September Round Up

A. There are a few bits and bobs I can update you on, and a few photographs you can drool over.

Q. What is the point of this post?

First up, some sad news.  Apparently the Brown Lion has closed.  This is really sad, for not only was this a friendly venue, but they were also Birmingham's only genuine brewery tap, offering Two Towers' beers, such as Jewellery Porter and Complete Muppetry, both of which were very drinkable indeed.

Way back in April I reported on quiz night at the Brown Lion and (I hope) conveyed my enjoyment.  Fingers crossed that the Brown Lion will return in some form, but perhaps by then, Birmingham's sights will have moved to John Bright Street and the impending Brewdog Brum.  Speaking of which...

Brewdog Birmingham is now scheduled to open in errrrr, not sure.  It was originally due in August, but the last official word was that it'll be mid-November.  I don't suppose it matters when it gets here, as BD's fans are so rabid, that they'll lap it up come what may.  I probably will too.

Last week I had a lovely super quick tour of Leicester, which mixed Richard III tourism, with visits to some of the City's lesser known boozers/hidden 'treats'.



I hit the Salmon, the Ship and the Longstop, of which the first one was the best.  All were interesting though.   



In Twitterati news, this week I, along with Carl Durose and Tania Nexust hosted national beer legends Jezza, Martin Ridge and the enigmatic Black Haddock.  This was a good opportunity to sample excellent Thai food and Oakham Carioca at the Bartons Arms, some Saltaire at the Anchor and bottled UK 'Craft' beer at the Victoria.



Speaking of which, did I tell you that a Birmingham pub has finally taken the plunge and started stocking bottles from the UK's best new breweries, i.e. the ones who have invigorated and/or reinvigorated our national scene?  Kernel, Bristol Beer Factory, Arbor and Summer Wine are all (or certainly have all been) available, with highlights such as Amarillo Pale Ale and Cohort.  It is worth saying again, simply to highlight how gobsmacked I am that it has taken this long, but let me emphasise that the Victoria are still the ONLY pub in Birmingham stocking bottles from our top breweries.  Well done to the Victoria, I hope that their adventure is rewarded by people buying the new range by the truckload and that therefore the experiment widens and becomes a permanent feature.

But honestly, all other Brum pubs need to look hard in the mirror and ask themselves why no one else has been prepared to have a stab at stocking UK bottled craft.

In happier, or rather equally happy news, here are some of the best beers I've sampled in the last fortnight:

Raw Citra Black Ale - a magnificent Black IPA sampled at the Anchor,

Flying Dog In De Wildeman Farmhouse IPA - a deliciously funky Saison, which utilises New World hops.

Raw Dark Peak Stout - sampled at the Salmon in Leicester, this is the second delicious Raw beer I've tried recently; with this one being a super smooth and tasty Stout.

Great Heck Powerhouse - as recommended by @ckdsaddlers, this was a well balanced UK Golden Ale, replete with many hops and sampled at the Anchor.

Ksiazece - a lovely Polish Hefe Weizen, picked up in Whitmore Reans, Wolverhampton



Finally, as previously mentioned,

Oakham Carioca - a wonderful tropical fruit salad of hops and that. Smelt like an Avon saleswoman's basket.

Oh, one final thing - here are a photo of bottled "treats" which have latterly been placed in my beer cellar [cupboard] for future consumption.



Lager is for life, not just for Michaelmas.

Quiz Night at the Brown Lion

Last night I was happy to pay a return visit to the Brown Lion, which as you know, is the Two Towers' brewery tap, in the heart of the Jewellery Quarter.

The pub is still gloriously spartan, but has a acquired a few knick-knacks to fill it out a bit (e.g. some logs).  It also seems to have dropped it's range of foreign bottled beers (boo), but does offer a nice menu of pub grub (hooray). 

(Very happily) TT seem to be going from strength to strength as a brewer, with slicker pump clips, and more consistent beer.

Unusually for me, I stayed in the pub for a prolonged period, rather than flitting from place to place drinking halves.  This was because I was socialising with normal people and felt obliged to try and be a bit more 'normal' - but in the end I'm glad I made the effort.  Over the course of the evening I sampled pints of Complete Muppetry - a very tasty tropical-hopped Golden Ale; Mott St Mild - a deliciously smooth and chocolatey, jet black Mild; and Baskerville Bitter, a robust, traditional effort.  This was genuinely pleasing: the Complete Muppetry was as good as the first time I tried it - fruity, smooth and aromatic, whilst the Mild was moreish, smooth and gently tasty.  Well done Two Towers - now you just need to start pumping out some experimental specials, to build on your solid core range.

The other bonus of the evening was achieving a victory in the Brown Lion's inaugural Wednesday night quiz.  Unfortunately for everyone else, the quizmaster played straight into my cohort's specialism and gave us both a 'music' round and an 'album cover' round.  It was a massacre.

Generally, I believe that the Brown Lion already enjoys a positive reputation amongst Brum beer fans, so it only remains for me to tell them to keep up the good work, and for patrons to keep patronising it.  It should also be reiterated that the Jewellery Quarter now offers a very nice little beer crawl, taking in the Red Lion, Drop Forge, Rose Villa Tavern, Brown Lion and the Lord Clifden.  You could even tack the Church Tavern on the end.

Best.     

Birmingham's Top 10 Pubs

The Evening, sorry Birmingham Mail recently pronounced it's Top 10 Birmingham pubs and it's a solid list.  Admittedly it's based on unspecified criteria, but this is not intended as a nit-picking blog post, more of a conversation starter and gosh darnit, a celebration of some fine Brum establishments.

The Wellington, The Anchor, The Black Eagle, The Bartons Arms, the Old Contemptibles are no-brainers: places that combine good beer choices with a convivial atmosphere/good decor etc.

For the rest of my five, this is my thinking (in no particular order): 

Lord Clifden
Lovely artwork, good music, ping-pong, a GREAT beer garden and just enough good beer to top things off.  Cool pub.

Post Office Vaults
New kid on the block and already the subject of it's own blog post.  Could be the City's top venue soon enough.

Lamp Tavern
Small, located on an industrial estate, and fantastic. The welcome is warm, the beers are well kept and the banquette seating takes me right back to Syston in 1992. A magnificent survivor.   

The Shakespeare (the Summer Row one, not the Lower Temple Street one)
The Mail chose Bacchus, but I've gone for a different Nicholsons pub.  I love the arrangement of the L-shaped front room, with it's elegant street aspect.  I love the fact that it is Brum's most reliable stockist of Moor beers - this fills me with a deep joy.  This is almost my favourite.

The Brown Lion
This one scrapes in if I'm honest, as it is still a bit underfurnished and not quite lived in, although it is early days.  The beer is what brings me here, because the BroLi is the brewery tap for Two Towers - one of Birmingham's small crop of microbreweries.  At first, even the beer wasn't enough to bring me back regularly, but TT are pulling their fingers out now and I'm becoming quite paternal towards them.

What connects the above five places and the five Mail choices that I agree with?  Well, after a bit of chin scratching I think that it's some ethereal combination of good beer choice and an aspirational outlook.  I want to leave a pub with a good tingle on my tastebuds and a spring in my step.

Birmingham doesn't yet have a proper craft beer bar, but it does have some nice beer venues; and when I think back to late 2004, just prior to the opening of the Wellington, things were really grim.  Only the Anchor was shining a light.  Our City has come a long way.

And my favourite place of all?  Probably the Anchor.  Just.   

Whats your favourite, my beer brethren?

(With apols to the Red Lion, Prince of Wales, Old Joint Stock, the Junction (Harborne)).

Birmingham's Top Ten Beers (apparently)

The Birmingham Mail today produced a little article entitled "Brum's Best Beers".

For anyone too lazy to click on the link, they were/are:

1. M&B Brew XI (now contract brewed in Wales)
2. Ansells Mild (now contract brewed in Lancashire)
3. M&B Springfield Bitter (no longer brewed)
4. M&B Mild (now brewed in Burton)
5. Davenports Original (now brewed in Walsall)
6. Two Towers Baskerville Bitter
7. Aston Brewing Company Aston Distressway
8. Silhill 4 Percent (Solihull)
9. Birmingham Mild (no longer produced).
10. Two Towers Mild and Brazen

OK. So of that list two no longer exist and five aren't actually brewed in Birmingham.  Whoops, not exactly a ringing endorsement of the current scene.

Hooray though for Two Towers who seem to be really pulling their finger out now, with tasty beers such as Complete Muppetry and Jewellery Porter, both of which are available at their heartwarmingly spartan Brown Lion tap in the Jewellery Quarter.

Hooray also for Aston Brewing Company (ABC), who I had assumed had disappeared off the face of the Earth, until I fortuitously tried their Dizzy Blonde at the Queens Arms, just days before sampling their festive offering A Berry Christmas at the Brasshouse on Broad Street (of all places).

So brewing in Brum is not entirely dead then.  But... where is the beery guile, the craft brewing inventiveness?  After all, we can't keep living off the glory days of factory workers swigging Mild; I mean, I like a nice pint of Mild as much as the next man, but most days what I'd prefer to drink is actually a pint of Unmild.  Just like Birmingham once revelled in it's reputation as a City of a Thousand Trades, I'd like to see our next generation of microbrewers turning us into the City of a Thousand Beer Styles.

So who is going to pick up this mantel of hoppy creativity?  Well, these lot look promising for a start .... no pressure lads.