Elbow are the kings of soaring melancholy, masters of poetic northern introspection.  Let Elbow’s albums flow over you and you can be mesmerised by their beauty alone. Put in the time to listen, to soak up the poignancy, the humour, the extraordinary manifestations of the ordinary and their albums become life affirming tributes to the everyday.

Conversely, it’s quite easy to stick an Elbow album on and realise thirty lethargic minutes later that time – and the music – has flown by virtually unnoticed, Guy Garvey’s drawl caressing one’s ears so gently it barely registers. He even swears with care for the ears, a remarkably sophisticated trait few can master.

Nutty and fresh to smell, Build A Rocket Boys! is Elbow’s first foray into brewing, a collaboration with Frederic Robinson’s of their native Lancashire. It’s an unpompous beer, utterly enjoyable without ever shouting too loud. It’s underpinned by a coy bitterness spliced with fleeting glimpses of sweet fruit (freshly dried prunes?!) and a largely sweet barley finish. And much as Elbow can sometimes fade into the background, Build A Rocket Boys! can be knocked back with apathetic ease: it’s easy on the eye, quaffable; it’s a quiet no-fuss pleasure with which to lubricate conversation without becoming more than a footnote in the minutes of an evening at the pub.

But on closer consideration – like many of Elbow’s songs – it’s also something greater, it pays homage to the art of everyday brewing in the UK. Poured slowly it’s a understated shrine to the allure of the pint, a glowing amber hearth topped with a soft cushioning foam; it’s subtle flavours and traditional malt-heavy backbone are typically British, designed to provide sustenance in the most typical of British settings.

Build A Rocket Boys!

It’s a shame it’s limited edition and that my sample is in a bottle, but hey ho, modern life is rubbish, eh? Here’s to assuming that the live version is every bit as heightened experience as seeing the band get in the flesh. Oh and ours was sent to us, so we’ve donated a fiver to the Oxfam East Africa fund, for which Build A Rocket Boys! profits will be helping.

It’s not every day a pop star can bob into the pub and order a pint of their own beer.

Although for most of October that’s exactly what Guy Garvey & co of the resurgent band Elbow will be able to do. From tomorrow, pubs across Manchester – and one in Oxfordshire – will be previewing their collaboration brew, a joint venture with Frederic Robinsons Brewery.

Build A Rocket Boys! beer

Build A Rocket Boys! is a real ale named after Elbow’s most recent album and not only that it’s one with a conscience: a significant proportion of all profits will be donated to Oxfam’s East Africa crisis.

The official launch is at Manchester Food & Drink festival (where you can also find mini festivals of real ale, whisky and Oktoberfest!), but if you can get to one of the preview pubs in and around the city between now and then you should be able to find the first casks ready and waiting.

And with such a lot going on at the festival, we’re off to book our train tickets across the Pennines.

See you there!

We’re a big fan of succinctness in beer reviews, despite the fact it’s something that none of us seem particularly capable of actually doing…

Twitter offers the opportunity to try 140 character tasting notes, but equally impressive is the beer praising found in song. With St. Patrick’s Day approaching, and me inspired by Liam Clancy as interviewed in Scorsese’s No Direction Home (which I was engrossed in on Sunday night) our attention turned to digging out some of those Irish folk songs that we heard on our family holidays over the Irish Sea.

Take The Dubliners, clearly big fans of Dublin’s most famous stout:

At the pub at the crossroads there’s whiskey and beer,
There’s brandy and cognac that’s fragrant but dear;
But for killing the thirst and for easing the gout
There’s nothing at all beats a pint of good stout.

As as beer reviews go, I’m not sure there’s a better social commentary cum positive beer tasting than the lines:

Some folk’s o’er the water think bitter is fine
And others they swear by the juice of the vine;
But there’s nothing that’s squeezed from the grape or the hop
Like the black liquidation with the froth on the top.

And of course Guinness is good for your health, naturally.

In the course of listening to this song and researching the lyrics we couldn’t make out we came across a few variations. These seem to make the most sense although I’ve told that the cognac line may be something to do with it “ageing for years”. If you think differently let us know. I’d ask my mum (born and bred in Longford) but she’s a) not a drinker anf b) rubbish at singing

The Hop, live music and real ale pub opening in Leeds this March

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 »

I woke this morning and for no apparent reason one of the first things that popped into my little head was “I miss Colin Murray”.

Now Mr Murray was what you might call a grower for me (no innuendo please!). That is, I didn’t really ‘get’ or like him at first. But one listen to his Radio 1 show and I was hooked. For me, Colin Murray was The Return of Radio.

There may have been others pioneering the radio show (I’m told 6Music is good and I love Bob Dylan’s Theme Time show), but on a regular basis radio to me was just annoying opop or annoying ads.

Anyway, one of Colin’s features was the Mid Week Mobile Disco, a selection of songs chosen by Colin, his team and the listeners based on a theme. The theme allowed for interpretation and wasn’t just a bunch of songs with the same word in the title, but well thought out links between songs around a distinct theme. The Mid Week Mobile Disco had music history, interesting debate, uncovered trhings you didnt know, got audiences interactin, and was above all, just fun!

So, in a hopefully not too vain attempt to ressurrect my happy Wednesday nights listening to interesting music and Mr Murray’s very friendly and conspicuous voice, I’ve started a little Mid Week Mobile Disco (#MWMD – which looks like an acronym for a dangerous weapon, sorry!) and, with it being IPA Monday (#ipamonday) and Music Monday (#musicmonday).

It’s dead easy to contribute,:

- simply tweet your suggestions for themed-beer songs to @realalereviews or just with the hash tag #beer playlist

- if you have Spotify then you can find the playlist for all suggestions via HTML link Beer Playlist or via this spotify link: spotify:user:realalereviews:playlist:4kl8Puv1GTHX0cQDzy4P9H

- email your suggestions to realale(at)real-ale-reviews.com and we’ll post them on the blog!

Hoppy IPA Monday and happy  Music Monday!