Build A Rocket Boys! by Elbow & Robinsons
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 ...
North By North Orval
Orval is the sort of beer spoken about with reverence. I like to think the same goes for North Bar. It should have been me and my friend Tom sat there, dissecting Leeds United's yo-yoing fortunes, laughing at the Howson Is Now blog and deliberating the creaminess of the Orval cheese whilst sat on the classroom chairs and the well leaned on tables. But it's my brother partnering this trip due to Tom's tight schedule as a relatively ...
Goose Island India Pale Ale
Hoppy, vibrant, refreshing and tangy to finish, Goose Island is a mighty fine American IPA. The Chicago brewers bottled ales are a staple of many of the best bars in the UK, with both the IPA and Honker's Ale permanent fixtures at our work's regular, The Cross Keys in Leeds. American IPAs differ from their UK counterparts. I don't think it's all down to the fact I enjoy them quite a bit colder than I'd usually ...
Sainsbury's Great British Beer Hunt 2011
Over the last few months the Sainsbury's Great British Beer Hunt has been taking place providing a welcome opportunity to try some different beers from the familiar supermarket shelves. And in October Bad King John from Ridgeside Brewing was crowned winner of a six month national listing in 300 Sainsbury's stores. Bad King John beat beers from around the UK to the throne via four regional heats (120 beers), a three week stint in Sainsbury's stores (16 ...
York Tap
It's a drinking hole essentially, underneath it all. For all the domed skylights and stained glass, people come here to let off steam, to pass the time, to forget the day. To drink. But to say that is to do York Tap a disservice as it stands resplendent next to the revived station complex. Like its Sheffield counterpart it was born in an old resting room, and the 104 year old building suits its new life ...
Hare & Hounds, Bowland Bridge
It seems like a wild goose chase, this drive through tiny lanes, sloshy piles of orange and yellow leaves, under a canopy of browning greenery. Both wing mirrors brush through the amber walls of the wild hedges are pinning us to the road like tramlines of a vanishing point. The last weekend of October is an immeasurably beautiful one in the Lake District, and after two full days of trundling around Coniston, Ullswater, Bowness and Kirkstone ...
Plot 16: The Fermenting Room
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 ...
Killer jerk chicken with killer ginger beer
Jerk chicken isn't just tasty to eat, it's a joy to make. The honey and coriander marinade is messy and sticky, the chicken succulent with a crispy skin - lots of kitchen mess and fun. Juices of bird and salad mean this a meal best served sans cutlery but with plenty of, well, Plenty. For a ginger beer Robinson's Ginger (brewed for M&S) is a dark and syrupy affair, quite different from a can of Barr's ...
Golden Pints 2011
We saw the New Year in with Asti, barley wine and a drop of whisky. And cheese. And board games. And in suitably reflective mood this morning, here's a little celebration of the year we've just waved adieu too. These are a small bunch of highlights of a 2011 that was action packed, even though it meant blogging was harder than ever. Rather than awards, these are people and places we'd like to buy a drink for, ...
House of the Trembling Madness
The goofy moose head gazes down aloofly from his lofty perch below the rafters, and we sit cradling a kriek and a pilsner in a building that has almost a millenniums worth of years on us. House of the Trembling Madness sits above the cobbled shopping street of Stonegate, York. The city walls skirt their circular path near here, the famous minster is but a Viking throw away. Students from the continent order coffee and thirds of ...
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas...
...my true love gave to me a delicious homemade lasagne. It really was absolutely scrumptious, but not particularly in-keeping with the season. So to accompany this feast and herald a climax to the Yuletide festivities, I brought a centuries old recipe back to life in the form of wassail. This winter warmer is a heady concoction of dark ale and spices fortified with a splash of something a little stronger. It's a bit like mulled wine for ...
Desert Island Beers #26: Leigh Linley
This week we have a friend coming to stay on our desert island. Welcome Leigh Linley! Born and bred in Leeds, Leigh has been writing about beer and food on his blog, The Good Stuff, since 2005, which makes him one of the longest serving food and beer bloggers in Yorkshire. And he sure knows his stuff. In conjunction with Dough Bistro (and soon also the famous Beer Ritz beer shop in Leeds) Leigh hosts beer and ...
Ivanhoe English Pale Ale
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 ...
Spurn Point
Just like Mike Parker, the author of Map Addict, for years I've been mesmerised by the enigmatic Spurn Point, that strangely shaped strip of almost-land that stretches from the tip of the East Riding of Yorkshire and awkwardly attempts to reach back downstream towards the sands of the Humber estuary. Spurn Point (or Spurn Head for many) is a sand bar that has been precariously edging it's way westwards over the last millennium of geological time as the ...-
July 16th, 2010Beer Reviews, Bitters
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, EnglandThe 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.
Tags: glastonbury, Gold Rush, Neil Young, norfolk, vinyl, Wagtail -
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