An Ale Amble round the edges of Sheffield centre

Hello,

         yesterday I was pleased to meet up with Charlie, AKA renowned beer blogger from the aswiftone beer blog Ale Ambler. We had not met up for a couple of years and we decided to meet in the Sheffield Tap to start a short pub crawl.in the grey, darkening streets of sodden Sheffield

The days tarted well I had arranged to meet Charlie the night before -desit having been a trifle refreshed at the time, and despite having lost my phone, I remembered that I was meeting the AA at
12.30. I hadn't however, remembered to get ready for 11.45. I was burning my bacon at that point. And trying to contact the AA via Facebook. Luckily I found his Twitter account and messaged him. I found my dead phone 10 minutes before I left, and met the AA at 13.08. Luckily things improved form here on.

In the Sheffield Tap it was busy and I spotted the AA at the bar. He had a half of Arbor Oz Bomb and me a First Chop AVA. We repaired to the brewery room where the smell f brewing hung in the air, and I sat and gently shook whilst Double A made notes. I was still mildly drunk from the night before you see. Both beers were lovely. Especially the Arbor.

Coats and scarves done up we walked out of the Tap into a wall of water and struggled along Brown Street, Sidney Street and up onto Arundel Street. Double A is fond of street art - as opposed to graffiti (the difference between which is different to many) and we stopped off at a wall near the pub to look at some.

The Lord Nelson is a small, back street, corner local, owned by Greedy King, but still retaining its character and selling a good range of real ales and bottles  - and black pudding pork scratchings. I also noticed bottles of West Brewing St Mungo's lager in the fridge - not something I have seen anywhere for a while.

We had a pint and a half of Pennine Happy New Year 2016 - maybe a little early but it isn't how I would expect a celebration ale to taste. That said. it was beautiful. Very quaffable with a balanced bitterness and very easy to drink. The AA also had a half of Bradfield Belgian Blue. This was as I predicted - poorly balanced and sweet (and with no identifiable blue). Absolutely nothing with how it was kept I should point out. It was in here as well that I decided to recharge my phone. Alas, two minutes in, the lead fell out and I didn't notice. It would be two pubs later before I got my phone charged!

The AA liked the lord Nelson - now with I love Fanny's T-shirts to order, for those confident that people would realise the pub was known as that. He liked what they had done with the space and the fact that there were four separate drinking areas still. Definitely a pub we will revisit.

Along back streets and through Decathlon car park we were soon in the underpass and heading for the Beer Engine. Sadly Tol Barry was not around - he would be in later. The AA will have to return to Sheffield to meet him.

On the bar was a great selection of real ales and kegs - sadly rather too many dark ones for me but the Siren Oatmeal Pale Undercurrent was on at £3.40 a pint so I had a half of that and the keg four Hopmen of the Hopocalypse. The AA meanwhile had a half o the Wild Beer Millionaire, a salted caramel chocolate ale which we were warned was quite sweet. It was an immensely strong flavoured beer at 4.7%, and although I preferred my delicious Oatmeal Pale and Hopmen, the AA found it quite easy to drink.

As usual there was an interesting range of music on and trade was steady, if not busy. One thing I will point out about the Beer Engine is the toilets - soft loo roll, heating, handwash and a hand dryer and hot water. None of which are difficult to provide, but usually only two of which are available in other pubs. Its nowhere near as important as the quality of the beers however. Since they are also excellent and well thought through, this makes the Beer Engine a fab place for a pint.

Up Eccy road next and we arrived from the continuing downpour at the Portland House. On the bar there were four Welbeck and Leeds best and a Celt Experience beer called something an Brett. The guy behind the bar asked of we were here to try it, and given the choice we were. The AA was not aware of brettanomyces - part of the Saccharomycetaceae family of myacies, for ease of reference! The only reference I could muster at the time was that they featured in Imperial Russian Stouts, and that breweries were now trying them out for the unique unusual flavour. The beer was certainly in possession of that - it was an unusual but possibly over-bretted beer, but definitely one that challenged our taste buds. The other thing here was that I managed to charge my phone o 26%.

We caught a bus back into town and went to collect the AA's haul of shopping from Wateralls and a cheese specialist - where I also purchased some Brampton Impy Dark Derby cheese. After a quick chat with Sean from Beer Central we headed up to the Devonshire Cat. The AA got a half of Shiny Sorachi and I the Hop Studio Obsidian Black IPA. We sat in my usual place and found that we couldn't use the sockets to charge my phone....

 Never the less, we enjoyed our beers, but me rather more than the AA whose Sorachi flavoured beer was overpowering! We also bumped into new manager Liz formerly of the Sheffield Tap. December, it seems, is s busy time of year to start your new job...

Up the road next for me and The AA's final pub the Bath Hotel. I got a pint of Harbour Pale and he a half of Jaipur on keg. We sat in the back and watched the fire very slowly fail to get going and then be drowned by more coal. A shame, since we were soaked. I had a further pint of Jaipur and Matty joined us whilst we waited for Tash, but the AA admitted he had reached his limit and we soon left for him to get his train. Thanks so much for your company Ale Ambler! Glad to have introduced you to a new Sheffield pub or two.

I headed off to BrewDog next to wait for Tash - as the crawl was finished we could now drink beer in the cntre. We shared a bottle of the Fantome Saison.  The bar was quite packed and the music was fantastic as it so often is. We also had two halves of the Aberdeen BrewDog Ghost Writer and the Prototype Black IPA, along with a venison pie and mash and gravy - which was very tasty, but really needed to have come on a plate as opposed to in a box.

Our final stop of the night was in the Tap and Tankard where we had two halves of the Green Jack gone fishing and a half of Double Top Shanghai. I also bought Tash a double gin and tonic as she was feeling a little unwell. The music changes from being rock and dub to awful pop later one - a deliberate ploy no doubt to persuade customers to leave. It worked, and we left about midnight.

This was another fantastic pub crawl in Sheffield featuring a mix of different pub styles and beer styles. Great to catch up with the Ale Ambler, and this day out proves that there are plenty of other Sheffield crawls for us both, and indeed us three, to do in the future.

Cheers!

Wee Beefy

Clear, but not as mud.

Hello,

              aside from my exotic purchase of a beer that didn't meet my expectations (as covered in my previous post) I have seen a couple of other bloggers mention strong beers and prices recently - but in contrasting ways. Whilst Steve at the Beer Meisters blog here recorded the prices of Dark Star Imperial Stout in the Hastings area, Timbo at A Swift One made a plea here for 2013 to be a year when prices were fairer, and expressed his frustration at the high price of Keykeg "craft" beer in, "craft beer" establishments. Whatever Craft beer is.... (only joking!)

Given that Steve has seen, albeit locally brewed 10.5% beer on sale on cask for less than £5.00 a pint in two pubs in Sussex, yer know, in the Saaaaarf, where everything is expensive, it seems odd to me that supping in the North I have somehow sleepwalked into a mindset where anything above the idiotic beer duty punishment threshold gets to be acceptably £7.00 a pint. Which throws up a few questions..

Firstly - am I going soft? Wibble. And when the hell did this happen? Could it be that endless sessions in Thornbridge pubs and the Sheffield Tap plus my visits to North Bar and Port Street Beer House and the like has led me to form a skewed picture of how much beer should cost? The Keykeg Arbor Ales beer at 12% was on at below a fiver a pint at the White Swan in Chesterfield as was the Keg Anchor Old Foghorn (what a coup by the way!) at Shakespeares in Sheffield. If the excuse for Keykeg costing more is that the container is single use then why is that not always the case?

Also, why are some brewers forging ahead with putting everything into Keykeg dispense? Where is the justification for supplying locally in Keykegs, and for putting much lower strength beer in them? One of the things about Keykeg as a dispense method is that its usually used for stronger beers, indeed, it pains me to concede that often they are suited better to that dispense (eeeurrgh, that feels icky). But is this a smokescreen? Because take off the alleged 80p difference per pint from cask, and it still ends up being 2 or 3 quid more!

Having taken a much needed breath and sought an oft missing "grip" I can now provide the start of an explanation, if not something as radical as a defence.

We don't know what pricing/purchasing arrangements the pubs in Hastings have with Dark Star. And we don't know for sciencertain that those quoted are correct (sorry Steve - assume every one is as lapse with the detail as I am!). Also, in the Shakespeares example, I don't know if the keg used was a trad or Keykeg - since its an American beer. I readily admit that I have come to associate all exotic none cask dispensed draught beer with Keykeg, and I'm not sure that's very helpful.

The final puzzle is, last year, I virtually popped a lung in apoplectic derision at Thornbridge Bracia selling for £9.60 a pint on cask at the Hallamshire House. Now, a year later, its the same price*, but its on Keykeg. I don't understand!

I know many beer bloggers have had this same disorientating sensation that their "pain barrier" of unacceptable expense has been withered away by a seamless procession of ever rarer, more exclusive and more preposterously expensive ingredient featuring beers from the darlings of UK and world brewing. So I don't expect any sympathy.

What I and all fellow sufferers could really do with is some inside knowledge. A brewer. Or a brewery owner. Or a bar owner. Someone who cares about beer, profit and customer experience (and there are thousands of you lets make that clear) who can honestly explain, counter or confirm any of the above points to me. I promise to share the results with erm, well, this blog. Too long for a tweet, one would hope.

Holding my breath now brewfolk...

Wee Beefy

*Mr Ash - I can't read your chalk board writing. Hence I couldn't work out if a half pint was £4.60 or £4.80. So if £9.60 is wrong, its your fault, basically....

Wee Beefy's (March of the) beer bites

Good evening,

    my first news regards some recent and planned ale related openings.

Spoon fed

News via a reliable sources comes of a Wetherspoons discount grog warehouse opening at Handsworth, near the Asda. There is a lot of work going on creating what I understood was to be a retail park. One wonders how this would fit into the area's drinking options, especially if it was offering much cheaper alcohol than its nearest neighbours?

Handsworth is blessed with four pubs; (I am not including the White Rose, although it is 200 yards inside the boundary, because its not really part of the original Handsworth village).

These include some older more traditional ones; The Old Crown, Cross Keys and Turf, and two of those sell real ale. And there is also the New Crown, which sold real ale last year, and is admittedly a newer (looking at least) pub, which is why it differs slightly (and perhaps because it has suffered from being the first choice port of call for the local tweenies).

Its safe to say that any new build pub would struggle to match the atmosphere of a venerabl;e haunt (no pun) like the Keys, but in these hard times that counts for little. And that's pertinent, because one thing that does link the Handsworth establishments is that irrespective of ownership, prices are roughly the same in each - i.e. normal. In isolation this is no cause for concern, but Wetherspoons of course sell real ale and other drinks at a consistently lower price than the "normal" rate. I remember baulking at a £2.00 pint in a Wetherspoons last year, but then thought, wait a minute, this is still a good 50p a pint less than anywhere else (in town, not to mention the suburbs).

So if we accept that retail park (if even that is what its to be) visitors are likely to lap up discounted ales and lager, and that a Wetherspoons will open up, what impact would this have on the pubs of Handsworth ?

In my recent experience The Cross Keys struggled during its change of ownership but on my last visit seemed steady if not soaring, The Old Crown has a recent CAMRA award to its name and a good range of beers food and clientele, The New Crown is potentially popular but not necessarily for the right reasons, and the Turf Tavern is almost always rammed, no doubt credit to being managed successfully by Aidy.

I can imagine that your "floating voter" imbiber would quickly ditch any of the above, but the Old crown and Turf seem to have a loyal following. If we interpret that to mean the other two fail, then no matter how good the Spoons spoon fed offerings are, I consider that would be bad news.

The first off license to sell own beer wholesale to the on licensed trade?

According to essential brewery info site Quaffale (see : off license to brew own beer by Quaffale ) the Real Ale Corner in Chesterfield is brewing its own beer, albeit at Raw (an on premises brewery would make the above novelty headline all the longer). I think there may previously have been a tie up between an offie and a Brew pub in Newcastle but certainly this would have to be the only off license I know of retailing its own brewed products.

In my time working at Archer Road Beer Stop customers often came in expecting us either to sell home brew supplies, which wasn't exactly outlandish, or, not recognising the beers on the pumpclips (especially those written in marker pen on white paper) expected that we brewed our own.

Dave was always very modest about his brewers potential and reassured enquirers that he had neither the ability or intention to do so, but it happened enough times for me to think that the Real Ale Corner have happened upon a really canny idea.

In the past, Threshers, Booths supermarket in the North West and Wine Cellar (and other brands owned by Parisa Group) have all had beer brewed for them or been involved in the ownership of a separate brewing arm (I think Parisa fits that bill) but I can't recall hearing of an off license brewing its own. More details can be found at Real ale corner, and everything  .

Pub News

Just a quick note about pubs and beer this time!

Shakespeares number beers

I was in the above recently and sampled two excellent beers. The first was from the cask, and was the excellent Steel City Brewing "9" (based on Xiberia). This was easily as good as the aforementioned ale, and again I think its gravity dispense takes an edge off some of the less conciliatory hop flavours that sometimes arise in their brews. I also think it was a little hoppier than the Xiberia, and perhaps better for it. Maybe the alcohol being 4.8% also helps calm down the flavour. Either way its a cracking pint.

I also tried a pint that i had read about in the world of beer blogging. I had never come across any Five Towns beers before except at Oakwood so seeing their "65" beer I thought I would give it a go. I had read about it on the following blog earlier in the week so was keen to try it for myself  (see a review at Timbo writes about Five Towns beer ). I think his review covers all of the taste features but I would mention that I was surprised by the sweetness on display. It crept into the taste after every mouthful and if it hadn't been riding the crest of a hoppy wave it would have ended up tasting like a far less appetising beer.

As it was this ws a really enjoyable (worryingly) easy to drink 6.5% pale beer which wins my praise for having the potential to be ascorbicly dry yet ending up being almost unsettling mellow and of course quaffable as a result. Hopefully there are a few other Five Towns Brewery ales in the cellar so I can get to try some more of their output.

Upcoming Events

There are two beer fests this week in Sheffield pubs - the Kelham Island Tavern one starts tonight I think, and there is one at the New Barrack Tavern. This is a little confusing however since K-cott reports the festival beers in the left hand snug room were available on Tuesday night prior to the Wednesday match. If this is so, I would assume the festival runs all week? Their website says it starts tonight though and runs til Thursday so will head down Saturday for a peak I hope.

That's all the news I have for now, happy slaking!

Wee beefy