Session #65: All Alone

This month's Session is hosted by Nate at Booze, Beats and Bites and asks to post about drinking alone and if so why. Nate's pretty much covered the various reasons why one might drink alone in his introductory post and I heartily concur.

My current situation sees me drinking alone frequently, not necessarily through choice but because there is noone here to share the beers with, nor do the local boozers have anything to draw me out of the house.

But even before I lived here I enjoyed going to pubs by myself. I enjoy sitting down with a book and a pint of beer without having to think about being sociable. If I want to be sociable there are people in the pub to share with in any case. A lot of my friends have been met through going to the pub by myself and chatting to the locals.

No pressure to drink in rounds or finish up to move on to another pub, you can go at your own pace. If you fancy some food you don't have to wait for others to finish up.

The one proviso to drinking alone is you shouldn't do it when already in a bad mood as the beer will probably just make you feel worse. Its these occasions you need a friend to cheer you up.

Celebrating Indpendents

July 4th is a day of celebration for one of our former colonies, ever one for subversion and puns I've chosen to celebrate Independents Day - for supporting local independent microbreweries.

The new branding

In view of that its a perfect day to post my review of the new Clanconnel (@Clanconnel) Beer-Irish Pale Ale*. Its undergone somewhat of a rebrand (as reported by The Beer Nut): A cleaner, more striking label design bringing the beers into one overall range named after the greyhound Master McGrath. Each beer is numbered with its own distinct colour, the pale is blue number 2. The rebrand is to make the beers recognisable overseas, where a lot of them are now destined, but have no fear they'll be available in the North and RoI and some keg and cask will also be produced.

At 4.4% its a good sessionable strength and like all good session beers builds flavour down the glass so that you're ready for a second almost immediately afterwards. It uses cascade hops alongside traditional English varieties for bitterness and aroma.

Pouring a burnished gold with fluffy white head and fairly aggressive carbonation, in the mouth its not OTT. The aroma is dusty pineapple and lemon pith, it tastes of shortcake with a dry bitter finish. A flavour of lemon cheesecake and a touch of resin builds toward the end of the pint.

I'll certainly be buying these if I see them in the shop and reckon it would be excellent on cask, lets hope Mark finds the outlets to take it!

The fifth beer in the McGrath's Range, White Ale, is out next month, look out for it!

*Mark was kind enough to send me a beer and pint glass in the post.

The rest of the Clanconnel range was reviewed here.

Mmmmm Cheese

Just a quick one today. I've a guest post up over on Matching Food and Wine listing my favourite five cheese & beer pairings (that I've tried so far!). Let me know what you think of my choices!

The site is run by the fantastic Fiona Beckett, Wine columnist for the Guardian, cheese fanatic (she organises a cheese school a few times a year), and good food and drink lover. She's also very friendly and welcoming to new food and drinks writers and quick to offer guidance when needed. Check out her work!

On Twitter as @winematcher and @food_writer

CABPOM July: Roquefort and Rochefort 10

Well, gorgonzola, actually, but I liked the wordplay.

Trappistes Rochefort 10 is one of those beers I've had before and will certainly have again. Its been about three years since my last bottle; so this is long overdue. Its the strongest of three produced at L'abbaye Notre-Dame de Saint-Remy in Rochefort. Held in high regard (and rightly so) its fairly widely distributed in the UK; do go get yourself some if you've not had it!

Resplendent in its chalice

It pours dark chestnut with a luscious, mocha foam. Fantastically complex nose, plums, stewed apples, molasses, toffee and vanilla. Mouth coating, sweet crystal malt at first, followed by a big boozy note, touch of buttered popcorn, increased vinous fruit towards the end, a touch of noble hop and more vanilla.

It slips down far too easily.

Gorgonzola is an Italian semi-soft salty blue cheese, often using the same peniciliium roqueforti bacteria for its blue streak as the eponymous French cheese. Its salty and sharp and an acquired taste. Certainly I had to first overcome my dislike for Stilton before Gorgonzola and Roquefort even got a look in. Looking back I can't even see what my issue with it was!

Gorgonzola (left) and Mature Cheddar

At first it jars slightly with the hops and looks to be a duff pairing, but try a second mouthful and its transformed. Suddenly there's a lot of sweetness and fruit in the cheese which just serves to accentuate all those vinous flavours in the beer. The salt here has a part to play too, seemingly accentuating the alcohol in the beer in a complementary way, lifting it to sherry territory. Pears and other orchard fruits also dance on the tongue as the cheese is washed away. Not so much evidence of that umami of blue cheese and dark beer here, those fruity flavours being the strongest players. Nevertheless, superb beer, great match.

The beer also works well with mature cheddar, the older the better and of course if you can get hold of something unpasteurised like Keen's you're on to a winner.

A Quasi-Bombastic Review

Hardknott brewery is one which needs no introduction from me. Well known among bloggers as trying to do something a bit different in the craft beer scene. Today's beer is no different. Billed as the first in a series of "Rhetoric" beers this is a Belgian Quadrupel inspired beer with star anise. Coming in at 10.2%, its a fair bit under the target ABV but that doesn't mean it will be too cloying.

Always one for a novel marketing technique, Dave gave away 24 bottles to those he deemed deserving, carted by Alex to Leeds with instructions not to open until an agreed date. Saturday 30th June at 7:30pm was the time decided and I wasted no time in opening my bottle.

Its a magnificent specimen, chestnut coat, beige mane and powerful legs. Thankfully that's where the horse comparison ends, no farmyard in evidence here. Instead we're treated to a complex nose of  licorice, orange peel, demerara and a hint of clove. Bizarrely there's also wet-wipes, a mixture of some higher alcohols and yeast esters perhaps.

 Quite oily in texture but very smooth on the swallow. Lots of sugar sweetness, aniseed, honey, lots of booze, tangerine. It lingers on the tongue. Low carbonation perhaps but great as it is.I can certainly see this maturing well.

A Bristol Beer Crawl

Bristol is home to some fantastic pubs and breweries. I spent this weekend investigating a chunk of them. If I remember correctly (no mean feat with the number visited) there were 17 in all*, with a couple visited twice. Rather than bore you with a mammoth post about all the pubs I'll let the pictures do (most of) the talking. They do say a picture is worth 1000 words after all...

The Old Fish Market

Fantastic Red Brick Fuller's pub

New American-hopped seasonal Wild River

Georges Bristol Brewery

Bristol is full of Brewing Heritage, and the new breweries look
to reach the same heights of success

The Seven Stars

Fantastic back-street local's pub

Avoid the Hopping Mad!

The King's Head

Fantastic Historic Interior pub

Ancient beer selection (display!)

 The Cornubia

Real Ale Oasis the Cornubia is hidden up a back road

  The Three Tuns

Arbor Ales Bristol Tap

Just a few of Arbor's output

 The Grain Barge

A bar...on a boat!

And Bristol Beer Factory beers available, excellent!

  Bag O'Nails

Another free house on the way home

That'll be a Moor please!

The Robin Hood

Respite whilst climbing St Michael's Hill

The Highbury Vaults

Olde Young's Pub

Ancient Hand pumps in Front Bar

 Beerd

From one of the Oldest to the Newest
Beerd is Bath Ales' new craft beer & pizza bar

Eclectic interior and a good range of beer

Tiny Rebel Cwtch in Beerd

Aubergine, Goats cheese and Basil - nom!

Two Dawkins Pubs:


The Green Man

The Green Man

Arbor Single Hop in a cute 1/2 pint tankard

The Hillgrove Porter Stores

Hillgrove Porter Stores

Whilst okay on bottle its stupendous on cask.

 



These were all pubs I'd happily return to, unusual to get such a high success rate! There's a number of other pubs left to visit in Bristol, but they'll be for another time! 

I also love that I can get Butcombe Bitter, my benchmark on cask in the airport whilst waiting for my plane home. Rare Breed is now also available. Both of these plus others in the range are available in the Colston Yard, their flagship bar at the bottom of St Michael's Hill.

*I didn't quite manage to capture all of them, for the curious amongst you my journeys took me to the following:

Beerd, The Green Man, The Hillgrove Porter Stores, The Croft, The Old Fish Market, The Seven Stars, The King's Head, Cornubia, The Bridge Inn, The Three Tuns, The Grain Barge, The Bag O'Nails, The Hope and Anchor, Zero Degrees, The Colston Yard, The Robin Hood & The Highbury Vaults.

Drinking in Cardiff

Despite being fairly well travelled in the UK, I had not visited the capital of Wales. I was given the chance to rectify this recently when I was invited to take part in a Beer Academy tasting course hosted by Evan Evans* in their Cardiff pub, the Cricketers.

Simon Buckley serves up Gold

The pub is fairly well-turned out with up to 8 cask beers on at any one time. The course was interesting and well worth the trip. We tried Archers Gold (Archers is now an Evan Evans owned brewery) and Evan Evans Cwrw. Simon Buckley of Evan Evans certainly knows his stuff and I look forward to sampling their new offerings.

I was also fortunate enough to bump into Robert Gale, photographer behind the Beer Lens site, always good to put a face to a name, especially when they're so friendly.

Following the course I decided to go via a few other pubs to the Great Welsh beer and Cider festival, where I was keen to try Wales' newest brewery, Tiny Rebel.First stop was Cardiff CAMRA branch pub of the year, the City Arms. Hosting its only miniature beer festival I opted for a half of Doc Brown, Tiny Rebel's session bitter and found it met very much with my approval. We also had the fun spectacle of the naked bike ride passing outside.

From there I moved on to brew pub Zero Degrees, which completes my hat-trick having previously visited both the Bristol and Reading brew pubs. Here I tried the mango beer, the mango certainly noticeable but just not all that inspiring.

I hot-footed it along to the CIA Motorpoint Arena for the festival, where £10 got me a glass, program and a couple of pints. I headed straight for the Tiny Rebel brewery (Twtter) stand, unfortunately already much depleted with four beers sold out. I did get to try the Full Nelson a fantastic Nelson-Sauvin single hopped effort and Cwtch, an easy drinking American pale ale. I met one half of the brewing team, Brad, who was kind enough to let me try the end of Hadouken DIPA from the cask. I certainly hope to try all of these beers again! They'll be available in bottle soon.

I also got to try Brains brewery's new Barry Island IPA, brewed with the help of Real Ale Guide's Simon. An enjoyable East Coast USA style IPA, not pithy and brash like those west-coasters but a lovely beer. Look forward to trying other iterations brewed on the new craft plant, of which #3 was Mr Martyn Cornell. Also good to see Ffion fully recovered after her Japan/ #EBBC12 combo.

Cardiff is certainly well worth a visit and I look forward to returning to investigate some more pubs. There doesn't yet seem to be any "destination" beer bars, though perhaps that's not too bad as it prompts you to sample a variety of hostelries.

* As a member of the Evan Evans tasting club I got the course fee and all beers courtesy of the brewery, thank-you!