Wikio - Top Blogs - Wine and beer

Real Ale Reviews

Independent reviewers of real ales, beers and lagers from around the world, including beer reviews, breweries, watering holes and real ale events
  • Horsforth Beer Festival

    0
    scissors
    March 4th, 2010FletchtheMonkeyBeer Events, Real Ale

    Horsforth Beer Festival

    Horsforth Beer Festival, North Leeds

    Horsforth Beer Festival, North Leeds

    Jam-packed with Yorkshire beer, Horsforth plays host to its annual beer festival this weekend and some of the pints you’ll find probably haven’t even left God’s Own County to get to your (half) pint glass. Local beers include:

    • Great Heck ’Slaughterhouse Porter’
    • Hambleton Ales ‘Cheeky Mare’ and ‘Stallion’
    • Little Valley ‘Python IPA’
    • Ilkley Brewing Co ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ & ‘Ugly Duckling’

    Prizes for the most memorably weird and wonderful beer (and brewery) names go to:

    • Dicky Ticker Brewery
    • Leadmill Brewery’s ‘Old Mottled Cock’
    • Bazen’s ‘Zebra Best’
    • Blue Monkey’s ‘99 Red Babboons’
    • Millstone Brewery’s ‘Tiger Rut’
    • Nutbrook Brewery’s ’Cow Juice’
    • Old Spot’s ‘Dog in the Barrel’
    Bookmark and Share
    Tags: , , , , , , ,
    scissors
  • Broken knees and broken keys

    9
    scissors
    January 25th, 2010FletchtheMonkeyBeer Events
    Wild Swan was £1.49 a pint whilst the footy was on - and I had one for each Leeds goal (plus our penalty save!)

    Wils Swan was £1.49 a pint whilst the footy was on - and I had one for each Leeds goal (plus our penalty save!)

    There are arguably too many moments I cringe at to call myself a responsible drinker with any real level of conviction. The ones that came in the gap year before I university are mostly classified under the ‘regrets’ section of my brain. As year one of university unfolded the balance of ‘I never want to remember doing that’ versus ‘I’m pretty pleased with myself’ was evenly weighted and shifted towards to positive end of the spectrum as I matured, with a few ‘we’ll laugh at that in a few weeks’ moments thrown in for good measure.

    But at 26 I thought I’d stopped doing things like singing Leeds songs in rowdy northern cities not called Leeds and waking people up in the middle of the night.

    Unfortunately Saturday’s combination of Jermaine Beckford’s 95th and a half minute equaliser and Stone Ruination IPA being on draught (or draft should I say) at the last pub of our #twissup crawl, ensured the night was one that would bring back some of those youthful moments of folly.

    Returning to the Hillsborough Hotel after a skinful of cask conditioned Wild Swan and a liquid supper of fancy beers from the newly opened Sheffield Tap, a bunch of bedraggled beer bloggers struggled to open the blue painted door at the front of the pub. Having no qualifications in door opening and a more general problem with late night coordination turned out not to be a career changing combination as the shiny Yale key duly snapped in the lock leaving the burning eyes of my beer chums planted firmly on my back. Read the rest of this entry »

    Bookmark and Share
    Tags: , ,
    scissors
  • Beer Friends

    3
    scissors
    December 15th, 2009FletchtheMonkeyBeer Events

    When I went down to the British Guild of Beer Writers dinner a couple of weeks ago I had a fantastic night. But the day after topped it all off with a pub crawl around London starting with Mark Dredge, Tim Hampson and Zak Avery in the Market Porter, and continuing across London town with Knut Albert, Ally Shaw and John the Beer Nut (via The Rake, Greenwich Union, The Wenlock Arms, The Gunmakers Arms and beyond).

    I knew I’d taken a group photo at some point, I clearly remembered balancing my camera on a precipitous ledge in the Wenlock Arms, but for the life of me couldn’t find the resulting image.

    Until now! And it made me smile and remember how great it is to meet up with like minded beer folk and talk beer and drink beer.

    Beer bloggers unite over a pint or three in the Wenlock Arms

    Beer bloggers unite over a pint or three in the Wenlock Arms

    To good times, sláinte!

    From left to right: Ally Shaw (FeralStrumpet), The Beer Nut (John Duffy), Knut Albert, Mark Dredge and me, FletchtheMonkey (Mark Fletcher, Real Ale Reviews).

    Bookmark and Share
    Tags: , , , ,
    scissors
  • Tactical North Bar Penguin Tasting

    1
    scissors
    December 13th, 2009FletchtheMonkeyBeer Events, Beer Reviews, Stout
    Brewdog Tactical Nuclear Penguin - the world's strongest beer

    Brewdog Tactical Nuclear Penguin - the world's strongest beer

    BrewDog Tactical Nuclear Penguin Tasting at North Bar, Leeds

    One of the best things I’ve found about living in Leeds, or a larger city for that matter, is the variety of events that take place that you don’t always find in less adventurous urban areas (maybe I was just brought up in a particularly boring town?!).

    Zak with the Penguin

    Zak with the Penguin

    In the three years I’ve made Yorkshire’s modern capital my home, I’ve enjoyed Leeds International Film Festival, the West Indian Carnival, the Christkindelmarkt, a couple of League One Play Off Semi Finals and (less fortunately) a huge Robbie Williams concert at Roundhay Park (don’t ask) and countless other dates in the diary that are a feature of dwelling in a cosmopolitan city.

    As well as these large scale events it’s actually the smaller opportunities that appeal to me most: being able to see Almodovar films in the ancent Hyde Park Picture house, attending a Flying Dog beer and food evening and the chance to see actual rock stars whilst playing 5-a-side (if you classify relatively obscure post-rock bands as rock stars!).

    So when Zak Avery asked me if I’d like to take part in a live video tasting of the newly released and lavishly expensive Tactical Nuclear Penguin by BrewDog, the strongest beer in the world, not only did I jump at the chance but I carved another notch on my list of reasons to live in Leeds… Read the rest of this entry »

    Bookmark and Share
    Tags: , , , , ,
    scissors
  • Beer Swap beer reviews Pt 1

    5
    scissors

    You might have heard of the guy who I managed to draw for the beer swap: Pencil & Spoon’s own New Media Writer of the Year 2009 Mark Dredge. This was a selection of ales to look forward to; a brief glance at his excellent blog shows his good taste and awareness of beers and I had no doubt he would have developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of the local market over the year or so of working on his blog.

    Kent is his part of the country, and is somewhere I have never been, so it was almost guaranteed that most of these beers I would never have come across.

    So here is what I received:

    - Westerham Brewery’s Little Scotney IPA (4%)
    - Harvey’s Star of Eastbourne East India Pale (6.5%)
    - Hopdaemon Brewery’s Skrimshander IPA (4.5%)
    - Whitstable Brewery’s Raspberry Wheat (5.2%) Read the rest of this entry »

    Bookmark and Share
    Tags: , , , , , , , ,
    scissors
  • British Guild of Beer Writers Dinner

    5
    scissors
    December 6th, 2009FletchtheMonkeyBeer Events

    The last few days have been fantastic. Despite a lot of travel kafuffle and too much time spent on my feet, I managed to get to the British Guild of Beer Writers dinner in London. I could write for hours about the adventures I’ve had, a sojourn around London with my camera, beers in the legendary Rake, a day rambling around London pubs with fellow bloggers and a huge and unsuccessful rush from the Pigs Ear beer festival to get home, but I’d be here all day.

    So just a few words on the event we all went down for, and what was a great celebration of beer, food and the writing that so much passion goes into… Read the rest of this entry »

    Bookmark and Share
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    scissors
  • Saltaire Beer Festival

    4
    scissors
    November 10th, 2009Alan WalshBeer Events

    Saltaire Beer Festival

    This year Fletch and I made our second trip up the Northern line to taste beers and soak in continental drinking at the Saltaire Beer Festival. We discovered this gem of a brewery last year, whilst wandering around the Saltaire Arts Trail on a hot and sunny Saturday, and ever since we’ve been waiting to go back!

    Saltaire Brewery

    Saltaire Brewery

    Saltaire Brewery is based on the Leeds/Bradford canal, a little nearer to Shipley than the world heritage site at Saltaire. It’s a modern affair from a contemporary and friendly brewery, with visitors on the beer festival weekend sitting inside the brewery building, with two bars crammed in the space that isn’t dedicated to fermentation tanks and brewing equipment.

    70p is all it costs to get the train from Leeds to Saltaire Brewery

    70p is all it costs to get the train from Leeds to Saltaire Brewery

    The first piece of news about Saltaire beer festival is how cheap it is to get to Shipley (the nearest train station to the brewery) from Leeds. An off peak return from Leeds costs only £1.40 – to put that in context a single from Horsforth (on the edge of Leeds) to the city centre of Leeds costs me £2.50 on the bus…how cheap is £1.40 to go double the distance?! Beer club is now firmly on the table as an option for starting a Friday night in the near future…watch this space!

    Once we were on the 70p train Fletch and I turned the conversation towards our last visit to Saltaire Brewery. It had been for the beer festival last year although we had arrived mid afternoon on the Saturday and most of the guests had already sold out, but not this year we congratulated each other, thanks to Andy we had managed to get tickets to the sold out Friday night when everything was sure to still be on. We were heading towards a temporary Mecca of real ales and we had a strategy in place…

    Brewers Gold at Saltaire Festival

    Brewers Gold at Saltaire Festival

    The plan was to split up the beer list between us; in general Fletch would focus on the darker offerings and me the paler ones. There were 26 beers (listed below) on the list meaning that we could each have 13 halves and have sampled every beer available. Well we tried!!

    Some of them we both wanted to try and some of them were worth revisiting for a full pint, needless to say that the strategy did not come to fruition although, in fairness, I think that there were probably only about six or seven beers that one or the other of us did not try. Under the circumstances it would be frankly impossible to try and offer tasting notes on every beer that we tasted, therefore the whole menu is listed below (sorted by brewery). Our five top beers of the festival are marked with an asterisk (for the sake of fairness I have also marked those that we did not try with a minus).

    Acorn Brewery, Barnsley

    Harvester
    Mittlefruh IPA

    Castle Rock, Nottingham

    Reed (-)
    Black Gold*

    Crouch Vale, Essex

    A lot of beer goes through a lot of pipes to keep the pumps flowing at Saltaire Beer Festival

    A lot of beer goes through a lot of pipes to keep the pumps flowing at Saltaire Beer Festival - thanks to Tony for taking us on an impromptu tour!

    Hurricane
    Brewers Gold*

    Elland Brewery, Halifax

    Catch the Rainbow
    Night Porter

    Great Heck, North Yorkshire

    Union Gap
    White Rabbit

    Ilkley, Yorkshire

    Ollcana Gold (-)
    Ollcana Original (-)

    Jarrow, Tyne and Wear

    Slake (-)
    Rivet Catcher

    Old Spot, Cullingworth

    Chilli and Chocolate
    It’s Beer

    Ossett Brewery

    Cherry Porter
    Summer’s End

    Saltaire Brewery, Shipley

    Raspberry Blonde (-)
    Saltaire Blonde
    Rye Smile (-)
    Triple Chocoholic
    Hazelnut Coffee Porter*
    Cascade Pale Ale*

    Wylam, Northumberland

    Dognobbler
    Northern Kite*

    Westons Cider, Herefordshire

    1st Quality Draught (-)
    Traditional Scrumpy (-)
    Old Rosie (-)

    Although I have not named them, there were a couple of beers that I did not find exactly overwhelming. In the main however the beers selected for the event were wide ranging, in both style and origin, and sparked debate and discussion amongst the many beer fans at Saltaire. It was a quality evening and a great opportunity to meet many likeminded people with a passion for beer, a great opportunity for swapping recommendations and stories, finding inspiration and generally getting a little bit layer caked with a great bunch of people.

    I’m already looking forward to next year and am hoping to dampen the wait with a few visits with some of the locals to Friday night drinks club in the meantime.

    Bookmark and Share
    Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
    scissors
  • Flying Dog tasting Leeds

    1
    scissors
    October 3rd, 2009FletchtheMonkeyBeer Events

    Flying Dog’s Matt Brophy hosts a night of Beer Tasting at the Cross Keys in Leeds, organised by James Clay & Sons and North Bar.

    Matt Brophy talks beer and Flying Dog to a beer guzzling audience

    Matt Brophy talks beer and Flying Dog to a beer guzzling audience

    Being big lovers of Leeds and its reasonably eclectic beer scene, we were excited at Real Ale Reviews HQ when we heard about a special event at the Cross Keys in Leeds. None other than champions of the American craft brew scene and award winning brewery Flying Dog were coming to town to let us sample their beers.

    Led by Matt Brophy – Executive Brewer at Flying Dog – with a little help from Nigel (Sales Director) from James Clay & Sons and Rick from Bier & Co – an evening of beer tasting and anecdotes soon followed.

    We kicked off with some the legends and stories surrounding Flying Dog’s heritage – the brands origin after an unlikely ascent (and most poignantly subsequent descent) by Flying Dog’s founder George Stranahan, and the development of the brands distinctive and rebellious bottle designs courtesy of Ralph Steadman, thanks  a mutual friendship with the late Hunter D. Thompson – loads on this at the Flying Dog site).

    Flying Dog in lovely Flying Dog glasses

    Flying Dog in lovely Flying Dog glasses

    It wasn’t long before the Flying Dogs themselves came out, spearheaded by the very light and typically drinkable Woody Creek White, a wit style Belgian ale. Matt assured his audience that Flying Dog’s beers were all designed to be drinkable, a commendable trait in any beer.

    Following was Heat Wheat, a Hefe Weizen beer which was overloaded with banana aroma and taste. The wheat styles kept coming with the wonderfully labeled Garde Dog, a French style with a little more malt than its predecessors and less aromatic (bloomin’ nice it was!). Read the rest of this entry »

    Bookmark and Share
    Tags: , , , , ,
    scissors
Get Adobe Flash playerPlugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes