Doing my bit for Drinkuary

Hello,

     after the melee of Christmas and New Year slaking and the weighty spectre of expectation sitting on the shoulders of all expecting a better year ahead, its been reassuring to know that the reckless merry go round of drinking and general revelry can be continued into January. Not only that, but its all for a good cause!

In response to the sanctimonious imploration by Enjoyment Concern for a "dry January" (surely a more apt meteorological wish given recent events) people, who are real, have come up with the concept of drinkuary. This idea draws a clear correlation between the efforts of Enjoyment Concern and zealots in the health lobby to make people stay off alcohol of any kind for a specific period, with the ongoing decline in the fortune of pubs, the seemingly unstoppable tide of tax rises, and the general spiralling cost of drinking responsibly.

If you forgive the slightly odd misspelling of George Galloway as George Galway, who sounds like he ought to be an Irish folk singer, its an interesting idea, and one which fits in nicely with my intention to continue my normal pre Christmas drinking patterns. Anyone who runs a pub or knows people who run pubs will be aware that January is a write off month - ideally you combine the sales of all of December and January and average them out to make January less of a waste of time. Against which backdrop, the last thing the struggling trade needs is a dearth of custom, so I am pleased to have so far lent my support to the following establishments...

Friday night was Chala's choice so we started in the Church House. Its probably important to clarify that I do actually wish the venue every success; and despite my amusement at its bizarre customer profiling concepts, its still a nice place to have a decent pint of real ale (especially the Caledonian Double Dark, which is fantastic), after work. And that's what we did. Two rounds of Double Dark for me and Birra Moretti for Chala. A pleasant repose.

Off next for a surprise toilet inspired (the need, not the decor) stop off at Popolo's. Despite arriving in time for the drnks offers, nothing beery really caught my eye, at least, nothing in the offer list. So Chala had a half of Staropramen and myself a bottle of Brooklyn Brown. I don't know that I'm really a fan of this beer. It seems oddly sweet and sort of, I dunno, weirdly caramelised. Maybe it was a skunked bottle? Although being refrigerated to near freezing probably does it no favours.

The Rutland Arms on Brown Street was our next destination, for food and beer, and also the opportunity to engage in another Blogosphere meetIRL. After 18 months of hunting, I have finally spotted a SparklePete. A thoroughly nice chap as well. Only 20 more bloggers to meet now....

Drinks wise, Chala tried the Freedom Wheat again and to be fair it was lifeless and even weirder than New Year, so I gamely offered to finish it, and bought Chala half of the very drinkable Freedom Organic lager, which was on top form. I meanwhile ignored the advice of everyone in the know, which was to drink Jarrow Best, and went for pints of Wincle Wassale, Ilkley Mary Christmas and Magic Rock Cannonball, this time to remind myself why its not as good as the Human Cannonball which was amazing when I tried it in the Rutland last year.

There was a slight issue with the Leffe that Chala tried. Its an awkward one to call because realistically, who drinks enough Leffe to know if its right or wrong? Chala was adamant that it was not right, having a cough medicine type flavour and sulphury smell, and did get it swapped. Whilst I have torn loyalties here, I have to agree with young Paultous, who quite sagely pointed out that it definitely wasn't off, and that despite not claiming to be an expert, it tasted nice. An awkward one to call.  Incidentally, and unsurprisingly, the food was excellent. Must eat there more often.

Our final drinks were in the Sheffield Tap, where, after discovering to my surprise that they don't sell a single saison (the silly was out of stock, but its not a good beer in my opinion) I decided to go KeyKeg and Cask and came away with a pint of the excellent Kirkstall Black Band Porter, and a half of the even more excellent Camden Hell(e?)s. Chala meanwhile finally got tp try a bottle of Vedett wheat, which was very much to her taste. An excellent way to finish the evening.

Yesterday was meant to be a day of lost pub research - but a much needed lie in saw to that, and I was out mid afternoon to start some rather more local investigations (Ooer!) at DAda. On the bar were two excellent real ales (4 in total, including the weird new St Petersburg with peated malt or whatever gives it that unfortunate edge), those being Red Willow Directionless and Amber Ales Derbyshire Gold.

The Gold was really refreshing and subtly hopped (but in a way that the beer benefited from) and the Red Willow was an intriguing blend of malts and hops, a fantastic drink but one that defied categorising. It was very very good, so that's what matters.

The Red Deer was my next stop, and I  had a half each of the two guests - Celt Experience Celt Gold and the St Peters Best Bitter. I probably should have had the bitter first because it paled into insignificance against the amazing golden hoppiness of the Celt Experience, a rarely seen but often enjoyed brewery. Good to see both in Sheffield.

Harrisons 1854 was on my route so I popped in for a chat with Barraharri, but alas as the alcohol was mounting up and I'd had no scran I opted for only a half in here - Farmers Blonde, which was on good form, from a range including Best and Abbeydale Moonshine. It was nice to get back in my spot, even if it was only a pit stop.

The nearby Bath Hotel was following DAda's lead and also had some Red Willow on offer. I had a couple of pints of the Fathomless, an excellent oyster stout, and a half of the Heartless from the cask, another extremely quaffable and excellently executed Red Willow beer. It was also my first opportunity to try one of the Bath's sensational hot roast pork sandwiches - well worth the 8 month wait I'd say!

I managed to find a corner to relax in and spent sometime catching up with Steph, who, poor lass, had been working so hard that she imagined me to be much older than I am. I'm being as gracious as I can here, in the face of extreme provocation.... I finished off with a very tasty pint of Thornbridge Chiron before the allure of my home patch called and I headed off up to Crookes.

After securing fuel I met Wee Keefy in the Princess Royal. From a range of about 5 beers we both had the excellent Sheffield Brewing Co Christmas Pudding Porter, a tasty 5.2% dark beer on at a bargain £2.00 a pint. We sat in the far corner near the jukebox whilst a good covers band played some more unusual tunes including Nirvana and System of a Down.

Things were going rapidly downhill next - literally. Me and Wee Keefy were on Bates Street, and finding it a little slippy underfoot, WK suddenly let out out an "aaargh" and slipped sideways off the pavement. Laughing, I said "what bloody footwear have you got on, I've only got these crappy dress shoes" then took one step and fell flat on my arse. Must not gloat...

The Hallamshire House was our final stop and although initially overjoyed to spot Thorny Goat unfortunately it either wasn't that or someone had put bloody chilli in it. Yuk! Luckily they still had Heather Honey stout, and knowing WK has a sweet tooth I bough him a half of that and me an unusual version of Jaipur, which must have been different, because it was absolutely chuffing delicious! We grabbed a seat with friends Jo and Neil and caught up and supped before I made a joyless, frustrating and lengthy trip home, marked out by utterly backward public transport provision.

So, that;s my first campaigning work in the name of Drinkuary, lets hope I can continue to help, ahem,  "them" for the rest of the month.

Cheers!

Wee Beefy.

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

Walk over offerton Moor to Hucklow and Litton, 2 new bars to try in Sheffield.

Hello,

on Sunday me and Mr P headed out into the Dark Peak for a wander, which in reality, being his first and only my second walk of the year, turned out to be a life threatening slog.

We started in Hathersage at 10.30 and walked to Leadmill Bridge, before setting off towards Brough along the river Derwent, on the path that runs along the side and for some reason is now called a heritage trail. As we walked along admiring the scenery and reflections in the river (gladly espying consistent blue skies ahead) it was pleasantly warm and quiet, and the easy pace meant we could work up slowly to our looming ascent.

As you reach the stepping stones a path heads left up steeply through the fields to the hamlet of Offerton. After an initial promising start we were soon breathless and stopped for a drink at the first stile. The next field took two goes and a further stop. We reached Offerton at a snails pace, only to see our next section ominously towering above us.

We zig zagged up a poor lumpy and tufted path up onto the top of Offerton Moor, by now so acutely aware of our lack of condition that we stopped perhaps 10 times on the way up. Finally, having seen and passed a couple of fake summits, we reached the top and looked back at the tiny thread of blue grey that was the river in the distance.

Crossing the moor we encountered some light drizzle, there were dark clouds amassing to our right over Bradwell direction, and a brisk wind, but this was a necessary companion to cool us down from the climb. We quickly crossed onto Smelting Hill and then took the path right past the edges of Abney and onto Abney moor, where we propped ourselves up out of the wind against a wall for dinner. The scenery and views on the moor were fantastic with the golden tufted grasses and yellow fauna starkly contrasting with the ink black portents of precipitation which were framing the scene. Dark clouds shadowed the edges of the moor on the skyline to provide a stirring scene of joyous contrast.

En route over the moor we found a disturbed burial chamber and a cove, an ancient two stone structure thought to be precisely positioned to frame the winter sun or particular stars. We soon came out in Abney Grange and headed round on the road past the gliding club. We should have cut through Great Hucklow woods but instead I insisted, wrongly, we literally follow the instructions, but eventually we wandered into Great Hucklow in afternoon sunshine to find the Queen Anne Inn heaving.

There had been a christening somewhere near by and the pub was rammed with families in their Sunday best. Despite this unseemly melee, we were served relatively quickly by the harassed but friendly staff, and managed to secure a table outside. I have to point out though, even amidst this sea of people, someone was still selfish and divorced from reality enough to pull up a stool and sit at the bar - this despite the fact that you could barely turn round with your drink to leave. Mind you, it could have been even worse, he could have opted to stand drinking at the bar, thus inconveniencing the bar staff as well as customers.

Anyway, there were two real ales on, Tetley Bitter and Bradfield Farmers brown Cow, which we both had pints of. My last visit had been perhaps 12 or 13 years ago and I had one of the Mansfield Deakins seasonal beers, but a lot has happened since then, and the Brown Cow, recently sampled at the Old Crown Handsworth, is a nice change.

I can't really tell you much about the interior because it was so crowded, but suffice to say, for a circa 15th century inn, its very traditional, with beams and flags and low ceilings, and is probably a fantastic place for a meal.. I will have to go back when its quiet to appreciate it better.

All too soon we were off tracing the path to come out on the main road from Tideswell. It looked like we would come out near the 3 Stags, but after following a clear pattern of signs and substantial if near unassailable stiles, the path simply disappears as you drop into a small dale. With time getting on we left the field by the gate and walked down to the 3 Stags Heads, turning our phones off prior to entering.

Inside they were taking the traditional values to heart and not entertaining modern intrusions like electricity, with no lights in either of the rooms. Once i Had managed to focus and after asking the barman, i realised there were 4 Abbeydale beers on. We had pints of the Deception which was very nice, before i tried a half of the Black Lurcher, a dark 8% beer brewed for the pub. I don't get very often, but every time I do I try this and its either old, tired, sharp and bearable, or its excellent smooth and enjoyable.

Alas this time it was the former, and although I could recognise its classic flavours it was a disappointing drink, although its important to stress that it wasn't off. And just to show us it was a conspiracy of random events, as we struggled out treading on feet and dogs and stubbing our toes on stools, the lights came on.

Our final destination was Litton, about 25 minutes walk away, and the Red Lion. The pub was busy, but we managed to get a table, and the beer choice was the Oakwell Brewery Bitter, Buxton SPA and Abbeydale Absolution. Mr P had the bitter and I the excellent hoppy SPA. We got ourselves a seat and a table in the small newly opened 4th room on the right and sat down to rest our feet and peruse the menu, just out of interest. In the end, the temptation was too great, so instead of finishing our beer and catching the half 6 bus, we opted to eat and drink some more and catch the last bus at 20.45 to Chestrefield then get the train.

This involved two fantastic meals in hearty portions, sold at usual pub food prices, between £8 and £9.00 for veggie sausage veg and mash, and steak pudding chips and veg respectively. Our extended stay also heralded the opportunity for me to have some Absolution, and then some more SPA, also to sit in the other rooms as the main dining crowd dispersed, before we finally caught the bus to Chez Vegas, and the 22.00 train to Sheffield.

A measure of how tired I was ( and I mean from exercise, not from refreshments ), came from the fact that i didn't even fancy stopping for a last one in the Sheffield Tap. I just wanted to get home, eat some food and go to sleep, which i did.

A quick update on a new bar to try and yet another pub I visited from the past. On Saturday night I took the soul destroying 70 minute journey to Crookes (that's just one bus all the way through) to meet Rob and friends at the Cobden View on Cobden View Road Crookes. I remember drinking in here many times in the early nineties and also Wee keefy and friends of ours go in still so I have been in in the last 18 month, but only now and again.

This unorthodox preparation for a day of walking involved a good session on the excellent Copper Dragon best, but there was Bradfield Blonde and other real ales available. I convinced myself that drinking the same beer all night would make me less hungover, but this was moot point Sunday morning as I came round from the 6 or 7 I had on Saturday. The Cobden is a cracking back street pub with a good mix of clientele, some pleasing neglected corners, and, a source of unending fascination through the evening, a cracked support beam in the front right room. No doubt this has been cracked for years but we wondered how popular the seats below are....

The new bar to try is in Leopold Square, and is called Popolo (I think). It serves a good range of bottled beers and strangely, more than one keg bitter, as well as a decent draught cider, and an interesting selection of spirits. I drank the Freedom organic dark lager, which, despite it making no mention of this on the bottle, carries a hearty sediment, making it an honorary real ale. Chala tried a few spirits and we also looked at the appetising food menu served upstairs. Downstairs is red lighting themed, with prints on the walls and comfortable seating, in a very modern overall look.

It might not be everyones cup of tea, but is a nice change when in the area, and can be the start of a night which includes the nearby pubs of Trippet lane and the Red Deer - where we ended up, with Chala on draught Leffe, and me on Bradfield Irish Dexter, eating probably the best plate of chips I have ever tasted in a pub.

Roll on Saturday for the Walkley wander!

Wee Beefy.