Lured by the Siren

Siren Craft 5th Anniversary & a short exploration of Wokingham

What a difference a day can make...yesterday I took the opportunity to paint picnic tables outside in warm sunshine & blue skies.  Then by Saturday morning Beast II (© all the newspapers) had hit, bringing with it Arctic winds and more snow.
I'm frustrated that I didn't get any photo's which demonstrate quite how bad the weather was this day.  The best I can do is point out that there are at least 10 woolly hats in the picture below...

On Saturday 17th March, Siren Craft Brewery opened their doors in an industrial unit near the village of Finchampstead to celebrate their 5th anniversary.  So with tickets pre-booked, we jumped on the shuttle bus from Wokingham station to get there ready for opening time.  There were two temporary bars set up in the brewery, plus more beers available in the recently added Tap Room (the warmest place in the venue, where all the in-the-know folks bagged their seats on arrival).

The programme offered up a spectacular list of intriguing, experimental and often very strong beers.

Mrs PropUpTheBar declared her first choice, 'Fresh Cream 1: Coconut' (an 11% 'bourbon milkshake with toasted coconut') to be a 5* beer and she's usually the meanest beer rater ever seen on Untappd.

The Brett IPA 'Wilde Geest', the 'Salted Caramel Shattered Dream' and the 'Maiden 2017' 11.3% barley wine were all highlights - in fact there wasn't anything that we tried during the afternoon that we didn't rave about a little bit.

And among'st some great music they played Black Lace's 'Agadoo'.  

That wasn't a dance - I was just shifting from foot to foot to combat the cold....

We sampled everything we wanted to, popped a couple of bottles in the backpack, then caught the shuttle back to Wokingham, giving ourselves ample time to visit a few of the towns pubs. 

Jam Jars

Close to the railway station is The Queens Head (23 The Terrace, Wokingham, RG40 1BP). It's a picturesque old English pub and charming inside as well as out, with low beams and a log fire.  This was a Six Nations day so the pub was full of part-time rugby fans occasionally shouting "G'wan Wales" and such like at the TV. 🏉 😠
Each beer has an identically coloured jam jar sample in front of it, to help you choose.
I picked the Hogs Back 'TEA'.  Great to have it served in a lovely Hogs Back tulip glass, which quite possibly made it taste better.
Apparently the garden is very nice, but probably not when it's -2℃.  

As we walked towards the centre of town, we spotted the Broad Street Tavern (29 Broad Street, RG40 1AU), which had a Cask Marque sign and looked like it may be worth calling into as the next retreat from the cold.

The red-bricked Broad Street Tavern

This is a Wadworth house with their full range of cask ales on offer.  I opted for the '6X' which I hadn't had in a while and which was tasty and in good condition (or was I just suckered in by another beer served in the right glass?).
It's a bustling town boozer, with a long room stretching back past the bar, plenty of customers and, yep, more rugby on TV.
There was a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere in the Broad Street Tavern.

Grabbing a bite to eat from an interesting-sounding menu we opted for a Baked Cheese Board Sharing Platter.  Both agreeing that we would have happily not shared it.  

We made a final push on through the centre of town in increasingly heavy snow - perhaps I've bit a bit too blasé about the trains home running smoothly and this bout of bad weekend weather not causing any disruption?

The town centre is the site of the most hefty roadworks I've come across since Antwerp last month....

Wokingham roadworks.   It's not blurred.  The camera is on a Siren Craft Barley Wine setting....

Our final pub of the evening was the Good Beer Guide listed Crispin (45 Denmark Street, Wokingham, RG40 2AY).  This is one of the oldest inns in town, named after St Crispin, patron saint of cobblers (and that's something I do write a lot of....)

As we'd started at 1pm, I think I can be forgiven for not actually remembering much about the Crispin.  Except that I liked it and was surprised that this wasn't CAMRAs local pub of the year (the Queens Head is on a good run of winning that particular accolade). 
And it had two front doors. 
And a decent selection of ales from which I picked a Rebellion 'Relativity'. 
And that I finally succumbed and got hooked on the end of the last rugby match of the day on TV.

Wantage Beer Festival 2018

A Friday evening trip out to West Oxfordshire to visit the 8th installment of the Wantage beer festival.

This festival is held in a modern venue, The Beacon, which puts on activities such as 'body control pilates' and 'Egyptian dance classes', so it's probably a bit of a different crowd this weekend who are attracted by 28 real ales.

On a small scale, the festival always has a friendly and welcoming atmosphere.

And it's always a nice touch being served by a man in a fez....

Fez

With the smaller CAMRA festivals I do approach with a scepticism that there will be one too many 4% golden ales on the list.  But here, it's a relatively adventurous selection, taking in US IPAs, a coffee pale ale, a forest fruit porter and a port mild.  All the kinda stuff I like.
As last year, White Horse CAMRA have focused on a number of local beers, but many of these are things that I don't often find in central Oxford pubs: Bellingers, OxBrew, Church Hanbrewery. But someone has also been gathering ales from Northumberland thus ensuring no-one should be grumbling that they've "had 'em all before".

A man with a guitar and a less than captivated audience

With the main room where the bar is being full, we settled in the cafe area, taking advantage of the pasties on sale, while working our way through the most interesting beers on offer.  The Flash House 'Forest Fruit Porter' was very tasty and reminiscent of the much lauded Titanic Plum Porter.  But I reckon it's Wild Weather's 'End of the Level Boss', a double IPA, that is the winner for me this evening - fearsomely easy to drink for its hefty 9.2% strength.

Drinking up, we decided to head 5 minutes down the road to the Royal Oak (Newbury Street, OX12 8DF).

The Royal Oak, Wantage

This is a classic corner pub which has won a multitude of awards and clocked up 25 years of inclusions in the Good Beer Guide.
The long-standing owners have the privilege of having two West Berkshire Brewery beers named after them - 'Dr Hexter's Healer' and 'Dr Hexter's Wedding Ale'.  Both were originally brewed specially for the pub and have since become widely available. 
Heading through the main door there is a choice of two rooms.  To the left is a public bar with table football and darts whilst to the right is the busier and more comfortable Saloon, which we gravitated towards.  There are no distracting TVs and games machines here, just a big display of pump clips and hop bines attached to the iron-work above the bar.  The  walls are adorned with awards and pictures of maritime 'Royal Oak' namesakes.

Ales are chalked up on a blackboard at the side of the bar and are fetched from the cellar, straight from the cask.   I opt for a tasty pale from Totally Brewed, then can't resist the 10% 'Belgian Trippel' by Fisher's from High Wycombe.  Which acts as a lovely nightcap before catching the bus home.

London Drinker Beer Festival

The End of an Era

After 34 years, 2018 sadly sees the last ever London Drinker Beer & Cider festival.
For many a year this was my local beer fest and I think I'm right in saying I haven't missed one in the past 18 years.  The venue, the Camden Centre, is closing in the summer and it's understandably nigh-on impossible to find an affordable alternative in the Camden area. 

Yep, I used to pop in here for a crafty couple of halves on a lunch-break and try to visit all three days of the festival when I lived in London.  Over the years I've drank in here with my dad, friends, Italian brewers, a less knowledgable Italian work colleague who claimed everything was being served at the wrong temperature, and a slightly unhinged Chelsea fan who was trying to compete with us to see who could drink the most stupidly strong bottled beers.

Third of a pint measures dude...a big half in the early
afternoon will have me getting on the wrong train home
.....yeah, I did.

So, visiting on Wednesday, I'm summarising the pros and cons of the London Drinker ...

⊕ Since focussing solely on local breweries in the past few years, it's a brilliant showcase of London beers.
⊕ Great variety: saison, imperial mild, milk stout, most tastes are catered for. 
⊕ 'Craft' beers aren't billed as the evil enemy & there's some cracking stuff on the keg bar.
⊕ I've always enjoyed the food here - cooked by volunteers, rather than pro-caterers, and great value, filling plates of food.

⊖ It's busy! A tight squeeze to get around.  
⊖ It's a long trek to the balcony seats and theatre seating sucks at beer festivals.
⊖ Plenty of strong beers, but no third of a pint measures?

The 12% Moncada vanilla custard imperial stout was supposed to come in a ⅓ pint serving.  Except I was given a half pint of this.  And a generous half pint at that.  This hefty portion was probably responsible for scuppering my plans to visit a few of the local Kings Cross pubs afterwards. 

Bit of a toss-up for my favourite beer here, but perhaps the more sensible strength vanilla stout, 'Gravedigger' from Gorgeous Brewery. 
Or the German style black lager, 'Druid' from  the Czech expats at Bohem Brewery.
Hell, I liked them all.
It's just a shame we won't be able to do it all again next year.

Trouble-makers.

....they're actually a posse from the Red Hat Society, which I'd not heard
of before Googling it today.  Much cooler than my mums WI who go
to coffee mornings and, to the best of my knowledge, have never set
foot in a beer festival.

The Ampleforth

It turned out (this time anyway) that the weather warnings came to fruition.  The snow fell on Oxfordshire and it led to the postponement of the eagerly anticipated Oxford Beer Festival helpers trip to Burton.

So, with wintry weather and at a bit of a loose end, we headed into East Oxford to visit a newly re-opened pub.

The Ampleforth, Oxford,one half open, one half closed & the last few bits of snow remaining from the 'Beast from the East'

The Ampleforth (53 Collinwood Road, OX3 8HH)
The pub closed in the first half of 2015 after a troubled few years and looked to be lost for good.  But a valiant effort by local residents saw it listed as an asset of community value and, after much hard work, reopen at the end of 2017.  There's a link to the Oxford Mail story of the fight to save the pub here. 
I wonder why they sent their crime reporter to cover this story?

Black Sheep Bitter in a cool glass

The Ampleforth Arms opened in 1939 in the middle of what was then the new Risinghurst estate.  All stories about it like to recount that C.S.Lewis lived nearby and frequented the pub, so I shall mention it too.
As with many estate pubs, this was a huge building.  Just half the pub has been reopened, with the strange sight of the left hand part of the building still boarded up.  That closed half will be converted to residential use, but it still leaves plenty of space with two separate areas in the pub. 
There were two real ales on the bar: Black Sheep Best Bitter and Shotover Prospect, both in fine condition.  A decent number of folks filled the bar on a Saturday afternoon and I really hope that this continues and the pub fares well.

It's just a short walk, crossing the bypass road and delving into the Headinton Quarry area to get to 
The Masons Arms (2 Quarry School Place, OX3 8LH). 
This has been winner of Oxford CAMRAs city pub of the year several times, and it's the home of the Headington Beer Festival in September.  There's a convivial atmosphere on a Saturday afternoon.  The TVs show the latest football scores from the matches that survived the weather.  There's a bit of darts being played.  And the beers here are of a fine quality with many award-winning brews being served.

A reliable selection of ales on offer at the Masons Arms, although the Old Bog beers are now a rarity, sadly.

We found our way down to Cowley Road, as the snow started to fall again.
The City Arms (288 Cowley Road, OX4 1UR) was conveniently located to take shelter in.
I've always had a soft spot for this very studenty, sporty pub and on occasion have had some great beer and food in here.  This evening Liverpool are beating Newcastle on screens in every part of the place - it's tough luck if you don't like the football here.
The City Arms is busy although no-one's braved the cold to sit on the colourful picnic benches outside.

There's not one, but two rugby-themed beers on cask (bah!) so I move on to the 'craft' tap list and pick a Brewdog 'Dogma Scotch Ale'.

And it's Brewdog we're heading to next. It's a 10 minute walk to get to Brewdog Oxford (119 Cowley Road, OX4 1HU). 
This is a company that very much divides opinion.  They're not so good if you insist on your ale being real and coming from the cask. But I'd argue that they're one of the key places that have won over an audience who would otherwise have settled for mass-produced crap lager. This weekend there is a 'Michigan Mash Up' with beers available from Dark Horse, Jolly Pumpkin and Lattitude 42.  And an interloper in the form of Central Waters Brewing Co who hail from Wisconsin.  
Geography mash-up.
The Dark Horse 'Double Crooked Tree IPA', with an ABV north of 12% is the beer of the evening for me.  

I wonder if their dominant march to open new bars will lead to a saturation point - Reading is next in line in our neck of the woods.  Will we reach the stage where we visit a town and take it for granted that they've got a Brewdog bar just down the road from the Wetherspoons? 

Pubs of Cricklade

I'd have passed through Cricklade on my Thames Path walk some time ago if I was a bit better at being active and lacing up my hiking boots.  As it is, that's kinda stalled at New Bridge for the time being and I find myself in Cricklade by way of Stagecoach buses on a chilly winter Saturday.

What's brought us here is a beer festival at the Red Lion (74 High Street, Cricklade, SN6 6DD) a much respected pub and home of the Hop Kettle brewery.

The Red Lion at Cricklade - sunshine, blue sky, but sub-zero temperatures

The superb festival beer list was what tempted me to make the journey into Wiltshire.

There are a few things on a beer list which turn visiting a festival from being a vague idea to absolutely essential for me...  "brand new brewery", "smoked chilli porter" and "the only cask in existence" being three of them.
The brand new brewery on this occasion was Ashton, located just 3½ miles from Cricklade.  They've only been brewing for a matter of weeks and have so far posted just three times on their Facebook page - although that's more posts than I've managed in three years.  Their 4.5% golden ale was a tasty, enjoyable brew.
Elusive Brewery supplied the chilli porter.  Clocking in at 6% and named 'Aztec Challenge', this is a collaboration with London-based Hop Burns and Black.   I scored this beer a perfect 5 out of 5.  Yup, I liked it.
The "only cask in existence" was provided by Tiley's, a brewery based at the Salutation pub in Ham, Gloucestershire.  This lovely looking pub also seems to be somewhere I should be visiting....the list gets longer.  The beer was an Extra ESB, with a strength of 6.3% and also scoring pretty high on my ratings.
We also supped some of Hop Kettle's own beers and a tasty keg ale from cuckoo brewer Velvet Owl as well as having a couple of fine pizzas.
I can't comment too much on the Red Lion itself as we sat ourselves in the heated marquee next to the brewery out back, where the festival beers were being dispensed from.  Just briefly passing through the pub it seemed like a comfortable, characterful place with a roaring fire in the hearth on this cold day.  

With a decent number of ticks on the beer list and all our tokens spent, we moved on to check out the other two pubs in the town, both handily located along the High Street.First up we called into Arkells pub, The Old Bear (101 High Street, Cricklade, SN6 6AA).  This was once a coaching inn although apparently the front was rebuilt in the 1930s after a fire.  It's a good old fashioned pub design - bar to the left, lounge to the right.  The bar is busy today with folks hooked on the screen showing Six Nations rugby. The Six Nations mean a proliferation of oval-ball themed beers appearing everywhere....'Dirty Rucker', 'Filthy Tackle', 'Crafty Flanker', and the like.  In comparison other sports related beer names are few and far between, aren't they?I shun the sports and settle in the quiet lounge bar although I've ended up with a rugby-themed Arkells beer, 'Big Hit'.

Completing the trio of pubs, we visited the White Hart Hotel (High Street, Cricklade, SN6 6AA). 
More Arkells here.  And more rugby.  The White Hart is another old coaching inn that traces its history back to the 17th century, although, like the Old Bear, this was rebuilt in 1890 as it transformed into a more prestigious hotel.  There's more of an emphasis on food here, with a number of the tables set up with cutlery.  Just two cask beers available on the bar, both from Arkells - 3B and a Wiltshire Gold, but both well-kept and tasty.

Inside the White Hart Hotel

Cricklade church

We caught an afternoon bus back to Swindon where we grabbed a bit to eat in 'Spoons then finished the evening with Hop Back beers in the wonderful Glue Pot.
The news is full of stories of the 'Beast from the East', bringing Arctic temperatures and snow to the country for the week ahead.  We seem to get lots of weather warnings these days, so I decide it'll never happen....