Beer of the Week (w/e 23 January 2011)

[Conrad]

gillhalfpint: Milestone Dancer the Prancer
Millay: Northern Brewing Soul Rider
Oggwyn Trench: Loddon Razzle Dazzle
runningdog: White Horses' Black Horse Porter
Wittenden: Late Red
Pubsignman: Blue Monkey 99 Red Baboons
Bucking Fastard: William Brothers Brewing Ginger Beer
RogerB: Rudgate Jorvik Blonde
Alesonly: Harviestoun Haggis Hunter
ROBCamra: Dow Bridge Praetorian Porter
Thuck Phat: Everards Old Original
aleandhearty: Dark Star Hophead
oldboots: Buttcombe Old Vic Porter

[aleandhearty]

Having attended the National Winter Ales Festival in Manchester yesterday and been shown round several city-centre hostelries by ROBCamra, there were some strong contenders. However, two beers really stood out for me. Marble '3.9' and Dark Star 'Hophead'. I can't see anything else coming close this week . The hard part's going to be choosing between them.

[trainman]

Having attended the National Winter Ales Festival in Manchester yesterday and been shown round several city-centre hostelries by ROBCamra, two beers really stood out for me. Marble '3.9' and Dark Star 'Hophead'.

Presume these were found at pub, rather than 'fest? Which hostelries did you stumble into?

[ROBCamra]

Presume these were found at pub, rather than 'fest? Which hostelries did you stumble into?

I decided to show the guys some alternative real ale venues rather than the usual Marble Arch, Angel, City Arms etc so we visited.......

Bulls Head, Mother Macs & Kro Piccadilly before the fest and Fringe, 57 Thomas Street & Odd afterwards.

[trainman]

I decided to show the guys some alternative real ale venues rather than the usual Marble Arch, Angel, City Arms etc so we visited.......

Bulls Head, Mother Macs & Kro Piccadilly before the fest and Fringe, 57 Thomas Street & Odd afterwards.

Odd. "There is only 1 handpump on the bar..." RC
Kro. "This place isn't really a pub, it's not really a wine bar either. It's like being in a cafe in Ikea." RC
MM's. "Only one handpump which was serving Hydes Original. The pint I had was OK but not top class, almost everyone else was drinking lager." RC

A geographical choice, or had someone upset you?

[ROBCamra]

Odd. "There is only 1 handpump on the bar..." RC
Kro. "This place isn't really a pub, it's not really a wine bar either. It's like being in a cafe in Ikea." RC
MM's. "Only one handpump which was serving Hydes Original. The pint I had was OK but not top class, almost everyone else was drinking lager." RC

A geographical choice, or had someone upset you?

Partially geographical. Offer any better bars between Piccadilly Station and Piccadilly Gardens if you can.

Just because a place only has one handpump it doesn't mean that the beer isn't good. In fact the Northern Two Tone Special at Odd was excellent (although OB had a bottle of Trashy Blonde, well he looked at it for about 40 minutes then left most of it )

KRO sells good beer it's just not my sort of place, but it is almost facing the bus stop we needed.

Mother Macs is a Manchester institution (In fact go in at the wrong time and quite a lot of the clientele could be on day release from one )

57 Thomas Street only had 2 beers on rather than the usual 4, so you can never guarantee a massive choice even in a Marble pub.

Fringe was, well Fringe. Same old slightly weirdness that it's always been.

You can't keep doing the same old places, even great beer houses get a bit samey if you always go in the same ones.

[oldboots]

Presume these were found at pub, rather than 'fest? Which hostelries did you stumble into?

These were both festival ales, we had Ringwood Porter at Bulls Head, Hydes at Mother Macs and a variety of Old Toms at KRO. The full list of festival ales is on the web site it includes some not very winter ales.

[rpadam]

Did a quick bit of no-frills European travel this week, with two outstanding pints (well, half litres to be accurate) encountered - the Černý (dark beer) at the Pegas Hotel micro-brewery in Brno and the 7% Winterbock at the first-rate 7 Stern Bräu brewpub in Vienna.

[trainman]

http://forums.pubsgalore.co.uk/showt...6691#post26691

Could be a mission for those in striking distance, & a pub on my (long) target list.
Let's hope the change of line-up doesn't affect Marble quality.

[Millay]

There have been a few good one's for me this week as I found two of my favourites, Old Hookey and Fortyniner. Also had a nice half of the 7% Buntingford Imperial Baltic Stout and both Inferno and Citra from the ever reliable Oakham Brewery. However my BoTW is going to one from a brewery I hadn't encountered before, Northern Brewing. In the Mermaid in St Albans yesterday they'd just put on a cask of Soul Rider and everyone was raving about it. Very nice beer that reminded me a bit of the Caledonian beers.