Travels With Nate

On Sunday some friends and I decided to travel down to Oval Space in Hackney for London Craft Beer Festival. As I mentioned in my preview blog, it’s a festival whereby all of the beer is included in admission price as well as the breweries serving their own beer (or at least someone who knows about beer. Probably). We got to the venue and collected our glass, bottle caps (third pint tokens) and program before heading up to the room of doom. The Venue: It was a small but comfortable venue with a decked area where food was, as well as a balcony area overlooking the old gas terminals. There were breweries all around the room and a stage in the middle for the performers. Across the road there was also another venue that they were using to promote holidays in Flanders. We sampled some delicious cheese and whitebait. The Food: I would have liked to see some more reasonably priced food. There was a stand selling hot dogs in burger baps for £6.50 which seemed like a ri...

The Mash Tun . Such an appropriate name for a craft beer establishment. They could have used “ Hop Store ” I suppose, but that gives the image of being rather cold. It’s situated on Charing Cross in Norwich and is in the building that was previously known as The Hog in Armour , a pub that I recall being awful. Luckily for us, The Mash Tun isn’t. In fact, The Mash Tun is rather good. When you walk in you’ll notice that the main room is incredibly long and narrow, and right in front of you is a large board displaying the names of breweries ( Weird Beard was spelt wrong ), the beers, ABV and prices. Oddly though, only the keg prices are listed. Not cask. You glance to the bar on the right and you’ll notice the unique keg taps which have a chamber above it, showing you the colour of the beer as well as beer menus on tables which give you a brief description of the beer. This can be incredibly helpful for customers in deciding what to drink based on their preference B...

The Georgian Townhouse is an iconic building, right at the top of Unthank Road in Norwich. It was previously a rather upmarket hotel, paired with RARE Steakhouse but closed maybe last year, I don’t know, I wasn’t really paying attention. Now it has been refurbished and reopened, not as a hotel but as a Restaurant/Craft Beer Bar, with private function rooms. I was first alerted to it on Twitter a couple of months ago, before it opened. They tweeted me a photo of Budvar Dark, saying they’ll have it on tap when they open and I remember thinking “oh, that’s nice”, not quite expecting the rest of the beer list, but more on that later! Walking into the car park, you get a real sense of scale when you look at the big, beautiful building. It really is a sight to behold. Although there are a few doors at the front, you have to walk to the furthest right to get in. You’re greeted by a host who asks if you’re dining, in which case they’ll show you to your seat, otherwise you’re ...

As I’m walking down pier plain in Gorleston, a couple of blocks over from the docks, on a warm Sunday evening that’s slowly getting dimmer I see the pub that I’ve been meaning to check out for a while. Emily was out cruising with her friends, like she does every Sunday night, so I thought it’d be my perfect opportunity. I see the pub on the corner and I stop for a moment. It doesn’t look like the kind of pub I’d want to go in. It’s on a street corner and it looks beaten up, and it looks like entering will get me beaten up. I slowly pluck up the courage to walk closer to the pub and circumvent the building to find the entrance. There is a sign pointing to the right side of the building, but there are about 5 doors. Of course, it had to be the last one. I push the door that feels like it’s going to fall off of its hinges and walk through the tiny corridor and walk in. It’s a weirdly narrow pub, very traditional looking, with seating around the edges, a massive mirror...

Well oh dear, it looks like the argument of requiring a definition of ‘craft beer’ is back in full force. To be honest, I’m not going to argue about why it is/isn’t a good/bad idea. It’s boring to be honest. Just let ‘em get on with it. My focus is on the word ‘craft’ when attached to beer. See, I like beers from many breweries who call themselves ‘craft’ but it can get too much. You see, it’s one thing to say “We are brewing great craft beer” and another to be rubbing the fact that you are most definitely a craft brewery and nobody can say otherwise in my face. The latter, to me, is a massive turn off. Recently, Bateman’s Brewery has gone through a dramatic rebrand in line with the current ‘craft beer’ market trends. They’ve swapped their comfortable and traditional style ‘Good Honest Ales’ branding which gives you the image of sitting by the fire in a nice village pub, on a cold winter’s evening with what I believe to be a complete mess. Batemans old logo This reb...

The Session is a monthly event for the beer blogging community which was started by Stan Hieronymus at  Appellation Beer . On the first Friday of each month, all participating bloggers write about a predetermined topic. Each month a different blog is chosen to host The Session, choose the topic, and post a roundup of all the responses received. For more info on The Session, check out the Brookston Beer Bulletin’s  nice archive page . This month's session is hosted by  Steve  at  Beers I've Known , one of my inspirations for blogging about beer. He asks us to tell a beery tale of past, in the style of Grandpa Simpson. It was the eve of my birthday in the year of 2013. I had planned this epic quest for a while, a quest on the trail of beer in London for my birthday. D-Day was upon us. The army said they'd come, and they came in swarms. Starting off with M&S Oakham Citra on the train with Jay and Alec, the day began. The Earl of Essex cam...

The Session is a monthly event for the beer blogging community which was started by Stan Hieronymus at  Appellation Beer . On the first Friday of each month, all participating bloggers write about a predetermined topic. Each month a different blog is chosen to host The Session, choose the topic, and post a roundup of all the responses received. For more info on The Session, check out the Brookston Beer Bulletin’s  nice archive page . This month’s session is hosted by Ding and (I think) it’s about the differences between America’s and Britain’s beer culture… Let’s pretend, just for a moment, that this is actually a guest blog by two people. One of them is an American who knows a little about American craft beer and that’s generally what he buys, and the other is a British chap who just goes down the pub. These guys want to tell you about beer culture in the other person’s country but they’re not very well educated in it… American: “British beer? I...

Woo! Craft beer! But not just craft beer. Woo! Music! And Woo! Street Food! That’s probably not the most professional start to a festival preview ever but who cares for professionalism these days? Especially when next Friday and Saturday (22 nd & 23 rd of February for those of you who aren’t staring at a calendar right now) is the first ever Craft Beer Rising trade show & consumer beer festival. Set in the grounds of the historic Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane in London, Craft Beer Rising is set to be the next big independent beer festivals where the breweries and food producers run their own bars and stalls, serving their beer precisely how that want it to be served and of course there will be music throughout the two days. So, what are the details?

Hello again and a happy valentines day to all! Because of this yearly holiday, I thought I would treat you to a review of a beer I did with my buddy Jay, once again. This time it is Real Ale with Ginseng. Jay got this in a magical mystery bin end box of beers from Ales By Mail. He showed me it in Norwich Taphouse the other night and I was like “Bro. You know it’s gonna be terrible. Let’s review it”. He couldn’t refuse. On the label, there is absolutely no indication of where it’s brewed. It just says it’s brewed under license for an address on an industrial estate in Chelmsford. After a bit of searching, we managed to discover that it was brewed by the now insolvent High Wood Brewery once again, somewhere in Essex. Now, for those of you who don’t know what Ginseng is, it’s a Chinese herb that in the past has been used as an aphrodisiac amongst other things. Mainly sexy sex things. Jay’s theory is probably quite right in that Ginseng beer was originally brewed to treat...

Image taken from here: http://gbbf.org.uk/ I went to The Great British BeerFestival last year (2011), all alone because I have no friends. It’s hardly surprising, is it? I am joking; of course, I have lots of friends but none who like beer so much that they’ll travel 120 miles to drink it. Even though I went alone, I had a bloody good day out. I drank some wonderful beers (don’t ask me which although I was wearing my Dark Star ‘Don’t Drink Hophead’ t-shirt that I won through a twitter campaign but I drank Hophead anyway, being the rebel that I am) and met some awesome new people who I’m still in contact with through the wonderful world of twitter. I also got to show off my awesome shoes that @BeeryMatt loved a lot (I may have to break them out for this year’s affair, actually).

I'm pleased to let you all know that I have the final beer lists for Dragon Hall Beer Festival 2012 and I am going to share them with you! Exciting, I know! Dragon Hall is a unique Grade 1 listed Medieval trading hall dated at around 1430 on King Street in Norwich. It's a wonderful building. Last year, Dragon Hall in Norwich hosted their first ever beer festival which I volunteered at. It was a great weekend. We had loads of different beers (Including Dragon's Tipple which was brewed especially for us by Tipples brewery in Acle). It was a celebration of Norfolk beer. It was awesome. I'm so happy that it's back for a second year! This year is going to be bigger and better as we don't just have beers from Norfolk... oh no... we have managed to source draft beers from Van Steenberge Brewery in Belgium too, as well as other bottled Belgian Beers from Van Steenberge, De Proef, De Gruut, Roman & Bavik! Full confirmed beer lists ...