Old Tom Parr

On Saturday night I met up with a few friends for some more farewell drinks and a Thai meal at one of my favourite west London pubs - The Old Parrs Head. It's a great little local boozer run by a nice Irish bloke who has employed a succession of young girls with massive tits to lurk behind the bar. (I guess this is probably true all the pubs I frequent).
Anyhow there are fact sheets floating around the pub which gives a bit of a background to whom Old Parr was and how the pub came to be named after him. One common theme came from the mouths of all who read this fact sheet - "It's all lies". To set things straight it makes such bold statements that he died at the age of 152 years and had 22 children. It's easy to see how you could write it off as nonsense.
I have been doing some investigations of my own and I can now reveal that it's true. Wikipedia even substantiates the claims and highlights how Old Parr is listed as a cultural reference in such classics as Dracula and novel by some chap called Dickens. Poor Old Tom Parr was a living legend and is buried at Westminster Abbey along with countless other medieval heroes. Here is the inscription in his gravestone;

THO: PARR OF YE COUNTY OF SALLOP. BORNE
IN AD: 1483. HE LIVED IN YE REIGNES OF TEN
PRINCES VIZ: K.ED.4. K.ED.5.K.RICH.3.
K.HEN.7.K.HEN.8.K.EDW.6.Q.MA.Q.ELIZ
K.JA. & K. CHARLES. AGED 152 YEARES.
& WAS BURYED HERE NOVEMB. 15. 1635.

I'm surprised anyone lived that long back then in the days before proper real keg and cask aspirators. Although vinegar is used to preserve (ok well pickle) things so that may explain his old age. He certainly looks like a weird beard though...

Back in the Groove

Last Friday night I managed to get back to the pub. Yes, someone give me some tickets to put on the wall - its exciting news. The Parr's Head had Summer Lightning on as its guest beer. It tasted like DMS and had traces of acetaldehyde as well. I don't think I have ever had this beer and enjoyed it. It's rubbish and overrated. My yellow curry from their Thai kitchen was nice though and more than excused the lacklustre pint. In future I will remember just to stick to the Pride!

On Saturday afternoon I met up with my mate Rich who has moved down to sarf-London. We hit up the Alma and the Ship which are both Young's pubs in Wandsworth. Both pubs were really busy with crowds spilling over onto the streets, and the Young's Ordinary was in fine condition (@ both venues). I even had one pint served in a dimpled mug which is pretty rare in London. I obviously didn't look like I was going to bop someone over the head with it!

Anyhow I broke the drought and hit up a couple of pubs. It was fun, although I didn't have a bender. One of those is on the horizon though.

On other beer related news there is a CAMRA beer festival creeping up that I might go to. The Ealing beer 'fest is the only one of these soul less nerdfests that I actually go to. It's held outside and there is plenty of room to get away from the hardcore beer nerds and CAMRA degenerates. Not sure which day I will go to yet, but I will forewarn everyone which day I am going. If only so CAMRA types can avoid me! A full report of the piss up will follow in due course.

Bank Holiday

I am back at work now after spending the bank holiday weekend in a lazy fashion. Luckily it is ticker Tuesday and I can fill you in on what I have been up too. On Friday evening I managed to get down the Roebuck in Chiswick for pint of Adnam's bitter (which was a little plain) and a pint of Erdinger. I decided to go for the proper real keg as I have yet to have a decent pint of ale there on cask. After this I enjoyed an awesome ribeye steak down the road at The High Street Brasserie. I am going to rave about this steak for a bit as it was pretty awesome. Probably over 400 grams worth with the marrowed bone still attached. I enjoyed it rare as all good steak must be enjoyed! (BTW I washed this down with two pints of Staropramen) I am a little bit ashamed with the after dinner activities which saw me drinking pints of Foster's lager in Belushi's at Hammersmith - a circus of a venue with maybe just a smidge more class than a Walkabout, but not much more. The Fosters was cold and refreshing though and certainly suited to the warm evening.

Saturday evening I nicked down the Parr's Head for a Thai feed and had an excellent pint of Hancocks HB, which tastes pretty similar to Fuller's London Pride (I had the two back to back and I couldn't discern between the two). After dinner I managed to crack open a bottle of T.E.A from the Hog's Back brewery. It was a little disappointing, but it did have a nice solid yeast cake which fell into my glass during pouring. The positive of the solidarity was that I could remove it easily with a spoon!

Sunday was another lazy day and I managed to read a whole book from cover to cover. I didn't end up drinking any beer at all, but did enjoy half of a very nice bottle of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc at Gordon Ramsey's Boxwood Cafe. I highly recommend the Veal and Fois Gras burger which really is something special. The crispy pigs trotter entree I had was a little bit too oily and the gingerbread cheesecake I had for desert were a little bit disappointing but overall it's a good place to go for a meal if you are interested in eating in overpriced restaurants (as I am!).

I managed to get one beer in yesterday (Monday) which was freebie sent to me by Nicky who does PR for Marston's. This was Wychwood Beewyched (5% abv) which is a honey laced ale that has a soft honey aroma and avoids the excessive dryness that most braggot (beer brewed with honey) suffers from. I actually enjoyed this beer and would probably drink it again if I was forced to!

So maybe I didn't really get the most drinking out of the long weekendas I could have, but I needed a break and there is more to life than beer - OK well not much more.

Hooky Bitter

I was so smashed when I had this one at The Parrs Head that I forgot I had drank it! Last Friday, Gareth and I bunked off work at about 3.30 pm and headed down to The Gunmakers for a couple of quick after work beers. Being a bank holiday weekend, Jeff was playing it safe and only had Harvey's Best on so we had a pint (or was it two) before heading down to The Coach and Horses for a few Pints of Landlord. Sometime after that I vaguely remember being back in The Gunmakers drinking with Peter the Bike until I got an angry call from the Mrs demanding me back home. I still squeezed in another pint before going home to face the wrath of my wife!
Anyhow we ended up going to The Parr's Head for dinner and they had just put a cask of Hooky Bitter on. I can't tell you what it was like though as I cannot remember. It can't have been too exciting then.....

A bit of catch up

Life has been hectic lately and my regular lunchtime posts have become ever more irregular. Luckily, today is ticker Tuesday so I can eliminate my backlog in pretty much one bludgeoning swoop. To keep it interesting I won't go on about my pub binges with Peter and Co. at The Gunmakers, or my adventures at The Parr's Head and The Havelock- they were standard pissup affairs.

Interesting beers;

Thornbridge Halcyon (7.7% abv) - this hop monster IPA uses fresh green hops as opposed to dried stable hops. Judging by the hop haze this beer had, I will assume there were a lot of hops added as well. I won't go into too many details, but Darren over at Blog o'Beer posted some good stuff here.

Dorothy Goodbody's Golden Ale (4.2% abv) - This gem from the Wye Valley Brewery has a strong wheat malt taste which I don't really appreciate. It's an easy quaffing beer though and I have a bottle of the stout at home still to get through which should be more to my taste.

Casablanca Premium Lager Beer (5.0% abv) - The wife and I met up with some friends in Kew and went to a new Moroccan restaurant (Tangine) that has just set up shop. It was a warm day and I had worked through a couple of pints of Staropramen and a summer ale from Hog's Back before getting into this beer. It's your standard malty premium lager affair and probably the tastiest alcoholic beverage to come out of Morocco. The food was pretty good too. I had the lamb shank.

Sam Smith's Pure Brewed Lager (5% abv) - One of the best lagers brewed in the UK. This beer really suits the the warmer weather and went down a treat. I should drink this more when I visit Sam Smith's pubs. I have suffered with and been let down by Old Brewery Bitter for way too long, and I usually opt for Alpine Lager in the lager stakes. Could this be the most under-rated beer in Britain?

Ben Nevis Organic 80/- (4% abv) - A beer I really enjoyed.... malty and full of melanoids with minimal hopping this beer went down a treat. I am not really that big a fan of 80/- beers in general, but like any beer style when you get a good interpretation of the style you get a good beer. Anyhow, it's brewed by Bridge of Allan Brewery somewhere in Scotland.

Well that sums up the most interesting beers from the last week. Instead of the usual Nokia quality photography, I have offered you the reader a nice collage for the first time ever. I also went to Krakow over the bank holiday weekend so I guess I will be ramming the virtues of Polish beer down your neck for the remainder of the week!

I am also running a poll and I would like to solicit your opinions.

Samuel Smith's, The Famous Taddy Porter

A post solely for the tickers out there who liked The Beer Diary circa 2008 before I became preoccupied with shooting darts at CAMRA.

Samuel Smiths Taddy Porter (5.0% abv) is a remarkably drinkable porter and was a suitable night cap last Friday after an evening in The Old Parr's Head. I won't intellectualise too much about the beer as basically I'm not very good at it, but I have embedded a video of some other chap below who seems to know his stuff.

I should point out one thing that really irks me about Smith's bottled beers. The food pairings in the label are usually utter rubbish. The Taddy Porter in particular suggests;

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"Oysters on the half shell, Rockefeller or Cajun style, clams, mussels, crab cocktail, lobster bisque and other shellfish, smoked mackerel pâté, veal with green peppercorns, porterhouse steak and of course chocolate. Serve at 55 degrees in nonik or tumbler"

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Surely these dishes are better paired with an IPA or brown ale than a porter. What are these chaps schmokin?

Anyhow for more info on Samuel Smiths just check out this website.

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Dim Sims

It's about time that I mentioned the greatest culinary marval of all time - the humble Dim Sim.

What's a Dim Sim I hear you ask? Wikipedia describes a Dim Sim as;

"a Chinese-inspired meat dumpling-style snack food popular in Australia. The dish normally consists of a large ball of pork or other meat, cabbage and flavourings, encased in a wrapper similar to that of a more traditional dumpling"

Up until recently they had been rather difficult, if not impossible to track down here in the UK. Jumbuck's Pies on Shepherds Bush Green have started stocking these Australian delicacies and I felt the urge to get a few down my neck after work last Friday evening. They well and truly hit the spot and I will be sure to get back there again in the future for another round.

Anyhow, every culinary masterpiece needs a beer to accompany it, and on this occasion I had a bottle of Brakspear Oxford Gold - which is a golden coloured organic bitter. The slight crystal malt character in the beer played well with the caramalization of the cabbage in the Dim Sim and the bitterness and carbonation scrubbed out the grease just nicely. The Dim Sims were really just a prelude to the Thai extravaganza that awaited me later that evening at the Old Parr's Head where I feasted on Yellow Curry Chicken and Mee Goreng. I should mention that I had a pint of Hop Back Summer Lightning with my dinner, but it really is not that exciting a beer. I think Friday truly is my gastronomic day of the week. Only four more working days to go!

Rubbish pubs

Last Friday night I went out for a beer with a few colleagues. In terms of pubs, we are spoiled for choice in Clerkenwell but sometimes even a sure thing like finding a decent pub gets royally screwed up. I should have realised as soon as someone said we would be joining members of the Sales team. I say this as they (Sales types) usually frequent a rather unattractive dive near my office called "The King of Diamonds". This place (pictured left) is more of a drinking factory than a pub and ranks well down my list of options. But anyhow, my excitement was renewed when I learned we were going to a different pub, one called The Blue Anchor off Chancery Lane. Upon arrival the place was packed and way too many people for the tiny bar to cope with. I looked around and to my disappointment realised that it was basically the King of Diamonds in a different location - a real let down. I think I understand the situation. The sales team are mainly single girls in their late 20's, and the Chancery Lane area is teeming with young up and coming solicitors fired up after a day in the law courts. These girls are out looking for a rich bloke (preferably one that wears a wig to work) and will drink in shithouse venues to find him. Sad really.

I did manage to get one pint of Pride in before beating a hasty retreat home where I smashed a bottle of Shepherds Neame Christmas Ale and a Leffe Bruin. Then I went for some Thai at the Parr's Head where I had some more London Pride. I felt suitably redeemed after this, but I will not be venturing out drinking with the sales team again.

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In other news, the snow has eased and I am back at work. Here is a snowman that is currently residing on Brook Green. He is strategically positioned between the Brook Green Hotel and The Queens Head. It is a pity he can't walk to either!

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Carling

Ok, I know, I should know better. I bet your all sitting down saying Carling, WTF! The scene of the crime was The Old Parr's Head and I was sneaking a quick one in after work while waiting for the Mrs to finish getting her hair done. I mentioned to the Irish guy behind the bar that one of the reviews on beerintheevening.com about the pub states that it does a top notch pint of Carling (4.1% abv). The barman saw this as a challenge and quickly poured me a pint so I could form my own opinion. Upon first sip, I knew that the beer was crap but I still smiled and fed the guys ego.. (the things I do for a free beer)

For those of you who are unaware, Carling is the biggest selling mega swill in the UK and is probably one of the nastiest tasting. You can even smell the corn they use to brew it with. One other point I would like to address is that some home brewers seem to think that Carling Black Label is the best beer ever produced - but then the guys from the US think that about Sam Smith's beers so it does not surprise me!

http://www.carling.com/

Hobgoblin

Seeking my regular Friday evening Thai food fix, I headed around to my local "The Old Parr's Head" in desperate need of some Pad Thai. The usual Ale suspect here is Pride, and its usually not kept well either. This doesn't worry me much as they have an excellent continental lager selection, as well as Guinness, Leffe and Hoegaarden to round out the ales. The first thing I noticed as I walked through the door was my Irish mate behind the bar, grinning from ear to ear. He had been waiting three days for me to come in so he could show me his latest addition to the bar - Hobgolblin (5.2% abv) from the Wychwood Brewery. He was even excited to show me the branded pint glasses! The Hobgoblin was in excellent condition as was the London Pride, and I suspect that they have started keeping the beer under CO2 (a big CAMRA no no, but really a sensible move) via a cask aspirator.

Hobgoblin is described as a Ruby beer, although it broadly falls into the style of Extra Special Bitter or ESB. It is similar to Fuller's ESB or Neame's Bishop's Finger in style and went down a treat. I think its reassuring that the quality of this beer has not gone downhill since Wychwood was acquired ultimately by Marston's last year. http://www.hobgoblinbeer.com/

Becks Vier

Later in the week after the Ealing Beer Festival I was in my local, The Old Parrs Head W14 for dinner (they have an excellent Thai kitchen) when I noticed a new addition to the draught beer selection - Beck's Vier (4.0% abv) (named after German for four). Now come the question - What is the difference between Becks Vier and just regular ordinary Becks? Apparently from the label 1% abv, however upon tasting I noticed that the beer is a lot softer than standard becks with a more hoppy fresher taste.
Apparently Vier was initially tried as a lower alcohol alternative in 50 pubs and bars across the UK and was a roaring success. This led to a UK wide release in April 2006 in both draught and can forms. The launch was backed by a massive £4 million marketing campaign promoting the beer as a 'premium' or top shelf alternative to standard lagers such as Fosters and Carling. The advertising claims that Vier has the same colour and taste as the original, but with a lower alcohol level to appeal to UK session drinkers.
Overall I found the beer to be acceptable however slightly flat, but still leagues ahead of the usual suspects available. I think it will be interesting to see how the Vier brand fairs against its competition! Website: http://www.becks.co.uk

San Miguel

Recently while at my new local 'Old Parrs Head' near Olympia, I had the hankering for a good lager. The pickings on offer were slim, but not unreasonable and I settled in for a pint of San Miguel. I have reported my thought on this beer previously from when I was in Barcelona. The beer is ok, and is a dry example of its beer style, but on the whole is slightly unremarkable.

Hoegaarden Witbier

Firstly I will apologise about the lack of posting lately. I have been a little ill and have had to slow down my consumption in order to recuperate! I did however start to feel a little bit better towards the end of last week and managed to get a pint of Hoegaarden Witbier into my system to accompany a delicious curry from 'Old Parr's Head' which I have now adopted as my local.

Hoegaarden is a witbier or 'white beer' from Belgium and is the iconic representation of the style. Although cloudy, the beer is spritzy and refreshing with an exteremely weak bittering but adequately seasoned by corriander and dried orange peel. As I am pressed for time I will not waffle on too much, Iwill however give a link to an interesting website! I am sure that I will have more than a few of these come summer! Unofficial Website: http://www.hoegaarden.org.uk/

Staropramen

Staropramen Premium Lager (5% abv) is a traditional Czech pilsner brewed by Pivovary Staropramen, Prague. It is an extremely dry example of the pilsner style and the brand is now owned by the Interbrew conglomerate (InBev). Due to the takeover, Staropramen is available worldwide and I was fortunate enough to enjoy this pint at 'The Old Parr's Head', W14 (which depending on how they keep the beer is on occation my local!) The pub has a Thai restaurant and I felt that the pilsner would be a better match for the Thai food than London Pride (which is their usual house ale). I won't waffle on too much about the food and beer and I will let you explore the Staropramen world via the web: http://www.staropramen.com/

Just as a sidenote!
Fellow beer blogger 'Stonch' has an interesting account of the brewery, which you can read about here.