Manchester Field Trip, part 2

After our extended visit to The Font the night before, a decent brunch was called for before resuming the beer exploration. I had done my research and knew there was a burrito place (in the style of Benito's Hat or Chilango in London) in Piccadilly Gardens, so dandered up there and had a parcel of pork goodness from Barburrito. I wish somewhere like this would open in Birmingham, but in a way I guess it's nice to have something different to seek out when I visit a city with a larger disposable-income demographic.

Next it was time to hunt down somewhere I'd been meaning to visit since I drew up my Resolutions - the Micro Bar in the Arndale Centre. This took a bit of a hunt to find - it's squirrelled away in the fresh produce Market area (a hive of little stalls and shops selling lots of interesting groceries and ready to eat foods, tea, herbs, coffee, etc. Probably worth a good poke round in itself).

The bar itself is a tiny place but it supports 4 or 5 cask ales and various foreign keg such as Kuppers Kolsch. As it is owned by Boggart Hole Clough brewery & beer distributors, it seemed only fair to try their two draught ales - the pale and refreshing Joffin, and the rich Rum Porter. They also had a Brodies on draught, making me even more jealous of Manchester drinkers as Brodies rarely make it to Midlands pubs.

 

Although small, the Micro Bar has a great bottle selection, highlights being a large Odell range, Goose Island larger bottles, lots of selection from local-ish micros (Yorkshire Dales, BrewStar, Acorn, Derventio etc.), Belgian beers and a cider selection, plus some mead and fruit wines. My purchases to take home were the Dark Star Six Hop, and the Odell Myrcenary I'd been craving the previous night.

After this brief visit we headed on to Port Street Beer House - it was too hot and time too limited unfortunately for a schlep around any other bars I'd meant to visit - but an afternoon of lounging in PSBH before the train back would do me just fine. Though I did find it freaky to discover afterwards it was exactly a year to the day of my one previous visit there in 2011!

Cask selection

PSBH, like the Font, is somewhere you just couldn't be stuck for choice, unless it's because you're dazzled by the crazy selection of cask, keg and bottle on offer - including on the pumps 2 Dark Star, 2 Kernel, 3 Hardknott, 2 Thornbridge, Summer Wine Brewery, Harbour, and others. We started with a Dark Star Revelation (tagline: "For the love of hops") on keg, and a Carafa Jade red ale on cask - again, a beer I've wanted to try for ages but just not found in Brum. This is the kind of beer I find myself craving at the start of a Friday evening - hoppy, flavourful, ready to pep up your tastebuds and herald the weekend.

It was while sipping these and popping up and down to ask the bar staff about various beers on their list, that I realised they sold everything in thirds - thank goodness! - now I could get on with some serious sampling, starting with Tipopils from Birrificio Italiano. I know everyone rates this highly but being a pils it just doesn't appeal to me, but I thought I should try it anyway - it was light, floral and pleasant but once gain confirmed pils/lager styles just aren't my thing unless it's the unfiltered Kellerbier or Zwickl served at the Paulaner Brauhauses in Munich. Still, I will keep trying craft lager & pils, just in case...

The barman was good enough to give me a taste of Hardknott Rhetoric - my, what a big beer! I would have loved a proper glass of this, but at 10% I was too wary of jeapordising the train journey home. But if it had been later in the evening and I didn't have to go far to bed, I'd have come back to this one for sure.

So I sampled my way through various thirds:

Kernel Citra - this tasted different to the bottled version I'd had before; a big big floral nose with hints of floral-flavoured sweeties from childhood like Parma Violet or Cherry Lips. The taste was more subdued than expected - if you could cross this aroma with the flavour of a fresh Oakham Citra, it would marry up well.

Kernel Summit - had a surprising marmaladey aroma, and a slightly more bitter finish than the Citra.

Liverpool Craft Brewery IPA - I wasn't keen on this, it had a strange 'burnt' flavour and aroma that I associate with some Northern Irish beer (what is the cause of that in a pale or amber beer? I've found it in beers from more than one N.I. brewery). It wasn't horrid, but it wasn't one I wanted more of.

Summer Wine Brewery Half Wit - this was lovely and refreshing and absolutely perfect for summer quaffing, with a very hoppy nose for a wit beer.

Hardknott Code Black - roasty notes and a hint of coffee, but also sweet with vanilla ice cream coming through. Didn't taste as IPA-ish as when I'd had it from a bottle but it was still full-flavoured and a great end to the beer oddessy.

There was just time to have a proper glassfull of the SWB Halfwit and a little more summer afternoon relaxing before it was time to travel on. The Manchester beer scene is a real eye-opener when you travel up from the Midlands - not just an abundance of pubs with cask ale around the city centre (there are so many recommended places I haven't visited in Manc yet), but also bars that realise great cask, keg and bottle selections can all sit side by side and that make a point of enthusiastically showcasing world class and exciting beers to an eager drinking audience.

Manchester Field Trip, part 1

Ever since I drew up my Resolutions at the start of the year, I'd been looking for an excuse to revisit Manchester, to explore it's plethora of great bars, and find some beer I'm excited about drinking in a pub I really want to drink in, which isn't a combination I get often in Birmingham (yet; that may change when a couple of in-the-pipeline craft beer bars open in future months). So when I found there was a band I wanted to see playing the Manchester Academy, it seemed like the perfect reason for a visit, even more so when the venue is just round the corner from a great beer bar like The Font.

The Font is a busy student-oriented bar with wall décor by David Bailey (no, not that David Bailey) with a simply outstanding bottle range, constantly updated with new releases both from across the water and from the best of the English beer scene, like Red Willow, Hardknott, Quantum, Buxton, Marble, Magic Rock, Thornbridge and others, many of which are local breweries. There are also great brews from Belgium, Holland (De Molen), Germany, and the major league of the US craft scene are all there – Stone, Victory, Sierra Nevada, Brooklyn, Goose Island, Rogue, Great Divide, Flying Dog, Left Hand, Maui, Anchor, Anderson Valley, The Bruery, and Coronado.

Price-wise, there are some big hitters – Bruery bottles are £18, the Dogfish Head & Sierra Nevada collab is £20, and the Thornbridge and Odell Pond Hopper comes in at £18. But many of the smaller US 330ml bottles are very reasonably priced at under £5, and even better, a very generous 25% discount is applied on take-outs, making this a good stop for a train beer on the way to Piccadilly.

Today's visit started with a Hawkshead USPA, one of the beers from this brewery I've been wanting to try for a while, and this had great crisp and fresh flavours, leaving your mouth dry and ready for another sip, while being just the right side of bitterness. On cask, I also tried the Black Jack first Deal, a maltier bitter, and on keg the Magic Rock High Wire, while my drinking partner settled with immense satisfaction on an Odell IPA, one of the best 'standard' US IPAs (in our tastebuds' opinion anyway) and always pleasure in a glass.

We knew we had to get a hotel beer in for after the gig in case The Font was too rammed to be served later, and it was very hard to choose from such a huge list, but eventually we decided on the Anderson Valley Hop Ottin', though I was also tempted by the De Molen as the Americaans @ £4.70, the Jaar & Dag @ £5.50, and £4.20 for the Op & Top, they were all looking pretty tastily-priced when you apply that 25% discount.

Next I tried the Rogue Dry Hopped St Rogue Red Ale in 335ml bottle as I was in the mood for something red & hoppy. This instantly smelled like a quintessential US craft beer, with sweet malts and big hop oil aromas, reminding me of drinking in New York bars. The pronounced bready grain flavour from the rye is there from the first sip, and I love that – it's good to properly taste the rye and feel the 'chewiness' after. Sometimes rye beers I've had are too bitter and unbalanced, as if the rye can't meld successfully with the hop elements, but this one was lovely and definitely different to non-rye IPAs.

After some food and a quick trip to drop off bags and beer at the hotel, we headed out again, popping into the Salisbury by Oxford Road station, to see what was on – the cask offering was mostly from major brewers – Ansells, Wychwood, Caledonian – but with seasonal beers from these adding some interest. But despite the alt-friendly music policy, we decided to move on to the Thirsty Scholar. This had Copper Dragon, Thwaites & Ilkley's Mary Jane. I tried a half of this as recent samplings of it when it's appeared in bars around Brum have failed to live up to the first two times I had it and it showed an instant “wow” factor in both aroma & flavour – but unfortunately it was a bit lacklustre here also. So, it was back to The Font for more Odell hop goodness before onwards to the gig.

Across the road from the Academy we spotted KRO Bar which looked interesting, and as the main band hadn't come on yet, we went in to check it out. Had some decent draught Paulaner Hefe Weisse and Maisels Dunkel Weisse, and noticed their menu is of Danish & German pub food – frikadeller, fish platters, schnitzel, moules and pork loin, with mains around £7-8 – worth remembering for tea sometime if I'm back up this way.

The gig finished promptly at 11pm, so it was back to The Font for the third time this evening, this time to check out the Brooklyn EIPA in cans. This didn't have as much hop bite as I know it can have, so it left me a little bit hop-hungry and wishing they still had the excellent Odell Myrcenary in stock. Never mind, I soon sorted it out with a Red Willow Ageless Double IPA, which I initially had to drink through a straw due to the enormous head, but it eventually settled down.

The bar is a bit manic with student life at 12am, so you need to know exactly what you want, what your second choice would be, and be firm in queueing to be served. We wanted a last Odell IPA of the night, but by this stage we had exhausted their supply! So we settled on a Coronado Mermaids Red IPA, Cascade-hopped and sticky-sweet, as a fine nightcap and end to an evening of successful imbibing.

IPA Day - what's the point?

So, IPA Day - something to celebrate, or some kind of annoyance?

IPADay.org

Normally 'forced' and artifical celebratory days annoy the hell out of me, but I guesss as IPA Day has no basis in religion, tradition, or overt commercialisation of any one brand, I don't really mind someone giving me a vague excuse to drink some IPA. I mean, I don't need an excuse at all, and I'll almost always have a few bottles of IPA of some kind or other in the beer cupboard - along with sours, Belgian dubbels, German weisse, porter, aged stout, and just about any other style I happen to have grabbed in my last beer shop.

I get that some people feel it is a fetishisation of one style above all others - and it gets their hackles up - but I'd be just as happy to celebrate a Dark Mild Day, Porter Day, Quadrupel Day, Wit Day, or any other style, as I think it would be great to have a designated day when beer bloggers, tweeters, and general drinkers round the world might choose to collectively focus on a style; explore it, drink their favourites, talk about it, maybe introduce some macro lager-only drinkers to it. So if anyone out there wants to take up the reigns and start an <insertstylehere> day, I'll be right there with them! In a way, I wonder if that kind of thing may happen anyway as "craft" beer drinking spreads. If it does, I'll be poised at my beer cupboard, ready to dig out whatever is called for. Why not - it's an excuse to savour, to share with other people, perhaps to pick up tips on new beers, or go along to an event (if you live in a town with forward-thinking craft beer bars that is) and spend the night in beery conversation.

For this year's IPA Day though, I am short of time - so sadly couldn't rustle up a spread of IPA-suitable foods, and plan in my beers - or even have enough time to drink a suitable range. Never mind, I see that next year's 2nd August is a FRIDAY - and of course there are many more days of drinking IPA between now and then anyway ;-)

So I took a trip over to @stirchleywines with the intention of just picking up a couple of staple US IPAs, but as ever the great selection of interesting stuff there turned my head, and I thought I'd pick up a few new IPAs from different countries that I haven't tried before. See, this IPA Day thing is a good excuse for expermentation!

Lovely stash from Stirchley Wines

With time being limited, I knew I wouldn't get through all of these on the night, but that's fine, just means there's a few cold, hoppy treats in my fridge for the start of the weekend.

First to be tasted was the Sveh IPA, from De Struisse brewery in Belgium. The Belgians make great beer, but it's not known for it's hoppiness, and it's interesting to see how some innovative brewers there are experimenting with non-Belgian styles. This one didn't say 'IPA' to me at all; it has some hops on the nose, but I found the candi sugar and Belgian yeast dominated on the nose and palate. But I really enjoyed it - the extra bitterness was a great counterbalance to the sweetness, and I'll definitely be drinking this beer again.

Next up was the Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA, a US stalwart, one of those hoppy and refreshing beers you reach for on a hot day. Picked this to go with our food, as something I knew so didn't need to analyse too much while drinking. Dinner tonight would have been pulled pork - a perfect IPA accompaniment - but due to time restriction, I made some 'Old Badlands' spiced chicken instead, with a bit of jalapeno slaw, fries, and some Dave's Roasted Garlic Hot Sauce. The Snake Dog didn't quite hit the mark - seemed a tad on the over-bitter side, but it's usually a pretty reliable hoppy IPA so I'd be happy to see this popping up in a fridge in a bar near me (preferably The Victoria).

 

As an after-tea cleanser, I next tried the Nils Oscar Hop Yard IPA - this is the beer company from Sweden who make God's Lager - and the label was very enticing, mentioning Cascade, Simcoe, Nelson Sauvin, Amarillo, and Citra. It had a great luminous orangey colour, and lively sharpish hop aromas. This had less bitterness than I expected, and a nice weight coming out in the mouthfeel from a bit of sweetness to the finish. Impressed with this, and it would encourage me to try more from their range as they now have a range of beer styles available in this country.

Now for something different - my first beer from Italy's Birrificio Indipendente Elav, called "TECHNO Cybotronic Double IPA" - sounds exciting with an eye-catching lablel, but what really made me buy it were the part-Italian, part-English tasting notes: "Stile Imperial IPa ... Un singolo malto in loop come base e le alte frequenze di luppolo in bollitura e dry hopping, scatenano un rave party extrasensoriale" - well if it's going to be a dry-hopped rave party in my mouth, who could resist! This had a rich and spicy nose, and a warmth and 'heaviness' to it (not surprising at 9.5%) - much more malty and fruity than the other IPAs tried tonight so far, almost like a darker cousin to Oakham's Green Devil IPA.

Sadly IPA day was drawing to a close but I was happy to leave the other beers in the fridge - the pulled pork may get it's chance for some IPA action over the next few days - but there was time for one last beer, this time from one of an impressive crop of new breweries in England who seem to be getting their recipes spot-on from the off, showing off their skill and making beers that excite you and make you want to try anything they produce. This one was 'Ageless', a Double IPA from Red Willow. I've had this beer several times before and have really enjoyed it, so it was a sure bet for a last IPA of the day. This is a 'chewy' beer, with rich malts, a headiness from the alcohol content, and a bready note from the yeasts, but still carrying rich hop aromas and bitters through to the end.

So for me, I didn't feel the need to agonise too much over the beer politics of IPA Day - I was happy to be given the nudge to go shopping, and despite thinking I'd just be drinking a few old familiars, it instead give me the impetus to try some new beers and new breweries - IPAs from five different countries in total. Plus, I now have bonus beers in the fridge for the weekend. But if anyone fancies a virtual meetup over a different beer style on some other specified day, give me a shout, and I'll be happy to join you!

Homebrew "Drink-Off"

While at a Gin Tasting event a while back, run by  @YetAnotherGin, I bumped into Neil and Chris, who then helped spur me on to start some homebrewing. We had met up a few times since, with other interested parties, to discuss our homebrew adventures (mostly so I could pick their brains!) and on one occasion the idea came about of picking a 'topic', each brewing something along those lines, then meeting up to drink and check out each others' beers along the common theme.

When we picked a style, it was still winter - so we opted for a stout or dark beer - but in the end when trying to fit this in around everyone's schedules and remembering to get the brewing done, it was 5th May before we could get our acts together and meet. Present were myself, Neil, Chris, Sam, Emma, and Matt. Sadly our fellow homebrew club members Dave and Andrew couldn't make it, so hopefully we'll have another go when they can attend too.

So we had all brought some bottles of something roughly equating to a stout, and then we all tried to impress each other with the outcomes of our homebrewing efforts. The prize? An evening of consuming lovely beers with good company - so a win all round!

Chris had also hand-made some amazing pretzels (so good I had to smuggle some home for the next day), and Neil had procured several varieties of cheese, so we had some excellent scran to keep us from absorbing too much alcohol while getting the hard work of sampling underway.



In an effort to provide some objective feedback rather than just a 'that's nice!'  for each beer, I took some tasting notes as we went along:

Sam - Spiced Porter
Brewed with nutmeg, spices, and Tia Maria. Using Muntons London Docklands Porter kit, modified with 3 star anise and 1 cinnamon stick added at the start of fermentation.Before bottling, half a pint of Tia Maria was added along with sugar measured out for secondary fermentation. Sam expected this had turned out around 4.5%. Flavour wise - it had great hints of spice that weren't overpowering but were definitely present, and the Tia Maria coffee liqueur added a lot of depth and structure, with the sugars giving a lot of effervesence. It was certainly moreish but a rich and warming drink - you'd want to come home to this one on a chilly winter night.

Tania & David - Coffee Stout
Using a Coopers Premium Irish Stout 4.5% brewkit, this was modified in the fermenting vessel with a litre of fresh brewed Italian rich roast filter coffee. This was only our third brew and we really wanted that rich coffee flavour to come out strongly, but in a balanced way. We had consumed the main batch from a pressure barrel at home, but we'd also made our first attempt at bottling, specifically for this 'dark beer challenge'. Sadly Dave wasn't here to taste the results, but I was pleased to report back that the bottled version still retained those strong flavour notes, with a good bitterness from the coffee and the bottle having a bit more body than the original draught. It wasn't perfect, but it was drinkable enough, and I was just relieved it had some flavour and no-one poured theirs away (at least, while I was looking ;-)

Matt - Scammonden Dark
A 2-tin kit from Brupak that produces a 4.5% beer, with dry hopping sack included. Fruity on the nose but this had a really dry, roasty finish - a good contrast for the earlier sweeter porter of Sam's. A good dark brown colour with light carbonation and a creamy brown head. Third beer in, and so far all were ones I'd have been happy to have been served in a pub.

Neil - Oatmeal Stout
Using a Coopers Stout kit, so the same as I had used for the coffee stout, but this time Neil had added a bag of oats in the FV. This had a really smooth mouthfeel but with a bit of liveliness. Interesting to see how some small modifications can make the same kit quite different, and it would definitely encourage me to try using oats next time I make up the kit.

Chris - Chocolate Milk Stout
Chris is a fairly experienced all-grain brewer, so I think we were all expecting his beer to come out as the richest and with the most body, and it didn't disappoint! He had added cocoa nibs to the secondary FV, filtered with a hop bag over the tube. Chris explained that the lactose sugar used doesn't ferment out and so leaves the sweetness within the beer. This was reddish-brown, weighty & very full bodied, with good hints of sweetness but a surprisingly dry finish rounded off with rich chocolate flavours.

Matt's homebrewed mead with orange, cinnamon & cloves also deserves special mention - it's unfortunate Andrew couldn't make it or we'd have had a mead-off on our hands also - but I was very impressed with this drop and wished I'd had a bottle to take home.

So Emma asked us at the end of our tastings - which beer did we most want to drink again? And I think we all agreed it was Chris' Chocolate Stout - it's particularly rich body and lovely chocolate tones made it a 'more please!' kind of beer. Sadly no cash prize in it for Chris, but hopefully a smug feeling of validation that the effort put into a full mash brew doesn't go unnoticed!

So our first 'Drink-Off' was judged to be a success - it gave people a focus for their brewing endeavours and a chance to share and see what other people thought, and what other people are making. Hope we can organise another one - perhaps a theme of something pale and summery - though this time it might be winter before we get round to drinking it!

Irish Broth - my favourite food?

For many things in life, if someone were to ask "what's your favourite?", I'd find it impossible to answer. It's all about context and mood - I could give you a favourite for "right now" but couldn't commit to an all-time top of the list. In music, my tastes are wide-ranging and pretty eclectic, and expanding all the time - what's on the stereo right now depends what musical mood I'm in, or what mood I want to get to. When it comes to beer, I used to have a favourite (Orkney Dark Island) when I was in the very early days of discovering ale, having been a predominantly real cider drinker who didn't know what a hop was. But now, having travelled the length and breadth of the beer spectrum, and watching it change and mutate all the time, I could tell you what beer or flavours in a beer would suit me right now, but picking a single favoured beer out of the multitude of amazing brews out there would be out of the question. Food-wise, it's kinda the same.

But, if someone were to ask me what meal I couldn't do without the prospect of eating ever again, it would have to be Irish Broth. Since moving to England, I've come to appreciate it even more - because back home, you can find it pretty much on every street corner - it feels like every pub, café, restaurant or hotel will have it on the lunchtime menu, always tasty and sustaining. I've adjusted a bit to it not being so available now, but it's usually the first thing I'll eat when I get off the plane back home.

It's also a staple of home kitchens, and every little Spar shop carries a pre-packaged 'soup veg mix' - so I guess gallons of the stuff is made and yummed up across the country in homes every day. Again, that's something I've had to get used to not being able to find - the veg that is chopped and packaged usually contains a fair whack of celery leaf, used here as a large part of the flavouring component - but it seems impossible to find in any soup-making quantity in English markets or shops, I guess maybe because people here don't know what to do with it. It's reduced me to furtively messing with the packaged celery in supermarkets, tearing off any leafy bits from the other bunches and stuffing them inside the bunch I'm going to buy, just so I have enough to add to my soup. This doesn't feel like stealing from other celery-shoppers, 'cause I reckon it's only going to be chopped off and discarded anyway, so at least I am putting it to good use.

You can make Irish broth with any leftover stock you happen to have - best examples from family experience are a roast chicken carcass (as you end up with lots of little shreds of chicken meat in your stock) or what's left over when you've boiled up a big ham. But currently I tend to use a good-quality chicken stock cube for convenience (though for my last batch I was lucky enough to have some homemade chicken stock donated to me by my friend Emma).

The recipe I follow was provided by another chum who grew up with broth's tasty delights, and is rather inexacting, but once you've had broth a few times, you kind of know how to guide it towards your own preferred consistency and greenery anyway. As well as 'soup veg mix', there is another component called 'soup mix' of dried barley, lentils and split peas, which again you can buy ready-mixed in packets back home, but you may have to buy all three then mix them up yourself here to get the right kind of thing. Or just use the barley if that's easier.

Note - you'd need to start the prep the evening before for pulse soaking, or in the morning, then make the soup in the evening after work.

Ingredients:

• Soup veg mix - chopped (1cm dice or small slices) carrot & leek (maybe 2 med carrots, 1 v large leek), very thinly sliced celery stalk (about 2 large stalks), a large quantity of roughly chopped celery leaf and flat-leaf parsley
• Soup mix - about 2 handfuls (more if you have tiny hands) of the dried barley, red lentil and split pea mix. Place in a large bowl, cover with lots of cold water, cover with a lid. Leave overnight or for around 8 hrs. Then rinse well in a sieve and it's ready to use.
• Stock - couple of litres of good quality chicken stock, ham stock, or veg bouillion.
• Chicken or turkey - about 1 large breast chicken or 1 leg turkey, ready-cooked and with the meat shredded. (If you have uncooked meat on the bone, like a turkey leg, you can boil it first until the meat is separating from the bone, skim off the fat, and use the stock for the broth).

So, to make:
1. Put your stock and soup mix into a large pot, bring to the boil. Simmer for 30 mins, skim off any scum.
2. Add your soup veg, cook 20-30 minutes on a simmer.
3. Add your shredded meat and cook a bit.
4. Ladle into bowls, add plenty of fresh ground black pepper before slurping up.


It's really good with a few slices of buttered wheaten bread and will most often be served that way in cafés, but also makes a more substantial evening meal if you pop a couple of leftover boiled potatoes into it like my granny used to do. I can never get enough of it once I've made it, and it's a struggle to retain some for freezing or for lunch the next day; there always seems like there'd be room for one more bowlful!

If anyone does come across somewhere with proper Irish broth on their menu outside its homeland, please do let me know so I can check it out - until then, I think I'm bound to scouring the greenery aisles of supermarkets, sneakily gathering in the celery leaf crop!

Leicester Beer and Cider Festival

So a couple of weekends back I travelled over to to Leicester to help out on the Cider Bar at their annual CAMRA festival, check out the ciders and beer, eat some curry, and enjoy serving lots of thirsty customers.

Leicester CAMRA branch has been fortunate to have some very active Cider and Perry campaigners who are passionate about the product and have worked hard to bring a great selection to the festival - in the several years that I've been attending, first as a festival-goer and now as a bar volunteer, it has gone from strength to strength, and currently under the stewardship of Susan, with "enthusiastic" tasting assistant Paul, it's in very good hands indeed.

The selection this year was broad as usual, but most noticeably to me was an increased number of 'local' cider and perry varieties - that is, made within the East Midlands. So the scope of styles on offer ranged from the those using traditional cider and perry fruit varieties, to those using some cookers and eaters in the mix, and from bone-dry to quite sweet, with other variations thrown in such as spirit-cask finishing and single varietals (made with one variety of cider apple or perry pear displaying particular characteristics - like grape varieties in wines).

Gwatkin & Ross-on-Wye perry

The shift behind the bar on Friday evening was steadily bustling as usually it's the busiest session for the festival overall, but it wasn't so manic that we couldn't keep a sure flow of cider into the glasses - though busy enough that I think I only managed a couple of halves myself during the hours I was there!  We also worked on Saturday during the day - this is more of a slow-but-steady serving pace, which is absolutely great as you have the time to devote some proper service to each new face - asking them what kind of thing they're after - very dry, slightly sweet, pear, apple, something different? - then though a few carefully-chosen samples, you can help them define it a bit further. Is that Gwatkins farmhouse perry a little too sweet for what you're after? Then try this Ross-on-Wye perry - it's drier-finishing and a little more rounded. Tried the Tricky dry cider from Somerset and found it a bit challenging? Maybe the Janet's Jungle Juice or the Gwynt-y-Ddraig Black Dragon will be the easy-drinking appleyness you're looking for. It was great this year to have just enough time with each person to take them through a few samplings and have them work out for themselves whether it was dry or sweet, West Country or otherwise, cider or perry that floated their boat. Of course, you do get plenty of customers already well versed in their cider and perry tastes, who know they want a dry scrumpy or a Welsh perry, or who head straight for the Olivers first (that would generally be me, I think Tom Oliver makes some of the best cider and perry in England and will take every opportunity to re-qualify my viewpoint with a few samples myself!).

Among the particularly satsifying experiences this year was trying the first perry from Nottingham-based producer Torkard - this was medium-dry, fruity, and really very moreish. So much so that I was almost reluctant to be recommending it to customers, as it would deplete my own chances of having another half. Also pleasing was having an American visitor come to the bar and after some gentle questioning it transpired they'd never had perry before - several tasters were administered to help them work out firstly if they liked it, and secondly what kind of thing they liked - they declared the Rockingham Forest Perry to be wonderful, and they were an instant perry convert!

Saturday also yielded the fastest-selling barrel of cider I've ever seen - the Ben Crossman's Premium Farmhouse Rum-Cask Finish was put on around 3pm as a 'reserve', when stocks of some other ciders (particularly slighter sweeter ones) were beginning to run dry - and it lasted less than 3 hours before it too was gone - it was a great example of a spirit-cask finished cider, with a dry note to start but a sweeter finish, with the rum adding complexity but without overpowering on the nose or flavour. It seemed to be an instant hit, with many customers coming back to ask for more after their initial half or third-pint. I noted the pace of sale and quickly secured a two-pint takeout so we had something to enjoy at home the next day.

I did make a brief soujourn into the beer spectrum while having a break from working to enjoy some of the curry that's staple fare at this festival - and despite there being plenty of choice on the beer front, I kept being drawn back to the Brodies Red RyePA - I'd been tipped off by @AlcofrolicChap from his visit a few days previously that this may be a good one to check out, and sure enough, when I was handed my first half of it, the juicy fruit and grapefruit aromas bursting out of the glass made me laugh out loud and do a little "yay hops!" dance in front of the bemused bar staff - couldn't help it though, the aroma was pure delight - and when having breaks from the cider & perry, I nipped over for some more of this tasty ale. I just wish we saw more of Brodies in the Midlands, they're definitely hop-tastic.


I really love working on beer festival bars and particularly the Cider Bar - it's a great opportunity to spend the day talking to people about something I love and share some enthusiasm, but it's also extremely rewarding to take someone though a tasting process and have them end up saying "yep, that's the one - pour me a half, please!". Roll on Leicester next year, and well done to the team there that put on such a brilliant festival - thanks in particular to our unflappable Cider Bar commander-in-chief, Susan!

Annexe - restaurant with bonus beer list

Annexe the restaurant had been open for a while, but as of January 2012 I hadn't yet managed to visit, so as it seemed to keep rising to the top of the Tripadvisor ratings for places to eat in Brum, it was high time I went to check it out, and had put it on my list of 'Must Visit' places.

I had enjoyed the previous restaurant that had been on this site for many years – Michelle's La Bastille – which had served very reasonable bistro-style food with mussels and prix-fixe menus in the bar area at the front, and more sophisticated dining and special event nights in the main room. So I was sorry to hear it had closed rather abruptly in early 2011, but intrigued to hear that Annexe had opened in it's place a few months later. I still can't work out if it's under completely new ownership or if some of the original team are still involved, but it was a departure menu-wise from the traditional French of La Bastille to a more modern European flavour.

I wanted to eat slightly early on a Saturday, to give time to meet up with friends afterwards, so when we walked in for our booking at 6.30pm (after a pre-dinner cocktail in the Jekyll and Hyde round the corner), we were the only customers, and I was a little worried it would be a strange atmosphere to be dining in the empty restaurant, where you inadvertently resort to speaking in hushed tones so you don't disturb the silence (or have your every word overheard!).

But we were soon put at ease by the main front-of-house person – I wasn't sure if perhaps she was a co-owner – and given the beer and wine list to browse through. It's interesting to see they have continued La Bastille's tradition of offering a decent bottled beer list – several Belgian ales – plus added some draught from Purity beer and Hogans Cider. We settled on a Abbaye des Rocs La Nounnette, a Belgian blonde, and some Purity Mad Goose – both lovely beers and with the cask ale in good condition, and bought us enough time to give the menu a read-through.

The décor inside is a little warmer than I remember Michelle's being, with tables arranged at angles to break up the open room a bit and give a more relaxed feel to the space. A black and white film was playing silently but unobtrusively on a large screen, which had sounded odd when I read about it in earlier reviews, but actually worked as a subtle backdrop by giving a little movement to the room.

Pretty scallops - and very tasty

We soon got to ordering, and as I love scallops it was an easy choice to go for those as a starter. A very pretty plate arrived, and the scallops were well cooked – that is, wrapped in pancetta, juicy and not overcooked. They were arranged around some roast vegetables, very flavoursome without overpowering the scallops. My dining companion opted for filo parcels filled with lamb mince. These initially looked a little small but with the chilli jelly they were intensely flavoured while remaining light, and definitely left us ready for the main courses.

While we were engrossed in our starters the restaurant had started to fill up quite a bit – and by the time our mains had arrived, every table was full which was great to see and there was certainly a liveliness to the room. I enjoyed the pan seared duck breast – again, nicely moist and not overcooked, served with a shallot tarte tatin – which was as good as I hoped it might be: rich, unctuous and decadent. The madeira sauce was served separately in what looked like a rather large amount, but I have to say it was so tasty (sweet but in the right amount to complement the rest of the plate) that I finished every bit of it. I also tried some of my companion's seared sea bass fillets, which worked very well with some juicy and slightly spicy chorizo and peppers. We'd chosen a light red that went fine with them both (possibly a Beaujolais, but I was too involved in dinner to take notes by this stage!). On balance, the starters were more elegantly presented than the mains, but the portion sizes were well judged (not to large, not too small) and the fish and meat cooking was spot on, so it was certainly a meal polished off with gusto.

As the evening was still early-ish we stayed for coffee and a shared desert – a subtly-flavoured Earl Grey crème brulee with cardamom and pistachio sable biscuits – and as I'm not keen on heavily sweet or chocolatey things this provided a cleansing and light end to the meal.

For some reason I was hesitant about how much I would enjoy Annexe – maybe it was the amount of praiseful reviews I'd read, meaning I took them with a pinch of salt, but it had such a buzzy yet relaxing ambience, good food & wine, and owners/staff who really went out of their way to give a friendly welcome, that I had a great evening and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. Bonus points for having a decent bottle & draught beer and cider offering too!