Ar'tnoo
Its been a quiet weekend, this one. Granted, it hasn't finished, but I have delighted in planning to do precisely nothing except a bit of shopping, a soupçon of social media gubbins, uploading some pics and watching telly. No beer. No public transport. No problem.
Part of the reason for this sabbatical from excess is the effects of Friday night. An absolutely great demonstration of how to end the week on a high. It wasn't an orgiastic spasm of gulping ale however, just a great night out with a friend, accompanied by astonishingly good beer. A bit like this....
We met after work, myself and fledgling pale ale drinker Middlemarch, and headed through the throngs of directionless dawdling folk around the markets to get to the Rutland Arms. We had come for food. It was just after 5. There wasn't a table to be had. The specials board had taken a hammering already as well, but we decided to get beer first, and then worry about a lack of seating. I ordered a pint of Welbeck Abbey Portland Black for me, and a pint of a Greene King beer, the shock of which' appearance made me forget what it was called.
Interestingly, a browse around their website searching for the beer's name indicated that Hardy and Hansons Dark Mild is available only in keg, (probably old news) and also, shows the pump clip for the Bitter next to it! I know that by owning a sizable chunk of Britain's regional breweries poor old Greedy King have a job keeping track, but given that their own XX Mild is only referred to as "other great beers" its surprising just how little interest the brewery has its low strength darker beers. Shameful.
Anyhoo, whilst discussing setting up a tab new guy (sorry new guy) informed us there was a table upstairs. So with tumultuous excitement we headed to a large empty room. It felt like we'd be sent upstairs in disgrace, but as it got ever more rammed downstairs other people joined us.
The food was beef and ale pie for me, which came with tremendous buttery almost sweet pastry, and a chorizo burger for Middlemarch. Both were fantastic, and really hit the spot. I also had another pint of the excellent Portland Black, before we headed off, via not spotting members of the Uni real ale society, AKA stalkers#1....
The Sheffield Tap was our next port of call and although also busy it was possible to sit in the brewery room. Middlemarch has never been in and was suitably impressed, and we set about catching up and admiring the architecture, watching a random mentalist shout at a door, and supping excellent beer. I was on a pint of Marble Stout, she on a ladies drink. Now, before you rise in uproar, I am even handedly including three possibilities in that category - soft drink; spirit and mixer, or fruit beer. Not being a research night I neglected to note which.
Next up it all got a bit silly. Middlemarch had a can of Maui coconut porter, which I had a bit of, and I got a half of Magic Rock Bearded Lady. Because it's amazing. Much like the price of the Maui.... I finished on a pint of Oakham JHB because I wanted something easy to drink, and it was once again on fine form.
I had to bade fare well to Middlemarch at this point and headed up to town. I popped in the Church House to address a need and found it, erm, exclusive. It was 22.00 on a Friday night and I think there may have been less than 20 people in. Much worse was there was no Caledonian Double Dark - in a move that the barman shared my surprise at, there was some other Caledonian guest, even though the Double Dark had been popular. I had a half of the XPA Gold, and retired to an empty corner to sigh.
My penultimate stop was the Bath Hotel. Here I was very sensible - apparently, if you have halves, then no matter how many they number nor how strong the beer they contain, that's responsible drinking. Putting this theory to the test, during an enjoyable chat with Ed and some people who adopted me later on, I had halves of Saltaire Hazelnut Coffee Porter and New World Red, and Thornbridge Juvenia and Halcyon.
The Halcyon was terrific, in that it tasted how it should, the Juvenia wasn't hoppy enough to call it a hoppy porter, but that's a trifling complaint as it was very tasty. Meanwhile the New World Red was really enjoyable, and the Hazelnut Coffee Porter was really a chocolate porter with hazelnut in. But hey, you can't win them all.
My final stop was at DAda where, in a relaxed frame of mind, I opted to not have another beer, but instead a cool and refreshing beer cocktail, Jive Juice with Chiron being the obvious choice, thus allowing me to quickly and easily sup a refreshing beer, and to be noticed by stalkers#2, Dronfield CAMRA.
This lengthy tale may perhaps serve as an illustration of why I need a couple of days of rest. A more positive message though, is that it shows the value of a great friend, and having great pubs to drink great beer in with them. AKA a Friday night in Sheffield.
Cheers!
Wee Beefy
Showing posts with label Magic Rock Bearded Lady.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Magic Rock Bearded Lady.. Show all posts
Sunday, 24 February 2013
Sunday, 23 December 2012
Final flourish, and best wishes
Now then,
one of the usual gripes about Christmas drinking is that pubs are "filled up wi twats oo dornt drink normle-h". Well, thats sort of true. Half slurping, G&T snorting, table hogging bores who get shit faced on a pint and a half and then ruin everyones night by puking and groggily stumbling about before being ejected, arrested or left to die in the street. An all too familiar blight, but one avoided by A: drinking in real ale pubs away from the town centre, and B: not going out Christmas or New Years Eve.
Against that backdrop, this year I intend to follow my own advice and so am now officially "done" for Christmas. The house is full of booze (more details to follow), the polypin of Deception has settled clear in 24 hours, the decorations are up, the warm lighting is set, and the food is bought in readiness. The last thing I want to be doing is fannying around in a pub.
However, to keep me from going insane without its social interaction, here's a round up of my pub visits and other booze news from the last week.
Wednesday saw me and Mr P meet for our last sup before the festival of lies. We headed straight for the Rutland where, mercifully, the excellent Raw/Steel City collaborations were still on the bar - not that we were tempted to risk our sobriety on them, as we had bigger plans ahead.
We opted instead for a pint of Blue Bee Nectar for Mr P and a pint of the excellent Foxfield Dark Mild for me. The mild is a decent strength at around 4.2% and was very roasty and smooth and malty, always a good sign in a dark mild. Unfortunately, a distinct but not unsurprising lack of relaxing space (although we did get a table) meant we opted to only stay for one. So erm, Merry Christmas to the Rutland, who is a person. Hope to see you before the new year....
Our next final Christmas stop was at the Sheffield Tap, although I had planned to return, but things didn't pan out. The Internet had told me that Oakham Green Devil IPA, seemingly a large number of peoples fave beer of 2012, was on the bar. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it had run out long before we got there. So I had a pint of the Ilkley licorice porter, which was excellent, and Mr P an Oakham JHB.
Despite knowing that people also rate JHB, I was surprised at just how fruity and bitter this was - perhaps its widespread availability has led to some less than careful stewardship because its been fairly disappointing whenever I've tried it recently - but this was tremendous. Mr P opted to stick with the JHB for the next round whilst I went for the big one. One whole half, at £4.20, of Magic Rock Bearded Lady. I also had a mitigating refresher - of Sunny Republic 5 malt hibiscus pale ale, which was, interesting, but needfully refreshing.
The Bearded Lady was just as extravagantly glorious in its sheer mass of flavour and alcoholic strength, and still, thankfully, as well balanced and rewarding as the bourbon aged epiphany that was the highlight of my birthday weekend. It still took 50 minutes to sup, but was pleasing and satisfying to the last drop. A spectacular beer.
We parted ways at this point and after refuelling I found time to have a quick half of Thornbridge Yule in DAda, a warming pagan potation that finished off the night nicely.
Yesterday was me and Wee Keefy's trip out to Derbyshire to buy a couple of last presents. After stopping in a ludicrously packed Bakewell to purchase whisky for Wee Fatha we headed for the Three Stags Heads at Wardlow Mires so that WK could pick up some bottles of Abbeydale Black Lurcher. This turned out to be a fantastic visit, not least because it was quiet and so allowing me to get a few pics of this excellent pub, which is on the national inventory of unspoilt pub interiors, but also because we got chatting to the barman and the landlord and a couple who had come to see his renowned pottery.
Coupled with being sat in flickering dim light opposite the open fire drinking excellent beer this was a great way to fill in an hour. And on the subject of ale, it was just a half for delicate flower WK, of Deception, and two pints (in the end!) for me - Brimstone at £2.60, and a very well kept Absolution at £3.00. Nicely dispelling the myth that the Three Stags is expensive into the bargain.
Alas we had to get on because we were off to Archer Road Beer Stop to pick up my Christmas polypin of Abbeydale Deception, and some bottles. Highlights included a bottle of bottle conditioned Ilkley Cranberry milk stout, 2 bottles of the legendary Fantome saison, a Thornbridge Thorny Goat, a Blue Monkey Fat Ape and Durham Temptation, which is now a firmly established Wee Beefy tradition.
Dave very kindly invited us in for a pint but we'd arrived at a busy purple patch so try as we might we couldn't make our respective pint and half of Bradfield Belgian Blue last long enough for him to get to talk to us. Still, it was nice to sample the Belgian Blue and briefly see Dave into the bargain.
So, that's its folks! Barring an amazing nugget of info or a life changing bottle crossing my path I won't be updating the blog now until after Christmas.
So I hope you have a fantastic festive period, and in case I am otherwise engaged in between times, a fantastic new year.
Cheers!
Wee Beefy.
one of the usual gripes about Christmas drinking is that pubs are "filled up wi twats oo dornt drink normle-h". Well, thats sort of true. Half slurping, G&T snorting, table hogging bores who get shit faced on a pint and a half and then ruin everyones night by puking and groggily stumbling about before being ejected, arrested or left to die in the street. An all too familiar blight, but one avoided by A: drinking in real ale pubs away from the town centre, and B: not going out Christmas or New Years Eve.
Against that backdrop, this year I intend to follow my own advice and so am now officially "done" for Christmas. The house is full of booze (more details to follow), the polypin of Deception has settled clear in 24 hours, the decorations are up, the warm lighting is set, and the food is bought in readiness. The last thing I want to be doing is fannying around in a pub.
However, to keep me from going insane without its social interaction, here's a round up of my pub visits and other booze news from the last week.
Wednesday saw me and Mr P meet for our last sup before the festival of lies. We headed straight for the Rutland where, mercifully, the excellent Raw/Steel City collaborations were still on the bar - not that we were tempted to risk our sobriety on them, as we had bigger plans ahead.
We opted instead for a pint of Blue Bee Nectar for Mr P and a pint of the excellent Foxfield Dark Mild for me. The mild is a decent strength at around 4.2% and was very roasty and smooth and malty, always a good sign in a dark mild. Unfortunately, a distinct but not unsurprising lack of relaxing space (although we did get a table) meant we opted to only stay for one. So erm, Merry Christmas to the Rutland, who is a person. Hope to see you before the new year....
Our next final Christmas stop was at the Sheffield Tap, although I had planned to return, but things didn't pan out. The Internet had told me that Oakham Green Devil IPA, seemingly a large number of peoples fave beer of 2012, was on the bar. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it had run out long before we got there. So I had a pint of the Ilkley licorice porter, which was excellent, and Mr P an Oakham JHB.
Despite knowing that people also rate JHB, I was surprised at just how fruity and bitter this was - perhaps its widespread availability has led to some less than careful stewardship because its been fairly disappointing whenever I've tried it recently - but this was tremendous. Mr P opted to stick with the JHB for the next round whilst I went for the big one. One whole half, at £4.20, of Magic Rock Bearded Lady. I also had a mitigating refresher - of Sunny Republic 5 malt hibiscus pale ale, which was, interesting, but needfully refreshing.
The Bearded Lady was just as extravagantly glorious in its sheer mass of flavour and alcoholic strength, and still, thankfully, as well balanced and rewarding as the bourbon aged epiphany that was the highlight of my birthday weekend. It still took 50 minutes to sup, but was pleasing and satisfying to the last drop. A spectacular beer.
We parted ways at this point and after refuelling I found time to have a quick half of Thornbridge Yule in DAda, a warming pagan potation that finished off the night nicely.
Yesterday was me and Wee Keefy's trip out to Derbyshire to buy a couple of last presents. After stopping in a ludicrously packed Bakewell to purchase whisky for Wee Fatha we headed for the Three Stags Heads at Wardlow Mires so that WK could pick up some bottles of Abbeydale Black Lurcher. This turned out to be a fantastic visit, not least because it was quiet and so allowing me to get a few pics of this excellent pub, which is on the national inventory of unspoilt pub interiors, but also because we got chatting to the barman and the landlord and a couple who had come to see his renowned pottery.
Coupled with being sat in flickering dim light opposite the open fire drinking excellent beer this was a great way to fill in an hour. And on the subject of ale, it was just a half for delicate flower WK, of Deception, and two pints (in the end!) for me - Brimstone at £2.60, and a very well kept Absolution at £3.00. Nicely dispelling the myth that the Three Stags is expensive into the bargain.
Alas we had to get on because we were off to Archer Road Beer Stop to pick up my Christmas polypin of Abbeydale Deception, and some bottles. Highlights included a bottle of bottle conditioned Ilkley Cranberry milk stout, 2 bottles of the legendary Fantome saison, a Thornbridge Thorny Goat, a Blue Monkey Fat Ape and Durham Temptation, which is now a firmly established Wee Beefy tradition.
Dave very kindly invited us in for a pint but we'd arrived at a busy purple patch so try as we might we couldn't make our respective pint and half of Bradfield Belgian Blue last long enough for him to get to talk to us. Still, it was nice to sample the Belgian Blue and briefly see Dave into the bargain.
So, that's its folks! Barring an amazing nugget of info or a life changing bottle crossing my path I won't be updating the blog now until after Christmas.
So I hope you have a fantastic festive period, and in case I am otherwise engaged in between times, a fantastic new year.
Cheers!
Wee Beefy.
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