St Germain and the 'JT'

We have been having a series of all day departmental meetings at work recently. To celebrate the conclusion of these we let off some steam at St Germain pseudo French restaurant near Farringdon Station. Now these sorts of venues are the ones I aim to avoid - usually at all costs. As it was an all expenses paid affair, it would have been rude not to attend.

The beer list included the usual Belgian suspects - no surprises there. An inclusion that I had not seen before however was Vedett (5.2%abv). This beer is brewed by the masters that also produce Duvel and it comes in a similar style bottle. This is where the similarities to Duvel end. The beer is thin and dry and really, really bland in the Dortmunder export style. It tastes exactly the same as Carlton Cold - hardly a complement. Best avoided.

To refresh my taste buds and actually deliver something worthy, I scanned the beer menu. CAMRA activists would be most disappointed at the lager dominated selection with Chimey, Duvel and Hoegaarden rounding out a token ale selection.

I made a bold decision and ordered Brooklyn Lager (5.2% abv) for my team members. This beer is a nice Vienna style lager that I could easily spend a long time raving and waffling on about, so I won't. I will recommend that everyone tries this beer, even if you are a CAMRA activist. Once upon a time you could source it in Tesco, but those days are gone and you need to refine your search a little now, but it's still out there.

The food was ok, but hardly worth raving about, I also had some wine which I found rather one dimensional. I won't rant about that too much either.

After dinner a few of us went around the corner for a few more pints at The Jerusalem Tavern. In general this is a nice little pub, but I am continually finding it more and more over-rated and the beer going progressively downhill. I had two pints of the St Peter's: Organic Best Bitter and Ruby Red Ale. Both were rather uninspiring and not well kept. The Organic Best Bitter was a fresh cask and it was flat as a tack and about 15 degrees - way too warm. What happened to cellar temperature?

I am not going to head back to the 'JT' any more, there seem to be better options in the area and I can afford to be fussy. Also, I question how they get their beer up from the cellar? Do they have an electric pump moving it? I am obviously amused by thinking about these simple things.

At least I had some people to drink with though, much more exciting than my previous Friday night!

http://www.vedett.com/

http://www.brooklynbrewery.com/