More Real Ale Available during this crisis...

The Tower

Apologies to readers from elsewhere, but this is mostly local to me and where I live on the south coast, but I did write a blog not so long ago about initiatives around the country, so please don't feel left out. Anyway, I more recently wrote a blog about real ale brought to me by The Jolly Fisherman in Hastings, but now I have an extra source of cask-conditioned ale, yay! 

The Tower (see, for example, an older blog), up on the corner of London Road and Tower Road in Hastings & St Leonards TN37 6NB, is holding a launch opening on Monday 1st June 2020, and then will be opening 3 evenings a week from Wednesday 3rd June to provide off sales, with 'social distancing' facilitated, and hand sanitizer provided too:

Monday 1st June 4-8pm; THEN

Wednesdays 4-8pm

Fridays 4-8pm

Saturdays 4-8pm

There will be 2 cask-conditioned ales on sale at a great value £3.99 for 2 pints, changing as each cask runs out: kicking off with 2 Sussex ales this Monday, from Dark Star Brewing Co (website), their superb 3.8% pale refreshing session ale Hophead, brewed with Cascade hops providing plenty of citrus flavour and bitterness, a dependable old favourite. 

The second is a darker ale from Franklins Brewing Co (website), and a very interesting Porter style too, their 5.0% Sriracha Ace, brewed with Sorachi Ace hops to add a citrus note to dark chocolate and coffee flavours subtly spiced with Guajillo Peppers... I so need to try this one!

They are also selling 6 different real ciders (2 pints for £3.99, again, great value); keg beers, beginning with Guinness, Fosters and Stella Artois; cans, including ale and lager (2 cans for £3.80 or 4 for £7.49), from another local brewer, Gun Brewery (website); bigger cans (!) as in Mini Kegs from Gun Brewery too (small and large cans, I gather, will change as stock changes, and 'showcasing' different breweries); and 3 bottles of wine for £20. 

2 pint reusable plastic bottles are available, but customers are asked to please bring their own bags in which to transport them. It is excellent to see another local business helping us real ale drinkers survive the Coronavirus Crisis, and I wish good luck to, and express my thanks to, Louisa and her colleagues, who I may just see very shortly. 😉

Look after yourselves folk and be careful out there, cheers!

CAMRA and Beer Deliveries to Your Door plus More!

The Jolly Fisherman, Hastings

The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) provides details of its contemporary campaign Pulling Together (website) concerning the current Coronavirus lockdown, something I have mirrored where I live down here in Hastings (Steve on Hastings blogspot). Commendable though Pulling Together is, as you might expect I did find some errors and missing services, eg a pub that isn't delivering beers included (The Tower, and the publican has assured me she is not delivering beers, and no off sales) and missing pubs that are delivering locally. Consequently, please do use the links I include below, but you may find some are not delivering, and that you may be missing others that do, so more research may well be required where you live. 

CAMRA link to brewery initiatives; click on where you live on the map.

CAMRA link to pub and bar services; add the postcode or town where you live. 

CAMRA link to cider and perry services; click on where you live on the map.  

Plus, CAMRA has also created a virtual pub where you can go on line and chat, join in pub quizzes and other events, and drink too... with ales supplied from the services detailed above, of course! I haven't visited, but this link will take you to The Red (ON) Lion.

Please look after yourselves folks, cheers!

Cut Beer Duty Petition - Coronavirus Related

Memories!

So what's this petition about then? Well, the idea is to cut beer duty for when pubs reopen to help them, and brewers, survive the shutdown of pubs...

Publican friends of mine ask you to go to the PETITION and support please, cheers!

And I don't disagree 😉

Funny, but sad...

Great British Beer Festival 2020 Cancelled!

2013 GBBF

The 2020 Great British Beer Festival (GBBF), which was to have been held in August, has been cancelled by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) due to the Coronavirus 'crisis' (CAMRA website). The GBBF has been an annual event for over 40 years now, and attracts about 40,000 visitors a year, enticed by a selection of over a thousand different beers. Not only real cask-conditioned ales are sampled, but American and British crafty keg beers, and real ciders too; also a range of great food is usually available. I have visited a number of times, for example in 2013 (my older, unused now, blog), but more rarely in recent years. Still, it's sad to see there is no GBBF after more than 40 years of one, oh well, keep safe fellow drinkers.

I seem to be sharing just bad news all the time... 😧

Roll on re-opening, whenever that is, cheers!