Hop growing for Loiners

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Wakefield’s finest are coming to Leeds in the guise of The Hop, the live music and real ale venue of Ossett Brewery’s pub armada. Situated in the Granary Wharf area of Leeds overlooking the reinvigorated quayside, The Hop will sit under two of the previously disused railway arches that are tucked away between the confluence of the Leeds-Liverpool canal and the River Aire. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: brewery, leeds, live music, music, ossett, ossett brewery, Pubs & bars, the hop

Beer apps for the iPhone

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Beer apps for the iPhone

Social media enthusiasts Mashable have published a list of beer apps for the iPhone ranging in price from free of charge to $4.99. From finding the nearest brew pub to swotting up on beer styles, there’s a selection of beer related applications but unfortunately for us UK beer lovers the list seems very US centric.

iBeer seems to be a very similar to the pointless but kinda entertaining Carling iPhone app. Gallagher’s, iBeers Pro and BeerCloud are all applications that let you research a plethora of beer types and styles and include functionality including beer search, beer finders and beer reviews.

DrinkFit counts calories whilst Happy Hour,  Find Craft Beer and Guinness Pub Finder all focus on buying beer either on- or off-trade (again, in the USA). The one that stands out for me is iBrewMaster which allows home brewers to record the vital statistic of their brews and has 50 recipes built in. I’ll get Sam to try it when he does his next batch of pale ale (that somehow turned out like a Belgian blonde!)

We’ve also come across a few other apps recently including BrewPal (similar to iBrewMaster we believe), FreeBooze, Beer Pong, Beer Brands and iDrink! which keeps track of your evenings drinking according to the Huffington Post.

In the UK there’s less choice although I’ve seen the NHS units tracker in action a few times but not yet heard any feedback on the Good Beer Guides iPhone app.

I’m a conscientious dissenter from the iPhone revolution, plucking for the gorgeous but virtually app-free HTC HD2. So if beer lovers out there know of more beer iPhone apps (or apps for Android, Windows or another platform) or has tried any of the UK focused applications please let us know.

And even better if you build iPhone or other apps, please start building them for Windows Mobile too, we need them to!

Tags: drinking, iPhone beer apps, technology

Brass in pocket – a fresh start for Copper Dragon

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Shrouded in uncertainly it’s been a a funny ol’ festive period for Copper Dragon. Since mid December rumours of administration and liquidation have been quietly circulating and the future for Skipton’s growing brewery wasn’t looking bright.

But fresh from the Christmas holidays with their finances restructured Copper Dragon seem to be back on their feet and fighting fit for whatever 2010 can throw at them.

Online business news website The Business Desk and Bradford’s Telegraph and Argus newspaper report that Copper Dragon’s pub business was liquidised in November 2008 throwing the brewery into a turbulent period, during which the administrators were called in on the Friday before Christmas by a high street bank, which is pretty annoying by anyone’s standards. Steve Taylor, the brewery’s founder and MD subsequently took his stake in the company from 75% to 100% after refusing to give up further equity or intellectual property rights.

It’s rarely a good time for a company to go into administration but teetering on the edge of oblivion at Christmas time is particularly unpleasant, with customers looking for mini-pins for parties, pubs filling up for the festivities and staff looking forward to well earned family time. Just getting home in the snow in Yorkshire was bad enough!

So we’re really pleased that it looks like it’s all sorted and that the jobs, brewery, bistro and six of the pubs have been secured, and we look forward to sampling some of the new beers that come out of Skipton’s finest this year.

Tags: Copper Dragon, investment, skipton

Man walks into a pub…

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A nice piece about beer in a tabloid sized newspaper? Surely not.

Ok to be fair it’s this months ‘What’s Brewing’, but I love the story on page 10 about Martin Brunnschweiler.

More than a decade ago Martin went to visit his sister at her pub on the Isle of Man and ended up staying there to set up a brewery called Bushy’s. The paper is a bit hazy on the details (I’m intrigued as to whether he drank the pub dry and then set up because he was thirsty and what he left behind) but I like to think the Martin fell in love with the island, the pub, the atmosphere and the opportunity. His brewery has ties to the nuclear industry (and sounds like it could double up as a bunker should a Dr Strangelove armageddon arise) and the equipment is based on a headache inducing tower arrangement that requires a certain amount of agility from head brewer Curly (yes, Curly!).

The best I can do is that I have on two or more separate occasions walked into a pub and ended up 1) working behind the bar and 2) doing the dishes, but never quite made the leap to brewing.

Tags: brewery, bushys, CAMRA, isle of man, Pubs & bars, whats brewing

A big beer day: nuclear penguins, smoking blogs and golden twits

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A big beer day

Some days just seem to have everything. Big stories, ferocious debate and your own personal news. Such as yesterday…

In the news, BrewDog pulled another stunt, this one making me laugh out loud and actually consider parting with some of my hard earned cash.

Tactical Nuclear Penguin takes beer naming conventions to a new level and pushes the boundaries of beer production. Whether or not it’s any good I might never know (I’m hoping the other Real Ale Reviews lads will chip in for a bottle as I don’t think I can justify getting one just for myself). But thanks to James and Martin for dressing up in silly costumes and brightening up the beer world for a morning.

And to the ferocious debate: Is smoking cool? Smoking may look cool when Paul Newman is hustling and Jean-Paul Belmondo is ambling through Parisian streets but it ain’t always cool when you’re trying to eat your tea or sip a pint (or stand at the bus stop on a windy day folks!). There’s a serious health side to still as well as questions of economy and heritage: will the smoking ban contribute to killing traditional pubs off once and for all?

Who knows, I can understand both sides of the argument – I smoked for a 3 or 4 years from the age of 17, giving up when I went to uni (yes, I know it’s weird that way round) – and I can’t stand the smell now. And I much prefer my clothes not reeking of stale smoke the morning after a night out. But I don’t hate smokers or smoking, I respect people’s choice to do it, and I appreciate smokers who are considerate of non-smokers (just like I appreciate drinkers who don’t smash my wing mirrors off and people who are generally nice). I sure hope that the country is a bit healthier because of the ban – but how can we ensure that it doesn’t impact negatively on our pub culture and people’s personal freedoms?

It’s a debate I almost don’t want to get too involved in as I don’t have the solution, and judging from other posts I’m not sure a unilateral agreement is on the cards! So moving swiftly on…

And then in personal news, we had some unexpected success last night, as Real Ale Reviews were awarded not one, but two commendations in the inaugural Golden Twit awards organised by The Drum magazine… Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: adnams, BrewDog, golden twits, penguin, purity, smoking, tactical nuclear penguin, twitter