Robinsons’ Elbow

Jo was reading through our local rag, the Prestwich Advertiser and spotted a story on the band Elbow* who are apparently all real ale fans and have brewed an ale with Robinson’s of Stockport, and have named after their new album. According to the news item that Robinson’s put out on their website last week:

“The new beer, naturally titled ‘Build a Rocket Boys!’ is being brewed to Elbow’s own specifications after a series of beer tastings at the brewery. Band members sampled a range of Robinsons’ ales to shortlist their preferred style of beer, taste and colour before deciding on a golden ale with a rich rounded body, smooth bitterness, subtle tang of malt and fruity aroma. Elbow’s ale will be a golden premium session bitter at 4.0% ABV, available in cask only.”

I have to admit, I’ve never been a huge Elbow fan, even though they’re from round these parts. Mainstream indie-pop just isn’t my thing. But the lads have definitely gone up in my estimation and I can think of worse marketing wheezes, so fair play to them. I might even give the new album a listen-to on Spotify, who knows.

* And that has to be one of the worst website interfaces I’ve seen in a long, long time…

Once Around the Northern Quarter, Manchester 25.06.11

Saturday night, time to hit the town. First up: a visit to the new Korean place on Shude Hill to take on solid sustenance. Baekdu has a slightly stark look, but the chairs are comfortable, the clientèle mostly Korean students (always a good sign when a restaurant is frequented by a lot of people who really know the cuisine in question, I reckon) and the food is very good indeed. Well, actually, the salmon salad I had as a starter was a bit of a let-down; I was expecting something Korean and interesting, but instead I got mostly iceberg lettuce and a few lumps of salmon sushi, garnished with… salad cream. But Jo’s chicken skewers were very tasty and the main courses – beef bibimbab for Jo and spicy, stir-fried, thin-sliced pork for me – were excellent. Food done, it was time for a beer or four.

First stop, the Marble Arch. One of my three very favourite Manchester pubs and a regular session-starting location. We timed it just right, hitting the early evening lull, and managed to get a seat. Up to the bar, and there was no question whatsoever what we were both going to have: Marble Ginger Stout. I was moved to tweet at the time that it was **bloody gorgeous** and I stand by that. A deep, rich mouth-feel, with semi-sweet, dark chocolate & vanilla-cream flavours to begin with; then a lingering, dry-sharp root ginger finish. The bastard offspring of a dark chocolate brownie and a ginger nut biscuit, in a glass. Also the best draught stout I’ve had in quite a while, bar none. One slight snag: I thought the pump-clip said 4.2% but on closer examination that turned out to be 6.7%. So, not a session-swigger. But still, I could happily have supped a few more of those over the course of the evening… before sliding slowly under the table with a stupid grin plastered all over my face.

Instead, we erred on the side of caution and upped-sticks to The Angel, favourite Manchester pub #2. Marble Ginger Stout was always going to be a tough act to follow, but to be fair the Bowland Black Dragon Porter had a good go. An ebony body with ruby highlights and a tight white head was promising. Dry, biscuity malt flavours with a raisin and chocolate finish was a result. Very drinkable, quite sessionable at 4.5%. Jo went for a Pictish Ginger (I think that’s what it was called). She’s very particular about her ginger beers is Jo. She’s sampled many, disliking the ones that are basically fermented ginger pop (too sweet) or anything with too strong a clove flavour (sorry, Marble Ginger and Big Ginger as well) and she declared this one a good ‘un. Again, we could’ve stayed for a couple more at The Angel (there was an IPA that looked interesting), but we had a stagger-plan, so onward we went…

…to The Castle Hotel, on Oldham Road. This place has a decent rep as a bit of a node on the Manchester real-ale scene, but for some reason we’d never been in for a pint; maybe because the last couple of times we’ve been past on a weekend night it had been hammered. Saturday wasn’t so bad; we managed to find a seat and then I sidled up to the bar to peruse the range of mainly Robinson’s beers on offer. I got Jo a Hatter’s Dark Mild (pleasant enough, if not exactly amazing) and I was going to have a half of Old Tom, but instead I opted for a pint of the Robinson’s Crusoe. A seasonal beer, apparently it’s a “double-hopped” golden ale, but it I’m afraid it wasn’t particularly hoppy, or particularly malty, or for that matter particularly good. I ended up wishing I’d stuck to my original plan, but there you go. You live and learn. The pub itself was nice enough, although far too warm. We’ll probably come back and give it a fresh go another time, maybe on a Friday afternoon or some other quieter time.

Onwards again, and this time to favourite Manchester pub #3 (the order changes, by the way, depending on which one I’m sitting in and what’s in the glass in front of me) – The Port Street Beer House. The usual bewildering array of cask and keg ales and draught beers to choose from. Jo went in search of seats and I got her a Dark Star Festival; a deep chestnut coloured ale that was very pleasant indeed. I took a little longer choosing my own and, after consultation with the bar-fella, eschewed the cask Thornbridge Jaipur (which took some willpower) and eventually decided on a half each of Odell IPA and Hardknott Queboid.

The former was very nice indeed, even better than the bottled version that I sampled a while back, with a big, orange-citrus hop aroma and a smooth, clementine hop-blast leading the flavour-charge. It was cool and refreshing, just the right drop for an increasingly-muggy Saturday night. Alas, I think the Queboid had turned. When I sampled it on Tuesday it was beautifully fresh but by Saturday it was a very different beast; sour on the tongue and with a faint whiff of Stilton about it (and not in a good way). I reluctantly took it back to the bar and the bar-fella graciously swapped it for a half of cask Jaipur* with nary a quibble. The Jaipur was as Jaipur pretty much always is: a hoppy blast of liquid sunshine and a pure joy to end the evening on.

* It occurred to me afterwards that they actually had keg Jaipur as well as cask, so I could’ve done one of those taste-comparison thingies. But to be honest, I couldn’t be bothered. It was the end of the night, and I only had room for a half after all of the above (Korean food is surprisingly filling, especially when you’ve finished off your wife’s bibimbab for her). Maybe next time, eh?

Saturday dawned grey and a bit drizzly up in Carnforth. Undaunted by the prospect of light showers, Jo and I wrapped up warm and headed on up to Kendal.

The plan was to go in search of the Kendal Food & Drink Festival. We’d rather assumed, particularly with it being a Saturday and all, that the streets of Kendal would be packed with market stalls selling interesting produce from across Lancashire and Cumbria and that we’d come away with bags full of fabulous stuff to eat and drink. Wrong! Apparently the Festival consists of little more than a few cookery courses; unless it was all going on a couple of streets away and they’d forgotten to put the signs up, there was nothing for the general public to see or do that wasn’t there on a regular Saturday, by the looks of things.

Kendal doesn’t boast any Recommended or Lucky Dip pubs in the 2011 Good Pub Guide either. So we wandered around the town and ended up having a rather splendid lunch at a vegetarian whole foods café down on the riverside (personally we’re both omnivores, but you can’t beat a vegetarian café if you fancy a salad for lunch, I promise you). Then, with our beer score for the day still stuck firmly at zero, we headed on down the coast to Grange-over-Sands.

Grange is one of those long villages stretching a good mile or so along the sea-front and has a dirty great big hill in the middle of it as well. Having clambered up that and down the other side we found a deli with a display of wine bottles in the window. Hoping for ale-y goodness within, we headed inside. There wasn’t any. Not a drop. Shelves crammed with wine and literally every single weird and dodgy-looking vase of bizarre spirits and / or liqueurs that you could possibly imagine, but not a single bottle of the good stuff. Trudging back to the car park, we stopped off for a cup of tea in an award-winning tea house, which was very nice indeed. They even had gluten-free chocolate and almond cake, which was a bonus.

Still stuck at beer-zero, we headed back to base for a bit of a sit down and then made our way out to the aforementioned Good Pub Guide Recommended pub: the New Inn in the nearby village of Yealand Conyers. A Robinson’s house, the New Inn is a traditional village pub with a restaurant on the side.

The food selection wasn’t amazing; let’s face it, when you see ‘trio of sausage and mash’ and ‘chikken tikka’ on the specials board, you know you’re not in for a fine dining experience. But the prices were good and the portion sizes generous, so if all you’re after is a big plate of pub grub then there’s nothing wrong with that, eh? Jo and I both had a plate of sausages, gravy and (instant) mash in the main bar – to take advantage of the log fire – whilst a dozen or so locals settled down to enjoy their Saturday night, not at all objecting to the interlopers in the corner. The sausages and gravy were tasty, the (instant) mash not so much.

The beer selection was slightly disappointing, with only two of the four hand pumps on. I tried a pint of Robinson’s Battering Ram; only 4.0% ABV – despite the fearsome name – and fairly bland brown in colour, it was one of those slightly thin, slightly sour bitters that I usually feel like leaving after half a pint or so. Being the bloody-minded sort, I persevered to the end, but then switched to a pint of the other offering for my second: Hartley’s XB bitter. Turns out this is a Robinson’s brew as well and if I’m completely honest I’d have to say it was almost identical to the Battering Ram: a fairly average session bitter, really nothing much to write home about. A shame, because I know some of Robinson’s ales can be quite tasty. Maybe the stuff just doesn’t travel too far north of Stockport…

On reflection, I’d have to say that our visit to the New Inn was… okay. Probably if we’d have been able to stay a bit longer, maybe get chatting to some of the locals – who all seemed extremely friendly and sociable – then we might have had a more enjoyable time of it. Or perhaps if we’d been there on a different night the menu would have been more interesting and the beer selection too. But as Jo was driving back and wasn’t drinking, we finished up and left fairly early, headed back to Pine Lake and cracked open a couple more bottles of Hooky Gold. You know where you are with a couple of bottles of Hooky Gold.

So: Saturday was a bit of a wash-out, beer-wise as well as weather-wise. So it goes, I suppose.

Next post: things start to look much, much better on Sunday…

Our local Sainsbury’s has rotated it’s standard 2 for £3 offering again.

Highlights of the current selection include:

• Bath Ales Barnstormer [
  • August 27, 2010
  • 6
  • Bath, Black Sheep, Daleside, Fuller's Brewery, Greene King, Hawkshead, Jennings, Marston's, Robinson's, Sainsburys, Tesco, Theakston's, Timothy Taylor's

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The Saturday before last, after starting the evening off with a curry and a couple of bottles of Black Sheep Ale at our favourite curry house (the Lime Tree in Prestwich), we (Jo, myself and our friends Andy and Dawn) headed up to Bury to visit the Trackside (we were there just before Tyson, by the sound of things).

Talk about a tricky decision when I got to the bar. The Trackside is usually a good bet for a dark beer or two, but last Saturday there was a choice of four, plus assorted bitters and pale ales. I started off (possibly a little rashly) with a pint of Acorn Gorlovka Imperial Stout; a gorgeous, coffee-rich, smoky stout that weighs in at a session-hefty 6% ABV. I sampled this one a few weeks ago at the Marble Arch, in a more cautious half measure. Possibly I should have saved that one for later and stuck to the halves as well, but I think I must have had a rush of blood to the head and besides, the night was still (fairly) young. That one went down very nicely indeed (although probably far faster than it should have) and so it was back to the bar, this time for a swift half of Rossendale Pitch Porter. Not quite as robust as the Gorlovka, although still a respectable 5% ABV, it was another very pleasant roast-malt experience and definitely one I’d be happy to repeat.

After that I made my first tactical error of the evening: instead of joining Jo on the Dunham Dark – a smooth, slightly sweet mild with a light touch and only 3.8%% ABV, I instead opted for a bottle of Robinson’s Chocolate Tom that I spotted in the fridge. I’ve tried both the Old Tom and Ginger Tom before, and I’d always promised myself I’d have a go at the Chocolate version, after Ed gave it a write-up a while back. This was clearly the opportunity I’d been waiting for, so I went for it. Bad move. I’m not sure whether it was because the bottle had been chilled, or the beer was too young, but in any case it was far, far too sweet for even my sweet tooth to enjoy. If Marble Chocolate is Green & Black’s in a glass then this was Dairy Milk by comparison and I’m afraid there was little else to notice or to recommend it. If I ever see a bottle on sale I might grab it and put it away for a while to see if it ages at all well, but I’ll be definitely steering clear of drinking it out of a fridge again.

My second tactical error of the night involved sending Andy to the bar for a half of Dunham Milk Stout. I should have known better: Andy doesn’t really do beer by demi-measures and came back to the table with a large half (two halves in a single glass, if you catch my drift). Which was a bit of a shame, because I’d already sampled some when Jo got a half in an earlier round and whilst I was interested enough to give it a decent go, I didn’t really want to invest in a full draught. It was… okay. Considering Dunham’s beers usually rate ‘damned good’ to ‘excellent’, I was a bit surprised at how ordinary this one tasted. A bit thin, nothing in the way of defining characteristics or stand-out flavours. I’m no milk stout expert, I admit, so maybe it’s actually a cracking example of the style, but if you ask me their Dunham Porter and Dunham Stout are much, much better. By this stage Andy was back on the bitter instead of the stouts and I had a glug of whatever he was drinking (it might have been Dark Star Sunburst, that rings a bell) and very tasty it was, too. Ah, well.

So, there you go: another great selection of beers at the Trackside, which is pretty much par for the course for those guys. We’ll be back, and it won’t be too long before we are, either.

I read some news on Tyson’s Beer Blog that I was delighted to learn: “The Star Inn at Broughton in Salford has been saved by locals who have clubbed together to buy it at auction for £80,000.”

I was delighted for more than one reason as well. Firstly, because it’s always great to see a local pub saved from closure, particularly through this sort of proactive community effort. And secondly, because I’ve been trying to remember the name and location of this particular pub for going on fifteen years now.

The first, last and only time Jo and I visited The Star Inn was back in our student days. We went along with an acquaintance of ours for a chess and folk music night. It was a Tuesday evening (if I remember correctly) and although I hadn’t played chess seriously for years (not since my school days) and wasn’t actually into folk music at the time (I was more a goth / heavy metal / industrial noise type back then) I had a fantastic time.

I remember: sitting down with a bunch of complete strangers (all friendly and welcoming, even though we were obviously pesky students), enjoying good beer (Robinson’s Best, I think), playing a game of chess or two (I lost, I’m sure) and listening to live music (it was an open mic night and I vividly remember one girl who played and sang a cover of Joan Osborne’s ‘One Of Us’ quite beautifully) was all something I wasn’t really used to at the time (The Banhsee and Rock World in Manchester being more my scene), but these days I’d be happy to do all evening, every evening, given half the chance.

I also remember that the beer engine they used to pour the Robinson’s was a strange, steampunk-esque device with some sort of horizontal, glass vacuum tube that at the touch of a button drew the beer up from the barrel and then pumped it into the glass . I’d never seen one before and I’ve never seen one since. Quite fascinating.

Anyway, back in the day, Jo and I both forgot the name of the pub and even whereabouts it was; we knew it was up the road from our flat, but we had no real idea how far as we took a taxi up there. So we’ve never gone back, even though I’ve thought about the place from time to time ever since, with an increasing sense of nostalgic fondness.

But now, thanks to Tyson, we’ll definitely be heading back to The Star again one of these days, now we know where it is and what it’s called. I wonder if they still have a chess & folk night on a Tuesday? I wonder if they’ll still use that weird beer engine, or even still serve Robinson’s? I wonder if the locals will still be friendly? I’m looking forward to finding out.

Brewery: Robinson’s
Location: Stockport, England
ABV: 6.0%
Version: 330ml bottle
Source: The Vineyard, Belfast

Darren’s already covered the other tom cat themed beers from Robinson’s,  Old Tom and Ginger Tom, so it’s only fair to move on to Chocolate Tom. This one is basically Old Tom with added chocolate. In more detail it’s Old Tom embellished with the finest cocoa and a touch of vanilla, all blended to an original recipe made in conjunction with renowned chocolatier Simon Dunn.

The beer is a rich dark copper colour, with a very pleasant, and completely expected, smooth chocolate aroma with some underlying fruit notes, much like sticking your nose in a newly opened box of choccies, but at no point does it become overpowering. The subsequent taste was actually surprisingly subtle. The chocolate doesn’t dominate, letting some apricot fruitiness push through, and the alcohol isn’t at all noticable. In fact I didn’t think it tasted very beery at all. A nicely balanced recipe, well made and certainly worth trying but it’s not one to feature on my “buy when see” list.

Brewery: Robinson’s
Location: Stockport, England
ABV: 6.0%
Version: Bottled
Source: Sainsbury’s

Returning from a quick mid-week shop in sub-zero temperatures last night, I felt the need (not unjustifiably, I think) for a drop of a winter warmer to restore some feeling to my fingers. So I reached for the bottle of Ginger Tom that had been lurking in the beer cupboard since I picked it up in August (mildly ironically) as part of the Sainsbury’s summer real ale promotion.

Ginger Tom is a blend of the Robinson’s staple Old Tom, (which I sampled and enjoyed a couple of months ago) and Fentiman’s Ginger Beer. Weighing in at 2.5% less than its big-bruiser of a brother, Ginger Tom isn’t quite such a daunting prospect and still has enough body and character aplenty, resulting in a very satisfying brew.

Pouring an eye-catching chestnut brown with a thin, bubbly head, Ginger Tom has the sort of insistent, spicy aroma you’d expect, backed up by a rich, sweet, malty flavour. The ginger is there, but it’s more of a background-note rather than the main theme. Unlike, say, fellow Greater Mancunian brewery Marble‘s Ginger Beer, which really does deliver a payload of hot and heavy spiciness to the tonsils, Ginger Tom has a far more subtle effect.

All in all, a very tasty drop and just what the internal thermostat ordered. I noticed that there was a Chocolate Tom variant in the Wetherspoon’s Real Ale Festival this year, but alas, our paths didn’t cross. One to keep an eye out for…

• The Reluctant Scooper does it full justice (with bonus football commentary)

Brewery: Robinson’s
Location: Stockport, England
ABV: 8.5%
Version: 330ml bottle
Source: Sainsbury’s

I’ve had good and bad experiences with beers this strong and I’m happy to say that this was definitely one of the finer ones.

Approaching Old Tom (with due caution and appropriate respect) the first thing you notice is an aroma of smoky liquorice. The liquorice is amplified on first tasting as the thick, sweet brew rolls and washes across the palate. It’s followed by a whole host of rich, dark, sugary, malty flavours: toffee, coffee, muscovadot sugar, molasses and treacle, all combining into an uber-flavour that’s deliciously, dangerously more-ish. Definitely one to savour, despite the temptation to race through a couple more while you’re at it.

The bottle is embossed on the front with the famous Old Tom winking cat (“sup up lad, hangover’s coming”) and the back label extols the virtues of this classic old brew “entered into the head brewer’s hand-written notebook in 1899″, no less. That head brewer was some sort of evil genius, I tell you. May he rest in blissfully inebriated peace…