Travels With Nate

When we learnt that our last trip to Nuremberg would coincide with the Nuremberg Alstadtfest - or Old Town Festival - we got the impression that it was just  a beer festival but as we discovered, it was so much more than that. The Altstadtfest which happens over 12 days every September is effectively a festival which celebrates the beautiful city of Nuremberg. It spreads across the whole of the old town and as we discovered, it was incredible. The main square is bustling full of stands selling traditional German food such as Drei Im Weggla (3 small Nuremberg Bratwurst in a bun, and for the love of god don't you fucking dare put ketchup on it) as well as various traders selling clothes and handmade items, and there's a giant stage where live music of all kinds takes place over the course of each day and evening until around midnight. If you stand on the bridge on the south bank of the river Pegnitz, if you're lucky you might catch the water jousting which is a highl...

The first time we ever went to Nuremberg we were pretty unaware as to whether what we refer to as "craft beer" existed over there. Of course, we did research beforehand but I guess since it was our first trip there, we really just went to the obvious traditional restaurants, pubs and brewpubs that we'd read mostly about. It wasn't until the second time I went, with Alec, that the craft beer scene was discovered; and then the next time last September with Sammie I discovered even more of this, outside of traditional lagers. I absolutely love Nuremberg and I'd highly recommend visiting, so I just figured I'd share with you some places where you can step away from the tradition of Germany and find some delicious craft beer... Mr Kennedy  - When I first visited Mr Kennedy, it was a tiny dark and dingy little bar on what seemed like quite a sketchy and dark street just behind the city walls, and then they moved location to a bigger dark and dingy bar in the o...

Last year I tried my hardest to write my Golden Pints and ended up giving up because it was a year in which I did so much and visited so many different places so I just couldn't make any decisions. This year I've possibly visited even more places, and tasted even more beers so it's still difficult but I'm determined to get something down. Best UK Cask Beer: Honestly, I'm still drinking less and less cask beer than I ever have in the past although I've still drunk a lot of it. Here I could just default to a beer that I know I've loved for ages, but I won't. The cask beer from 2017 that really sticks out in my mind is Elusive Brewing Level Up  Red IPA; I spent a night in the Plasterers for landlord Craig's birthday a few weeks ago and he'd invited Andy from Elusive down to Norwich along with Iain from Wild Weather to host a tap takeover, and out of all of the great beers I tried that night I just kept going back for Level Up with its juicy, tro...

This is a series of posts where I am planning on visiting every single pub in Norwich regardless of any preconceived views about them. Even if I have been to a pub previously, I won't blog about it until I revisit it for this specific purpose. It's one of those pubs that nobody has ever heard of unless you've lived near it; it's been there for years, so what's it like? The Location: It's on a street corner near several other pubs, and a couple of kebab shops in the Sprowston area of Norwich. The Pub: It's grotty and grimey, not exactly small and has a double sided bar, a dart board, a TV and weird seating around the edges of the room instead of in the middle. The Food & Drink: Any hopes of a gastronomic or craft experience can go out of the window, and on my visit you couldn't even hope for a brown, twiggy real ale as both hand pumps looked like they haven't seen any use since the conception of CAMRA 40 odd years ago. The keg taps...

This is a series of posts where I am planning on visiting every single pub in Norwich regardless of any preconceived views about them. Even if I have been to a pub previously, I won't blog about it until I revisit it for this specific purpose. Of course the first I start with is an easy one as it's my local; it's a pub I've been going to on a regular basis ever since I was first legally old enough to drink alcohol, and now it's my local being a 2 minute walk from my house. The Fat Cat is a pub that every fan of real ale has heard of, from Penzance to Dundee, and indeed I've met people from outside of the UK that has heard of it's legendary status. The Location: The Fat Cat is located on a street corner just off of Dereham Road in Norwich, on the corner of Nelson and West End Street. It's easily a 15 minute walk from the city centre. The Pub: It's a fairly spacious pub with tables on the street outside, and plenty of seating inside includ...

For those who follow my blog, you'll know that I love Prague and indeed every Czech city I've been to. It's an awesome country with great architecture, nice people and cheap beer but there's an issue - like any touristy city, there's a massive issue with people getting ripped off. If I had a Czech Crown for the amount of times a friend or colleague comes back from Prague and boasts about only  paying 99 crowns for a pint, I'd have enough to buy a pint in a respectable pub or hospoda that doesn't rip people off. While on the face of it paying the equivalent of £3.50 doesn't sound that bad, it really is . I frequently tell people that the most expensive normal  lager in the Czech Republic is usually Pilsner Urquell and even so you should never  be paying more than around 50 crowns (£1.70) for a pint of it. Yes, I know, people reading this blog who went to the Czech Republic 20 years ago will be flabbergasted that the price of a pint is that much...

BRLO is a small craft brewery located in 38 shipping containers not far from the centre of Berlin. They brew a range of beers similar to what craft breweries in the UK & the USA are brewing such as IPAs and Pale Ales as well as more traditionally German beers such as Helles and Berliner Weisse. I first discovered BRLO Pale late one night in Kaschk in Berlin last August and I fell in love; it was definitely one of the best beers I had of that trip so we knew we had to visit the brewery bar when we were in Berlin last month. We discovered just before we went that our visit would coincide with their Brwfest celebration - a mini craft beer festival where they'd invite some of the breweries they're friends with to come and pour their own beers in the yard of their Brwhouse. They'd invited 11 of their friends - 9 of which from various countries in Europe including my friends 40ft in the UK, Edge from Barcelona and White Hag in Ireland as well as three new German brewerie...