Beers of the World

Last night I popped into the pub for a couple of beers after work en route to my wife's work leaving drinks. The pub was pretty quiet and Peter the Bike wasn't around to talk shit with so I plonked myself down and read the paper. I retired "The Sun" after the cursory glances at Page 3 and Dear Deidre and picked up a copy of 'Beers of the World'. I hadn't seen this publication around before and gave it a flick through (I never read anything properly anymore - a habit formed after years of dealing with scientific literature) and found it a bit bizarre. The editorial is a mix. There are a few leftist CAMRA type articles by Protzy and his ilk, but there are also some nice historical articles - including one on nitro-keg and the birth of proper real keg (which happened to disregard 50 years of history and start in 1994). One thing that stuck out was the number of female contributors. Melissa Cole has a piece in there and the magazine is edited by Sally Toms (who I have been told is 'fit'). The magazines credibility went further downhill after I parsed the altbier article where of the 7 beers they recommend, only two were German. WTF??

Anyhow after a couple of pints of Altons Pride I headed west to The Bridge House (W2) to meet up with the Missus and her associates. Most of these types were pretty pissed when I got there and had moved onto lemonades. I defied their softness and went for a pint of Landlord which hadn't been cellared properly and was over carbonated. This didn't last long in the sultry weather and was quickly followed by a pint of Kuppers Kolsch. For dinner we moved along to Westbourne Grove to the Dim Sum heaven that is Ping Pong. I chose to wash down my soggy steamed parcels of who knows what with a few bottles of Tiger, which I happen to like.
This morning I am actually feeling pretty good considering the massive amount of piss I drank last night. Today is my last day of employment with my current shop, hence I am taking the piss and blogging when I 'should' be working. In reality today will be spent preparing myself my own work leaving drinks which kick off sometime after five. Bring it on.....

Friday Night Carnage

Those of you who follow my Twitter feed could probably see this one coming. For those of you don't, I had a rather massive night on Friday and posted a couple of updates via Twitter.

It started at about 5.15 at my regular after work local, The Gunmakers Arms. I started with a pint of Bateman's XB which was a little bit dull, so I followed it up with 5 pints of Timothy Taylor Landlord. At about 6.45pm, starting to feel the effects of rapid ale consumption I headed off to Sheldon Square in Paddington to rendezvous with my lovely Missus. The Union is one of those pub/bar hybrids that doesn't really satisfy on either counts. The beer is limited to standard keg fayre and I took a chance on the Guinness as I didn't fancy the other option of Amstel as the weather was a little cool. I managed to get 5 pints of Guinness in here at The Union before I was told it was time to move on. By this stage I was well and truly on my way to pissedville and a feed at The Chepstow in W11 was in order. At this stage I was lucky that I was not the only person who had consumed a lot of alcohol, and I was holding myself well against my wife's colleagues. At The Chepstow they all moved onto wine but I stayed true to the black stuff and had another pint of Guinness, which I believed in my inebriated state was the superior beer pairing with my posh interpretation of bangers and mash. After dinner we continued to celebrate with two shots of white sambucca before moving onto the "Cherry Jam" nightclub in Notting Hill. This place was my worst nightmare, a place to be seen rather than a place to enjoy yourself it was full of posers and people out to pull. In other words it was utter shit, although I did have a cold bottle of Asahi! At some stage in the early hours (OK it was about 2am) we managed to get a cab back to leafy Brook Green, have an drunken shower and collapse in bed. Saturday morning was a bit of a non event. I simply cannot recall the last time I felt so hungover. It must have been the sambucca.

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.....

Today is Ticker Tuesday

Today is ticker Tuesday. Basically in this post I will cover some of the beers I have had over the last week or so. I was reviewing the photos from my phone and realised that I had more than just a couple.

Last Thursday night I went for a drink with Mike, a guy I used to work with. He suggested 'The Castle' just off High Holborn. I had not been there since I was served a dodgy pint. Anyway not much has changed, the place still has 9 handpumps and is chock full of people drinking Peroni. Mike has become allergic to beer lately and has moved onto cider, which left me to hold up the fort in the beer department. I first got my teeth into a pint of Bushy's Helmsman which is a 4.5% copper coloured bitter that had lost most of it's condition and was starting to taste a little ordinary. Obviously this one has not been a big seller! I forced it down as technically while it was past it's best, it was in no way stale.
Next on my list was Titanic White Star (4.8% abv), which is a hoppy golden coloured bitter and was in very good condition. I didn't tempt fate and squeezed in a few of these and didn't bother to see what else was on offer.

Friday was a pretty quiet day in the office so a few of the lads headed down to Ye Olde Mitre for a pint over lunch. The inner ticker came out and I gravitated towards the guest ale which was Pirates Gold (4.0% abv) from Cornwall's Wooden Hand Brewery. It's funny how you can go to a region and not find any of the local beers, but head back to London and they are everywhere! The beer is a fruity bitter and suited the afternoon which was cold. I still think the old Mitre is over rated. I look forward to returning once Fuller's take the reigns.

After work on Friday (ok, well it was 3.45pm), a colleague of mine Gareth and I headed down the street to The Gunmakers for a couple of beers. It really was a slow day. I won't go into too much detail as I think I have covered all Jeff's offerings before. Anyhow I had a pint of Batemans XXXB and a pint of TT Landlord. I think I will stick with the Landlord in Future as I am not that big a fan of the Bateman's and I had a pint of Harvey's Best the week before and I am not really a huge fan of that either. I like the pub though and it seems to be busy nearly all the time now with a solid set of regulars, some of whom I am getting to know.

On Saturday I was conned into seeing 'Marley and Me' with the missus. Well I'm not totally whipped and there is a plan in place here. I go and see one chick film, this builds me up some points so we can see Terminator Salvation, Fast and the Furious 4 or X-Men Wolverine next time we go. After the movie I raided my beer collection (I have a rather large stash of bottles) and enjoyed some Saison 1900 and a bottle of Sierra Nevada Stout while watching 'Come Dine with Me'. Watching foodie TV had me craving for some decent nosh, but our pantry was bare. Rather than do a Tesco run, we went to a local Vietmanese joint 'Saigon Saigon' where I enjoyed not only very good Vietmanese cuisine, but a couple of bottles of Saigon Export. This is an interesting beer that has only a very mild bitterness and a subtle honey like malt sweetness that works well with the caramelised flavours and spices in the food. A good general food pairing.

Sunday was Boat Race day and we headed down to Furnival Gardens to watch the race. We got down there, grabbed some food and staked a position on the barrier wall. After about ten minutes it started to rain - not fun. The wind also briefly picked up and it was freezing cold so we headed back to the flat to watch the race on TV. A much smarter option. Back at the flat I inspected my beer stash and selected two Bath Ales - the Gem and Barnstormer. Either my palette is loosing it's touch or these beers are basically the same. Come to think of it, the Gem was slightly more fruity. Still nice beers to drink while watching the race. I don't really have any allegiance to either of the two schools as I didn't go to either. Plus I don't like the religious origins of OxBridge and prefer the secular nature of UCL where I do have an affiliation being a former staff member. Putting religion aside the last beer I had on Sunday was Mad Goose Pale Ale from Purity Brewing Co. This beer was nice, but had an abrupt wheat malt taste that I don't like. I prefer all barley malt beers, but I liked the hop character. I have a bottle of Purity's Amber Ale in the fridge at home which I will eventually get around to.

Anyhow I apologise for the congested and disjointed post. Maybe I am still a ticker at heart?

Suck and Chew

I have been on a bit of a beer drought. After the excesses of the Christmas/New year period I have been laying low and not showing my face around my usual drinking haunts. I actually made 15 full dry days before I caved in. A significant achievement and probably the longest period of time since I was 16 or 17 that I have gone without a beer.

Anyhow on Saturday, the wife and I went to meet her future sister in-law who is staying in the East end. I have to be honest, this is a part of London I tend to avoid. I think it's an age thing. I don't like hippy stuff and it's been a good few years since I have been a student. I am not particularly fond of graffiti either and the whole of Tower Hamlets to me seems like a spray can ghetto. The fact that the Jerry's plastered the area with 500lb bombs during the blitz does not add to it's aesthetic appeal either, unless you are inspired by post war housing estate architecture.

On this occasion where I left the cosy bubble that is West London I was pleasantly surprised. Not because it has changed to any great extent, but rather of the pub she chose for lunch - The Royal Oak on Columbia Road. This pub has been blogged about a few times by various beer geeks such as myself, most notably Ron Pattinson as it was used in the filming of the TV show "Goodnight Sweetheart" and it's a former Truman's tied house. The war time period interior has not changed, but the beer certainly has. Now Timothy Taylor's Landlord Ale and Adnam's Broadside feature on the bar and the menu is decidedly gastropub. The punters are now all trendy urban young professionals rather than soldiers or aging cockney gents in flat caps, and the staff are tattooed and eccentric. Overall though there was a good vibe for the lunchtime trade and it was a well deserved pint of Landlord to break the drought (ok well a few pints!). I can heartedly recommend the ploughman's lunch as well as the steak sandwich. The bangers and mash looked top spec, but sadly was not on my agenda. After leaving the pub and walking across the road to find my wife, I noticed an oddly named shop which had a door leading up some stairs. The shop is called is "Suck and Chew" and looked slightly like what I would assume a brothel would look like. I'm certain there is a market for such a business in the area! I think I will send Chris (my mate with the big head) to investigate!

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Timothy Taylor Landlord Ale 3

Ok, I'm not going to talk about TTLA again as I have commented on it a couple of times in the past, however it is worth noting that I had the pint's in The Sir Christopher Hatton (SCH). The SCH is a new refurbishment of the Old Goose on Leather Lane by pubco Nicholson's. The pub is certainly more upmarket that The Goose was, but it still suffers from the numbers on the table syndrome which plagues all chain bars ('spoons, O'Neills, All Bar One etc). The most interesting finding I had was they had a total of 12 real ales on their beer menu, but they only had 8 pumps!

Even still 8 different real ales is a pretty good number. My only concern is that the crowd was predominately drinking lager and wine, with only a handful or very small percentage of punters getting into the ales. I question whether or not they will be able to continue offering such a selection, but in asking this I am not going to comment on their turnover!

Anyhow the pint I had was in excellent condition and I'll probably head back there if it is deemed the venue to attend by my colleagues for Friday evening drinks. Well, its better than the king of diamonds anyhow!

Timothy Taylors Landlord Bitter 2

After several pints of Summer Lightning at The Gunmakers, I returned to the Coach and Horses just down the street for a late one. Not much has changed and the beer is as good as ever. You can read about my last adventure there here.

While I was in The Gunmaker, the guy who runs show mentioned that he normally has TTLB as his house ale. I'll probably get back down there for a cheeky Friday lunch pint tomorrow!

BTW, has anybody been to the new pub in Leather Lane, the Sir Christopher Hatton? It used to be a Goose (read 'Spoons like), but has recently been refurbed. The sales girls have just run in all excited behind me and are about to 'Hit it up' - young male patrons, beware!.

Timothy Taylor Landlord Bitter

The final stop on our Friday night pub crawl led us to The Coach and Horses in Clerkenwell where we chose the Timothy Taylor Landlord Bitter without hesitation. Landlord is one of those beers that along with Fullers ESB tend to be the favoured beers of Tickers and home brewers, and I can understand why. The beer itself is extremely well balanced. It’s hoppy, but not overdone and has a strong malty profile. The beer itself is so well balanced that it allows all attributes of its composition shine through. I won’t rave too much, but the landlord at this pub had been kept in good condition. By this stage we were getting a little hungry and had a plate of chips with garlic mayonnaise (Aoeli or some weird French name) which was quite acidic and spoiled the last few mouthfuls of the pint. All in all it was a good pub crawl!