Pre-Preconference pub-crawl pub amble

With a little over a week to go until the big beery weekend in Edinburgh, I thought I'd propose a pre pub-crawl stroll on the Thursday for anyone arriving early in Edinburgh. My flight gets in at 9AM; so I have plenty of time to kill. The evening crawl takes in some fantastic pubs, but Edinburgh has plenty more available, including a number of venues participating in the Edinburgh Independents Beer Festival (@EIBF)(caution, mammoth post!). My rough plan of attack for the day:

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A Meet 12noon in the Bow Bar for a quick half (we'll get a chance to come back here later/ before dinner Friday)

1 mile walk

B 12:45 lunch at Chop Chop (awesome trad Chinese food) Haymarket

1 mile walk

C 2:00 Caley Sample Rooms for  a few beers (Harbour meet the brewer the night before)

Taxi/walk 3 miles

D Visit Botanic Gardens (free entry) for post dinner stroll if weather up to it

walk 0.5 miles

E 4pm ish Stockbridge Tap (hopefully some weird beard cask/ beavertown keg remaining from the tuesday)

walk 0.5 miles

F/G 5pm Kays Bar/ Cambridge bar/ Bramble

By this time I reckon  we'll be getting hungry again; so onwards!

0.5miles
I 6pm Illegal Jacks for Burritos which is well placed for catching up with the others on the evening tour. Its next door to the Hanging Bat and a short stroll to Cloisters (J), Bow Bar, Brewdog and The Red Squirrel (H)!

Other bars/ pubs may be fitted in depending on how long we spend at other places! If that doesn't whet your appetite enough then take a look at my round up of last year's EIBF.

Drinking in Winchester

A place I always enjoyed visiting whilst at University was Winchester, so I jumped at the chance to go and check up on the state of the pubs recently. My partner-in-crime on this occasion was my landlord from my final year , Mark.

As is becoming customary breakfast was partaken in at the Old Gaolhouse. One of the better JD wetherspoon branches in Hampshire I was very happy to find Adnams-brewed Feral IPA still available after the recent beer festival. Breakfast was good despite the wait (IT failure apparently...)

We then proceded to drink our way around the Good Beer Guide hostelries plus a few extras.

      

The Old Vine was a very food-oriented pub but I enjoyed a half of Bowman Swift One. Onwards to the Eclipse, which looks great with its Tudor frontage but always a little unadventurous with the beer choice. A half of Andwells King John had to suffice.

The Wykeham Arms is a fantastic ex-Gales (now Fullers) pub replete with school desks, open fires (roaring) and a Thomas Crapper original installed in the conveniences. Here I enjoyed a roasty porter from the nearby Cheriton. Slight molasses and burnt toast nose, quite a light body with licorice and coffee. Criminally its not been included in the GBG this year but its packed as always.
 

After that it was time to replenish the food reserves; so we opted for a hog roast bap from the nearby continental market. This gave us enough energy to complete the stroll along the river to the Black Boy. Its a characterful pub with all manner of taxidermy, bric-a-brac and breweriana including a working AGA. On this occasion the beer was a littler lacklustre and the refusal to tell us who brews "black boy pilsener" left a sour taste in the mouth.

Another favourite next, the Hyde Tavern. Beer on hand pump and on gravity. It always seems overly quiet when I visit, which explains the price premium. Well worth a trip and good to dry out by the roaring fire. 

The Albion is on the up again, offering Dark Star Revelation on cask and an excellent selection of bottled beers from around the world (including Old Chimney Good King Henry and some of the pricier Mikkellers). We decided to press on to the final two GBG entries however.

The Fulflood Arms is a green-tile exterior back street local, formerly owned by the Winchester Brewery.
Its come full circle and now has a brewery on the premises. The house bitter wasn't anything to write home about nor was it horrible, just okay. Another pub suffering tired beer syndrome.

We finished off in the St James Tavern, a Wadworths house at the top of a steep hill, where I settled for a half of Horizon.
Again a bit foody but any pub that has Neil Gaiman comics as artwork in the toilet is fine by me.


It was then home to Southampton for some real beer in the Guide Dog.

Beery Times in Leeds

The beer bloggers conference is just about to start, with many of us nursing hangovers from an over-indulgent night on the town in Leeds last night.

Thursday night was the pre-conference pub crawl, leaving us non-Leodisians in the capable hands of Leigh Linley, blogger at Good Stuff. You can read a bit of background on some of the pubs we visited here.Having only been to one Twissup event in the past I was looking forward to meeting some of the nigh on 100 attendees of the conference outside of the more formal arena of the Metropole Hotel (our home for the next few days). It would be all too easy to drop a load of names of who I bumped in to; so I'll leave that to your imaginations. Chances are if you're reading this you're one of them anyway! I had intended to get pictures during the night, but the beer and conversations took over - probably how it should be.

Having heard of the food quality in Mr Foley's, we decided to partake in some pre-crawl stomach-lining and get first dibs on the beer selection. I chose a pint of Kirkstall Best Yorkshire Bitter and a cayenne bean burger, both excellent, followed by a bottle of Flying Dog in de Wildeman Mr Foleys Can be found on twitter here

I'd heard about the Tipopils being available in North Bar; so headed there next. It has a laid back atmosphere but the music was a little loud on this occasion. Bumped into some GBBF friends. The beer was okay, fresh tasting and crisp but I think i just prefer Czech pilsner in general. Can be found on twitter here

A stroll to the Midnight Bell came next, where I enjoyed a half of the eponymous mild and also the relatively new Leodis lager, one of the better efforts from a UK brewery I think. We then popped just up the road to the The Cross Keys for a few.

I finished my evening in The Grove an ancient, multi-roomed pub sandwiched between skyscrapers with a pint of something gingery I wasn't too keen on. Back to my hotel room before 11pm, a sensible precaution against what looks to be three very beery days indeed.

So now lets crack on with the conference, made possible by a number of sponsors*, not least Molson Coors UK, who through their generous bursary offer meant I was able to attend the conference for free (and probably could not have done so without this help). Many thanks to all of those who have been working behind the scene to make this conference come together, I look forward to it and will certainly be publishing more blogs over the weekend!

*I figure if I mention this now, I won't have to repeat myself later in the week!