wasn't too sure what it was- it was too busy to get a view of the pumps, but it took me nicely into the weekend- a weekend that was quite lacking in ale opportunities. Until today, that is.
Hounslow. Trekking over there on a Bridesmaid dress quest, we popped into it's Wetherspoons; one of first, in true shop conversion/ local history on the walls style. Welton's Horsham Old, Cotleigh's Buzzard and Caledonian's Over the top gave us the strength to step out into the gale and find the bus to Isleworth- how could we be this close and not make a detour to the Red Lion? Now, its not everyday that avid London Drinker readers find a pub beer festival accidently, but it happened today, in the form of their Celtic fest, serving 25 Scottish and Welsh beers over the weekend. We managed 8 this afternoon- not bad for a Sunday, but very easy when there are tasty offerings from Abergavenny's Tudor brewery, and more Rhymney (mentioned last week.) This time is was their Dark. Dark indeed, and delicious. Beautiful beers, good live music, this is a truly fabulous pub- worth reserving bridesmaid dresses on the other side of London for.

All over the shop...

2010-02-21T21:01:00.000Z

Wowzer, what a week! Sorry for the lack of post last week, but as I mentioned, I was in Amsterdam, drinking lots of (in the words of The Wenlock) Fizzy Piss in the form of Heineken. I did get to drink wort on their brewery tour though, now that's a sweet experience.
Back in London, we went for a whisky tasting this time, at Cadenhead's, where whilst not being an expert on the stuff, I fooled the proprietor with taste buds that have been honed into accuracy through real ale sampling!
From whisky in Marylebone to Porter in Tunbridge Wells, courtesy of the fabulous Royal Oak. The perfect spot for a cosy Wednesday night, we enjoyed their new pie and beer deal with the beautiful Larkin's Porter- its so nice to try something different by them. Lovely. And they serve Ramos Pinto Port- this place knows their stuff.
And then to Wales, Swansea in particular. Despite forgetting my Good Beer Guide (potential ale on tour disaster) a soon to be relative filled me in on the places to be. He led us to The Joiner's Arms in nearby Bishopston, which, as well as being a gorgeous homely pub full of friendly locals celebrating Friday afternoon, it's also the home of The Swansea Brewing Co. We made our way through their available range; the Bishopswood Bitter and Three Cliffs Gold (which admittedly, whilst tasty, were spookily similar to each other) and the stronger Original Wood, with a real lump of carved wood for a pump clip. We also popped into one of Swansea's Wetherspoons where, despite huge wine/ cider hangovers, we were able to sip down some more Welsh ale, this time from the Rhymney Brewery. I wish I could say it cured the hangover, but it stood no chance after I'd witnessed all those cockles in the market. I was feeling better, however by the time we headed to a Sizzling food pub, which was just as well, as they were serving Brains Bitter for £2 a pint.
Now, last time, I said the Southampton Arms was enough to make me want to move to Kentish town and I had a feeling it would'nt be long before we returned. Yesterday was the first opportunity we had, sneaking it onto the end of the Kentish Town Crawl recommended by those nice folks we met last time. The sublime Pineapple and the busy Junction served us well on the ale front, each place allowing the three of us to try a different ale. The Dartmouth Arms, whilst being a fun pub with an amazing board game selection, was a bit disappointing on the ale front, so we drank cider and Erdinger. And so to the super Southampton Arms- an amazing pale ale from the new Redemption Brewery, a rich Porter (or was it a stout) from Bath's Abbey Ales, and Fraoch's Heather Ale were the tastiest of a superb selection, and we nibbled on the world's best Scotch egg.
Oh, and between arriving back from Swansea mid afternoon and our evening crawl in Kentish Town, I managed to squeeze in a trip to The Old Coffee House in Soho for this week's Brodies fix- yummy stuff, the West End Best. Looking forward to the Easter Festival.
Indeed, what a week. Think I need an ale from the cupboard to help me recover.

Can we move to Kentish Town?

2010-02-07T20:18:00.000Z

Despite possiby the craziest week at work, I how managed to sneak in a few ales- although, we all know that ale is the best therapy.
A sleepy trip to the Capital, Forest Hill's Wetherspoon's, left us full of a sense of what we were missing- three extremely exciting looking beers were all 'available soon'... if only we lived the sorts of lives that meant we could pop in everyday. We can dream.
On Thursday, as the work madness was subsiding, we made a pilgrimage across London to Kentish Town and the glorious haven that is the new Southhamptpn arms. An alehouse by name, alehouse by nature- they serve only real ale and cider from small independent producers, with no fizzy piss to be seen! Sharing a pew and marvelling at the pork pies, we enjoyed to beers by the Earl of Soham Brewery and made our way through all eight ciders. We met some lovely locals and a surpirise workmate who gave us enough pub tip offs to merit a pretty good crawl in the near future. Yet another pub to make you want to move... anyone fancy opening an alehouse in Lewisham?
Today took us to the Mad Hatter, the Fuller's pub by Blackfriars bridge, which wasn't yet serving their new Bengal Lancer- we'll just have to wait until Tuesday when we are having a tutored tasting by Fuller's head brewer. Then over to Greenwich and the Admiral Hardy where we were pleasantly surprised as, despite only popping in for the football, we were greeted by Sharp's Winter Berry. Tasty stuff. Still not being willing to head home, we navigatec our way to the Dog and Bell for a gargantuan Bar Billiards Tournament, washed down with Moorhouses Black Cat Mild and Nethergate Umbel Ale- strange not to see something rarer in Deptford's beer paradise, but still certainly yummy. Also strange for me not to win the Bar Billiards tournament.
Next weekend takes us to Amsterdam, so, dear followers, there will be no blog on Sunday, but I'll try and make a new post on Saturday, if you are lucky.

its only mini- its my birthday!

2010-01-31T21:48:00.000Z

It is my birthday today and was tempted to leave the blog, but I could'nt go back on my Every Sunday resolution. But it'll only be brief.
Friday took us, and 63 lovely pals to the Wheatsheaf near Borough Market (weird to go there without stopping in the old MP first!) for our engagemnet shindig. We chose it for the buzz and the beer, and well and truly enjoyed both, but sadly, due to the level of this enjoyment, I can only recall one beer by name, but that's because it was beautiful- Wayland Smith's Giant. The rest of the selection was undoubetdly consumed, but will have to remain sorrowfully unticked in my Good Beer Guide.
Speaking of the GBG, we were in Hastings today for a my birthday lunch when we stumbled upon a guide stalwart, the First In Last Out brewpub which we were all embarrased to admit we did'n't know anything about. Thier Cardinal Porter and Crofter's ale were tasty treats to try as we peered into the blue lit brewing space, and they were also serving a Cottage ale and Dark Star's Old Chestnut. Yummy stuff. Maybe we could try and find a new brewpub on every birthday.

An argument, some haggis and a tasty blonde

2010-01-24T21:50:00.000Z

I started off this week's aleness with an awkward confrontation in the Clannanch, a Nicholson's near Carnaby Street. I asked if a particular beer was on. The barman, in the tone of a headmaster talking to a naughty 5year old, stated that if the pump clip is facing me, the beer is on. So I had to remind him of the last time I was in that exact spot, three pump clips were facing me and not a single one was actually available and we had left, and I'd emailed the head office (yes I am a grass). He didn't really reply.
Thursday saw the best deal Wetherspoons has done in ages, with their Burn's week special, Haggis, neeps and tatties with a pint of scottish ale for £3.99. Beautiful- at the risk of sounding a bit Oz Clarke, the Caledonian Auld Aquaintance brought out the oats and went perfectly with the turnip. Dark but light, I came over all och aye.
We just got back from another London Bridge session- it seems to be coming a Sunday/ lazy day regular. A good selection in the Market Porter ( Loddon's Firsty the Snowman and Bradfield's Farmers were the best of the bunch) were accompanied by the permanent problem of insufficient seating and a debate over stealing the beer mats (we have a very good but very secret reason for wanting to do so). We then ambled round to the Wheatsheaf, which despite having a sign outside advertising Sunday night jazz, was shut. With a padlock. So yet again, the Horniman got our custom, and we got to try two Lancaster ales, their blonde and their amber. I never thought I'd say this, but just this once, blonde was better.

Sorry!

2010-01-17T21:16:00.000Z

So it has been ages since my last post, but certainly not because there has been nothing to write about. A very busy real ale girl, but my 2010 pledge is a blog every Sunday, perhaps another on a Wednesday if you are lucky.
So, the busy month. What could have possibly kept me away? Lets go through this chronologically, peeps, for the sake of thoroughness.
After the pure joy that was Pig's Ear 2009, came the ale free Staff night out, painful being so so so close to Market Porter and Wheatsheaf holy graildom without getting through the door to either. I had to drink vodka. Quite refreshing, actually.
Christmas concert rehearsals saw me spending a lot of time at The Blackheath Halls, making my way though the Meantime range (the raspberry is very good for the vocal chords, I've discovered), and a lot of time in a selection of Wetherspoons, ticking off Christmas beers form their winter offering. Lovely stuff. I love Christmas beer.
With that in mind, we made a pilgrimage to the temple that is the King William for the Brodies Christmas Beer Festival, and yummed our way though Ho Ho Ho and had a sneaky sample from Lizzie of the sacredly rare Pink Pride. Good ol' stuff ad nice T-shirts. Pink and Beer, what an amazing combo.
Christmas itself brought with it an 18 pint box of Westerham's Godswallop, incredibly easy to drink all day by a roaring fire, under wooden beams (not a Christmas card, but my parents' place in Kent).
In the post Christmas lull, we pepped ourselves up with a Good Beer Guide led trip to Salisbury, where, as well as getting engaged (yay!) we made our way round the historical streets and Cathedral, and all the pubs in the guide, as well as many that should be. The glorious Village Freehouse is the sort of pub that you want to move house (and city) to be near to; I have major pub envy of those locals. Lots of Hogsback beer drunk, we made our way back to London with the warm glow of love and the buzz of yet another storming Good Beer Guide trip. It was surely meant to be.
The snow kept us indoors, but have no fear- a marvellous Christmas present of a selection box from realale.com meant we were suitably entertained and satisfied, with a flat full of polystyrene.
So here we are, snow survived, back to the grind, but with a rather beer related wedding to plan. I'll try not to bore you with too much wedding chat. I'll try.

Beero at Pig's Ear

2009-12-06T21:31:00.000Z

What larks this year's Pigs Ear Festival brought- all cushioned with an amazing selection of winter warming porters, stouts and strong ales and sponsored by the lovely Brodies.
Wednesday night saw me and bro go as punters- nice to get to a festival early on for the full selection, but a little tricky on the head the following morning. We spent the night cramming in as many of the Christmas beers and porters as we could, including the intriguingly wierd Christmas Wheat by Pitfield and Milestone's Harry Porter. Magic. Brodie's festival special, Piggy Winkle's Christmas Tinkle, was deceptively festive for the light hoppy flavour- I reckon there's some cloves in there somewhere. We had a lovely chat with James Brodie (who, according to Facebook, felt even more hungover than I did) and I got confused for Lizzie several times due to me T-shirt. We left feeling festive, more than merry and with some good tips about beer festivals in New York.
Friday took me behind the bar as a volunteer, something that every CAMRA member should do at least once, if for nothing else but the random chats with very, very drunk people (and all the free beer). After 4 hours behind the bar, I'd been offered 5 pints, asked out by a 60 year old South African, had 8 conversations about why a girl like me hangs out with 'all these old men' and advised lots of very enthusiastic but decidedly clueless young beer drinkers. One guy declared me a 'beero' (which is apparently a beer hero) after introducing him to the joy of Saffron's heavenly Chestnut Grove. Brilliant fun, and we even got a lock in with the full range to choose from. Now there's why I like to hang out with all these old men. And the fact that they are (on the whole) rather lovely.

ale is cool- its official!

2009-11-21T18:33:00.000Z

So the Wetherspoons fest finished with a flourish in the guise of the Crosse Keys Superfest. We made it down for the rather quiet but actually very relaxing Sunday, which despite being nothing on Saturday, apparently, still had a full cohort of beer beauties, including the yummily fund raising Armistice by 1648 and the crippling X- terminator by Oakham.We left that one for last. Enjoying a constant commentary from the fellow next to us and chats with some festival reguars, we made the most of a fine 24.
Last night, however, brought a rather different type of ale festival- the week long ale fest at Spitalfields ultra cool Pure Groove records. Oh yes, in case you doubted, ale is officially cool, with three aes at a terms being served from casks on the counter in this record shop/cafe/bar/live music venue. So this trendster of a venue needs cool beer, so who do they go to? Brodies, of course! I enjoyed a couple of pints of Amarilla, despite it not being my normal choice of style- it just goes to show those Brodie siblings know what they are doing. The manager/DJ said the festival has been amazingly successful and they may well get an ale on permanently. Let it be a Brodies, being East London and all that!
This morning took to me to school football on Blackheath, and then to the Princess, which is another cool place that is recognising the grooviness of real ale, with Holden's spooky pump clipped Horn Dance (so yummy it made me exclaim with delight, even though I was alone)and Springhead's un-chocolate orangey Chocolate Orange Twist. I couldn't decide between the two so ended up having a half of both. Before 12.30. And I was on my own for the second one. Oh dear. Sometimes a girl just can't choose.
Probably because I'd virtually downed these halves, I then decided it would be a good idea to go to ZeroDegrees for a 5l minikeg. The special, Rauchbeer is beautiful and looks very nice chilling on my window sill. Problem was, I bought it before I went shopping, and so fumbed around the boutiques of Blackheath knocking things over, with condensation dripping down my arm. Sometimes though, some beers are just worth the effort.

Megaspoons

2009-11-10T20:16:00.000Z

So the weekend arrived with the rain pouring down, soaked through shoes, mud splashed tights and a stackfull of work left on my desk that I didn't finish. Only one thing for it; The Crosse Keys, mid fest. It was the first time I'd been able to get down to the Megaspoons during this festival and despite having tried a few of the 24 at other wetherspoons over the last couple of weeks, there was still a whole Powerpoint presentation's worth of ale to get through. Having munched our way through the de riguer bargain sausage, chips and beans, we settled in and I worked my way through 19 thirds. I love that you can drink 19 beers and still come out walking, its pure anti-binge genius. Sort Of.

Star of the night, and possibly the festival, although I am only just over half way through the programme, was Oakleaf's Old Navy Custom. Nutty, caramelly, yummy. Bring back Old Ale, I say.
I've got a couple more opportunities to find a rival though- the normal Wed night meet up on Lewisham Wetherspoons and then back to the Crosse Keys on Sunday for the Superfest. Bring on the ever changing Powerpoint.

1000 ales!

2009-11-02T21:41:00.000Z

Welcome to Naughty November!
Having spent a few days in Swansea for a lovely wedding in a groovy, modern hotel (which sadly only served a rather warm and vinegary Reverend James), I was back in London on Saturday night and ready to wipe away the late night, all day wine drinking of the wedding with a good ale session.
Luckily, we heard about the Halloween festival at the amazing 'gothic' Patriotic Building in Wandsworth. Having never been to its normal freehouse Le Gothique, the sight of this eerie, intimidating pile was perfect for Halloween night, and the beers were gloriously as dark and spooky as the costumes. (My 'costume' was only my Brodies Special T-shirt, but it did lead to a weird conversation with a man who claimed to love Brodies and their pub, but didn't actually like any of the beer.)
Anyway, this wasn't just any old beer festival event for me- this fest would hold claim to my 1000th different real ale (since records began), and I celebrated it in style with Dark Star's Winter Meltdown, the multi -talented and bewitching Seasick Steve's music and a cheers with our long haired friend from The Pigs Ear Festival Games Division, who offered us some homemade pickled onions if we attend the next one.On that note, I am intending to volunteer on a couple of nights- will keep you posted.
My 1002nd beer Downton's Chocolate Orange Stout, however, was the business and had me making all sorts of inappropriate noises of appreciation, but then so, surprisingly, did the 10% Thomas Sykes from the fabulous Burton Bridge. Drinking any of their beers takes me back to our Easter Burton pilgrimage, but being 10%, I was expecting to find this too sweet and overbearing, but it was dangerously easy drinking. Seek it out, strong beer fans.
I finished the night having been made to jump 5 times by the same masked man but on a new score of 1011. How long until I reach 2000?

London Bridge- sorted!

2009-10-27T17:59:00.000Z

What a week we are having- I love half term! Following our mammoth day on Saturday at the Wenlock and Hoopers, we followed it up on Sunday with a London Bridge area crawl with the main aim of trying each beer on in the Market Porter and the Wheatsheaf. Add the newly vamped up selction in the Horniman to the mix, and there is a permenant beer festival waiting at the end of a 10 min train journey.
We started off the day in Lewisham Wetherspoons to use the WIFI, but of course could'nt escape without a couple of halves; the obligatory Welton's on offer today was Old Cocky, and they also had Brewster's Decadence, a bit too bland to be that decadent, to be honest!
Hotfooting it up to the old LB, we went striaght to the tourist haven that is the Horniman at Hays to make the most of the riverside seats in the sunshine. No such luck, lots of South American teenagers had got there first. The bar was a little understaffed for the manicness of a Sunday Roast frenzy, but an American OAP came to rescue and asked the barman to 'serve this young honey next, sir!'. How chivalrous, but I had to stop thanking him when I saw he ordered Fosters. So much for 'Ye olde English ale' that American tourists usually hunt out. At least he asked the barman to top his pint up, but that didnt stop him dramatically underfilling my glasses too. The tragic thing is, there are so many people who just accept a poor measure. Don't let 'em get away with it folks!
We'd read about The Horseshoe in The London Drinker and after a Dickensian style romp through railway arches, we found it tucked away but heaving with people looking out for beach balls during the Liverpool v Man U match. We snuck upstairs to the roof terrace with Hogsback TEA and Robinson's Wags to Witches- yum yum yum. Even if it did make me think of Colleen Rooney while I was drinking it.
We headed further away from London Bridge into the surrounding residential area, and stumled upon three or four backstreet pubs, like one which had a seemlingly encylopaedic range of whiskey, but was sadly shut. if anyone knows anything about these pubs, I would love to hear about them. We did find one that was open though, the tiny fronted Whitesmiths Arms, that whilst only serving Courage Best, was charming witha lovely garden which had a TV mounted to the wall under a gazebo on which we watched the rest of the Liverpool match, whilst chatting with the Chelsea supporting locals.
From here, we made our way to the Southwark Tavern, were we tried Adnam's Kolsch from thier new Around the World range (which was really good, for Adnams!) and the Autumnly perfect Cameron's Fireside.
After bargainous gourmet cakes from a desperate end of the market day baker, we settled in for a session at the Market Porter. Despite the Lewisham knocking from the fellows we met at the bar, we had a good chinwag with a couple of fellow 'tickers' who never quite seemed to accept that I might know what I'm talkign about. Sadly, considereing the season, the beers on offer were all quite pale and golden, even the Halloween themed ones, and we left, after trying them all, hankering for something dark and rich (and an Autumnal beer would be nice too!).
On to the wonderful Wheatsheaf which has not left me disappointed yet, and Nethergate's Holy Smoke rescued me from the abyss of bland beer with its peaty, almost bacony flavour. It was Frazzles in a glass. Our second Fireside of the day, this time by Black Country, was as warming as the label suggests and ensured that todays contest finished as Wheatsheaf 1 Market Porter 0. I never thought I'd see a day when I preferred somewhere to the 'Porter. Goodness. Well done Wheatsheafers and big up to South of the River.

I'm back!

2009-10-25T13:37:00.000Z

Woohoo! Am back on the ale, and what a way to start- pub festivals at the legendary Wenlock and the delightful Hoopers.

We made our way over to Old Street for the '7th CAMRA and Wenlock Arms Beer Festival' and setted upstairs in the strangest of rooms with their Scottish Beer Selection with a collection of folks I recognised from other fests, and the man who ate a whole cheese on the Meantime Brewery Tour a couple of years ago. Its weird how I remember these people. We enjoyed the most bargainous jumbo sausage in a roll (beautiful and only £2) which went perfectly with Broughton's Exciseman's 80 which I first had in Glasgow in 2007. Five comments from strangers about my (admittedly stunning) Dark Star T-shirt later, we headed downstairs to the usual pub area and spotted the lovely lads from WOOFTA. I now know this stands for Wenlock 'Oxton Old Farts Association who I first met in the Market Porter a couple of years ago, and recently ran into some of them at Brodies on the brilliant birthday festival weekend. The boys certainly don't look as old as they must be and are big champions of my cause! Great Heck's Super Dave was the star of the show here, and am gutted to have missed Brodie's Deep Fried Mars Bar!

For our second festival of the day, we made our way back down south to Hoopers in East Dulwich for their Champions' Beer Festival. After the usual warm wecome from landlord Jamie (pictured, in a shot from a good while ago!), we were tackling a fine batch of award winning ales, think my festival favourite was Prospect's Nutty Slack (I do love a nutty one), closely followed by Cairngorm's Black Gold ( more Scottish ale!) An strange array of talented guitarists, chats with some fellow SE London CAMRA members, and ladies with green hair entertained us and kept us there until almost midnight.

Both fine festivals in lovely pubs, not bad for a first day back on ale, and following it up today with a London Bridge/ Borough crawl. Won't be having another break soon, if I can help it!

The Home Strait, brought to you by Kaliber.

2009-10-19T19:13:00.000+01:00

My antibiotic driven abstinence has been tested and taunted this weekend, whilst galavanting around Kent during a visit to the parents'. Ambling around Hever was lovely, but would have been lovelier if followed up with a cute mini bottle from the Meantime range they had in the cafe!
This was then topped by a trip to worthy Good Beer Guide new entry The Royal Oak in Tunbridge Wells (no free jelly beans this time) where the boys had Dark Star's Over The Moon. I wish I hadn't sipped it, as going back to Soda and Lime instead was mighty tricky. Rich, dark, malty, a perfect Autumn ale from those amicable Ansty folk (We had an amazing day at Dark Star's brewery in the summer, by the way, I recommend it).
Sunday took us to an apple festival (Brogdale Farm) and 14 ciders that were out of bounds. According to the boys, the two by Double Vision were the best to go for, and bro got me a 2 pint take away for when the drugs are finished with (bring on Friday!) But, cider or not, the festival was well worth the visit, as, unbeknownst to us, playing away in the band tent, was the mighty talent of my long lost little brother Adrian Benn! What a dude, even if he did use me as his cider minder as he knew I wasn't able to sneak any sips. We aso ran into Mike and Lorraine from SE London CAMRA, and just as I thought I could'nt feel any more schmoozy, we spotted a moody looking Suggs well we did approach him when he had his mouth full)
Anyway, am on the home straight, have got bottled beers cooling ready for the weekend (may be tempted by one on Thursday, in fact- drugs permitting), and a mammoth ale weekender planned- pub festivals at the Wenlock Arms and Hoopers on Saturday, and perhaps a Borough/ London Bridge crawl on Sunday... will let you know. Until then, I'm drinking Kaliber.

Entering the wilderness

2009-10-09T10:47:00.002+01:00

I never thought I'd see the day. Me, not drinking.

Thanks to an 'infected rupture' (you don't need the details) I am on a veritable cocktail of 3 types of antibiotics and mega strong painkillers. And 2 weeks of no alchohol (and indeed no dancing). I feel a little bit lost, to be honest. No alcohol means no Real Ale.

So some plans have needed changing.
I could'nt do the midweek Wetherspoons meet up, so instead of an (almost certain) pint of Weltons, I was in, drinking costcutter Cherryade (thank you D) and Twinings Lemon and Ginger Tea (thank you bro). Both very nice, but would have preferred to be washing down the foul sulphur tasting pills with Bartram's Cherry Stout and Beartown's Ginger Bear.
On a quite slow and painful trip to Sainsburys for supplies, I found myself perusing the squash and cordial aisle, and went for an apple and mango high juice, in the hope it may have some similarity to real cider. It does'nt.
However, as disturbing as all this is, by far the biggest problem this rampant rupture has caused surrounds the quaint yet delightful Wallington Beer Festival. Due to be going tonight with a cool crew of beer drinking youths, and volunteering behind the bar tomorrow, I had to be very strong and realistic to admit that neither of these were gonna happen. Sorry Wallington- I'll do a double slot next year. And a little note of thanks to all those lovey folks whose plans are also having to change to accomodate me- I'm baking apple cake this afternoon and you are all welcome to some! x

St Albans 09 and a very starstruck real ale girl

2009-10-04T20:24:00.000+01:00

Was nursing a slightly sore head this morning, but I think that has more to do with Saharas nightcub in Lewisham than the St Albans Beer Festival. Nothing sore about that place!

A swift, and surprisingly bargainous train journey from the stunning St Pancras took us to St Albans, home of CAMRA. Last years festival was great and I was ready for another good session.

Boots meal deals in hand, we made our way over to the Alban Arena and enjoyed a queueless entry (well, it was 1.30pm!) It was also free entry for CAMRA members- another excuse to try even more ales. The glasses were served by other young real ale girls which I was excited to see- we are growing in number, and it also meant they didnt try to force me into a half pint glass. One of the best things about this festival is the time of year it is held, as it means lots of Autumnul ruby beers, porters, stouts and really flavoursome milds- my favourite was Tring's Mansion Mild and Cropton's Honey Gold was pure caramel in a glass.

We found ourselves partcipating in the quiz, a raucous romp through the beer list in the form of a general knowledge challenge, and I soon ended up on a busmans holiday by marking lots of quiz papers on stage. We didn't win, but did jolly well for a team of 2 youths! We also got a free botte of Trings Death or Glory just for taking part. What a deal!

The rest of the afternoon passed in a warm swirl of addictive ale (except Alehouse's Robust Porter- DON'T try it!), lookalike spotting, getting mistaken for a volunteer, weird harmonica players, and old people stressing over spilt drinks that were coming nowhere near them.

Then ... Roger Protz arrived for Good Beer Guide signing. All ideas of meaningful ale discussion and seamless promotion of Real Ale Girl disappeared as soon as I tried to speak to him, having turned into a giggling teenager. I was behaving like I was meeting Take That. Justified really, though, he is the writer of the most useful book in the country and a moustached hero. He also happily posed for photos- a meeting of 2 groundbreaking real ale writers. Legend.

Somehow I managed to regain my strength enough for the walk back to the station (the chilli con carne helped too.) Can't help thinking the meeting didnt have as profound an effect on Roger...

Happy Weekend!

2009-10-02T19:58:00.000+01:00

Well here it is. Well done for making it to Friday night! St Albans beer festival tomorrow, anyone else going?

Managed to fit in some surprising mid week drinkage this week, kicking off on Monday with The Museum Tavern, opposite the British Museum, where we had just enjoyed an exceedingly sophisticated and indulgent soiree at the Members' Evening. Now, I'd always thought the Tavern was an overly touristy place, catering for museum goers looking for something ye olde. But, coaxed in by a Brew Dog display, we were plesantly surprised with Brain's Merlins Oak (yum yum yum!) and Gales Seafarer. Sadly, nothing was actually on by crazy boys from Brew Dog, but thanks to Sainsburys Beer Competition, have been drinking loads of their bottles at home recently.

As I mentioned before, on Wednesday we headed to our local Wetherspoons (Lewisham) to use up as many of our CAMRA discount vouchers while we still could. Sausage,chips and beans, nicely washed down with Woodfordes Nog, which I'd forgotten was as good as it is. We also had something else from their endless supply of Welton's ales (they've had so many on recently that I can't remember what this one was even called.) Little tip- fancy a Welton's? Head on over to the 'joy' that is Lewisham Wetherspoons. We did'nt even see a fight this time!

Well, intending on a night in, but may well pop up to our local, The Holly Tree, later for a little something. Need to keep a clear head for St Albans fest though... x

I'm here! Finally!

2009-09-29T21:55:00.000+01:00

Well here it is. The muched hyped and deliberated blog. Am so excited that I don't really know where to start. Currently drinking a nice Shropshire Lass... ooo-er.

Its amazing how the 'quiet' weekends often end up having the most ale action. Friday night was a lively night out on Lordship Lane with the work massive, and I managed to squeeze in a dull pint of London Pride in the EDT and an even duller pint of Ruddles County in the Bishop. But I can't complain really, at least its on, at least they serve a full pint (which took quick effect after the mega week we'd just had). Tip though, don't top up real ale with JaigerBombs and Black Sambuca. NOT pretty.

Saturday took us for a lovely cousin trip to Masons where they serve the gorgeous Belgian Kwak in the proper wooden holders- and the waitress couldnt quite understand my excitement. I am used to the weird looks. And on to the Ladywell tavern, serving something by Otter, in a very attractive branded glass. I wonder where it ended up... ;-)

On Sunday, after baby visiting in West Wickham, we ended up on a spontaneous crawl around the area- and ended up walking (several) miles from West Wickham, via The Crown beer garden (a pleasant half of Thwaites Wainwright) to the Cricketers on Shirley Road. I had read and heard so much about this place that I was thoroughly let down when only 2 of the 6 pumps were on. A pint of the magnificent Dark Star's Hophead down, and we made the decision to abandon ship for the certain joy that would await in the relatively nearby Claret Freehouse in Addiscombe. It didnt disappoint, and the middle aged man who tried to warn me against the Palmers 200 in case it was too strong for a 'young lady' (its 5%) just added to the quaintness.

Right, have let the Shropshire Lass get warm whilst writing. That certainly won't do.
x