More Sharp Practice

Sometimes pubs just don't help themselves do they.? Fast on the heels of my previous post about warm glasses, I was out in Manchester with E and two friends discussing the finer points about next week's Munich trip. (Seems we'll drink some beer in beer kellers assuming the right weather).

We started off in Pie and Ale where the beer though excellently kept, wasn't to our taste on that occasion. No issue with that - it's just the luck of the draw. We had no plan,so adopted the simple expedient of going to the nearest good pub, in this case a bar. Five handpumps in front of us and three turned round. The  verycharming barmaid explained that nobody present knew how to change a cask, so if we came back in an hour, we'd have a full choice. This at six o'clock on a Friday evening. Really? We didn't fancy the strong beers on offer, so took her advice and returned later where a full array of beers sorted us out. But it isn't that good is it?

In the meantime we went to a much lauded craft ale bar. The cask beers were to our liking. I chose a pint of one and E a half of a different one. I saw some jiggery pokery going on under the bar however. I tiptoed higher and saw at once what was occurring. E's half had been poured to within a inch of the top from a full glass on the driptray and was being "brightened" by a a sparkler. The beer was warm and flat. I mentioned his sleight of hand to the barman. He said "I'd just poured the pint by mistake and didn't want to waste it." I said that it meant my wife had a poor drink because of it and was therefore paying for his mistake. He shrugged but didn't offer to replace it. I didn't want a fuss so said no more. You don't come to the pub for a confrontation as I've said before.E was unimpressed.

In the first case, not ensuring that staff know how to change beers is amateurish. In the second, it is just bad practice.  You don't make the customers pay for staff mistakes and if unwise enough to get caught doing so, you should apologise and sort it out.

I must be getting soft in my old age by not naming names, but maybe I can be persuaded if readers deem it essential.  There are clues in the text though.

Underneath the Arches

There are quite a few London Breweries that are located in railway arches.  In fact that day, we'd visited two, but this time we were heading for a new arch and not a new brewery, but a new craft beer outlet. Or is it a pub? Well, we'll see.

The area around Cannon St station is suit territory, so the new Pelt Trader, a Euston Tap offshoot I believe, should have a ready audience during the week, but on a Saturday it was fair to say that the place was pretty empty.  To be fair though, it was the first week of trading.  Now I don't know why it is called the Pelt Trader as I suspect, even digging into the dim and distant, that there hasn't been that much pelt trading on this spot, though maybe some historian will point out I'm wrong and that woad covered precursor Londoners did indeed trade pelts from here, before catching the tube home.  It is a big arch is this.  Not small at all in fact, with a sort of grown up version of the Euston Tap's bar, complete with American style taps at the back, a few seats and high tables and a lot of brickwork.  It felt cavernous, but all the same, I reckon when a bit more full, it will have quite a decent atmosphere.  As an observation, it could probably do with some posters or other such artwork on the walls too, to break up the expanse of brick a bit.

I said "we" in the first paragraph and the we in this case was Tyson the Beerhound with a small but devoted bunch of his acolytes.  Down from the grim North to part with their brass in exchange for exotic Southern beers, they had a cheery determination about their day out in Smokely.  They had seen off Kernel and Partizan and the day was still young.  We filled the place up a bit, but oddly there was two different stag parties that wandered in.  Why two such sets of  hedonistic adventurers should choose to wander around a deserted Cannon Street is a mystery, but there they were all the same.  Some were even choosing from the beer list, no doubt having a well earned break from Kopperberg with shooter chasers.

Ah yes beer.  Pretty similar in line up to the Euston Tap, with Bristol Brewing leading the cask offerings and around a dozen keg beers also available.  Quality, as you'd expect from the ET mob, was universally high.  Proper conditioning and temperature to the fore - that's what I like to see.  I had Moor Nor’ Hop which wasn't that cloudy and tasted pretty damn good and a drop of Adnam's Fat Sprat, also very good.  At least I think it was Fat Sprat.  Must take notes. E pronounced her Jever to be up to snuff too. Unlike the ET, there are rather substantial toilets on the same level, so that's all good, though I do hope they are kept clean when it is busier.  A bit of general tidying up and the odd mopping would not have gone amiss, but early days.

Overall?  More a bar than a pub, but it still gave a great first impression even when very quiet.  You can't say fairer than that.

I understand the food offering when it comes will be pizza forward.    Pelt Trader, Arch 3 Cannon Street, The City, London, EC4N 6AP

Seething? No. Just One Grumble

Seething Lane.  There's a name to conjure with. Samuel Pepys, he of the diary lived there and worshipped in the tiny St Olave's Church which is still there and well worth a look as it is rather old, though reconstructed after partial destruction by German bombing in 1941. Pepys is buried there.  The area is a typical London mix of new and old and it is in the new that the latest Draft House incarnation, Seething Lane has appeared.

Now readers of this blog will know that Draft House Tower Bridge is quite near my London flat. Well a fifteen minute walk away and it is a place that impresses in every way except for this writer at least, the quality of its cask beer.  I still go there on occasion and always ask for a taste of whatever is on -  sadly, that doesn't work out - the triumph of hope over experience rarely does - so I drink something from Camden or the like. You see, I do like the place, so I accept it for what it is. A lovely place, but not one I like to drink cask in.  The new Seething Lane is even nearer to my gaff and is in an area I know well.  It has a few decent but uninspiring pubs, some better than others and we spend a bit of time there.  It needs a new and brash neighbour to help up some games. So is the new Draft House man enough for the job?  Well, yes and no, but mostly yes.

Firstly from an unprepossessing exterior - it is under a modern glass building - you step into an American Brewpub style interior of considerable size and with an immediate "wow" factor.  It is a big space with a long impressive bar on your right, an open kitchen at the back and various booth and table seatings.  It has brash neon, stainless steel, wood, leather, exposed pipework and more and it works brilliantly. Someone with flair, panache and a great eye for design has conjured a contemporary, modern, but comfortable eating and drinking space out of what was I understand, an old Post Office.  So top marks for that.  The food, typical Draft House Fare, looked tasty and appealing, though we didn't eat and service was attentive, but it was a quiet Monday evening.  It would be good to see how that all stacks up on a heaving Friday.  One small niggle. The music is described by the Draft House itself as "background."  On a very quiet Monday night it was anything but, causing a need for raised voices.  Is that a tactic to create atmosphere? 

But Dear Reader, I was there for the beer, so what can be said about it?  Beer wise there is something for everyone.  Around fifteen tall fonts dispense a pleasing selection of local and foreign craft keg beers and there are four handpumps too, plus an extensive bottle list.  The barman couldn't have been more helpful and pleasant and tasters were offered.  E stuck to keg and I had tasters of two cask beers (tasters often tell you little) before deciding to play safe with a pint of Dark Star Hophead, which was, sadly, more than a bit warm and flabby.  I switched promptly to a couple of halves of keg which were fine, though to be honest, E's Camden Seven Hop could have been colder too - it seems to be a company trend - but maybe it is just teething troubles as it is after all, early days.  I do hope so. I can't see why a new venue such as this would have anything but the most modern of cooling systems.

Overall?  I liked it a lot.  We both did in fact.  I am looking forward to seeing it at full tilt, with loads more people and the beer turning over quickly. Either way, I'm sure it will be a roaring success and handy as it is, we'll certainly be back for drinks and next time, eats.  I will though be approaching the cask beer with a certain amount of wariness, but, as always, with hope.

We came directly from the Holborn Whippet. Great chat and service from Kirsty and excellent cellar temperature cask beer. 

Riotous Assembly and an English Antidote

Port St Beer House is one of these places that you find the trendy young things of Manchester.  But the neatly trimmed beards - more or less de rigeur among twenty somethings -  the buxom Laura Ashleyed lasses, elbowing their way to the bar and the general upward mobility of it all may not be Shrimpy's in Kings Cross - heck it may not even be BrewDog - but it does all provide a comfortable and safe, non shaven headed environment to drink in and unlike BrewDog, there is something decent for the discerning drinker to consume.  There is very well kept cask beer.

I go there less often than I should do and it isn't just the fact that the toilet is up three flights of stairs like the North face of the Eiger.  When I nipped up for a pee, well nipped isn't the word, there was a fellow imbiber gasping for breath. "There should be bloody resuscitation equipment up here" quoth he.  "Thought I was going to have a ***king heart attack."  Needless to say, he was one of the non hip crowd that leavens the place somewhat.  I was here though not to listen to such gay repartee, but to check out Hardknott Dave's launch of draught (keg) Rhetoric Ed.I,  a "Star Anise Infused Quasi-Bombastic Belgique Quad" and the English Experiment (keykeg), a collaboration with Fullers John Keeling using unusual English hops. It was good to meet the Hardknott crew again and after a general chat, I joined the throng as Dave leapt up on an upturned beer crate and gave us all the spiel.  That done, the highlighted beers were unveiled on the bar and the supping, sniffing, swirling and general nattering about the beer began.

Now I have to say Rhetoric wasn't my cup of tea.  It was maroon dark, intensely aromatic, with star anise dominant, but a liquorice taste was evident too, as well as many spices, no doubt thrown up by the yeasts. Each seemed to me to be getting on with each other less than harmoniously.  To me it needed more time for the ingredients to gel and get along. It was a riotous assembly of a beer and certainly a talking point.  The English Experiment, was a different kettle of hops entirely. As you might imagine with John Keeling on board, it is far more mainstream.  Don't take that to mean boring. In this case, it most certainly wasn't.  The hops used, Archer, Baron, Bishop and Landlady are all experimental and these seemed to get along with each other famously, to reveal a beer that was a splendid traditional, strong pale ale of some poise and elegance. Once you'd knocked some of the gas out of it and warmed it up in your hand that is. The hoppy finish was resinous and lasting, though in my view cask conditioning would have benefited it, as the subtleties of the beer would be better allowed to shine through - a point Dave agreed with.

These informal nights are a great way to launch a beer and PSBH do it all rather well. I'm a bit of a fan of the place actually.  As for the beers, well they were so different, but none the worse for that. They got people talking and while I didn't care for Rhetoric, I'm sure plenty of others did. That's a good thing, as otherwise we'd all be drinking standard industrial lager.

And that would be a bad thing.

I also enjoyed cask beers from Thornbridge and others. Thornbridge need a special mention as they seem to get cask beers, no matter the style,  just right. Except Jaipur of course, though my half was a slight improvement.

Different Quality - Same Problem

There is much talked these days about the "new wave" of craft brewing and brewers and how keg beer isn't like the bad old days when CAMRA was formed in response to its pervasiveness. This new wave of beers we are assured hasn't got the old faults of the keg of yore, where cheap and nasty ingredients were thrown together and pasteurised to within in inch of their existence and zombie like, brought back to life with copious amounts of CO2 and served cold to disguise their sheer nastiness. "Oh no" we are advised, "it's all different now", with carefully brewed, unpasteurised beer, lovingly dispensed without the previous faults. Well I have news Folks. Not exactly so.

When the keg of the sixties and 70's was served, it was undoubtedly vile, but rarely ice cold. Refrigerated dispense has come a long way since then though and now, it seems that there is little being done to serve these beers other than very cold indeed. CO2 dispense for ale also came very discredited along the way, being replaced by mixed gases and sold as smoothflow.The new wave though is proudly dispensed it seems by CO2. Lots of C02 if my recent experiences have been anything to go by.

On Friday in Glasgow in pissing rain I trekked to the Blackfriars. After a pint of (well kept but indifferent) cask I thought I'd try Brew Dog 5 am Saint. Here's what I tweeted "5 am Saint freezing cold and hugely gassy but the hops are there under a massive carbonic bite". My previous experience of Kipling in the Euston Tap was similar. People argue that CAMRA should move on, but you know, the same old problems exist in a new format. Too cold and too gassy. It is instructive to this writer at least, that the siren calls for more keg come mostly from young bottled beer drinkers who grab chilled exotics from their fridge and from some brewers that push them not as an alternative, but a replacement for the same cask product for reasons best known to themselves. ( I can speculate but that's for another post.) Now that's fine and dandy if you want your beer chilled to around 4C and gassed to three atmospheres, but don't promote it as a fantastic new development. They are there for the same old reasons as brewery conditioned beer (keg) has always been. Longevity and ease of "handling".

Don't get me wrong. Choice is good and I for one am happy to see "decent" British keg beer on a bar as an extension of choice and if it gets young people into pubs. Call it entry level beer for bottled beer drinkers if you like. If people enjoy them and it suits certain (mostly young) drinkers better, well and good and good luck to those that produce them, but please don't try and tell me for example, that keg Jaipur is better than cask . I'll stick to cask wherever possible and promote that. At its best, with all its subtleties and faults, it's just a better way to drink beer.

And one other thing I will continue to bang on about and highlight, is bad beer, bad serving practice, bad service and poor cellarmanship. These more than anything are the enemy of good beer and pubs, not a few fizzy kegs on the bar.

The little quote at the top of this posting is from Brew Dog whose cask beer is actually rather better than their keg.

Manchester's New Kid on the Block

There is much said in the blogosphere about the new wave of beer bars that are springing up here and there. I'm talking the like of the Euston Tap, Sheffield Tap etc. Well Manchester has one now and last Thursday I set out to see what it had to offer in the company of Tyson the Beerhound.

One thing our destination does offer is a latish four pm opening, so being of thirsty mind and body, we warmed up with few elsewhere. The Angel kicked us off well with some straightforward Pictish Alchemists Gold, while Tyson slurped down a Prospect Mild, but of course he'd been out the night before. Is it me or are both Brewer's Gold and Alchemist Ale a tad sweeter than of yore? Manchester also offers a range of new bars selling a mixed bag of beers. Some even sell cask. One such is Odd, handily placed on the way to our new destination. We struck more than lucky here, with perfect pints of Dark Star Hophead, very much enhanced by sparkling. We had two, so good was the beer and then a quick trip to Common, sister bar of our ultimate destination. Common is a bit grungy, but Tyson liked it well enough, though I reckon that's more from it being a handy late night venue for him than anything else. I was a bit less keen, maybe because my attempt to try Brew Dog's Zeitgeist was foiled, as it was "off."

And so to our destination Port Street Beer House, not more than a hop and skip from Piccadilly. On two drinking levels, with big ground floor windows looking out onto what is a pretty uninspiring back street view, this is a well appointed, modern, subtly lit, rather sophisticated bar, which was attracting a good mix of types. Handpumped and keg draught beers sit comfortably side by side and there are beer fridges with well chosen and interesting contents which are pretty reasonably priced if you pick and choose wisely. We immediately spotted Brew Dog's Alpha Dog on handpump, but were advised by the friendly barman to have a taste first. Good job we did, as its savouriness was severely off putting, as if a few beef stock cubes had been lobbed in the late boil, then a few more for good luck. Not great. Much better was Thornbridge Stout (it has a fancy name which I can't remember) and for comparison purposes, more Hophead.

Upstairs is a rather attractive room for more drinking and further up on the final level are the rather nice toilets. So any complaints? Only one, and that may just have been a one off. The place was cold, but it was a cold night. Nonetheless this is an excellent and very welcome addition to the Manchester beer scene. I'm impressed and looking forward to taking the lovely E there.

I'd like to say we sensibly finished up after a couple of beers and went home for a quiet Horlicks and an early night. But we didn't.