Good afternoon,
as well as having a thoroughly enjoyable night out at Shakespeares, whom you may have noticed me refer to previously, this week I have also gone off the rails and recklessly ended up in places where I don't normally get to. Including, shock horror, two bars with NO REAL ALES...! Despite that I have survived virtually unscathed and am here to tell you the details.
Friday I met Miss N along with Rach and Ade in the Dove and Rainbow. There was some decent music playing and I didn't look too out of place despite having come from work via the hospital, but I wasn't encouraged to find ale drinkers Rach and Ade on Guinness - "the beer's a bit crap now that stout's gone off so we are on emergency beer" they explained. Looking down the bar there were the usual suspects from national and local breweries (Trooper and Hobgoblin) so in the end I plumped for Blue Bee Nectar Pale. It was £3.00 a pint and looked fab but tasted a little, um...burnt? Still, it was drinkable enough and it was nice catching up with the R and A.
Saturday saw us in Sellers Wheel. Initially I thought they'd gone mad and put a beer on handpump but it was just the angle of the sign on one of the cakes - had I been able to see better am sure that the confectionery's identity may have made it obvious there wasn't a beer on of that name...
As it was we had excellent coffee (as was the idea) along with Lemington (Lemonton?) Squares which are rich coconut covered slabs of delicious cake that are enjoyably filling. Feeling a bit sugar laden after, we had halves of Hop Studio Pilsner and Thornbridge Versa to cleanse the palate. The Pilsner does just that but the Versa was perhaps the better of the two, being both refreshing and strongly flavoured. There is also a decent range of bottled beers from quality breweries to choose from.
Heading back into town we popped in a new venue - or a newly renamed one. The Jaipur Arms is the bar at the Best Western Hotel between Arundel Gate and High Street. Proclaiming food and Thornbridge beer it seemed like a great idea, with four beers listed on the board. Alas, this is a rather optimistic listing since there are only two keg fonts - and no hand pumps. Granted the Tsara was nice, and the decor OK for a hotel bar, but I think they've missed a trick in not having any of the real stuff on. Although, I hadn't heard anywhere that they had taken over what I imagine was the existing hotel bar so maybe its a bit too low key to risk a live product.
From here I took Miss N to the Church House. When it first opened there were 5 or 6 handpumps and they admirably strove to always have a dark beer on from the Caledonian range. Now goodness knows how many managers down the line, there are 4 handpumps, and there were three beers to choose from - Deuchars, Caledonian XPA and Autumn Red. The Red was pleasant enough but it was such a long wait at the bar that the seasons may have changed during it.
One member of staff suddenly appeared to assist the two who were rushed off their feet serving a customer next to me with the longest and most complex order ever and a large number of people at the other end of the bar - but he just went to the first person he saw in the larger group, except that group had formed after I'd got there. The two staff there at the beginning them both went to attend to the same group at the opposite end of the bar before both remembering at the same time that I was there for a drink. I know its Saturday night but ten minutes is a long time to wait for two halves.
Meanwhile, the decor remains the same and there was a mixed clientele savouring the food aromas and relaxing in comfy seats. I can't see that anything has changed in a way that will attract more customers or that has improved the experience of the customer in terms of service or choice, so I expect the pub to struggle on with no-one knowing where it is. In their favour (from my point of view) there appears to always be a seasonal beer on so maybe one of Caley's excellent stouts will make an appearance soon. However, a year and one day after it reopened its still a place to nurse a half in and remains traceable on the internet mainly via some blokes beer blog, as opposed to their FB page or fairly out of date barbook page....
Our final stop of the night was in a strangely quiet DAda, where all four of the handpumps were dispensing some of Thornbridge's poorer cask offerings - Kipling, Marples and Wild Swan. Luckily the excellent Saint Petersburg was flying the flag for the good old days. I had a half of that and Miss N a half of the excellent Chiron, before she moved onto a pint and I a half and a half of Halcyon. To be fair, one reliably excellent feature of the Thornbridge portfolio is Halcyon - and it was damned excellent as always.
DAda my be a regular haunt of mine but its slowly metamorphosing from its original incarnation two years ago into a reliable source of excellent Keykeg and bottled beers, and when Daddy T allows, a decent guest cask ale or two. Plus there is the promise of Gluhkriek for Winter. And, whilst not a beer related bonus, it does have a rather fabulous big red leather sofa to snuggle up on and listen to some music. Simple pleasures but ones that help to make it worth going back.
Cheers!
Wee Beefy.
Showing posts with label Sellers Wheel Arundel Street. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sellers Wheel Arundel Street. Show all posts
Sunday, 1 December 2013
Tuesday, 3 September 2013
Sheffield beer blogger drinks in Sheffield, shock.
Now Then,
after the abject horror of spending a week in a country with no cask beer I came back to the UK with barely time to catch my breath before heading off on another jolly - as described previously. In between times, so as not to shock my system, I have been steadily reacquainting myself with the Great British pub, in the following ways.
Sunday 25th saw me at Shakespeares supping one of Steel City's beers, a Black IPA that didn't really do it if am to be honest. I also got the last half of a Hopcraft beer and a few pints of a stout, the identity of which scarcely matters now. Which is lucky....*
Wednesday saw me back again this time drinking some rather agreeable Doncaster porter, having sunk a couple of the excellent Pilcrow Porter, AKA the people's pint, at the Closed Shop. A quick nip round to the Kelham Island Tavern finished off the evening nicely with several pints of Bobs Brewing Yakima Chief.
On Saturday I paid my first visit to the Sellers Wheel on Arundel Street. Not long open this is a coffee shop serving food (i.e more than just cakes) as well as a rather good selection of bottled beers including Hop Studio, and their Pilsner plus Ilkley Dinner Ale on draught. Admittedly they are both Keykeg but I was told that they needed to see how well beer sales went before risking a cask beer on the single handpump. The Pilsner is a decent lager anyway so I had a pint - £3.80 for a Keykeg beer (assuming it is?) isn't too wide of the mark, and the prospects for cask as well as those bottles is good. Well worth a look, if nowt else for the Aeropress coffee.
From here we nipped in the Rutland and I had a pint of Hopcraft something or other which despite its amnesiac powers I have managed to remember was very nice - and there is Ilkley and Mikkeller on Keykeg for those who like that kind of thing. Come to think of it I'm sure it was called Statement of Intent. Off next to a new venue to me - Tropeiro in Leopold square. Alas despite the prevalence in Brazil of Lokal, and there being a dark Brazilian beer available at Las Iguanas, Tropeiro manages to have nothing more unusual than Cruzcampo and the very worst lager by numbers with a fanacy sounding name - at £3.85 a bottle. No wonder their drinks menu didn't seem to feature on their website! Seems Popolo is the only place to get half decent beer in Leopold Square.
The Dog and Partridge meanwhile had Lustin for Stout which Chala tried and Invocation from Abbeydale which I did. It was nice to see the place busy and we thought about staying for another but instead headed to the Bath Hotel where, bloated from our meat-cercise at the restaurant we were on halves. I chose to try the Bridestones and wasn't smitten but found the Thornbridge Beadecas well on great form. Chala tried and disliked the Tap 7 from Schneider, although she had already paid - after some questioning it was swapped for a far less odd Thornbridge Tsara.
Finally, news of a Sunday crawl which saw me supping The public wants what the public gets (or similar) also from the excellent Hopcraft brewery, along with their impressive Jamaican stout from the cellar. We followed this with a pint in the Blake Hotel, where I had something very tasty, probably a beer I forgot due to having some excellent Kilchoman whisky to follow - not something I do very often. The final port of call was the Closed Shop for numerous pints of Blue Bee Nectar Pale - a great end to a great day and week of drinking lovely cask ale.
Cheers
Wee Beefy.
*it is probably a bit late since 118 of you have read this but I feel, in my defence, I must explain that I am on holiday - from research, or more importantly note taking. So please forgive my rancid attention to detail - I am back at the Grindstone (not the pub) next week and promise to write something down. Cheers!
after the abject horror of spending a week in a country with no cask beer I came back to the UK with barely time to catch my breath before heading off on another jolly - as described previously. In between times, so as not to shock my system, I have been steadily reacquainting myself with the Great British pub, in the following ways.
Sunday 25th saw me at Shakespeares supping one of Steel City's beers, a Black IPA that didn't really do it if am to be honest. I also got the last half of a Hopcraft beer and a few pints of a stout, the identity of which scarcely matters now. Which is lucky....*
Wednesday saw me back again this time drinking some rather agreeable Doncaster porter, having sunk a couple of the excellent Pilcrow Porter, AKA the people's pint, at the Closed Shop. A quick nip round to the Kelham Island Tavern finished off the evening nicely with several pints of Bobs Brewing Yakima Chief.
On Saturday I paid my first visit to the Sellers Wheel on Arundel Street. Not long open this is a coffee shop serving food (i.e more than just cakes) as well as a rather good selection of bottled beers including Hop Studio, and their Pilsner plus Ilkley Dinner Ale on draught. Admittedly they are both Keykeg but I was told that they needed to see how well beer sales went before risking a cask beer on the single handpump. The Pilsner is a decent lager anyway so I had a pint - £3.80 for a Keykeg beer (assuming it is?) isn't too wide of the mark, and the prospects for cask as well as those bottles is good. Well worth a look, if nowt else for the Aeropress coffee.
From here we nipped in the Rutland and I had a pint of Hopcraft something or other which despite its amnesiac powers I have managed to remember was very nice - and there is Ilkley and Mikkeller on Keykeg for those who like that kind of thing. Come to think of it I'm sure it was called Statement of Intent. Off next to a new venue to me - Tropeiro in Leopold square. Alas despite the prevalence in Brazil of Lokal, and there being a dark Brazilian beer available at Las Iguanas, Tropeiro manages to have nothing more unusual than Cruzcampo and the very worst lager by numbers with a fanacy sounding name - at £3.85 a bottle. No wonder their drinks menu didn't seem to feature on their website! Seems Popolo is the only place to get half decent beer in Leopold Square.
The Dog and Partridge meanwhile had Lustin for Stout which Chala tried and Invocation from Abbeydale which I did. It was nice to see the place busy and we thought about staying for another but instead headed to the Bath Hotel where, bloated from our meat-cercise at the restaurant we were on halves. I chose to try the Bridestones and wasn't smitten but found the Thornbridge Beadecas well on great form. Chala tried and disliked the Tap 7 from Schneider, although she had already paid - after some questioning it was swapped for a far less odd Thornbridge Tsara.
Finally, news of a Sunday crawl which saw me supping The public wants what the public gets (or similar) also from the excellent Hopcraft brewery, along with their impressive Jamaican stout from the cellar. We followed this with a pint in the Blake Hotel, where I had something very tasty, probably a beer I forgot due to having some excellent Kilchoman whisky to follow - not something I do very often. The final port of call was the Closed Shop for numerous pints of Blue Bee Nectar Pale - a great end to a great day and week of drinking lovely cask ale.
Cheers
Wee Beefy.
*it is probably a bit late since 118 of you have read this but I feel, in my defence, I must explain that I am on holiday - from research, or more importantly note taking. So please forgive my rancid attention to detail - I am back at the Grindstone (not the pub) next week and promise to write something down. Cheers!
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