Some recent city centre drinking

Hello,

  here are a few details of some venues visited on Thursday with Chala.

Popolo

First stop was Popolo in Leopold Square, a chain of restaurant bars based mainly in the North and Midlands. Downstairs its all black and white lines and red lighting and classic film posters, upstairs is a separate small bar with the restaurant seating which is a little more traditional.

In days of yore (April 2011 to be precise) they sold bottles of Freedom Organic lager, both the standard and the dark. Although not labelled as bottle conditioned (instead unfiltered) they did seem to taste and behave like bottle conditioned beers (but in the better respects of the term, i.e not fizzing sour soup). Alas now there is no Freedom to be found, but they have at least got a couple of Brew Dog bottles in.

Interestingly, Sheffield CAMRA have for two years now included Popolo as selling real ale in their guide to city centre real ale venues. I admit that there is a small chance that the Theakstons bitter served through keg taps over the bar (one assumes the barrels/kegs are upstairs, which is a tad funky) but it seems really unlikely that this is real ale. It may be time perhaps for Sheffield CAMRA to reassess their list. Not that it impacted on the enjoyment of our visit, its just a bit strange to see them on it.

I started on a BrewDog 5AM saint, their ascorbic, bitter, dry red hop ale, whilst Chala had a cocktail, which came with free nibbles, which was a nice touch. The Saint was an interesting experience. This was my first taste of it since last year, and having since tasted the red hop wares of their brewing apostles in particular the excellent Magic Rock Rapture it seems a bit overly harsh and slightly one dimensional. Where Rapture has burnt toffee and a mix of complimentary malts in the second part of the mouthfeel the 5AM Saint delivers a big unwieldy slab of what I think is Simcoe, but offers no moderating flavours in support.

Next we had more of the same, except I switched to a half of Erdinger. All the drinks are discounted between 17.00 and 19.00 so the bottles of beer were about £3.30 and the cocktails were about a fiver, which is still expensive - if there hadn't have been an offer on I would have tried the Theakstons I think...

Our last drink was a bottle of Punk IPA for me and one last Godfather for Chala. The Punk was not a vintage example of itself, being slightly sweet in a way that it really shouldn't, possibly it had been light struck during some part of the process of getting to Popolo, but it was still a decent beer.

Old House

Our next port of call was city centre fave the Old House, selling both of the recent range of True North beers (i.e those brewed at Welbeck Brewery) and also the excellent Bradfield Farmers Stout and a couple of Kelham Island offerings.

I had a pint of the First Porter in here, which is a really nice beer, with just enough roast malt and plenty of body to carry off the flavours, and we also stopped for a meal, so we had a bottle of red wine to accompany. One of my only gripes is the table service idea. It doesn't quite work. As we were sitting down on arriving, we were asked straight away if we wanted to order food - we weren't sure at this stage, so were asked what we wanted to drink, but having not even made up our minds about food we didn't know if we wanted a couple of drinks to start or to order the wine. The lass told us we could order drinks from her and disappeared.

I nipped to the bar for my Porter shortly after and then after delibaerations and menu perusing Chala went to get the wine, since we now knew what we wanted to eat. Chala had trouble setting up a tab because we hadn't ordered food but we made it clear we were going to order, so returned to the table with the wine to await the waitress.

A while passed and it became clear she was otherwise engaged, and with the wine warming up I went to the bar to order food, but was told they couldn't put it in the till and it couldn't be ordered from there (Why? No logic was forthcoming...) In the end the waitress came to the bar to take my order and I sat back down again but that was a needlessly lengthy process to just order a meal. Why not use the magic of technology to enable the silly old till behind the bar to accept another reel of preprogrammed numbers, like you can do with every till on earth?

Anyhoo, ranting finished, we did enjoy a very lovely meal and some decent wine, and I also found time to have a pint of the True North First Blonde. This was a very pleasing blonde bitter ale with a lovely fruity aftertaste, which did carry off some of the characteristics of the originator brewery. Hopefully there will be more beers on the way.

Harrisons 1854

Our final port of call was another bar, so not really a traditional pub crawl for us. Here Chala was back on cocktails and I tried a bit of the Farmers Tramlines beer. Once again it managed to be quite bland and disappointing, though not as grim as the Sheffield Brew Co one last year. I completely understand the need for the Tramlines ale to have universal appeal but it tasted like an amalgam of some of the less edifying and more dreary characteristics of the Bradfield output, although having said that it had a nice initial burst of malt and bitterness which reminded me a decent Yorkshire Bitter.

Despite that I had a Farmers Blonde next, before finishing on a small glass of the excellent Hugo Cassanova Sauvignon Blanc, which was just as light and refreshing as I required.

All in all an enjoyable and varied crawl of some of the more modern bars in Sheffield selling decent beer, which proves that even if you don't set foot in a traditional pub all night you don't have to settle for  smoothflow or fake euro lager dross anymore.

Happy times!

Wee Beefy

Wee Beefy's beer bites, of beer and pubs, pubs and grub, and great music and beers.

Oh aaarh

    news tonight of a number of local haunts selling real ales and a few other things to tempt punters.

Old House.

A recent visit saw some excellent beers, looks like Moonshine, Kelham Easy Rider, Flowers (?!?) IPA, and Bradfield stout are regulars, and this time the guest was the Two Roses brewery First Edition IPA, (see Two roses brewery beers ) a sumptuous dry hoppy delight which warranted a couple of pints in our short visit. This follows a pattern in recent months of some unusual beers cropping up at this popular and often eclectic venue.

Shakespeares, Rattle and Roll (sorry, couldn't find a suitable "attle" to continue the theme")...

On Friday 4th November it was Jake's 40th and the Kingfisher Blue gig at Shakespeares on Gibraltar Street. Upstairs in the Bards bar there is alas still no signs of the bar of the name being open, but there was a polished presentation of excellent Kingfisher Blue tracks from their 15 year touring career. Never mind that, there were also inevitable excellent beers on the bar.

Downstairs (for it is there) they had some interesting beer choices and I plumped to start with Deception, a reliable pint and only £2.10 per 568ml, whilst Wee Keefy ventured into Cains bonfire Toffee (not to my taste but it did what it said on the clip, and some less hoppy beer producer which may have involved the word barrister. Myself, I followed with a couple of pints of Summer Wine brewery Whitewater IPA, and their Coffee Stout. Ultimately, the worst and most disturbing beer of the night was the Landlord's Choice/Landlords friend Chip, an unfeasibly sweet weird amalgam of sharp malt and sugary nonsense which was possibly the worst pint of not off beer I had ever tasted - thankfully that was keefy's choice!

All in all it was a fantastic night showcasing the excellent upstairs venue and topped off with a pint of Deception at Harrisons 1854. Good times all round.

Harrisons 1854

More news on the beer choice merrygoround, after a, I cannot confirm, but suspect, disastrous trial of Sheffield brewing Co Blanco Blonde. The 3rd beer pump role has for the time being been taken by Bradfield Brewery, not sure which one of their wares but suspect it was their Blonde, given that the beer had run out by the time of my arrival. Lets hope this does well, and that they may be tempted into a reckless foray into one of the other Bradfield portfolio, such as the Yorkshire Farmer or their excellent Pale Ale.

Arkwirght Arms, Sutton Cum Duckmanton Chesterfield.

Wee Fatha has aged officially in the last week so we took him out for a meal and some excellent beer at the above. Despite being a drizzly November Monday the pub was steady, with a good turnover of customers in the 2 hours we were there, and still offering a range of about 9 beers.  We started on Dark Star Hophead, which had to be changed, but was well worth the wait, and Church End Goats Milk which WF liked but I didn't care for. Next I had the Titanic Plum Porter which was exactly as named but lacked a little balancing bitterness, whilst WK had Whim Arbor Light and WF Prospect Silver Tally. My third was the excellent Brew Dog Trashy Blonde, whilst the others had another Hophead and a Muirhead brewery Pirates Gold, before I finished on a half of Durham Vanilla Waltz which was a very easy drinking 5% ale with a creamy malt taste.

The food was enjoyable, even if my chilli was a little sweet and perhaps shy of some more rice, and was very well priced. Overall this was a rare and enjoyable trip out to a fantastic pub.

Derbyshire Wanderings

My last dispatch comes from the wilds of Derbyshire and a trip out on the 6th November. Me and Davefromtshop went for a yomp starting in Litton, alas before the pub opened, then down to Litton Mill then along Cressbrook Dale and through Cressbrook then up the hill on the arduous track to Brushfield. Here our plans went awry slightly as we listened to half thought advice from other walkers and did not double check the map. Suffice to say we ended up back down the hill on the A6 having already toiled up one side of the incline.

Fifty strenuous sweaty minutes later than planned we arrived in Taddington at the Queens Arms, home now to the local shop, and focused on its food. In the past it was a redoubtable ale venue but changes have occurred since and now its perhaps not so much a nailed on source of beer. Prior to visiting I checked their website and the food and drinks link that hinted at real ales had only the food menu on. On arrival this was played out for real with the whole lounge full of diners. Mind you, in these troubled times this is not a bad sight, even if the picture was completed with the fire ablaze, increasing our thirstiness after dragging our considerable forms all the way from the valley bottom.

The Peak Ales Bakewell bitter alas ran out whilst we waited, and we plumped for the Delicious and refreshing Oakwell Barnsley bitter, from South Yorkshire's most secretive brewery, that being the only beer remaining. Mind you, although its not abnormal these days, one felt it had to hit the mark at £3.10 for a 3.8% ale. We enjoyed this in the garden whilst formulating a plan to catch up with our wayward timetable.

In the end, the route into Presitcliffe and down a precipitous muddy slope with cliffs on one side, coupled with sudden plunging temperatures and my concerns about my susceptible dodgy feet, meant that on arriving on the Monsal trail at 14.50, despite having time enough to reach Great Longstone in daylight, we opted to sensibly negotiate the slippery rock strewn slope to Millers Dale and the Anglers Rest.

On this visit the recent Sheffield District pub of the year improved upon its usual more than excellent rosta of beers with Adnams as its regular, and three Locale guests, Storm Silk of Amnesia, which is £2.70 for a 4.7% beer (all beers are the same price), Wincle Waller (of the dry stone variety), and Spire Brassed Off. So engaging was this bibulous team sheet we stayed for several pints before reluctantly heading to the bus stop.

With timetables and connections ruling out trips to any of the Longstone or Monsal pubs, we decided to stop off in Tideswell as I had never been in the Horse and Jockey and it was allegedly quite good.

Passing on the bus it was emblazoned with lights, however, on reaching the pub the door was locked, and after catching the eye of someone inside we were told it didn't open on that day as they were changing ownership! FML! So now (not even attempting consideration of the folly of paying to halogenically light ones closed business)  we had an hour and a half to fill in but only two pubs to go at, so, after a fortuitous stop at a late closing shop for pork pies, we headed up to the Star.

Its 6 years since I was in, and back then it was a thriving local with an excellent range of beers and take away pizzas (I think, unless am confusing it with somewhere else like the George at Youlgreave!). Now, at 17.20 on a Sunday, we replaced the customer at the bar and in doing so added 33% to the tally of patrons. There was now 3 of us in the pub, plus staff.

On the bar was Marstons Bitter and Jennings Cumberland, and one other customer to enjoy them. The bitter was very palatable, but, given that it seems the George was also closed for refurbishment, (and a lack of info about the other pub or club at the other end of the village), it seems desperately bad that the Star could attract so few customers. There is nothing wrong with the pub it has a traditional multi roomed layout, or at least, very distinct separated areas, and real ale and a central location. Yet the stark reality was that in the face of no competition the pub could barely turn over a trade. This does not bode well for the future, even if, as was privately mooted by the licensee, the late evening trade would be brisk.

Our escape was earlier than planned then and we were soon on the 173 to Bakewell, frustratingly highlighting that we could have got off for 40 minutes at the Red Lion at Litton. Once in Bakewell, we headed straight for the Peacock. They still served an impressive portfolio of four real ales from Peak Ales brewery, of which I had the rather rich Chatsworth Gold and the more refreshing Bakewell Best, whilst Dave opted for the Swift Nick and a rather optimistically  priced double whisky.

Once back in Sheffield we had time for a last one in the Sheffield Tap, Dave enjoying a rather prescient titled Brodies Prime, and myself relying on my favoured Thornbridge fail safe the Lord Marples.

Though its a shame we didn't manage the planned route we still got to visit some excellent venues and sample some terrific real ale, most notably at the Anglers Rest, but all of the pubs visited sold real ale and in general the choice was very good.

Keep drinking, and keep asking....

Wee Beefy.