Drinking in historic Wapping

As Saturday was declared the lovely Lisa's unbirthday it was time for another research trip. Armed with a small pamphlet detailing some local history we set off for Wapping.

When I hear Wapping mentioned the history I normally think of is the printers' strike, but I didn't think that was much use when plotting a pub crawl. Fortunately for us the pamphlet told tales of pirates, press gangs and more importantly pubs.

Our first port of call was the Town of Ramsgate. Apparently this pub was previously called the Red Cow after a particular red-headed bar maid! We sat out the back by the river drinking a refreshing pint of Wye Valley HPA (4% ABV) as the sun came out. A good way to start the day.

Next stop was the The Captain Kidd pub, named after the pirate who was hanged nearby. It's a Sam Smith's pub so I passed on the single cask beer and went for a wheat beer. Sitting by the river drinking beer has a lot to recommend it but having more than one pint of keg beer on a pub crawl would be carelessness so it was soon time to move on again.

We headed sarf of the river over tower bridge, which has a great view of an old Courage brewery (now flats).

The Dean Swift was our destination. A much more modern affair, it looked like one of these new fangled craft beer bars to me. Otley Columbo was on one of the hand pumps, surely the beer to raise a glass to Peter Falk with? Though having said that it wasn't entirely to my taste, some of these American hops are a bit harsh.

It was time for food next and the lovely Lisa wanted to get to her favourite pub, the Blackfriars. "As you wish" I said and we hot footed it down there. Prices were much more reasonable here than in the previous pubs, which was nice. Pie and mash soon had us ready for some more cold beer action so we washed our dinner down with pints of Tribute. And quite possibly some other beers too but the unbirthday celebrating was getting the better of us by then.

Canada's best brewer comes to town

One of my Canadian friends, Brian, came to visit this week. He's the man who made the beer rated as the best in Canada by beer writer Ben McFarland. Brian brought his friend Mike with him, but more importantly he brought a couple of bottles of Olde Deuteronomy too.

Brian reading about his beers

Having visitors from overseas there was only one thing to do. We headed up to the big smoke to get some quality cask beers in. First stop was The Blackfriar, for the fantastic interior and the delights of Timmy Taylor's Landlord. 

Brian and Mike in the Blackfriars

Then it was on to Ye Old Mitre. As well as proper beer I was keen to show the colonials some history, and taking them to a pub older than their country combined the two. Despite now being owned by Fuller's there was still a varied selection of beers on which was good to see. We had Oakham Ale's excellent JHB. On the downside they have stuck a sign up pointing down the small alley way the pub is in, so playing spot the pub was a bit of a damp squib.

Brian in Ye Olde Mitre

Next stop was the only pub on our list that the lovely Lisa and I hadn't been too. We were off to one we'd fancied checking out for some time: beer nerd HQ, the Gunmakers arms. One time king of the beer bloggers, Stonch, runs this pub and the diminutive Northerner behind the bar may well have been him. Though Stonch knocked his blog on the head in January, when beer bloggers meet in London they seem to congregate here. Anyway, the guy seemed friendly enough and pints of Purity Brewing's Mad Goose were had by all. We weren't overly taken with the pub though, and the noxious odour one of the Canadians emitted didn't help, but with so many excellent pubs nearby I can't see us rushing back anytime soon. 

Outside The Gunmakers

Our next port of call was the Cittie of Yorke, a Sam Smith's pub. It's another pub with a fantastic interior but Sam Smith's beers are always a bit of a disappointment. The lovely Lisa skipped on the beer here and the rest of us had the stout, with Brian also having a half of the ever boring Old Brewery Bitter so he could tick off having had beer served from a wooden cask. We managed to get seats in one of the confessional booths, though no one took the opportunity to own up to dumping their guts in The Gunmaker's. 

One of the many eccentricities of Sam Smith's is that everything they sell is own brand. Not just the ales but the lagers, the wines, the spirits and the soft drinks. I once heard it said that there were only five non-own label thinks that can be found in a Sam Smith's pub and one of those is the angostura bitters. It might be less now as we noticed the crisps are now own label too. 

Own label crisps

We needed food next so scoffed our emergency sausage rolls and headed to The  Old Bank of England. This fine looking Fuller's pub may not have quite the architectural interest of some of the pubs we visited but it does serve good pies, and pie and mash was just the thing we needed to set us up for the next leg. It was washed down with pints of pride for most of us, but Brian edged further ahead in the alcohol stakes by going for an ESB. 

The Old Bank of England

Revived by the power of pies we moved on to the Devereux where Brewer's Gold was the order of the day. The after work crowd was starting to thin out as our pints went down so when we'd finished we popped next door to the Edgar Wallace. 

The Edgar Wallace

The beer we had was Blackwater Ska from Salopian brewery. This was an excellent pale beer with a new world hop flavour. I could almost pretend I'm a proper beer writer there. I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were hints of kumquat in the nose.   

I have a photo of one of Brian's legs from this pub, which I feel I should share with the world. 

Masonic infiltration of Ed's beer site

We poured ourselves back to Woking after this and all had a pint of Bitter and Twisted in the Sovs before the walk home.

I was up to eight pints by this point so I'm not quite sure why I ended up sharing with Brian a bottle of a double IPA I've been working on but no doubt it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Many fried pork products were needed the next morning... 

Pub crawl St James's and Mayfair

This pub crawl was a technological breakthrough being put together by the lovely Lisa on twitter. That'll get the tabloids going: people now using tweets to organise drinking binges!

Of course we didn't cause any trouble and were mainly interested in studying pub architecture. That we happened to down a pint or six over the evening was merely an added bonus. 

Once again we were planning to follow a route from London Pub Walks but stopped off for a beer before the planned start at the Feathers. The pub was nice enough, if a bit lacking in atmosphere. The had one of Nethergate breweries excellent 'Azza' beers on, this one being Azzaparrot, a lovely fruity malty beer.  I think we've now had Azzabadger, Azzaskunk and Azzaparrot. 



We then got to the 'official' start at the first of our Red Lions. The pub was packed out but we managed to find an empty room upstairs to install ourselves in. The light was off when we went in but due to our advanced technological capabilities we were able to flick the switch and turn them on.  St Austell Tribute was the beer here and it was as good as ever. 


Lights make rooms in pubs so much more accessible.


This Red Lion had a Red Lion

We were meant to go to the Golden Lion next but it was shut so so we moved on to anther Red Lion. This was a small Fuller's pub with a beautiful mirrored interior where we drank Pride until driven out by the stench of someone's fart. I preferred it when pubs smelt of tobacco so I've going to have a poll on this one: what do you prefer to smell in pubs - fags or farts?



We were getting peckish by now but the Coach and Horses wasn't serving food so after we'd guzzled our Adnam'sBroadside we went to Benito's Hat for a burrito. I assume Benito's hat fell off when his body was strung up upsidedown from a petrol station but quite why they named a restaurant after it I'm not sure. 



Next we briefly stopped the Bricklayer's Arms, where I picked up the interesting tit bit that apparently Sam Smith's have 415 pubs, double the usual estimate. They really are a strange company. The beer was all keg and who wants to go to a pub and drink keg  beer so we didn't even bother finishing our pint. 


They know their bricks in the Bricklayers Arms

The next pub was a Shepherd Neame house, the Bloomsbury Tavern.  We had Master Brew bitter which made a pleasant change from Spitfire. 

Finally we ended up at the Coal Hole, where the Timothy Taylor's Landlord was on excellent form.



By this point we'd studied enough pub architecture for one evening so headed home.

 

Sam Smith's Shame

It's a well known fact that Sam Smith's Brewery boss Humphry Smith is, to say the least, slightly odd. A recent BBC programme (available here) shows that he's not just an eccentric with a taste for old fashioned pubs and cask beer from wooden barrels.

It seems he acts like the lord of the manor running his brewery, and the town of Tadcaster, as his own private fiefdom, and woe betide the peasant who gets in his way. He's certainly caused a lot of misery to his staff and neighbours. Next time I end up in a Sam Smith's pub the bad taste in my mouth won't just be from the Old Brewery Bitter.

Boozing in London

I went on another pub crawl in London yesterday. As some peoples memories were a little hazy from the last one we had to do some of the pubs previously covered again. The lovely Lisa had it all worked out on google map so we had the map and directions sorted: 



First stop was the Edgar Wallace, and an excellent pub with a fine beer selection. I started on the Edgar Pale Ale, or Nethergate IPA as it is normally known. This was good stuff for a 3.5% ABV beer, plenty of hops, if a bit lacking in body. Next I moved on to Ascot Gold Cup which had the smell of wet dog but tasted OK. I'm not entirely certain what I had next. I'd asked for Ottley's California, but I've a strong suspicion I ended up wit Ascot's Octoberfest. It definitely detected the vegetable flavours I associate with lager and I can't say cask lager does it for me. Or keg lager for that matter, not often anyway.



Then it was on to the Old Bank of England for a pint of pride and some food. We had the pie selection, the seafood selection and the vegetarian selection between us all. Plenty of variety but I think we'd have been better off with just plenty of pies. Who needs vegetables when you can have pies?

After that it was the Seven Stars where the always have something from the Dark Star brewery on. This time it was Dark Side of the Moon, a quality dark and hoppy beer. We also had a bowl of peanuts here which I fear was my undoing. The way I'm feeling this morning I'm sure one of them must have been mouldy. How many times have I told myself to watch out for mouldy peanuts and green crisps? Yet once again I've woken up after a session feeling really rough. Good job beer's good for you or I'd probably feel even worse. 

Next stop was the Bierodrome, a Belgian beer establishment. The lovely Lisa had De Koninck, the beer which Wetherspoons imported and casked. They shouldn't have bothered though - it's better on keg as the lower carbonation of cask beer makes it too sweet. I went for something from the holy fathers, having a bottle of Orval. I've gone off a lot of Trappist beers recently but Orval was still good stuff. It undergoes a secondary fermentation with a Brettanomyces yeast, the yeasts named after Britain as they were found in beer made by the old British system of maturing for months in large vats. That's pretty much gone by the wayside now so Brettanomyces is much more associated with Belgium. They give the beer a distinctive, and not entirely pleasant, smell but I do like the taste. And it has a cool glass. 

Time was getting away from us at this point so we scurried on to the Princess Louise in Holborn. It has a fantastic interior, and the world's most ornate bogs but serves Sam Smiths so the beer's not up to much. I had their keg stout which is better than Guinness anyway. 


 

Last stop before people had to head home was the Salisbury. Fantastic interior but the beers were a bit boring. We had a Doom Bar which at this stage of the evening didn't stand out. 

The ill effects of our dedicated beer research do mean that I've got to have my favourite beer and food pairing today: drink enough beer to get you wankered then have a big fry up the next day.



I hope the lardy goodness works as we've got a six hour drive to the lake district ahead of us today.

More tales of dedicated beer research and hills and stuff on our return ...

Pub crawl in the city

Or should that be a pub walk in London as the CAMRA guidebook rather coyly puts it? Either way I got totally plastered last night. 

Me and the lovely Lisa met up with her siblings and partners at the Blackfriars. They had the excellent Timothy Taylors Landlord on and it was delicious. This was the start of my downfall as I'm pretty sure I necked four pints whilst waiting for people to arrive. I must try and remember in future that drinking four  pints in the first stop on a pub crawl is not a good idea. 


The Blackfriar's amazing interior

Next stop was Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. As it's a Sam Smith's pub I went for the keg wheat beer and very nice it was too. I've been to this pub a few times before but still keep discovering new rooms. This pub really is immense. They had a old poster on one wall telling you to 'Try A Smith'. 



The brewery it was advertising wasn't Sam Smith's or even John Smith's but WA Smith and Sons of Macclesfield. I've never heard of them and don't know when they closed. Perhaps it's time to crank up my beer nerdery and join the Brewery History Society?

Then it was on to one of my favourites: Ye Olde Mitre. It was recently bought by Fuller's. Wonderful brewery that they are I was a little worried that it now be only Fuller's beers on sale.



Happily guest beers were still available and I had a lovely pint of Deuchars IPA. I drank so much of this beer when I was living in Edinburgh that I'd actually got a bit bored of it. Having a decent range of cask beers in pubs is less common in Scotland than it is down South and if a pub did have cask beer on it was usually Deuchars or Caledonian 80/. I'm not a fan of heavy so it was Deuchars all the time for me. 

We managed to find a seat in the front bar, where I noticed there was a sign put up banning bicycles.



Is people taking bicycles into pubs a common problem? In all my years of boozing I don't think I've ever seen such a thing. Still, fair play to the pub for banning them, the pub was crowded enough as it was without the ever present menace of people bringing in bicycles. 

After that it was on to another Sam Smith's pub, the Cittie of Yorke. It's another pub with an amazing interior, though not as old as it looks as it was rebuilt in the 1920s. 



The beer was starting to catch up with me at this point so I just had a half of their boring Old Brewery Biter. 

We then staggered on to the Seven Stars. This is apparently a grade two listed building but I was past caring by this point.



They had five cask beers on, including three from the excellent Dark Star brewery. I had a pint of hop head as it's my mate Jim's favourite beer and very good it was too. 

Last pub of the evening was the Old Bank of England. A large Fuller's pub with another impressive interior. 



Not that you can really tell by this picture but I was three sheets to the wind by this point. I had a pint of pride here. ESB would have been more memorable but I really wasn't up to it at this point. We then went on to have an Indonesian curry, far too late for food really, and it means I'm now suffering from a ring stinger as well as a hangover.

By my calculations I got in eight and a half pints last night, drinking over a gallon, which I'm sure we're all agreed is the mark of a man.

I would like to thank the lovely Lisa for her excellent research, choice of pubs and map making that made this pub crawl possible. Particularly as there are 12 pubs on the map so we'll have to come back for another go!
 

Sam Smith's pubs

As I was up in London the other day I made a point of popping into a Sam Smith's pub, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. Run by a famously bonkers boss Sam Smith's pubs are unlike any others. Just about everything on sale is own brand and the prices very reasonable. Sadly the only cask beer they sell is very dull but on the plus side they do a good keg wheat beer and stout.

One of their eccentricities is that they have no internet presence at all. Fortunately others have put a lot of information about them online. There's a map of their London pubs here. They're well worth visiting as many are fantastic old pubs that have had a fortune spent on very sympathetic renovation.