Hello,
as per my previous post, I will remind you once again that the last three weeks have been a bit slakey. I have an unhealthy desire for drinking beer as it is, so lets just say that the period described has been mightily refreshing and dangerously scaturient. Just how I like it. Not how I like to be when it comes to remembering ting alas. Despite this aqueous handicap, am going to try and remember some stuff from the period and write it down. Good luck to you, dear readers, in finding any actual facts uin the following....
It all started with Tickle's birthday. Me and Tash and Matt met briefly in the Tap and Tankard to wrap present and had a pint each of a flavoured beer and some Pale Rider. We ate at Agraah and I drank a keg beer which I think is brewed in the UK and begins with B before we went to the Grapes. Excellent pints of Moonshine were had, along with the company of Mr Shumski before those remaining went to Shakespeares for last ones.
I have been to the Three Tuns twice recently as well. Both times I had excellent pints (many) of the Blue Bee Little and Large IPA. Each tome there has been a jolly chap called Nathan working behind the bar. Unfortunately I decided to have an "joke" with him last time and may have looked like a twat. Sorry Nathan....
The Bath Hotel let me down slightly on the first Monday as it was Thornbridge only on cask - Gah! Luckily they had the Cloudwater Farmhouse IPA on keg at 6.5% which is much more my strength. Earlier myself and Middlemarch had been to Shakespeares where we had enjoyed, amongst a few, halves of the sour Berliner Weiss from Siren, maybe called Calypso, and also had popped in the Ship for a couple of pints of beer.It was the quietest I've ever seen it, although it was 19.00 on a Monday.
Other Bath visits saw us drinking Jaipur and the excellent Anarchy Brew Co Sublime Chaos breakfast stout at 7% or more, as well as trying Jaipur X which is 10%. It was once again busy, which lets face it is great news. After WK had left is we headed once again to Shakespeares to enjoy some delicious keg including something from Anspatch and of course, the amazing Cloudwater Drink Fresh Special IPA on cask - one of the beers of the month by a long stretch.
A quick trip to the Closed Shop and Hallamshire House found excellent hoppy Blue Bee - I can't recall which but I think the description is most likely right - at the Shop, and a Blackjack beer at the Hallamshire House. Initially I could only afford a half of one of the Thornbridge beers but luckily the card machine was fixed in time for me to splash out.
A trip out on Bonfire night found us in the Fat Cat supping a hoppy red ale in real glasses whilst enjoying he fireworks and lovely BBQ hot dogs and burgers in the yard. One thing I will say is the Cat really know how to do bonfire night! Good to bump into Rolla Coley's friend Michaela behind the bar for her second shift - I imagine it got very busy.....
A wander round the corner saw us have a couple of pints sat in the beer garden at the KIT. I know we had something strong and hoppy, and am willing to bet it was a Blue Bee beer. Lovely place to sit and watch and listen to the fireworks, as was Shakespeares once again, where we very likely had the To Ol Final Frontier double IPA at 9.6% on keg to, erm, yer know, finish.
Two Sundays ago we went for a lovely walk in South Anston in Little Stones wood - we finished off with a pint in the Loyal Trooper. Still selling four real ales, the only disappointment is that they have refurbished it (I haven't been for at least five years...!) and the new decor seems very out of place in the grand old building.
Finally, a couple of visits to the Devpnshire Cat and the Portland House have occurred, with the Cat winning points for the excellent Instant Karma Black IPA and the Abbeydale beer of the same style (but stronger). The Portland is a decent walk form the Cat, and we have done this twice now. I like the place but am not so sure about their claim to sell three traditional Welbeck beers with the three guests providing more hoppy fare. The Waen Monkey Spanner was lovely, as was the Liquid Mistress from Siren on keg (although £5.50 for a pint is steep), however the Saltaire Hopfen was awful. Luckily, excellent Wateralls pies and lovely pickle jars compensate - its just not the Walkley Beer Co.
Apologies once more then to anyone I forgot or any places I neglected to mention. More posts are to follow I promise!
Cheers
Wee Beefy
Showing posts with label Grapes Trippet Lane. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grapes Trippet Lane. Show all posts
Thursday, 19 November 2015
Wednesday, 26 August 2015
Back street boozers
Hello,
if you have ever been lucky enough to visit the Hand & Heart in Peterborough or the Golden Ball in York you will have some understanding, and hopefully appreciation, of what a back street boozer is and can be. Often plain but with a number of rooms,usually a tap and a lounge and snug, mainly selling real ale and almost always full of characters, and, in the case of the above, possessing nationally noteworthy interior features.
Luckily, although we are only blessed with one National Inventory pub here in Sheffield (itself a back street boozer, albeit on a corner) we do have other notable survivals. Here are details of two I have recently visited.
The first is the Grapes on Trippet Lane. Granted, a back street boozer is often part of a row of houses or similar, but the Grapes stands alone only by virtue of driveways and demolitions nearby. Inside is where it really stands out as a back street boozer however. Trippet Lane is behind West Street and has 4 pubs on it, with the Grapes being owned, as the sign on the side proclaims, by the Flynn family. For years they leased the Grapes and ran the nearby Dog and Partridge until the pub company increased the rent to the extent where it was more profitable to take their own pub back under their control. Fixtures fittings staff and regulars alike moved a few doors up and we now have the Grapes in its current guise, showing its considerable original features off.
There are three rooms in the Grapes, plus the loos, and three real ales. There is also a decoratively tiled drinking corridor with a TV, and a beautiful patio to sit on and soak up the sunshine. Or the rain. The beers are Tetley Bitter, Stancil Bitter and Abbeydale Moonshine. The Moonshine is perhaps the best I have tasted (apart from at Daves beer shop, granted) and is served just cool enough to be refreshing without losing any of its flavour. The pub also sells the new Guinness Dublin Porter and Golden ale on keg, and the full range of new Guinness beers in bottle should the fancy take you.
The pub can get very busy and crowded especially if there is a wake on, and when busy there are often drinkers spilling out onto the street. The rooms inside are small but the pub is clean and well run and homely, just like a back street hostelry should be.
The other pub I visited recently is the hostelry known locally as Fanny's on the corner of Earl Street and Arundel Lane. The pub stands alone as the only residential building on a street of factories and industrial units. The Lord Nelson as it is now known is a compact pub which, although slightly opened out inside still retains its three room layout, and in rare moments of clement weather, there are seats and tables outside for drinkers.
For years it was a Kimberly brewery pub (and possibly a Stones House previously?) and now owned by Greedy King. In the mid noughties I used to go in and have Kimberly or Hardy Hanson Olde Trip, but on a couple of occasions this was on its last legs. Since then, the beer range has improved significantly, as has the beer quality.
Of the 4 beers available on Monday we all had pints of the Toolmakers Die Sage Bier, a hoppy pale lager malted ale at 4.2% (ish) and £2.80 a pint. The beer was in perfect nick and although I don't remember what else was on, it was well worth three pints for each of us. More importantly, it was lovely to sit in the tiny room on the right and watch the world pass by, listening to conversations or the football on the telly and generally relaxing.
In years gone by both of these pubs used to be in the Good Beer Guide, and although maybe overtaken by other pubs in Sheffield regarding ale, their stoic unchanging attitude, mainly in respect of their interior features, makes them well worth a visit.
Lets hope I can try out some other similar pubs in Sheffield as well.
Cheers!
Wee Beefy
if you have ever been lucky enough to visit the Hand & Heart in Peterborough or the Golden Ball in York you will have some understanding, and hopefully appreciation, of what a back street boozer is and can be. Often plain but with a number of rooms,usually a tap and a lounge and snug, mainly selling real ale and almost always full of characters, and, in the case of the above, possessing nationally noteworthy interior features.
Luckily, although we are only blessed with one National Inventory pub here in Sheffield (itself a back street boozer, albeit on a corner) we do have other notable survivals. Here are details of two I have recently visited.
The first is the Grapes on Trippet Lane. Granted, a back street boozer is often part of a row of houses or similar, but the Grapes stands alone only by virtue of driveways and demolitions nearby. Inside is where it really stands out as a back street boozer however. Trippet Lane is behind West Street and has 4 pubs on it, with the Grapes being owned, as the sign on the side proclaims, by the Flynn family. For years they leased the Grapes and ran the nearby Dog and Partridge until the pub company increased the rent to the extent where it was more profitable to take their own pub back under their control. Fixtures fittings staff and regulars alike moved a few doors up and we now have the Grapes in its current guise, showing its considerable original features off.
There are three rooms in the Grapes, plus the loos, and three real ales. There is also a decoratively tiled drinking corridor with a TV, and a beautiful patio to sit on and soak up the sunshine. Or the rain. The beers are Tetley Bitter, Stancil Bitter and Abbeydale Moonshine. The Moonshine is perhaps the best I have tasted (apart from at Daves beer shop, granted) and is served just cool enough to be refreshing without losing any of its flavour. The pub also sells the new Guinness Dublin Porter and Golden ale on keg, and the full range of new Guinness beers in bottle should the fancy take you.
The pub can get very busy and crowded especially if there is a wake on, and when busy there are often drinkers spilling out onto the street. The rooms inside are small but the pub is clean and well run and homely, just like a back street hostelry should be.
The other pub I visited recently is the hostelry known locally as Fanny's on the corner of Earl Street and Arundel Lane. The pub stands alone as the only residential building on a street of factories and industrial units. The Lord Nelson as it is now known is a compact pub which, although slightly opened out inside still retains its three room layout, and in rare moments of clement weather, there are seats and tables outside for drinkers.
For years it was a Kimberly brewery pub (and possibly a Stones House previously?) and now owned by Greedy King. In the mid noughties I used to go in and have Kimberly or Hardy Hanson Olde Trip, but on a couple of occasions this was on its last legs. Since then, the beer range has improved significantly, as has the beer quality.
Of the 4 beers available on Monday we all had pints of the Toolmakers Die Sage Bier, a hoppy pale lager malted ale at 4.2% (ish) and £2.80 a pint. The beer was in perfect nick and although I don't remember what else was on, it was well worth three pints for each of us. More importantly, it was lovely to sit in the tiny room on the right and watch the world pass by, listening to conversations or the football on the telly and generally relaxing.
In years gone by both of these pubs used to be in the Good Beer Guide, and although maybe overtaken by other pubs in Sheffield regarding ale, their stoic unchanging attitude, mainly in respect of their interior features, makes them well worth a visit.
Lets hope I can try out some other similar pubs in Sheffield as well.
Cheers!
Wee Beefy
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