Yorkshire village pub by www.graphicalstatus.com

Time flies in the beer houses of Kingston-upon-Hull, where Yorkshiremen plotted against King Charles; studs fly in the grand hotels of Huddersfield where the North plotted against the Rugby Union.

In Halifax they have long memories, just ask The Running Man. In York they never forget, Guy Fawkes will tell you that.

In Sheffield they have an island for their beer, in Swaledale they make you climb a thousand feet for a pint (you might even have to do the washing up if you’re lucky!)

From the gastro pubs of Ilkley to the cove-view nooks of Robin Hood’s Bay; from the alleyway drinking dens of Leeds, to the walkers respites littering Garsdale, Wensleydale, Dentdale, Ribblesdale, Malhamdale, Nidderdale…

The Grove Inn, Leeds - surviving against the odds

Whitelocks, Briggate - the alleys where Loiners get their name

Station Inn, Ribblehead - take a map and a train timetable!

Yorkshire is blessed with pubs, nearly 10% of all the public houses in Britain. Some good, some bad, each and everyone someone’s favourite. All 5,115 of them.

What better way to spend the Bank Holiday than oiling your discourse down the local, or heeding Milton Crawford and taking a  moment to reflect on life. And when your done, you can vote for your favourite Yorkshire pub at Yorkshire.com/pub

"Yorkshire, Yorkshire!!"

There are 54,000 pubs in Britain and 5,115 pubs in Yorkshire. Ish. Thanks to the border hungry constituency of Brigg & Goole which straddles both the East Riding of Yorkshire and the northern climes of Lincolnshire we’ve had to apply some educated guesswork to the final tally. Thanks to the CAMRA press team and the British Beer & Pub Association for help locating the raw data. And thanks to Dan Cohen, John FotoHouse and Rick Harrison for the pics!

This April it’s two years since we started this blog and what a two years it’s been.

From a bored Tuesday night wondering what we could do that was better than sitting on our arses, to writing for thousands of visitors each month, we’re pretty proud of our little hobby and we spend most of the time thinking about how we can make it better (unfortunately the day job prevents that from actually happening!).

We've come along way baby...

...from the days of cocktails and Mythos!

We don’t always write posts as much as we’d like too and we don’t always write about things as quickly as we’d like to (nothing like a blog post once the ship has sailed eh?!). And despite the out of date ‘About’ page it’s all worth it when we get nice comments or bump into people at beer festivals who tell us how much they enjoy reading our musings.

So it’s great to be able to get involved with a project that aims to bring together the beer community and hopefully contribute something useful for other people who want to find out about beer or write about it.

In late May we’ll be attending the European Beer Bloggers Conference and little me will be sitting on a panel entitled “Do’s and Don’t of Beer Blogging”, designed to provide an answer to the questions about beer blogging that Google just can’t answer. Think of it like a beery search engine that’s drunk waaaay too many beers and might not provide coherent answers.

European Beer Bloggers Conference

I’ll be joining author Pete Brown and journalist Melissa Cole to give you the chance “to learn a few new tricks, discuss important issues, and ask a question you have never had answered”.

There’s currently plenty of spaces left for the conference which starts on 20th May (although expect some drinking in London from the night before!) and you can sign up here.There’s also the chance to win a free conference pass. Read the rest of this entry »

Leeds Beer Festival 2011

Leeds Beer Festival starts tomorrow, below is the programme of beers. Directions can be found on the festival website http://www.leedsbeerfestival.co.uk/getting-here/

Mark and Sam will be there at various time but please comment, tweet or email us if you fancy meeting up for a pint!

When beer and art collide: Modern Art Oxford’s limited edition green hop beer

Down a dark and wet side street between the less historical buildings of the city’s shopping district, the white washed walls of Modern Art Oxford are accustomed to the strange and gangly structures of modern sculpture. But to the strange and gangly structures of humulus lupulus they are not.

Twisting, reaching, helixing, yearning upwards, the leaf-heavy green bines have designs on the famously spired skyline.

The structures on this occasion are just printed images, but Modern Art Oxford does in fact have a hop garden, just a few miles away at Plot 16, the museums community allotment in the Rose Hill area of the city. And unlike the plaster-cast sculptures on show at the museum one cold Saturday afternoon between Christmas and New Year, the ambitious hop plants aren’t restricted by the white washed ceilings of MAO’s warehouse home.

Plot 16 green hopped beer, Modern Art Oxford

Since March 2010 artistic collaborators Leora Brook and Tiffany Black have been farming hops. Inspired by the MAO gallery’s history as a nineteenth century brewery, their ambition to grow hops to create a beer from their produce was realised in December 2010 when, after a communal hop picking harvest, Plot 16 was launched in 1000 limited edition bottles.

And the fruits of their labour?
Read the rest of this entry »

Nothing beats breakfast in Borough market. A steaming hot wild boar sausage in bread roll, juggled between cold hands, a generous splash of spicy home-made ketchup and sprig or three of chard and spinach leaves. And to the stall next door for a few succulent pieces of just grilled halloumi to finish it off. Bellissimo!

It’s too cold to sit on the wall outside Southwark Cathedral so the pigeons scrounge our scraps. In fact it’s barely warm enough to eat as we prepared for a second day wandering around London in minus degrees centigrade weather.

A long day starts by working our way along the rail tracks to Tower Bridge following the perfectly symmetrical arches. Under numbers 98 – 100 sits Kernel Brewery. There’s a striking resemblance to Marble of Manchester: the home under the railways, the emphasis on hops, the appreciation of good food and the influence from distant shores.

In nearby archways sit bakeries, green grocers and purveyors of continental delicacies. So no surprise that cheese and ham are been carved on the counter next to the Imperial Stout, S.C.A.N.S. IPA and Kernel White Ale. And the beer that broke the yeasts back, cooking porter (apparently that’s all it’s good for).

Evan, mastermind behind Kernel’s flavour-packed beers, shows us the kit which take up a fraction of the space under the curved roof. Hops litter the mushroom cloud of yeast in the first fermentation tank whilst something stout-like slowly bubbles, getting stronger by the hour on it’s way to an ABV% from the dark side of the moon.

Game hanging at Borough Market

Mr Pork watches guard at Borough Market

Kernel Brewery, Tower Bridge, London

A happy accident: cooking porter

(click on images to enlarge)

The tasters of Evan’s 12% imperial stout hits pretty hard but the cold air soon knocks the lucidity back into us. Tower Bridge is just around the corner, a magnificent symbol of London’s prowess, the most famous bascule in the world. On the approach to the majestic structure we nip into the Draft House purely for warmth and cheekily walked out after checking the beer list (which was fine, but nothing took our fancy). Mere doors away is the Bridge House, Adnams Dining Pub of the Year. It shows; above the bar Veuve Clicquot magnums are arranged neater than the Selfridges Christmas window display and the food looks nothing less than divine. A hearty winter meal is tempting but curry at Greenwich market is on the to-do list so we settle for sharing a bottle of Adnam’s IPA. It’s just the ticket as we adjust to the sudden warmth and the über geek-chic staff (who look like they’ve just walked off the main stage of an über trendy music festival).

We can’t stay for long, Mark’s itinerary is packed tighter than sedimentary rock (and would take as long to be fulfilled) so it’s back towards the train via the fascinating Southwark Tavern. Football fans, shoppers and bar-proppers are thrust together like sardines in the upstairs bar so we try our luck down the steep winding stairs. Far from escaping the hustle and bustle it’s packed and rowdy. The low bricked ceilings supposedly once housed a debtors prison, perhaps the very jail where William Smith and Marc Isambard Brunel were once coalesced*, but its probably just as likely that in the tiny cubby holes stewed less salubrious activities. At 12pm it’s no bordello but it’s not the time or place to a quiet beer and a chat. One to try another time because the building and beer list are alluring to say the least.

Cold and thirsty the packed overground offers brief respite. Luton fans are hunting for tickets on the way to Charlton in the cup and one, particularly well lubed up with cheap lout (not that that’s of any consequence) is demanding everyone’s attention with his bionically integrated foghorn because his mate Biscuit has dropped some sort of bollock…

Hop names adorn the Draft House walls

Adnams IPA at Bridge House, London

Moor Freddy Walker at Cask Pub & Kitchen

Mikkeller night at Cask Pub & Kitchen

(click on images to enlarge)

Greenwich saves us. Inspired by Michael Jackson’s beer collection which adorns the walls of the Old Brewery we do what beer geeks do best. Meantime London Porter, Helles and a French bock are quaffed in the strange surroundings of a museum-cum-tourist-information-cum-café-cum-restaurant in the shadow of Meantime’s brewing coppers and in earshot of an engrossing dissection of astrology by a very intellectual looking couple drinking wine.

Nearby Greenwich market is surrounded by Grade 2 listed buildings, a covered collection of stalls crammed in the open spaces that were once dark streets filled with slaughter houses and traders peddling their wares. These days hand carved nik-naks and world food stalls cater for the hoards of punters. Polish dumplings and thai green curry stove our fires and home-made champagne cider warms us up again.

The next stop takes us overground and underground, through Brixton towards the huge tardis that is the Florence brewpub. Disembarking from the train Herne Hill looks like a Lego town due to it’s cobbled main thoroughfare that cuts between the main roads sheltering local hardware shops, salons and greengrocers. It’s quite unlike anywhere else in London so far. The Florence overlooks a big park and has a family atmosphere (there are copies of the Guardian and children everywhere) and is quite unlike any pub I’ve been to in London so far. For a start the smell of wort hangs from the rafters but unfortunately their own beer isn’t on although the beer mats make interesting reading whilst we enjoy a spicy seasonal Adnam’s and peruse the menu – Weasel, Beaver and Bonobo are all brewed on site in the tiny glass brew room where two burly figures are repairing what looks like a heat exchanger.

It’s a whistle-stop tour and the day is running out so we rush for the train – luckily it’s late – which sends us rattling over a completely different London; lights across the city twinkle on as far as the eye can see and there’s a strange quiet, the calm before the storm of Saturday night.

At Cask Pub & Kitchen that twilight drinkers are a mix of people just starting their evening in the city and those, like us, bringing a long day to a close. We have an hour and a half before the X Factor express takes us back to Kent. That’s just enough time to try most of the Mikkeller beers on draught as well as a sneaky Moor Old Freddy Walker, an incredible beer that’s perfect for the time of year. The Mikkellers fall faster than I can scribble then names down.

Cask has a cosmopolitan atmosphere to it, a pub that you can relax in and chat. We get talking to two lads who tell us a titillating tale about a beery stag do in Bruges and we convince them to try some of the outrageously strong beer we’re sampling. Long before we leave the table is covered in empty glasses, though very beer served in a different glass from an unrelated brewery, the only blotch our the last stop of a day of unrelenting exploration.

*The father of geology and the father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel respectively were both short-term residents at King’s Bench prison in Southwark, but neither that nor Marshalsea, the two major debtors prisons of Southwark, were in quite the right place to be connected to the Southwark Tavern in any form other than prison guards watering there.

The 07.39 Tonbridge to Charing Cross is delayed, which means the whole days itinerary is in jeopardy. Frost lines the tracks and lingers on rooftops, the air cuts through wool, leather cotton, polyester and skin. It’s the coldest morning of the year and the prospect of spending Sunday chasing trains and waiting on unfamiliar platforms is about as appealing as sticking my head in an industrial freezer.

Actually that might be respite from the cold today.

Just as I piece together the Kentish drawl of the public address system the train eases silently into place. Stops at Hildenborough, Sevenoaks and Orpington are cancelled so that the lost time can be made up and (hopefully) I can make my connection to Leeds. Slowly the The steeples of the oast houses disappear into the undulating hills as the white frosted countryside flies past. Larkin would have written volumes on this journey…

We pull under the shadow of the Shard just in time Read the rest of this entry »

Roosters Brewery, whose beers are the staple diet of many a Yorkshire pub, marked this Hallowe’en with a pumpkin beer. No ordinary pumpkin beer though, a pumpkin beer served in nothing less than a giant pumpkin. A really, really giant pumpkin.

Pumpkin 5 Spice Ale was tapped at North Bar in Leeds, in front of Calendar news and a small selection of excitable beer lovers. Arguably a more delicate task than tapping a cask, the job in hand was left to Sam Franklin of Roosters Brewery.

And what of the beer? Well, it’s eminently drinkable: sweet without being at all syrupy; conditioned to perfection with just a hint of carbonisation; spicy but not hot – nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves dominate, ideal for warming the spirit on a cold day.

Everything in moderation including moderation they say. Strangely perhaps, Roosters 5 Spice Pumpkin Ale is a beer that you could drink with little moderation. One of the best session beers of the year.

And it’s served from a pumpkin. A giant pumpkin. What more could you want on a lazy Saturday afternoon in autumn?!

Roosters Pumpkin Ale at North Bar

Read the rest of this entry »

Manchester sure does have a lot to answer for. It’s grim Lancastrian streets have provided us with Simply Red, political massacres and one of Britain’s best loved soap operas.

Despite these things, Manchester is a fine city. Red brick turrets and soot covered chimneys etch the skyline, broken up by the knife edge Hilton and the famous Granada television lettering. The streets are more city-like than Leeds – wide life-threatening avenues dotted with trams and other forms of exotic transport. It seems busier too, there are more buses, more taxis, more Greggs.

Casks at the Marble Brewery in deepest darkest Manchester

Outside the city centre Manchester sprawls in all directions. Without the naturally imposed boundaries of the cities of West Yorkshire, or the nearby Pennine towns that look down on the city from Saddleworth, Manchester was stretched like a rolling pin, much like Birmingham. Vast inner city estates and buildings housing myriad industries in ever varying buildings extend as far as the eye can see.

Wandering from Picadilly station the restaurants and pasty shops of the CBD soon turn into taxi offices and warehouses. And more pasty shops. Walking northwards through this area a Loiner might assume it to be the Holbeck of Manchester – once full of industry that fuelled the city’s progress, but now old railway lines and pot holed side roads in need of repair.

Deep inside the vaulted ceiling of one of the railway arches a quiet revolution has been taking place. Marble Brewery occupies a sloping archway, stainless steel vats tucked neatly under the curves of the painted brickwork, just a stone’s throw from their spiritual home, The Marble Arch pub.

And on a grey but dry Saturday in October, a menagerie of beer lovers gather in this magnificent watering hole. Tiled retrospectively to recreate a bygone age, it’s a marvel compared to your average Wetherspoon’s decor.

Twissup starts and familiar friends mingle with new and unfamiliar faces all in search of a perfect pint, whatever your preferred taste or dispense mode. Manchester might have even more to answer for by the end of the night…

Marble Arch, Manchester

Once upon a time there was a beautiful island paradise. Its gentle hillocks were topped with white fluffs of sheep and from the approaching fishing boats it glinted golden as the sun’s rays bounced off husks of barley in the fields that canvassed the ground.

The islanders rejoiced in the fertile soils and nestled contently in the island’s curves, appreciating its temperate nature and voluptuous harvests. From the mainland, scores of visitors were drawn in by the island’s abundant bounty, and sometimes purely on the effervescent energy the land seemed to glow with.

At sunset a gentle haze hang around the shoreline and dissipated the reflected sunlight that the fisherman watched for. The light receded over the tall hop plants, unrepentant structures of grace and beauty that lined the fields of grain, but was not lost forever. Captured in the crops, that sunlight would eventually reach distant shores, mixed with dune-filtered water and seasoned with the fruit of the hop plant, a broth stirred into life with an eccentric yeast and ready to deploy that same solar energy for the benefit of mankind. Read the rest of this entry »

Beer brewing in the UK has been enjoying a renaissance of late. At least that’s what we’re told by the enthusiasts: from bloggers, brewers and drinkers alike. There has never been a better time to enjoy good quality, locally-brewed and ethically-sourced beer.

Kent Beer Festival 2010

One of the best ways to put this cheery rhetoric to the test is that staple of the drinkers’ diary, the beer festival. One of the grandees of the scene is the CAMRA Kent Beer festival

Now into its 36th year and, judging by the amount of brewers in attendance (around 120, or so we were told), and the decent-sized crowds packing the bars, the UK beer industry must be in pretty decent shape. Kent beers were well-represented as you’d expect, ranging from the Mild, Star and Light ales of Goachers of Maidstone, through to the honest hoppy Gadd’s bitters of Ramsgate.

Once we’d negotiated the dusty pathways of Merton Farm, paid our £4 entrance, and collected our tokens from the CAMRA volunteers manning the glass station, we were off into the murk of the cowshed.

First up was a good half of British Bulldog (4.3% ABV) which had a good dark amber colour and long hoppy finish. Strong one that, and a couple too many could have seen us raiding the snacks before time. But we moved on through the crowds towards Goachers where a pint of Real Mild Ale (3.4% ABV) and a half of Gold Star (5.1% ABV) went down easier than a Portuguese centre-half. Good beers, enough malt in each to make them drinkable summer pints.

My companion was pining for the ‘Pink Girlie Bar’, an exclusive area dedicated to the first time real ale drinkers. The staff here were excellent and even though busy, were handing out tasters to the more ale-shy. A half of Little Sharpie (3.8% ABV) from Humpty Dumpty of Reedham was a flowery, hoppy treat while the Cascade Pale Ale (4.8% ABV) had enough bitter thump to satisfy even the most un-girly drinkers in attendance. Kent’s oldest brewer, Shepherd Neame of Faversham, were well-represented with five beers to try: pints of Master Brew (3.7% ABV) and my all time favourite Spitfire (4.5% ABV) took the evening to a sound finish.

Although the toilets remain questionable, as too the bands playing atop a dodgy rigging of scaffold, the true stars of the show were the micro-breweries. Millis Brewing Co of Gravesend and Swan of West Peckham were just two of the many small-scale brewers on display, and bucking the trend in this so-called age of austerity. Kent beer drinkers have never had it so good.

Does sexism still exist in the beer industry. Nah, surely not?!

Beer festival information:
Festival: Kent Beer Festival
Organiser: CAMRA
Dates: 22nd – 24th July
Country: Merton Farm, Canterbury, UK