Hillsborough Hotel Scottish beer festival and other ales...

Hello,

       on Saturday I found out about the Scottish beer festival that was taking place at the Hillsborought Hotel. I had only been in three or four times since it changed hands despite immediately noticing improvements. Given that I had arranged to meet Matty, it seemed like a good place for us to go.

I paid on the 52 - I was in a rush, and then again, an astonishing £2.20 for the 8 minute journey to Langesett Road on the tram. I hoped, having spent £4.00 just getting there, that this would be good! Arriving before Matty at gone half seven I opted to try one or two of the six Scottish real ales on offer on the bar. Island Hoping from Swannay Brewery was the first. To be honest, I suspect Swannay brewery is linked to Sinclairs who own Orkney Brewery - or the other way round. Either way, that and Loch Lomond Kessog a dark ale were both tried and were very palatable.

I walked into the room on the left to made to stand aside for the presentation of the haggis by the Alternative Burns Night company, with pipes and a Scotsman in a kilt reading the address to the haggis in perfect style, followed by whisky toasts and an instruction to sit down if you had  a ticket for the haggis neeps and tatties. Mattt arrived shortly after and I got him a pint of the Tempest The Real Armadilo,. a pale hoppy beer from a reliable Scottish brewery.

As the food was served we were offered the chance to buy a ticket so I parted with a fiver for a bowl of delicious Haggis and trimmings, this after a quick chat with the legend in his own lycra that is Ron Clayton. We and Matty both had pints of the Fyne Ales Avalanche, always a favourite and went to stand in the conservatory.  Alas this closes at 21.00 and with the pub already rammed the influx into the two rooms made us decide to leave for nearby hostelries. Outside at the back there was another stillaged bar so am guessing the Cromarty, Pilot and other beers had been available from there. A cracking event nonetheless.

Just down the road we went into what Ron claimed was the now "owned by Birkett" Wellington. James Birkett who as you may know owns the Blake and Sheaf View, had been linked with purchasing the pub for a while - assuming he has, there was no change when we went in, same staff, similar beer range and customers. Suits me fine. Me and Matty had pints of the Atlantic Pale and Green Arrow from Little Ale Cart, before moving onto pints of the Stars and Stripes from the same.

The pub was quite busy and warm and relaxing and the beer was distinctively ale-cartish. I can't see that many changes will be made by the new owner, apart from maybe increasing and changing the beer range, and I hope he doesn't repaint or radically change the interior because I actually quite like it.

From here I left Matty at the tram stop and walked on to Shakespeares for a pint of Celt Experience Llamass Harvest, a gooseberry sour, and a half of something pale and hoppy on cask. Chris B warned me that the sour was very much so - he wasn't wrong! It was a wonderfully sour, sharp, teeth chatterer which I loved immediately and which grew on me the more I drank.

Having initially struggled to find a seat I got sat near the door at the back and got chatting with Katie who was in late. I got another pint of the sour (I think...?) and a drink for her, before at last orders unwisely purchasing a pint of the Double Axe from Buxton, a whopping 10.1% IPA on keg. This was actually quite difficult to finish but mainly due to being full of haggis! Despite that, this was a perfect end to a fantastic night out.

Cheers!

Wee Beefy

Monday night ale tour

Hello,

    what with a bit of leave at my disposal and my mate Christingpher being back from the far East (near Hull) it seemed like a great idea to go out for a few beers. Here are the details of that escapade.

We met early afternoon in the Sheffield Tap, and despite him having an early blip by accidentally buying a cider (A Gwynt Yr Draig Dog Dancer, not that bad I thought) we quickly got on to the fantastic beers, and sat outside in the sunshine.

 

We both had a few pints of the excellent Tempest Brewery Cresta Black 4 grain oat stout. This 4.1% stout packed in loads of flavour, and despite concerns about the potential price (their previous beer in the Tap was really pricey) it was £3.00, which isn't that bad really. "Unfortunately" we had to have many pints of this because it was so damned tasty. We did also however try a couple of key kegs, and the price of these didn't frighten us either.

 

 

By now ensconced inside, Christingpher had half of the Camden Dark Lager and me the Brew Dog Growler. I understand the BrewDog was either rare/limited release, or exclusive to the Tap, either way it was enjoyable, if not amazing. The Camden packed a lot of flavour in just like the Cresta, and was reminiscent of, well, I was going to say a Schwartzbier, but then isn't that essentially what it is?

 

Ruckland

 

All too soon however it was time to move on so we took the natural step of walking to the Rutland Arms. Here it was quite packed what with the association football teams upcoming fixture, and on the bar it was Blue Bee a go go. I had intended to snaffle one of their fab butties but there was nowhere to sit apart from perching in the window near the bar. There were also, crisis piled upon crisis, some reserved tables. Rigorous scientific fact finding comprising of asking a man in the toilets why the seats were reserved offered up no explanation for this blot on their copy books. Turns out it was some sort of film society. Below right is a picture which singularly fails to demonstrate how busy the pub was. So well done me.....

 

Anyway we started on the very palatable and delicious Blue Bee Turned out Mild, a robustly flavoured mild, if that's not an oxymoron, and sensibly priced at £2.60 a pint. The pub was showing no signs of getting quieter and I admit that after thoroughly enjoying my mild I was itching to go somewhere quiet, but Christingpher insisted we stay. This inevitably meant further libation was required, so we had a pint  each of the also excellent Raw Brewery Dark Peak Stout which was 4.5%, £2.80 a pint and surprisingly easy to drink. 

 

We retired to our corner encampment and set about trying to subtly and carefully enjoy the myriad of roasted malt and bitter hoppy flavours, however instead we ended up blazing through the pint far quicker than it was entirely necessary to, which elongated preamble forms the basis of my excuse for remembering precisely nothing else about it.

 

 

 

Window on the World

 

Next stop was current CAMRA squeeze Henry's Cafe bar. From the usual wide range of ales on offer we had halves of Roosters Y.B and Hopback Odyssey. The Hopback had a flavour not to my friend's liking so I ended up with more of it than planned along with the very quaffable Roosters beer, which I thought had a few less hops than normal.

 

 

We undertook this experience looking out of one of the huge windows at the junction of Cambridge Street and Cross Burgess Street. There is nothing finer than sitting at the window edge of your table watching the world in their glad rags wandering by, self consciously trying to ignore the gaping space of the viewing gallery on their way past. That Henry's sells such great beer and at such a good price nicely and indeed perfectly tops off the experience of the drinker.

 

Bath

 

Next we headed to Betty's for some much needed fuel (fishcake butties, what else?) and then onto the Bath Hotel. The last time me and Christingpher were in the pub it was not long after Brian had restored it and we sat in the back room, as we did now, witnessing a really quite frightening event. A man with obvious behavioural problems was in with what I would have to describe as his carer. They were having a polite conversation which suddenly and inexplicably turned violent, with the huge man punching his warder and then hurling abuse and glasses around the room.

 

 

This event shook off the younger ones across from us, but either through gall or stupidity, when asked by the staff  if we were staying, we said we were. We picked the broken shards of glass out of our pints and off the table and seats and waited for all to return to normal. All did not in the end, and we had to leave, not before a ninja like member of staff ran in and grabbed the empty pint pots virtually from our hands even before they had touched the table. Brian must have been wondering what he'd let himself in for.

 

The details of our 2012 reprise, a much safer visit, are summarised in my post from yesterday.

 

Surprise Supplies

 

Back to 2012 and a walk to our last pub occasioned a visit to Harrisons 1854. I am sure Bob and Linda must have mentioned to me many times that Harrisons opens on a Monday, albeit late on, if the band are practising upstairs. Presumably, much like Bart in the Simpsons when he can't listen to anyone talk for more than a minute, I must have filed this info as blah. Sorry Harrisons!

 

Still, this gave us a chance to partake of a half of Deception and have a quick chat whilst Christingpher fretted (on behalf of his Dad he claimed) over the footy score, and Bob and Linda studiously filled the shelves fridges and crisp basket with stock. I really must try and remember that its open Mondays in future.....

 

Dee-dahs

 

Our final stop was in the, ahem "refined exclusivity" (i.e it was empty) of Dada. Here I had a pint of the excellent Beadecas Well and Chris the delicious "not written down" which may have transpired to be Marples. I don't know, basically. We settled down in the comfy leather chairs and had a long enjoyable chat about plans, hopes and concerns and generally set straight the ills of the world as best we could through a disorientating miasma of drunken steam.

 

That's making it sound grim to be honest - it wasn't at all. Instead it was a fab end to a tremendous night out. The only thing left to do was plan to go out again Tuesday, lest the magic be lost in the passing of time.

 

Wee Beefy