I was in London for an overnight stay last week, in between two days’ worth of meetings. Seeing as I was staying on The Strand, it was a pleasantly warm evening and Clerkenwell looked like it was within easy walking distance, I realised this was a great opportunity to visit the legendary Gunmakers.

With the help of Google Maps I found the place quite easily and I fell in love with it pretty much immediately. The Gunmakers is small but perfectly formed, with the décor, atmosphere and – most importantly – beer selection of a proper pub. Being a bit peckish I perused the food menu on the blackboard and was frankly spoilt for choice, deciding on the chicken liver & bacon salad rather than the mixed grill, but only by the narrowest of margins. The food turned up quickly and was, frankly, delicious. The chicken livers were cooked to perfection, the bacon was freshly grilled, the salad leaves fresh and the dressing tangy. Absolutely lovely grub (it knocked ten bells out of the bog-standard re-heated chicken & chorizo salad I’d had at lunchtime) and I’ll report back on the mixed grill next time I get down there.

Even better was the aformentioned beer selection. I’ve been keeping an eye out for fff Alton’s Pride since it won CAMRA Champion beer of Britain at last year’s Great British Beer Festival and there it was. A very fine beer it turned out to be, too: a golden-amber bitter with a fabulously fresh, hoppy flavour and plenty of lingering malt-notes in the after-taste. Throw in a hint of citrus and a biscuity, caramel sweetness and it all added up to a very fine drop indeed. At 3.8% it’s a definite session-candidate and I’ll certainly be trying this one again if I find it out and about in Manchester.

I reckoned I had time for one more before I headed off, so I opted for a pint of Harvey’s Sussex Best bitter, which turned out to be another very fresh-tasting pale ale with a well-balanced hop-malt flavour and was expertly poured by none other than Jeffrey the landlord, widely known in beer-blogging circles as the author of Jeffrey’s Beer Blog.

I said hello and introduced myself, then Jeff in turn introduced me to John, his flatmate, and we ended up chatting for a good half hour or so while Jeff did important landlord-stuff. We covered a range of topics – John’s work at the BBC World Service, my work in publishing, the state of the economy, a few suggestions as to the best pubs in Manchester and York – all sorts of interesting topics. All in all I was made to feel most welcome indeed and it turned out to be an extremely pleasant evening, even if I did have to be anti-social and slope off a bit early to get in an hour or so’s prep for the next day’s meetings. But I’ll be back, dammit. Just try to stop me…

And Jeff, if you happen to end up reading this piece, many thanks indeed for your hospitality and congrats again on your terrific boozer. If you do decide to make that Manchester trip and you think the services of a local guide might be useful, please feel free to drop me a line and I’ll see if I can free up an evening for a bit of a crawl.

Photo Credit: I found this pic of the Gunmakers on Ewan-M’s photostream on Flickr, which features a wealth of London pubs – check it out!

Brewery: Outstanding Beers
Location: Bury, England
ABV: 5.5%
Version: Bottled and Draught
Source: The Met, Bury / The Trackside, Bury

I’ve had the very great pleasure of encountering Outstanding Stout on two separate occasions in the last few weeks. The first was at Bury Met (the occasion being a rather bloody marvellous Spiers and Boden gig) where they have a range of bottled ales from local brewery Outstanding Beers behind the bar. At £3.75 a bottle and only plastic glasses to drink from, it’s not an ideal session experience, but the beer itself more than made up for it: Outstanding Stout is delicious stuff. Absolutely delicious.

Pitch black with a creamy-tan head, Outstanding Stout’s aroma is an enticing blend of liquorice and coffee and both characteristics carry through to the flavour, along with an added smokiness and a rich, chocolatey bitter-sweetness. Mouth-feel is excellent as well: silky-smooth and creamy as you could hope for, just like a good stout damn well should be. I was extremely pleased to have discovered this one and will be back for more next time we’re up at The Met (Chris Wood, May 15th).

Then, last Friday, Jo and I and our good mate Andy nipped out to enjoy a session down at The Trackside, the pub on the platform at the Bury end of the East Lancs Railway. And they had Outstanding Stout on draught.

Oh… my… word.

I thought the bottled stuff was good, but fresh out of the keg? All those flavours, but twice as intense, twice as rich. A huge hit of coffee and chocolate this time around; the liquorice was less prevalent but there was a spicy hint of something extra as well, maybe nutmeg or cinnamon. I said a while back that I was on the look out for my perfect stout and I thought I’d found it with a couple of BrewDog’s Paradox variants (two of which I haven’t written up quite yet). But you know what? This is very, very good stout indeed. And at 5.5% it’s more of a session strength beer, whereas Paradox’s connoisseur-grade 10% is a definite sip-and-savour special.

Although, a word to the wise: Outstanding Stout is a very easy-drinking beer and very tasty indeed, but I’m not so sure it plays well with others. At least, not in my experience. Perhaps (just perhaps) if I’d downed a few pints and then stopped when the keg ran out, rather than going on to sample a couple of different bitters afterwards, I might have enjoyed a more pleasant (more human, says my missus) Saturday as a result. Just a thought…

Brewery: Fuller’s
Location: London, England
ABV: 3.5%
Version: Draught
Source: The Red Lion, Duke of York St, London

After our company conference last week, which was held at BAFTA HQ in Piccadilly, a gang of us trooped round the corner to the Red Lion on Duke of York St for a swift half on the way to the after-conference meal. Perusing the selection of all-Fuller’s pumps, I opted for a pint of Chiswick Bitter on the grounds that I’d never tried it before.

And I’ll never try it again, I can promise you. It was bodiless, headless and tasted of little more than vaguely hop-flavoured water. I can only guess that Fuller’s must have done terrible things to the recipe since this stuff won the Great British Beer Festival Beer of the Year award back in 1989. Either that or the staff at The Red Lion are in need of urgent beer-care training.

I should have stuck to the London Pride or ESB. I’ll know better next time.

Xmas / New Year 2008. A week and a half off work and a chance to hit the beer cupboard and see what falls out. I kicked off at lunchtime on Xmas Day with a bottle of Wychwood Plum Duff (5.0% abv), a seasonal number from the brewers of one of my all-time favourites, Hobgoblin. Quite spicy, with a sweet & sour character, I thought Plum Duff had perhaps just a little too much fruitiness for my palate, but the mellow, warming after-taste made it drinkable. Not a bad start…

Xmas dinner was accompanied by a drop of Innis & Gunn Triple Matured which Ed sampled back in November and I pretty much concur with his conclusions on this one: toffee, vanilla, a little oak, generally smooth with a pleasantly bitter-sweet finish. I also cracked open a bottle of Meantime Winter Time, which I wrote up during my Meantime series last year. Unfortunately, I was too busy tucking into my grub to pay much more attention than last time, so I’ll have to come back to that one for a third attempt at some point.

Next up was a bottle of Greene King Abbott Reserve (6.5% abv) which turned out to be incredibly tasty; much more so that I’d expected, I have to admit. Another smooth, strong beer with a pleasant citrusy tang (I detected orange zest and nutmeg without any help from accompanying a mince pie). Quite sweet but with a bitter under-current that stopped it tasting too sugary. Definitely one I’d go back to again.

Boxing Day was spent driving to and from family in Leeds, so I only had time for a couple of beers when I got back home: first up was William Worthington’s White Shield (5.6% abv, bottle conditioned). At 5.6% it’s not as strong as you might expect an IPA to be and it poured with more fizz and a lot more sweetness than I thought you should expect from the style. Not horrible, per se, but far from the best I tasted last year.

After that one I went for a bottle of Williams Bros Midnight Sun (5.6% abv). This porter seemed to be a fairly classic example of the style: a slightly sour whiff in the bottle, a very dark ebony with a tan head, a spicy, faintly smoky, sweet coffee flavour that was smooth and very drinkable. Another good contender for a regular slot in the beer cupboard.

The weekend brought another driving stint up and down the country to the in-laws’ and by the time Jo and I had spent at least half of the (unusually long at four hours) journey to Bridgnorth stuck in a standing-wave tailback on the M6, I definitely needed a couple of beers and I was hoping that another strong ale from Greene King – this time Old Crafty Hen (6.5% abv) – would hit the spot quite nicely. It turned out to have a hoppy nose, citrusy flavours and a surprisingly deft touch for such a strong beer. Alas, that deft touch meant that whilst it was decidedly drinkable, it lacked much in the way of character and was rather un-memorable as a result. A symptom of larger brewery mass-production, perhaps? Or maybe it’s just one of those beers that’s much better on draught. I preferred the Abbot Reserve, definitely.

I opened a bottle of Hall and Woodhouse Badger Pickled Partridge (4.5% abv) next and alas it was another fairly indistinct one, albeit quite pleasant and quite drinkable again. Very malty, with light spice notes and a lingering bitterness to the after-taste. Not much else to write home about. I’ve had a much better Badger beer recently, which I’ll be writing up before too long (all being well).

The next day produced much better results. Jo’s folks live not too far at all from The Bull’s Head at Chelmarsh, which – following a change of management a couple of years back – is a great food and ale pub, well worth checking out if you’re down that way. I nipped down after Sunday lunch for a pint with brother-in-law Richard and opted for a drop of Dorothy Goodebody’s Christmas Stocking (4.2% abv? -ish?), a seasonal ale from Wye Valley. Extremely nice it was, too, with distinct cinnamon and nutmeg spices; very easy-drinking indeed and neither too heavy nor too sweet. More enjoyable than the Plum Duff, certainly.

I was back down the pub in the evening, with Jo and her folks, for an Irish folk session laid on by landlord John and some of his mates. This time I decided to try another draught Wye Valley brew, their Hereford Pale Ale. At 4% abv it was a light, highly quaffable, golden pale ale that made for a great session beer – I stayed with that one for the next couple of pints as well – with a fresh, faintly citrus flavour and a very dry, hoppy finish. Good stuff!

But the scooper in me was sorely tempted by a third draught ale from Wye Valley: Dorothy Goodbody’s Golden Ale and so I switched to that one for my final pint of the evening. I’m glad to say that I wasn’t at all disappointed. Very similar to the HPA, but with less strident hop notes and a maltier finish. Altogether a very pleasant end to a very good evening (the music was more than half-decent, too). If only they’d had Dorothy Goodbody’s Wholesome Stout on as well… but that’s one to keep an eye out for another time.

I finished the seasonal Bridgnorth run with a visit to the town’s specialist wine merchant, Tanner’s, and picked up a selection of local brews that are now awaiting their turn in the beer cupboard. More on those in due course.

And there you have it. Not the entire Holiday beer session, I have to admit. There are a few others that I will be writing up separately, but that’s the bulk of my last ten days’ beer sampling. Mostly good, one or two indifferent, none bad enough to pour down the sink. Not a bad result at all.

Brewery: Fuller’s
Location: London, England
ABV: 4.1% (Pride) / 5.9% (ESB)
Version: Draft (Pride) / Bottled (ESB)
Source: The Harrow, London

I spent yesterday down in London for work-related reasons and booked a later-than-usual return train to Manchester in order to go out for a couple of after-work beers with a few of m’colleagues. Remembering that there’s been a fair amount of buzz about Fuller’s London Porter I asked if there was a Fuller’s house within easy walking distance and was told by m’colleague Darren that yes, indeed, there was. Excellent! Or so I assumed…

The pub in question turned out to be The Harrow. Not a bad place, on first inspection – a proper drinking establishment that didn’t stink of chips and wasn’t belting out annoyingly loud music. But alas, a quick enquiry at the bar revealed that no, they weren’t serving the London Porter. They just had the three pumps of London Pride, all lined up in a row (which suggested something of a lack of lateral thinking, if you ask me) and either Organic Honey Dew (a bit too sweet for my palate) or ESB in bottles.

What the heck, I thought, and opted for a pint of the London Pride. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. A faintly nutty bitter with a nice blend of malt and hop notes, it was drinkable and not unpleasant (unlike the pint of Greene King Fireside that I’d tried at the St Bride’s Tavern at lunchtime, which was just rank – it must have been a bad pint). It just seemed to be a bit on the thin and watery side for my liking, with almost no head, just a few lonely bubbles floating around on the top. But then maybe that’s how the regulars prefer it?

Anyhow, for my second drink I opted for a bottle of ESB, which I’ve sampled and enjoyed before. I wasn’t disappointed with it this time, either. A more enticing aroma, a richer, stronger flavour, a superior mouthfeel; all-in-in-all a much more interesting and tasty beer than the Pride in just about every way. Although at 5.9% abv perhaps it was a good job I had to head off for my return train once I’d finished the glass.

So, The Harrow: nice pub, shame about the lack of London Porter. Maybe next time, eh?

Incidentally, I’d managed to score a First Class ticket back up to Manchester and the complimentary drinks trolley was offering a bitter… Fuller’s London Pride. Served from a 300ml can into a plastic tumbler, it didn’t actually taste all that different to the draft version. Oh, except that it had a better head. Hmmmm.

[DT:] Ladies and gents, it gives me very great pleasure indeed to present BlogoBeer.com’s very first Guest Post. The author of the following piece is none other than Mr Tim Lebbon, one of the UK’s best-loved and most prolific modern horror and dark fantasy writers. He’s the author of recent novels including Dusk, Dawn, The Everlasting, Fallen, Mind the Gap (with Christopher Golden) – and many, many more besides, see his website at www.timlebbon.net for details – as well as the winner of multiple awards for his fiction and a thoroughly good bloke to boot.

Tim and I were e-chatting a couple of weeks ago and he happened to mention a forthcoming trip to Cornwall, during which he was planning to make a point of sampling a few local beers. I asked if he’d be interested in writing a guest post for us, Tim said he was up for it (I said “Huzzah!”) and so, without any further ado, here we go:

Beheaded at the Polperro Beer Festival, by Tim Lebbon

Sometimes, I don’t think my wife believes me. Let’s face it, we booked that weekend in Cornwall at the beginning of the year, and it was only a week before we were due to leave that a friend told me that the Polperro Beer Festival was on at the same time (3rd – 5th October). Once we arrived at our caravan site and her suspicions faded away, we popped along with the two kids for a couple of hours trying out some of Devon’s and Cornwall’s finest (I was doing the trying, not the kids). It would have been rude not to.

The Old Mill House in Polperro is a proper pub. The atmosphere is very friendly, locals sit at the bar with their lazy dogs, the staff are welcoming and very cheery, old pub games hang on the walls or sit around on little tables, and there’s a cat sleeping on the bar. “It’s a real one!” my 5 year old son merrily confided in me as he poked it in the head. It was indeed.

The theme of the festival this year was ‘Beer Less Travelled’ – in an admirable effort to reduce the carbon footprint of the event, all the beers were from local breweries. There were twenty-nine ales on offer, ranging from light session beers to several stouts and porters. My kids didn’t fancy a pint, and my wife isn’t a fan (I know … I know …), so I ordered food for the hooligans and a prawn curry for Tracey, and went about trying a few for myself.

I headed straight in with a pint of Black Prince from St Austell Brewery. I’m a big fan of dark ales – Hobgoblin and Theakston’s Old Peculier are two particular faves – so Black Prince was an absolute delight. Deep and dark when it was poured, a rich nutty nose, and it went down a treat, leaving a surprisingly full-bodied fruity taste afterwards. A gentle 4.0% volume, it tasted stronger, very rich in body and feel. I’d have happily had a couple more … if there weren’t twenty-eight other ales on offer.

So next I plumped for Organic Brewhouse‘s Serpentine. Not as heavy as the Black Prince, this was a deep ruby colour, quite tangy (a bit too tangy for me, I think), and though it was 4.5%, there was something lacking. Perhaps going for a lighter pint after Black Prince was a mistake, but this one didn’t quite do it for me.

The kids were almost finished with their meals now, and Tracey’s prawn korma was reduced to a single sad bugger swimming around in what was left of the sauce. Startled, I took a closer look, but the ripples were merely caused by my son kicking the table. “I’m bored!” he said, so I offered him a swig of Serpentine. Bless him, he quite enjoyed it. Fighting the temptation to ensure a good night’s sleep for us all, I finished the drink myself, and then went up to peruse the menu of ales.

The pub has a perfect set-up for an ale festival, with the barrels stacked nicely in a marquee that connects through a set of French doors into the rear of the pub. So those not indulging in the festival ales (and it’s a very reasonable £3.00 entry, which includes a commemorative glass and a programme) can sit at the bar and enjoy the still-impressive selection of beers available as standard. But I didn’t want that – oh no – not with twenty-seven other brews to choose from.

I guessed this would be my last pint. Sadly, with a tear in my eye and a flutter of excitement – or was that trepidation? – I ordered a glass of the festival’s winning ale, Beheaded, from Keltek Brewery. I say trepidation, because this was noted as a 7.6% ale … and I have to say, every hint of that was there in the taste. Gorgeous. A beautiful deep golden colour, and sweet to the taste, though not cloyingly so. Its power was obvious, but the brewers were patently not simply out to produce an ale of almost apocalyptic strength – they have taken great care to ensure that taste is still present. The name is apt, as I’m sure that after three pints of this you’d feel as if you’d been beheaded and shown your own backside.

I waved a fond farewell to the Old Mill House and all those lovely ales, and promptly went and spent £40 on a leather fedora-like hat. My kids think it makes me look like Indiana Jones (but without the diamond stud earring and bank balance, eh Harrison?), and though I purchased it whilst in the cosy fuzz of real ale squiffyness, at last nearing the age of 40 I believe I’ve found a hat that suits me. “Since when have you been a cowboy?” some kid in my village asked recently. I asked him when was the last time he’d played baseball.

And it’s all thanks to the Polperro Beer Festival.

There are already plans afoot to attend next year as well, but this time for a full weekend, not just a flying visit (live music in the evenings, too, which is also a big draw). I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone looking for a fabulous place to stay. Polperro is one of our favourite places in the world, and that love has just been boosted ten-fold. It has many comfortable hotels and bed and breakfasts (including the Old Mill House itself … sleeping above a real ale festival … there is a Heaven after all), and some excellent places to eat.

Also, pasties. Need I say more?

On our long weekend away I also tried several more local brews in bottle form … but that’s a story for another time, and another hat.

Brewery: Joseph Holt’s
Location: Manchester, England
ABV: 5.0%
Version: Draught pint
Source: Woodthorpe Hotel, Prestwich, Manchester

Another trip to the Woodthorpe yesterday evening, for a couple of pints of pre-Fantasycon practice and to check out September’s seasonal ale.

Holt’s Pioneer is billed as a 5% IPA and let me tell you, is absolutely delicious on draught. It’s a cask beer (as far as I know – there’s no mention of it on the Holt’s website), it pours a deep golden colour and has a pleasantly creamy head. A sampling-sized swig results in a rich, complex flavour-burst: a big hit of hops (as you’d expect from an IPA) but also a malty sweetness and a distinct fruity flavour that was initially a little hard to identify… strawberries? No, not tart enough…

The first pint went down very easily indeed and so I nipped back to the bar for a second in order to continue the fruit-flavour identification process, which eventually resulted in a positive i.d. (let’s be honest, once Jo had taken a sip and told me the answer): peaches. Far less reticent peaches than those that allegedly lurk in Theakston’s Lighfoot Bitter as well; these peaches were all about getting in your face and singing that Presidents of the USA song at you while you drink your pint. And now I can’t get it our of my head. Thank you, Joseph Holts.

Anyhow, as I said up at the top: delicious. Glorious colour, fresh flavour, great mouth-feel, lovely finish, everything about this one said: “I am now one of your favourite beers.” Another round, anyone?

Brewery: Joseph Holt’s
Location: Manchester, England
ABV: 4.1%
Version: Draught pint
Source: Woodthorpe Hotel, Prestwich, Manchester

Humdinger is available as part of Holt’s bottled beers range, but I actually tried this one on draught a few weeks ago at Holt’s flagship pub The Woodthorpe Hotel, which is just up the road (and round the corner a bit) from my place. It was their seasonal ale for August, if I remember rightly, or maybe July.

Anyhow, it’s a honeyed beer, but unlike some honey-based brews, is possesses a strong, hoppy character that’s allowed to dominate the honey tones and keep the sweetness at bay. Net result: a light, summery ale that’s very refreshing and easy-drinking that, whilst sweet, isn’t too cloying or over-syrupy.

A few weeks ago, Jo (the missus) and I popped down to see her folks in Bridgnorth, deep in the picturesque county of Shropshire. One of the highlights of the trip was an evening out at The King’s Head in the middle of town, with brother-in-law Richard and his girlfriend, Lisa. Rich is a builder by trade and one of his projects, about eighteen months ago, was a refurb of the pub in which we met up. And a very nice job of it he made, too, especially the micro-brewery that they put in the back yard for the Bridgnorth Brewing Company.

Jo and I arrived early to grab a table. It being the BBC’s home turf and all it would have been exceptionally rude of me not to at least start the session with one of their beers and so I ordered a pint of their Castle Keep (4.5% abv) to kick things off with. This was a rich and malty bitter with just a hint of spiciness – quite possibly ginger, maybe cinnamon – which went down extremely well. By the time I was half-way down that one, our drinking buddies had arrived. Rich is an avowed addict of Town Crier (4.5% abv) which is brewed by Hobson’s in nearby Cleobury Mortimer and won’t be persuaded onto anything else for love nor money, so I decided to join him for pint #2.

I’d already tried Town Crier on a previous visit, and was more than happy to give it another go. It’s a pale, easy-drinking bitter with a dry, hoppy character and subtle citrus notes that makes for a fine session beer – Rich is no fool to stick with this stuff, I can tell you. I, on the other hand, was moved by the spirit of experimentation to try another Bridgnorth Brewing beer, and went for the Apley Ale (3.9% abv). Not the best move. By comparison with the first two it was a thin, slightly watery, relatively tasteless bitter with really very little about it worth writing home about. No wonder Rich was shaking his head sadly when I brought it back to the table. Should have stuck to advice from my native guide instead of wandering off-track.

I’m a bit hazy on the next one – purely because the conversation was flowing by this stage and it seemed rude to break off and take notes on my phone – but I think #4 might have been a pint of Bridgnorth Best (4.4% abv). I’ll go ahead assume it was and if not then it’s definitely one I tried on that previous visit, so I’ll give it a mention anyway. It’s another pale, hoppy bitter – that sort of thing seems to be the Bridgnorth Brewey’s speciality – and (according to the notes I made a while back) it tastes “like Boddington’s Cask used to in it’s heyday”, so again it’s a light, hoppy easy-drinker that I’d have no problem settling in with for an extended session.

After that, another pint of Town Crier called time on the evening’s drinking and chatting, if only because I knew I was on driving duty the next morning and those country roads are evil buggers at the best of times, never mind with a head full of bitter-fumes. All in all, a very good evening enjoyed in good company and I’m looking forward to the next trip – probably in December, when perhaps Bridgnorth Brewing or Hobson’s will have rolled out a couple of winter ales? – with eager anticipation. Beers of Shropshire #2 to thereby follow in due course…