Pubs around Trippet Lane, and other news.

  
   Evening,

      I have, as suggested previously, found less time to write these tomes of late due mainly to stuff, not to mention things. In short I have been busy being out, but rarely to the pub. This is a sad but ultimately much cheaper predicament, which I hope will not continue for too long.

That said a couple of outings in the last of the warm weather over the last two weeks have dug up a bit of gen, and an opinion or two, which I will share below.

Firstly, I appear to have been drawn to spend much more time frightening off young folks by standing at the bar looking thoughtful, glaring, and opining on bibulous subjects at Dada. Its testimony to their care in the community credentials and good natured outlook that no-one has sought to politely dissuade me from frightening the more timid customers, either that or no-one has noticed. Either way Dada has been a friendly house to hang around in of late and I like that.

Its interesting based on my experience that the perceived atmosphere and theme, which I myself commented on a few times in the early days, continues to be a gripe with customers of a beery slant who might enjoy the ales. Beer people, whatever the hell that means (!?) seem to be of the opinion that it loses points for its lack of guest ale, and for having a theme, making it instantly pretentious and therefore unwelcoming.

l still think the the theme is obtuse, puzzling and misplaced, but having watched a mixture of confused, enthused, bamboozled, happy and suspicious customers come and go from the bar over the last 6 months I am certain that the warm welcome isn't in doubt. Admittedly its not traditional bar fly territory, since punters, mainly groups or couples, retire to the furthest corners (and more than two stood at either bit of bar is just impractical), but if you take the time to hang around and talk to the staff, I think you'll find the banter is good. Ergo, the atmosphere is good.

There are two regulars who go in on a Tuesday which is my default visiting day. I feel I should know them because I have seen them in the Dog and Partridge, Red Deer and Bath Hotel for as long  as I can remember. The above list of boozers has little in common with Dada so its testament to the qualities mentioned that they seem to be  as happy as me sitting at the bar and enjoying good conversation.

Beer recently spotted includes Thornbridge Kipling, Bradfield Stout and they have been having beers from Sheffield Brewery. There has also been some decent Keykeg choice, if such things float your boat, such as Nogne O barley wine, Magic Rock High Wire and on my last visit the excellent Schlenkerla Rauchbier. And for those unsure, Steph, Emily Jamie and James know their stuff when it comes to the beer. Its a shame their aren't more guest cask ales but I suspect this is out of their hands, thus more a blot on Thornbridge's copybook. If they could just sell less of my "sigh beers" Brother Rabbit and Sequoia, I'd find it hard to stay away.

Other pubs do exist of course and on a recent unexpected visit I found that the the Wig and Pen still sells real ale (and not a bad price). I say this because it was starting to get a bit grim and I wondered if the expensive tastes of their clientele might see it stop being sold. Admittedly it was only Wentworth, WPA and a Wentworth guest on Tuesday, but it means a drop of the real stuff can be found to accompany the food if you are there for snaffling.

Its interesting though that I am now in a position where I feel the need to say "only Wentworth". When it was launched and for years after it was reliable stuff with Oyster Stout, Gun Park Dark and WPA standing out. WPA used to have a big hop finish, lots of grainy dry bitterness that realy hit the spot. However, I don't think I've had a good Wentworth beer in years. WPA now tastes like a beer of 3.0% and more malty, with almost no hoppy bite in the finish. Is this a case of familiarity breeds contempt or have they changed the recipes?  Either way its a groan beer  Which is a shame.

Talking of not exactly renowned venues for real ale, I was in All Bar One (not by choice) the other day and noted they once again only had 1 real ale on. I get the feeling two is unsustainable. This time it was Black Sheep, and to be honest its difficult to decide which is the more average of the two offered across their estate (the other being Doom Bar) - perhaps the Sheep edges it for being independent. And, even having said all that, contrary as I am, I didn't even try the real ale!

 Instead I had a pint of Rothaus wheat beer, and was quietly amused by the barmaid telling me when I asked for a drop more that the line was a pint - I could see the beer was well below and after my top up it settled just on, meaning my request was perfectly judged. The thing is, the line is on my side only, so how would she have known it was already at the line? I've moved on now though....

In developing news, as I think I mentioned previously, the Dog and Partridge finally closed in July but to continue my Kevin Keegan-esque predictive talents, is now set to reopen under the management or potentially ownership (a bit fact light I'm afraid this particular segment) of those running the Sportsman in town. I hear they intend that the venue will operate along similar lines,and they are hoping to sell good value beers. I couldn't be sure if it was open when I went past earlier in the week, so will update you when I know more.

Finally, this weekend (23rd to 26th August in fact) sees Potfest held at the Flowerpot at Derby. The idea of a beer festival at the Flowerpot is a bit like a sand festival at a beach, since there;s always a festival sized selection of beers at any given time. Expect an emphasis on the excellent Black Iris brewery output and guests from Yorkshire and Lancashire, and also perhaps the sight of a lesser spotted blogger or two. Well worth a visit.

Thats all I have for now, hopefully the last week of the month will herald some further beer adventures.

Wee Beefy.

Wee Beefy's pub bites

Good airvernin readers

   tonight I have a few details of some pubs I have found myself frequenting of late.

     Harrisons 1854

A little less real ale than usual on offer but Harribob had managed to create another outstanding pint of Abbeydale Deception in the 1854. This poured a trifle cloudy, but mainly due to carbonation and slight coldness, but slowly cleared to reveal a lustrous pale gold body, and on tasting, a meritable hoppy bite and slight malt balance. If you are on West Street, get to the 1854 for some of Sheffield's best Deception I suggest!

Dada Trippet Lane.

All thoughts of rating beer here were of course lost when I realised the impeccable Pollard's milk coffee stout was on draught again. Having contrived to miss the Fyne stout and their Black IPA I was hoping for a distinctive taster to tide me over. Disappointingly all the beers on offer were Thornbridge, but that said the range was faultless - Black Harry, new lavender and marmite IPA Puja, Sequoia and as above my absolute favourite Pollards.

I had to sample a pint before I started on a half of the 6.7% Puja Jasmine IPA brewed in conjunction with Dark Star. This had all the hops I wanted but also some thankful balance and a velvety smooth texture making the harsher notes a little easier to ignore.  The taste was. well, Jasmine, but am sating that only because it says it on the label. If am to be honest, am unsure what Jasmine tastes like. Instead it had a weird perfumed lavender taste, which was partly but not entirely obscured by the hops, which was perhaps for the best - a single jasmine shot giving way to an excellent hoppy pale ale would have been the best design I think. Still an enjoyable beer though.

Dog and Partridge - Rallying call!

I called in the D&P on the random off chance that some real ale might be on, and to take the opportunity to talk to the man steering this ailing ship. As it turned out a cask of Tetley's was ready, if a little fresh off the waggon, but perhaps due to having been caskless on my last 4 occasions I was offered my half at a severely discounted price.

Paul who is running the pub actually does so on behalf of a holding company. So really, he doesn't work for |Punch at all. He struggles on with an absurd surfeit of stock and limited availability of cask to keep the business afloat. I have noted, and reported recently, that his efforts appear to be failing but it seems he is aware of the burden of responsibility, and the fact he manages to keep the joint trading at all given Punch's disinterest in the venue means he's probably doing as well as he can.

Granted, its not a real ale mecca, but neither was the D&P in the Flynn's time, and neither is The Grapes now, although it does sell local ales. In deference to the obvious level of expectations placed upon him, bar warder Paul told me he has set up his own website at http://www.dogandpartridge-shefield.com/, alas, on trying this tonight it seems not to be available. That said I know he set it up through Yola.com and if you want to get in touch and find out about offers bands, music etc you can call 0114 4180 441.

I say you should at least try and find space in your Trippet lane drinking for a pint if you are in the area. There are no guarantees that doing so would save this venerable old institution but its got to be worth the chance to spend time in the many authentic and once characterful rooms before its too late. Good luck to Paul in his attempts to keep this pub afloat.

Three cranes

  My last brief stop for a half was the Cranes. Things seemed different and the beer range seemed a little Lancastrian in its slant what with two Robinson's beers on, Double Hop and Robinson's (Hartleys) Cumbria way. I opted for a half of the Moonshine and wondered where regular barkeeps Luke and Rich were. I realise they could have been having a day off but something seemed different and I get a niggly feeling the difference may not be good. I hope I am proved wrong!

All in all I tried a great range of beers, crucially many local, and all in excellent condition, especially the Pollards in Dada and Deception in Harrisons 1854.

More updates soon.

Wee Beefy

Wee Beefy's Beer Bites - pubs die why exactly?

Good evening readers, and now news of demise and why demise...

    Timeline to Dissatisfaction - when did we fall out of love with the pub?

Not a reference to this blog, but a topic that came up earlier tonight. I was enjoying the redoubtable delights of bar Fatha's in furthest Westfield and and along with Wee Keefy we were doing our usual analysis of world events, whilst drinking a small amount of beer (this is not sarcasm by the way).

There was Robinsons Unicorn, which in a bottle loses some of the rather icky branding of the pump clips and may well be stronger at something akin to 4.3% - very nice too by the way.

There was also the "Morrison's Own" beer, erm, brewed by Titanic, which this time was their quirky chocolate vanilla porter, which had strong flavours of both, but the chocolate was a bit too central, i.e. it wasn't an initial burst (that was vanilla) and it didn't linger long (that was also the vanilla) Perhaps a good time for me to give chocolate stout a break for a while methinks. We also had some very palatable White Horse Brewery Rudolph's nobody cares (no beer should have Rudolph in it, thematically, or literally), which was a very nice drop despite its cartoon logo and nobbish name.

Anyhoo the main crux of the matter is an idea Wee Keefy related based on a discussion he'd had at work. Many people have a fairly strong idea about why pubs have been closing so much recently, and the antecedence of these factors means highlighting them then attributes a specific time to the event.

Broadly, I think people agree its down to the smoking ban, cheap supermarket alcohol, reductions in drink driving limits, relaxed beer import laws and a general lack of personal disposable income. In which case, this mounting storm of cataclysmic forces has been generated mainly in the last 6 or 7 years. I don't think you can disagree with any of the above, but I think I might also suggest changing attitudes to drinking and eating (which pubs on the whole have found very difficult to keep up with), real or perceived threats of trouble in many pubs, and the fact that the pub drinking public has become much more diverse, and that in trying to embody the differences therein, changes in pub style and direction have alienated many.

Assuming we have this sewn up then, what abut the idea that the decline actually started in November 1999?

The Millennium, as you may recall, was the epitome of anti climax. It was overpriced, oversubscribed, over long in build up and over in, well a second (although, strictly the millennium is in fact the whole thousand years, so it isn't over yet, but you get the idea). The thing is, in order to maximise their involvement in this frenzy pubs went a little bit stratospheric.

Huge numbers of pubs became venues and nightspots for the night. Pubs that you may have been going in for 20 years or more including every New Years eve, suddenly wanted you to pay to get in. They wanted you to have a ticket, in some absurd cases to adhere to a dress code, or you had to purchase a triple priced meal into the bargain. If you found a bar asking only a small fee and putting on entertainment you needed to be one of a lucky few to get tickets, and anyone washed up in a none paying venue was inevitably left to fish around in the their least favourite haunt for a decent beer and someone they knew who hadn't secured tickets elsewhere.

People rightly got wise to this and gave such places the cold shoulder. They planned in advance and bought booze and snacks from Supermarkets at heavily discounted prices, then stayed in on the big night watching the best fireworks man could buy, albeit on the telly, listening to the music they wanted, and, although this would not have played on their minds at the time, smoking to their hearts content. And they never forgot that night.

Meanwhile, party poppers fell in overpriced drinks, brawls and karaoke broke out (am not quite sure if one is worse than the other), taxis charged 4 times the going rate, many bars shut earlier than advertised and overall even those that got in the good places probably thought it was good for the event, rather than for the money. Below is an illustrative device depicting myself and Christingpher a trifle drunk in not exactly 2000. That's what the Millennium eve looked like to a lot of people though....

So the pubs shot themselves in the foot. They tried to price people out of a decent night out and fleeced the ones who paid over the odds to go in them. People found more enjoyable and affordable alternatives, and then over the next few years when prices started to rise, the smoking ban was introduced, the drink drive limit reduced further, and supermarket booze got even cheaper, they no longer trusted the pubs, and many probably felt they no longer deserved their loyalty. So more and more people started to make alternative arrangements for more and more occasions, and soon for everyday nights.

What I like about this idea, not that I am necessarily saying its the the best explanation out there, is that it demonstrates a plausible and recuontable time line of pub dissatisfaction. And at the very start of that decline is greedy pubs. Now where can we see this menacing spectre starting to appear more and more these days.... ?

Pub Company News

Earlier the W's also noted that, according to once exemplary beer magazine Beer Matters, (that spirited old hairy man no longer seems to be printed in there, not the same since) the Old Heavygate Inn on Matlock Road at Crookes has been granted permission for conversion into residential use. Time methinks to tell you a smidgen about the Heavygate.

When I was at school, a lass I knew lived at the pub. Her Dad Ron kept the pub for 127 years - or similar. She was the first person I remember telling me about a pub, and although I didn't really recall or indeed properly understand most of what she was describing, I can vividly recall the immense kudos that this address afforded her.

When I needed to learn how to go to the pub and handle my carefully chosen real ale, at the age of, erm, you know, 17 and 3 quarters, I went there. It was possible to go in and drink, even if mild concerns existed about your vintage, as long as you were polite and largely quiet and didn't cause a problem, like drinking 6 pints of bitter and a snakebite and then throwing up on your shoes outside. Which I only did once, for the record. Sorry Cath....

There was also a well deserved reputation for a late drink and a lock in from time to time, marshaled expertly by the staff on the basis of etiquette - yes, you could come in at 10pm and reorder after last orders, but no, you couldn't waltz in off the 52 at 25 to midnight and try the same.

There was one long, more modern room on the right as you entered in the centre of the pub, but that would have been the right hand corner of the original very old building. Though this was a recent addition, with fixed seating and a big window at one end where the jukebox was, it was still full of regulars of all ages, and a doughty cabninet behind the bar selling traditional spirits miniatures like Sheepdip Whisky, which I don't think I have ever tried, but which made me think it must be a connoisseurs drop...

There was Kimberley Best and Kimberley Classic on handpump as well as the usual suspects for lager and cider, all served in seemingly ginormous oversize glasses. Up the steps on the left was a much older and more traditional Lounge, where the more venerable characters sat, which also had a jukebox, curiously I seem to think it was different, but I may have imagined this. For untold years, the CAMRA Good Beer Guide listed the pub, with the now legendary unchanging line "the lounge features potted plants", a description so scathingly innocuous as to make youi think you may have walked into a building that was otherwise almost entirely white and bereft of decoration or ephemera.

Pubmageddon

All good things come to an end of course and Ron packed it in many years ago, a succession of managers followed, and I have to say I probably didn't visit at this time. I did however start taking an interest during my "Walkley Renaissance" period in February and March last year, when it briefly reopened, allowing me two visits and Davefromtshop 1 visit before it creaked to an undignified end again.

Interestingly, I understand that the person running the Dog and Partridge whilst it sinks into certain irretrievable oblivion was offered the dizzying chance to run the Heavygate, as I rather lamely and without detail tried to hint at in one of my least successful rumour mill posts. I wonder then if the pub company responsible for the heinous crime of letting a thriving community pub die on its knees (bearing in mind pubmageddon blandification experts Greedy King will have been involved in shafting the Heavygate at some point) is the same one throwing away the keys to the venerable Dog and Partridge, with its rare multi-roomed interior and fascinating rooms and history?

I bet you a tidy sum it is. Its imaginable that, assuming the permission is not withdrawn, one boardroom of money grabbing execs who have never run a pub in their life will have condemned a 16th century former toll house and an amazingly intatct city centre institution to death, for the sake of a quick profit, because through their meddling and outrageous ureasonable demands, no-one could turn round the venue's fortunes in 30 days (insert arbitrary number as required) and meet their exorbitant targets.

What a disaster for Sheffield's pubs that would be. And what a sad reflection on the moral outlook of pub companies in this case that they lacked the imagination and flexibility to save what were two, albeit different, well run profitable businesses.

So what was I saying about greed in the pub business again?

Wee Beefy

The Hop at Sheffield's West One opens

Eavernin,

    Hop officially opens!

     The Hop, the new real ale bar venture franchise from Ossett Brewery has officially launched today at West One on Fitzwilliam Street, off West Street. I arrived at 18.00 having made a fortuitous journey from work to see if it was open at all. Thank god I didn't venture up in my dinner hour, because it had only been open 2 hours when I arrived.

I walked in, having eventually found that the fire exit was not an entrance (seeing is not my strong point, but the entrance doesn't exactly stand out). On entering there is an ante-lobby then the pub/bar opens out in front of you, with a cosy finger of seating on your right, and a long room ahead flanked on the left by booths of tables and chairs. All along the main right hand side of the room is the bar, and at the end a glass collection point, and a drinking corridor, reminiscent of the classic West Yorkshire layout of the same name, but incongruously situated, at the left hand end of the building.

Bar wise there were a number of handpumps, one dedicated to a Pyder, which as a traditionalist am as yet unsure whether I should be affronted by its lack of verifiable antecedence. In terms of the beers on offer there are a range of not unusual continental bottles in the fridge, and a range of Ossett Brewery real ales supplemented by guests.

On the opening night the range was :

Ossett Gold (also on a second "cold" pump
Osset Blonde
Ossett Treacle Stout
Ossett Excelsior
Ossett Silver King
Acorn Freebird
Rat brewery Rat Brown
Fernandes Ale to the Czar
Fullers Golden Pride.

The Ossett beers were OK if not exemplary for an opening night showcase, the Treacle stout was in fantatsic form though, and its nice to see a strong ale, especially one as rare and as indicative of the style as Fullers Golden Pride.

The only puzzle was the lack of any worthwhile Continental draught beers. The keg fonts contained achingly familiar brands with the exception of the rarely seen, but perhaps deservedly so, Tuborg. Perhaps the fact that even the 3.8 % session beer I drank was £3.10 a pint (about 50p dearer than the price for the equivalent at the University Arms a mere 10 minutes walk away) was the explanation for a fear of the overseas drinks, but I recognise at the same time that this is a new venue and they may be just testing the water. Conversely however, they must already have the same market outlook and nounce from their other franchises so maybe that won't hold true...

Overall an interesting if worthily welcome addition to the real ale scene, which offers a decent range of cask and bottled beers plus some good music (piped on first night, but certainly live to come), in that most celebratory of circumstance - the retail flop outlet utilised to sell beer. I wish them all the success they seek.

Dog and Partridge Trippet Lane, Dada cafe bar.

A rare stumble into the Dog and P saw it fairly bloody full which is a treat - a further swelling of the customer ranks was forbade by the fact that the single real ale had gone off. I dearly want to support this pub, but honestly, a real ale free Friday night is a step too far for me.

Across the road meanwhile awkward but not intolerable idea mishmash Dada (see less than flattering pic above, although, painting it dark grey does rely on a sunny evening to make it stand out...) was busier than ever and now selling a different Buxton Brew after the recent pleasing appearance of the Pale. Buxton SPA was their first beer and the first of their brews that I tried, in the Old Hall Hotel bar in Buxton. This was a refreshing (and better than in the above venue) pale beer that went down well, in the odd but I admit comfortable surroundings of Dada.

Harrisons 1854

A final quick note that Harrisons have introduced Bradfield Blonde as a guest real ale. So Abbeydale Moonshine is still the regular but Bradfield, as a guest, attracts a premium and costs £3.10 rather than £3.00 a pint. Regular music sessions and occasional classical music nights continue to feature.

More news soon regarding the NewInnfest11.

Wee Beefy