So that's two visits to the Euston Tap and I still haven't been upstairs, but my scouting party (the lovely E), said "Nice room up there." That'll do for me then. Why traipse up the winding metal hill? I know now. What about it then - that there Euston Tap? Well it is small, but perfectly formed. The cask beers I had were excellent and I like the place. I even tried some Real Keg. Thornbridge Kipling it was and very nice too. Not as subtle as the cask version and it was spikily carbonated and very cold. E was more forthcoming, for it was her half that was the experiment, much against her will. (Retrospectively against her will, as I'm sufficiently versed in her habits not to ask beforehand.) It is fair to say she didn't like it, or see the point in it, or me for changing away from her original choice. But using the "fair" word again, in fairness to Kipling it was up against Fyne Ales Jarl, which was simply sublime, bursting with Citra hops and very dangerously drinkable. A train misser - if you have an open ticket that is. Incidentally this had been a recommendation from young Dredge to me at GBBF, but by the time I'd got there, there it was, gone. He isn't often wrong, but he was right again.
So return again Tanders? Too true. Just try and stop me. Nice little place, dead handy, great quality ales and for the cask efforts at least, fairly priced. Any negatives? Only ordering by numbers and only because I wasn't looking carefully enough. Well they were next to each other and I ended up with Piper's Gold instead of Jarl. My own fault, but I was over excited by the Jarl. E wasn't having any of it though. She re-ordered and the barman, sympathetic to my stupidity, gave me it on the house. Don't you just hate it when you have no-one to blame but yourself?
Piper's Gold* was good too, but a pale shadow of its stable mate. Much like the Thornbridge keg*, the problem for it was, that when you have Jarl* on top (cask) form, what's the point of it?
* Feel free to substitute your beer of choice here.
Beer was pretty good the night we were there - Thornbridge Wild Swan went down well. But the pizza delivery to the bar made it for me. Lucky you didn't need the loo - that's upstairs :-). Well worth a visit - plaster still smells damp it's so new.
ReplyDeletePaul
www.alesbymail.com
Spot on description of the Kipling. It was good if not as subtle as it in cask, and I assume pretty reliable in keg. Not as good as cask but I'd rather see kegged Kipling than kegged Carling if I had the choice.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how long the number ordering will last? We were ignorant of the system and asked for beer by name. The barman didn't seem to mind.
ReplyDeleteI read on one of their tweets that an extra heater has been installed. Certainly needed it on our visit.
Wonder if they'll have any of the Jarl left by the time I get there tomorrow evening? Hope so.
ReplyDeleteSo basically what you're saying is
ReplyDelete"Keg beer - it's quite good, but not as good as cask!"
The keg revolution should be sweeping the country any day now.
Presumably their ordering system was inspired by Chinese takeaways.
ReplyDelete