Hastings: The Tower Beer Fest 2019

Last weekend I wrote a blog about the ale and cider festival being held this weekend at The Tower in London Road, Bohemia, Hastings & St Leonards TN37 6NB, and yesterday I put in a couple of hours voluntarily working at the festival bar. This is one of only 2 pubs I am aware of in Hastings that serve all their ales in over-sized lined glasses, which means a full half or pint every time, and, for their what is now an annual festival, they use bats with 3 thirds of a pint glasses, if you want to try a large number of the ales on offer, cheers Louisa! 

Sorry about the quality of these last 2 indoors photographs, but above is the pub's bar which had 6 of the stronger ales available, out of 18 being served at any one time, plus 7 real ciders and a perry. I only drank 1 of these yesterday, though I have enjoyed before the excellent pale dry hoppy bitterness of Burning Sky Aurora (5.6% - website), and the wonderfully full rich dark Gun Brewery Whisky Imperial Stout (7.4% - website), both from Sussex breweries. Yesterday I tried the Cwrw Ial The Apache Line (website), a 5% pale bitter, with a huge fruity aroma, mango and citrus in the flavour too, not so bitter and dry, but very easy to drink!

And at the bar where I worked as a volunteer for a couple of hours, 12 of the less strong ales were available, plus the excellent stew was served here too. I'll start with the weakest I drank, the 3.9% Salopian Push, and I have to admit a little disappointment, as I'm usually impressed by Shrewsbury based Salopian's ales (website), though for many others it appeared a favourite; exactly why drinking ale is so much fun, nearly an infinite number of possible recipes and something for most! Push is a quite dry bitter ale with hints of fruit and sweet to taste at first, though not quite enough flavour for me, though regular readers will appreciate that I am, and have been called, a "hop monster." Not enough hops for me, certainly not as many as expected.

I then tucked into Yorkshire based Great Heck Brewery Proverbs (4.5% - website), with 2 excellent hops, Citra and Mosaic, used in the brew, which provided a lovely fruity and citrus aroma and taste, and lovely dry bitter finish.  Sticking with the Mosaic hop I enjoyed drinking the single hopped Downlands Mosaic (4.8% and does what it says on the label - website) from West Sussex, a vegan friendly beer, so a wee bit hazy, as no finings used, and with a very BIG aroma, fruitiness bursting up into the nostrils! At first taste I caught a slight sourness to it, but this disappeared as I drank more of this pale golden ale with its lovely dry bitter finish.

The final 2 ales I tried were the Scottish Redcastle Brewery Tower IPA (4.8% - website), a new brewery for me, and apparently using a mix of hops from Britain and the USA; this had a slightly fruity and caramel aroma, with malted biscuit in the taste and a nice dry bitter finish, very enjoyable. The other was the local Sussex Long Man Brewery Special Tower APA Brew (4.8% - website), which I'm guessing was a dry hopped cask of their usual APA, with Willamette and Cascade hops used, hint of citrus fruitiness, and very dry bitter finish.

My favourite ale of the day? Close, but the Downlands Mosaic, cheers Lou!

Ale & Cider Festival Final Day!

OK, it's the final day of the first ale and cider festival at the Tower (also see previous blog) in Bohemia, St Leonards, and I'm hoping they have many more festivals, a great show Louisa! I worked as a volunteer there again earlier today, but drank just 3 different ales this time and, sadly, the excellent Downlands Mosaic had already sold out (see Steve on Hastings blog). However, the Salopian Matrix (4.2%) was very good too, a pale golden ale with a fruity aroma, citrus taste, grapefruit and something more exotic, with a dry bitter finish, and...

Well, the Kent brewer Old Dairy provided another excellent ale to enjoy, that is, their session 3.8% What the Heck! Described as an 'orange pale ale' and it did what it said on the label, an enormous orange aroma, and taste too. This was beautiful, pale, dry and bitter, just what I love... oh yes! If you want to sample the ales, it'd be best to get there today, as they're fast running out, but, if you cannot make it, you never know what good value prices you may get tomorrow, if you're lucky enough that some of these ales are left, if not, still great ales every day anyway, starting at just £3 a pint, cheers!

More Excellent Pale Hoppy Bitters!

I've had so many very good pale hoppy ales already this year, and a look at my previous, now redundant, Beermeister blog will describe many of these regulars, if not all! OK, among them Salopian Hop Twister, imbibed in more than one bar this year (hence my using this image!); Oakham Scarlet Macaw, Asylum and Bishops Farewell; Dark Star Hophead and American Pale Ale (APA); and a particular favourite of mine, Twickenham Naked Ladies... 

In addition, have been these excellent, totally new, ales to me, including East London Brewing Company (website) Cowcatcher (4.8%), an 'American Pale Ale' style pale golden ale. This has a fruity aroma, as you'd expect from American hops, with citrus and passion fruit in the taste, and a dry bitter finish... I wrote "gorgeous" in my notes, so I obviously enjoyed drinking it!

The next ale is from Stourbridge-based Green Duck Brewery Company (website currently under construction), whose Dynamite Lady (5%) is described on the pump clip as a "powerful hoppy ale", and they aren't wrong! With a strong citrus aroma and flavour, it made me write 'marmalade' in my notes, full bodied, with a dry bitter finish, this is the type of ale I love to knock back, and I gave it a +++ in honour of its quality, lovely jubbly!

I'm still gobsmacked that I've tasted so many excellent ales this year already, and this more local, to me, being based in Sussex, Franklins Brewing Company (website), with one of the ex-Dark Star brewers in the hot seat, adds Resurrection 'Extra Pale Ale' (4.4%) to my list... I described it as very pale, hoppy, dry and bitter, and, once again gave this a +++ rating, loved it!

Hertfordshire-based Tring Brewery (website) provided my next great discovery with their Pale Four (4.6%), unafraid to brag about the hops used, they are Amarillo, Cascade, Simcoe, and Citra, and dry-hopped to boot! These provide a now typical 'America Pale Ale' style, big citrus aroma, very fruity, with grapefruit and tangerine in the flavour, and an amber dry bitter too, another +++, It's the way I score them, and, quite frankly, all these ales mentioned in this specific blog meet this high level of quality. 

I was going to make this the last ale mentioned in this blog, but an experience earlier today made that not happen, but from the Panda Frog Project, the "experimental arm" of Mordue Brewery (website) came my favourite of all these new ales, if I was asked to name one, the 5% Allelic Drift; we looked it up, and it's something to do with genetics, lost me a bit! Anyhow, it's a pale golden ale with a great fruity aroma, peach and grapefruit in the taste, and a very dry and bitter finish, loved it too!

Then, today, I had a few pints of the excellent Salopian (website) Freeze Frame (4.8%) at the Royal Air Force Association bar in Bexhill-on-Sea, the Albatross Club; don't bother trying to drink this at that venue, it will have sold out, but... don't be disappointed if you live in the area, because they'll have replaced it with the wonderful Thornbridge Jaipur by tomorrow! Anyway, I had to add this to my list, well, because it was pretty damn good. Another pale bitter, generous fruity aroma with grapefruit ++ in the taste and a dry finish, and I still walked the 5 miles home along the seafront, in a very pleasant mood indeed, cheers!

Microbrewery ups the anti...

Already, we have crafty keg breweries, started off by Brewdog, who are charging silly amounts for their beers. Now, for me locally, the First In Last Out has increased the prices of their beers following the budget, but they have recently increased prices at least twice a year, despite having up to 50% small breweries tax relief on a pint of their own ales. So, they're selling a pint of their FILO Gold (a very decent ale, indeed, and local CAMRA champion this year!) at £3.70 since they put their prices up 2 days ago; which is equivalent to £4 a pint, or thereabouts, taking into account the tax relief. Indeed, a pint would cost you similar in the array of Hastings Shepherd Neame pubs (which are vastly overpriced too!), yet you can buy, today, a pint of the excellent Salopian Hop Twister at the nearby Dolphin Inn for £3.60, or 10p a pint cheaper straight up, or 40p a pint cheaper taking into account the tax relief...

Hmmm... is this taking the p*ss or what?