Hooky takes pride of place above the stairs at Bart 'At, Ilkley

I’ll be going back to Bar t’at, Ilkley’s ‘North Bar’, because the first time around I wasn’t bowled over. We didn’t need to comment to the forgetful bartender, he only had to see the look on my Dad’s face.

Suffice to say my pint of Thornbridge Hopton was just the ticket and our longer than expected wait for my mums coffee gave us the chance to admire a host of brewery related posters and paraphernalia. Our beloved Hooky took pride of place over the stairs whilst Sheps, Brakspear, Harvey’s and Bass adorned the walls around our table.

There was even some Belgian bits and bobs hiding way up towards the ceiling, including a prominent pink elephant poking his head up above the doorway.

We even had time to piece together the West Yorkshire dialect that litters the wall, with it’s talk of unfortunate lovers, worms and ducks.

Nil points for the service (we’re blaming it on the lack of hats, or even Mary Jane) although that’s only because it was my Mum who got the worlds smallest coffee after the worlds longest wait (if it had happened to anyone else I’d have just used the opportunity for another pint).

Bar t’at will certainly get a second chance though and I’ll be jumping on the train from Leeds one weekend to drink the hand pulls and the fridges dry, hopefully to the point where I’m singing along to the walls even though I can’t read them.

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Mac’s Gold All Malt Lager would simply fly off the shelves if you stuck it in UK supermarkets.

It’s the perfect barbecue beer: it’s lager, it’s sweet golden nectar with just a hint of pilsner influence from the brewer.

It’s gimmicky ring pull gives it points simply for the lack of dependence on those pesky bottle openers that inevitably go missing mid-way through the evening, lost in decorative stones or knocked off a low brick wall into a thicket of patio plants. It happens, you know it does.

The distinctive bottle and ringpull of Mac's Gold

Mac’s doesn’t distinguish itself by being different, bold or arrogant. It’s simply good lager – a sweet not-a-million-miles-from-honey twang.

Hops don’t dominate, in fact hey barely offer any bitterness to counter the sweetness infused by the malt.

This is probably the endearing factor that might make Mac’s Gold suitable to beer lovers from all walks of life, even hop head vampires whose blood runs thick with DIPA. I believe they have a predisposition to chilled wholesome lager anyway. Even BrewDog James.

Tell me I’ve been done by the fact it looks different to the others.

Tell me actually its not better than San Miguel, Sam Adams or even Sam Smith’s Alpine.

I’ll say ‘whatever’ – whether it’s branding or body copy, Mac’s should be brewed on license over here, because it’s a winner through and through.

Macs Gold from New Zealand: Perfect for bbqs

My long pour skills left a bit to be desired. Not to mention my baseball cap.

In the middle of the hustle and bustle of Leeds Waterfront Festival, tucked away in the corner of Brewery Wharf, something drew our merry group towards the oversized Havana Club banners. Even if we’d had to pay for the privilege I’d have jumped at the chance to make cocktails on a lazy Saturday afternoon. The fact it was free and we’d sunk a couple of cold Coors Lights meant we wasted no time in reserving a session at the stall.

Our lovely Scottish cocktail expert introduced us to the strange implements laid out like a surgeon’s table – the graters, knives and Hawthorn strainers – and forced a shot of Havana Club down our necks to ensure we could ‘appreciate’ the taste of the rum on it’s own.

We donned our uniform of pinnys (and for some reason baseball caps) and proceeded to create rum-based cocktails such as El Presidenté and the very Cuban La Bodequito del Medio Mojito. Fresh limes, mint (stalk ‘n all) and orange zest were thrown together in vigorous concoctions along with sparkling water, sugar, ice and various incarnations of Havana Club, from the standard Blanco and 3 year aged versions to the Añejo 7 Años, a darker more luxurious spirit with characteristics similar to oak aged beers, wines or whiskies –  a touch of vanilla and fruit in amongst the pang of the alcohol to make it slightly more bearable.

Havana Club cocktail making at Leeds Waterfront Festival

We were half-cut, drenched in sunshine and giddy enough to shake our stuff creating daiquiris all afternoon. We finished up with an inter-group competition to serve our delightful host with the perfect El Presidenté. I came second, ousted by a dubiously large amount of orange zest applied to the winning drink.

I’ve no idea why Havana Club chose to take a stall at Leeds Waterfront festival, or why they chose to give away free cocktail making sessions to the happy revellers. I’m glad they did though, as it turned out to be one of the highlights of the day, and we left with sunny and well lubricated dispositions just as the drizzle started to break up the al fresco party.

The merry band of cocktail makers

One word sums up Sam’l Smith’s Organic Strawberry Beer, and that’s jam. Borne upon the pesticide free tentacles of  organic strawberry plants, this beer is firmly classified under the pigeon hole dedicated to ‘Fruit Beer’ in beer taxonomy. That is fruit beer and not fruit-y beer.

The distinction between the two rival camps is  is black and white, determined solely by my girlfriends ability to drink a given beer or not. If she can, the beer is a fruit beer, if she can’t it’s a fruity beer. And if she hasn’t tasted it then it doesn’t pong of fruit and must be another type of beer altogether.

Sam'l Smith: also available in raspberry and cherry

This is a beer so utterly dominated by fruit that it’s classification as beer might well be under threat. It’s genetic make up is more akin to Bonne Maman than real ale; a syrup of sticky, fizzy Panda pops and Taste the Difference summer berry preserve. By no means is the taste of British field strawberries, it’s plump, tinned strawbeeries on ice cream, doused in sugar and sweetener.

And by and large, it’s utterly divine – a sugar coated iceberg to blast your mouth free of anything savoury and replace it with unbridled strawberry sweetness.

You might not want more than one in a blue moon, but give it ago (it would have made a good accompaniment to Wimbledon!) because after the initial shock, Sam Smith’s have created a beer that develops. Take it slow and your reward is a growing emergence of sweet malt character that compensates you for your glucose overdose. And it just about makes this something  more than a quaint and quirky gimmick.

Beer information:
Beer: Organic Strawberry Fruit Beer
Brewery: Samuel Smith
Style: Fruit Beer
ABV: 5.1%
Country: England

The guy behind the counter looks as decrepit as the shop, and the shop doesn’t even look open, it’s grape-bordered window dressing might be confused for a long boarded up newsagents. It leans against Ladbrokes on the Dereham Road,  just a short walk (and not very scenic walk) from the pot-holed streets of Norwich city centre.

Ivanhoe jumps off the shelf, of all the local beers it looks the most promising (though in fairness surprisingly few of the local beer label designs would make Pump Clip Parade). Adorned with knights jousting, something feels right about buying this beer in Norwich, a city that was once second only to London and is now an oft-overlooked destination for cultural delights.

And the beer fits the bill that the label tees up – malty, almost sour and distinctively English in all elements (inherited from the English Maris Otter and chocolate malt, the Golding and Admiral Hops). 

Ivanhoe English Pale Ale

Pale ales nowadays don’t often come without the promise of tropical fruit or a hop roll call scaling double figures. Ivanhoe redresses the hop/malt balance and if anything hints at English harvest fruit.

Ivanhoe shows that nothing more than a hint of the historical is needed to make a beer I’d happily revisit regularly.

More regularly than I’m likely to joust.

And unfortunately more regularly than I get to ramble amongst the cobbles and wood beams of Norwich.

Beer information:
Beer: Ivanhoe English Pale Ale
Brewery: Ridgeway Brewing
Style: Pale Ale
ABV: 5.2%
Country: England

After the rush of Glastonbury came the Gold

I vividly remember sneaking down the stairs, having long since worked out which ones would squeak loud enough to give me away, and which ones were the trusted, silent partners in crime. In reality the only crime would have been disturbing the rest of the family as I tiptoed towards the end room.

I’d pull out the arm chair and squeeze between the furniture that housed my Dad’s long serving midi hifi system. I pretended the record player was a more exotic separate with a fancy name like Stereophonic 4000 or Vanguard 625, rather than the faded black Panasonic box with double cassette deck.

This lowly stereo introduced me to the crackle of vinyl and the beauty of long player album sleeves. Crouched over this lacklustre box I fell in love with the toe tapping wonders of Songs in the Key of Life, the infectious guitars of Let it Bleed and the warbles and jangles of Highway 61 Revisited.

I distinctly remember finding the innards of After The Gold Rush; the tension of slowly removing the tea stained artwork from the sleeve and gingerly turning the pages, too scared to hold it lest the crinkled pages tear apart.

Gold rush by Wagtail Brewery

And aptly, I’m now sat at home after a manic weekend at Glastonbury, drinking a beer called Gold Rush. A few nights ago I was watching Neil Young on the Pyramid stage belt out hit after hit, desperately hoping he’d slow momentarily for the title track of his iconic album. We got the heart strings of Heart of Gold instead, and, surreptitiously for this beer, that kinda works too. We also got the longest encore in musical history comprising of the chorus of Rocking in the Free World no less than 17 times..

Gold Rush is  a fitting drink to help me recover from the raptures of Glasto. Golden, sweet, easy going, with middle of the road use of malt and hops that don’t give enough of any one distinct fruit to write home about. Little head or fizz make this easy to quaff (it’s not flat though) but it’s missing that special something to make it a regular beer cupboard fixture.You could easily get lost in it and let your mind wander elsewhere, which probably makes it the perfect accompaniment to a night listening to After the Gold Rush on vinyl.

If you’ve succumbed to the beauty of that then perhaps this beers fruitiness is slightly better suited in nature if not name, to Neil Young’s Harvest. And if the label harks more to America’s gold rush of the 19th century it would still look like pretty good sat next to that legendary album cover.

Beer information:
Beer: Gold Rush
Brewery: The Wagtail Brewery
Style: Golden Bitter
ABV: 4.0%
Region:Norfolk, England

The eagled eyed amongst you will notice that Neil Young played Glastonbury 2009, and that yes, this post is a year old, salvaged from the notebook after returning from Glastonbury 2010. And if you’re that eagled-eyed give the label a read, a nice bit of Norfolk history for you.

First off I should point out that I don’t often take kindly to products and advertising that jump on the football bandwagon. The best footy related marketing is the football advertising by Nike and Carlsberg (ignoring their most recent attempts).

So, I’m potentially a little biased against Marston’s Fever Pitch…

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