Friday, 20 January 2012

We want your Reviews and Previews.

To post a review or preview on our site simply send an email to - letsdrinkbeer@thegoodbeerblog.co.uk

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Friday, 23 September 2011

Theoc House - Tewkesbury


The old adage "out with the old in with the new" applies very aptly with Theoc House. A very bad Pub Co premises being transformed into a new and rejuvenated Freehouse. Not long opened now but starting to become more and more busy and one of the talked about pubs in the town. By all appearances it could be mistaken for a just another trendy coffee house rather than somewhere that would serve a good pint of real ale. However being a Freehouse they serve both to a very high standard, which works very well along side their all day food menu's. Its has a great mix of food and drink that is new and very original for Tewkesbury.

Severn Vale Brewing Co's Severn Sins is a regular and you are also likely to find a complementing but contrasting pint of Bath Ales Gem being served. They have swapped the Gem to Goff's Jouster also and being a Freehouse I hope to see the beers regularly change over the next few months.

Independently owned by James and Simon you will always be welcomed with a smile whatever the occasion. A new take on what a pub / bar should be they have a great selection of books and board games to keep both the young, and the young at heart amused.

As their Facebook page states "A friendly, neighbourhood cafe bar located in the heart of Tewkesbury. Serving coffee, drinks and a great selection of food throughout the day. Use us for whatever you see fit, a morning coffee, brunch meeting, ladies lunch, afternoon chill or romantic meal for two."

Next time you are visiting Tewkesbury definitely worth a visit for a spot of lunch or evening meal, and definitely try both of their real ale's.

I'm sure this will soon become a very good example of where the big Pub Co's are going wrong and how Independently run pubs can succeed. Its good to see a pub opening in Tewkesbury that does things differently................. Jazz night tonight!!!!

http://www.theochouse.co.uk/

Thursday, 22 September 2011

Taste of Staffordshire


A Brand New Beer Bonanza For Staffordshire!

This year’s Stone Food & Drink Festival promises to be bigger and better than ever, with the inception of a brand new event for beer-lovers – The Titanic Brewery ‘Best of Staffordshire Beer Festival’.

With over a dozen Staffordshire brewers taking part, including Blythe, Enville, Burton Bridge – and of course, Titanic - this new addition will make The Stone Food & Drink Festival the go-to event for ale lovers.

Taste of Staffordshire members, Titanic Brewery, have attended Stone’s premier celebration of all things gastronomic for the past three years, and this year have invited fellow Staffordshire brewers to come along and celebrate the county’s fantastic and distinctive ale offer with them.

Dave Bott, Director at Titanic Brewery, said: “We have always thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the festival, but this year we decided that we wanted to look at the bigger picture and invite other brewers to come and get involved.

“The Best of Staffordshire Beer Festival will add a whole new dimension to The Stone Food & Drink Festival and we would encourage anyone with a passion for real ale to come along and sample some of the best that the county has to offer.”

With a huge variety of beers, from light to dark, bitters to stouts, and various strengths and styles, this year’s Stone Food & Drink Festival, from Friday 30th September – Sunday 2nd October is not to be missed for anyone with an appreciation of ale!

Now in its seventh year, The Stone Food & Drink Festival continues to be sponsored by Taste of Staffordshire, the county’s foremost mark of taste and quality for local food and drink.

http://www.stonefooddrink.org.uk/
http://www.titanicbrewery.co.uk/

Friday, 28 January 2011

Tewkesbury CAMRA Winter Ale Festival 2011

This year the festival will take place on 3rd, 4th and 5th of February 2011.

This festival has been going for quite a few years now. It is most enjoyable as it always falls on the same weekend as the start of the Six Nations Rugby. Nothing better than a good game of international rugby and a great pint of beer (or cider depending on your preference).

A great mixture of Winter Ales and Cider this year there will be 72 barrel's in total. The beers are housed to the left as you enter then its best to move swiftly into the main hall for standing room and a limited number of seats. Beer tokens are purchased on your way in and there is normally and offer for Glass, Entry and Beer tokens for £10.

Opening times:

Thursday 3rd - (Membs Only) 7.30pm-11pm Free entry, CAMRA MEMBERS ONLY, you must bring membership card

Friday 4th - 11am-3pm (Membs Free, non-membs £1), then 6.30pm-11pm (Membs £2, non-membs £3)

Saturday 5th - 11am-11pm (Membs £1, non-membs £2).

The number of barrels 72.

Entry to the hall will be limited to 300 persons at ALL times.

CAMRA Members will be asked to show their Membership Cards at ALL sessions.

Thursday, 27 January 2011

Staffordshire Brewer Celebrates Royal Engagement with Limited Edition Special Ale


19th November 2010

STAFFORDSHIRE BREWER CELEBRATES ROYAL ENGAGEMENT WITH LIMITED EDITION SPECIAL ALE

A Staffordshire brewer is raising a glass to the Royal engagement this weekend with its newly named William Wins-Her special ale.

Quartz appealed for a wedding inspired name for the beer on its Facebook and Twitter pages after the Royal announcement was made earlier this week.

Winner Anna Hewitt, was one of hundreds of people who suggested names for the special edition beer via the social networking sites.

She will receive a five litre mini cask of the beer, which is brewed at the Quartz Kings Bromley brewery.

Quartz master brewer Julia Barnett said Anna's winning entry was chosen because it immediately stood out from other entries due to its originality.

"It was a really tough decision to choose the winning name as we had some fantastic suggestions from both Facebook and Twitter," she said.

"We were delighted with the level of response and the amount of thought people had put into their suggestions, considering they only had twenty four hours to enter."

William Wins-Her is a 5.2%, full bodied, hoppy beer and will be available to buy this weekend from the Quartz shop at the Heart of the Country Village, just off the A38 in Lichfield.

For more information on Quartz Brewing, visit www.quartzbrewing.co.uk ,follow @quartzbrewing on Twitter or become a fan of Quartz Brewing on Facebook.

The Glass House - May Hill, GL17 0NN

The Glass House, May Hill, Longhope, GL17 0NN. A very traditional pub that does everything just how a village pub should.

The beers are poured straight from the cask, just like you would find at most CAMRA beer festivals. They normally only have two ales on at a time, Butcombe and Doom Bar. Being straight from the cask there is no added fizz so there is no sparkle or gas added to affect the flavour and texture of the beer. Ale how it was traditionally served.

The food menu is based around traditional meals these are cooked and presented extremely well. Meals start from around £8 and are generally around £10, I believe the fillet steak was the most expensive at £20 but the food is well worth it with generous portions.


Find it on Google - http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&client=firefox-a&q=The+Glass+House+Pub&ie=UTF8&sll=51.881154,-2.419052&sspn=0.182261,0.528374&rq=1&ev=zi&split=1&filter=0&radius=13.53&hq=The+Glass+House+Pub&hnear=&ll=51.889869,-2.423397&spn=0.005529,0.016512&z=17&layer=c&cbll=51.889976,-2.42337&panoid=GQlL6QAhEH0U6RhvJLE5zA&cbp=12,142.83,,0,6.35

Monday, 20 September 2010

The Bird In Hand - Reading

I just spent a rather pleasant couple of days staying at one of the finest real ale pubs I've ever been in.


The Bird In Hand (http://www.birdinhand.co.uk) is a beautiful 14th Century inn, just outside Reading. The food is outstanding, the rooms are nice and at a reasonable rate, and the staff are friendly and welcoming. But now to the important part...the beer.

The inn has won CAMRA Berkshire's Pub of the Year, and it was well-deserved. It has 5 pumps, and while I was there had a good selection. They've recently decided to dedicate one pump to Brewdog's fine selection, although at the moment they have 2, plus Brewdog's 77 lager on tap as well.

The selection on the first night was:
Brewdog's Punk IPA
Brewdog's 5AM Saint
Brakspear Bitter
Red Squirrel's Munich Beer
Ascot Ales Oktoberfest
(we just missed Hammerpot's Bottle Wreck'd Porter)

I started off with Munich Beer, a lovely German-style beer, slightly sweet with a toffee finish. Very much a session beer, I could drink this all night. This was followed by Ascot Ales Oktoberfest - much the same, but with more malt.

The following evening, 2 beers had finished, and had been replaced with Brewdog's Edge, and Cliff Quay's Tolly Rodger.

I tried a sample of Brewdog's Edge - very, very dry mild ale, deep scarlet. Too dry for me, but a friend was impressed.

Cliff Quay's Tolly Roger, on the other hand, was a very drinkable golden ale, with strong honey and citrus flavours.

There are also usually a good selection of bottled beers (did I mention they like Brewdog? Just about every Brewdog bottle is available) and others, such as Ascot Ale's Alligator.

I simply cannot recommend this pub enough, and if it wasn't for the fact that its 400 miles away, I would gladly make it my local.

Matt

Friday, 2 July 2010

Cotswold Beer Festival 2010 - Postlip Hall near Winchcombe

I have just receive my tickets for Postlip. I only got two priority tickets for the Friday evening. I had ordered 12 in total so really really need some more tickets otherwise a lot of friends will miss out. If you have spare tickets for Friday 23rd July to Cotswold beer festival please contact me @ thegoodbeerblog@googlemail.com

If you have over ordered or had friends drop out or receive more tickets than expected for the Friday (23rd July 2010) Cotswold Beer Festival @ Postlip Hall near Winchcombe could you please contact me I need more tickets. Friends who have been for the last 6 years will miss out because I did not get enough :(

Most grateful for any help.

Richard

Wednesday, 16 June 2010

Fyne Ales - New Seasonal ale JARL

To be Launched at the Beer Fest, Saturday 19th June

To celebrate the Beer Fest, Fyne Ales are launching a new seasonal beer - Jarl.
This is their first single hopped beer (using the same hop for bittering as for aroma) and it is produced with the latest American hop Citra. They recently tasted it from their fermentor, describing it with a fantastic aroma, with LOADS of tangerine and tropical fruits. At 4.0% abv it should be easy drinking too.
The reason for the name (pronounced Yarl) is that this beer is replacing Somerled in their seasonal line up. Somerled as you may know was one of the rulers of their part of Scotland in the dim & distant past, and the Jarl's were the Viking Earls who were contenders for power at the same time. They thought they'd see how they stacked up against each other........

Tuesday, 15 June 2010

Live Beer Appreciation WebTV Show

On Monday 21st June, the Beer Academy is producing a live webTV show all about how to find the perfect ale. Beer expert Kamini Dickie and Dr George Philliskirk from the Beer Academy will let you into the secrets of the perfect pint with a live beer tasting class! From matching beer to accompany food as well, we also want to counter act the general assumption that beer is unhealthy, antisocial and fattening, and instead highlight the fact that it is part of Great British heritage.

The show will be live and interactive, so people can send in questions ahead of the show and also during the live show, via this link: http://www.studiotalk.tv/show/beer_appreciation_masterclass Once it has taken place, it will be available to view on demand indefinitely on the same link. Have a look below, and remember to tune in at 3pm on Monday 21st June!

Cheers!

Beer Appreciation Masterclass

Log onto our live WebTV show with beer connoisseur Kamini Dickie and Dr George Philliskirk for help finding the perfect ale

Chat date: Monday 21st June

Chat time: 3pm

On a hot summer’s day there’s nothing better than a refreshing beer to cool us down. But do you often find a trip down the pub with your friends leaves you sticking to the same tipple, purely because you have no idea what the difference is between an ale and a larger and don’t want to risk a bad pint? Or maybe you dismiss it based on the myths around it being bad for your health? When in fact, when drunk in moderation there are several health benefits.

If so you might be one of the millions of Brits missing out on the truly phenomenal range of beers now on the market. So how do you open your mind and palate to what else is on offer?

Just like wine varieties, there’s a staggering array of beer to match anyone’s taste. And what about finding the perfect beer to match the perfect meal?

Well, if you want some help in your quest to find the perfect summer ale then log onto our live WebTV Show where beer expert Kamini Dickie and Dr George Philliskirk from the Beer Academy will let you into the secrets of the perfect pint with a live beer tasting class.

Kamini Dickie and Dr George Philliskirk join us live online at http://www.studiotalk.tv/show/beer_appreciation_masterclass on Monday 21st June at 3pm to give you their top tips for finding the perfect beer.

Click here to submit questions before the chat http://www.studiotalk.tv/show/beer_appreciation_masterclass

For more information visit www.beeracademy.co.uk

Posted by Kitty Irby