The art of compromise - bank holiday beer special

Sometimes, I think the key to happiness is mastering the art of compromise (although, at others, I'm pretty sure it's all about eating cold pizza in my dressing gown). For instance, the Ewing loves reclaimed furniture - or anything made out of an old pallet - I love pizza and both of us have a healthy interest in beer. Which made the Crate Brewery, which prominently features all three of the above, a particularly appealing choice for the Bank Holiday, while also giving us an extra day to get over the hangover.

It also happens to be in Hackney Wick and the overground rail closures, coupled with the bank holiday bus replacement service, meant we pretty much needed the extra twenty four hours to get back home again.

Situated in the White Building on the River Lea Navigation  - a canalised river running from rural Hertfordshire to the River Thames at Bow Creek - the bar is the perfect spot for a few beers in the sunshine. The waterfront location also means visits from The Record Deck, a working barge that also sells vinyl, that the Ewing was very pleased to see moored up and already spinning tunes as we arrived.

The bar at Crate is a masterclass in recycling. Old railway sleepers, cleverly cobbled together from local artists' cast-offs, make up the bar; ladders and ratchet straps make indoor seats, rusty bed springs have been fashioned into eccentric light fittings and the canal-side benches and tables are made from scaffold planks - even the spare off-cuts of wood have been used to make planters for a herb garden. Across the yard they have a brew-shed, where they make the beers. In other words, the Ewing's paradise.

To start I tried the Crate Pale ale, both in bottle and on keg; the latter was cleaner and crisper, but also less aromatic and not as interesting. A very nice beer, either way, and at 4.5 percent, perfect for a session in the sun. The Ewing also went for something steady to start with in the Sour, a fantastically vibrant beer infused with a touch of passionfruit and hibiscus while retaining the power to make you grimace slightly on sipping that a good sour should.

They specialise in wood-fired pizza - more specifically crisp, Roman style pizza, rather than softer Neapolitan style. While it’s significantly easier to eat, lacking the somewhat soupy centre of a southern Italian pie, a roman base does bring to mind a giant Carr’s water cracker. As a biscuit to eat with a lump of cheese, that’s probably a good thing - they were always my dad’s favourite when I was growing up -  but as a vehicle for melted cheese, I prefer something a little less friable.

That said, my favourite ever pizza was eaten in Rome - a Bianca pie, topped with courgette flowers, anchovy and mozzarella - cooked by a tiny guy who resembled John Paul II, and thereafter nicknamed ‘Pizza Pope’for the rest of our trip.

The toppings here are pretty outré. You can stick to cheese or meat if you like, although the prosciutto and salami were off on our visit, but they also offer walnut and sweet potato, banana and dahl (even the Ewing wasn't sure), and, our choice, Middle Eastern lamb with pine nuts, spinach and mint.

The crisp base and the ovine topping made it a close cousin to the lamachun - although canalside it will set you back twelve quid, as opposed to the three quid of Green Lanes. Commendably, certainly at that price, they hadn’t skimped on the toppings and a more robust crust meant that they held up well. It also went very well with two halves of their keg stout and the cask porter.

Billed as the UK's first dedicated tank bar, that's the fermenting vessel rather than a military vehicle, our next stop, Howling Hops, was just around the corner. Of course their too hip for signage, so look for the crowds drinking from dimpled schooners outside if the weather's nice, or the scribbled note on the side door if it isn't.

Originally, they started brewing in the basement of the Cock Tavern, on nearby Mare Street, and selling their beers in the bar above. But soon thirsty East Londoners meant demand had outstripped their capacity and a bigger site was sought. This one mixes bar and brewery, allowing you to drink the freshest beer straight from the source, while giving them the capacity to bottle some of their beers for distribution, too.

I started with their Running Beer brown ale, before moving on to the Pale XX Superior No.1 and the IPA 2 West Coast Special. All good, the brown ale and IPA particularly. The Ewing stuck with the blonde beers; an Amber Dexter amber ale and the  East End Hefeweizen, brewed in collaboration with Pressure Drop. The latter reconfirming my dislike of wheat beers while being my wife's favourite of the trip.

The food is provided by Billy Smokes, with a range of smoked, fried and fermented goods, including the Big Fuck Off Tray of Meat (an array of protein including glazed ham hock, sausages, beef and lamb belly) available. Our visit saw a more restrained selection, with a small selection of wraps and buns and a handful of sides on offer.

My sausage bun, a chunky disc of homemade smoked sausage made with the Running beer, was served on a shiny brioche bun and came topped with a smattering of citrus slaw and house bbq sauce. All the classic components done well, this made a handsome (second) lunch.

The beer can chicken roll was more divisive. The Ewing loved it (it was sublime, believe me - TE), and she is a connoisseur in chicken sandwiches, but I found it hard to see it as much more than a sarnie. Yes, it was a commendably good sarnie piled with juicy chicken, which at seven quid it should have been, but was lacking much in the way of promised BBQ flavour and made me think wistfully about crispy smoked thighs and smoky, charred wings.

One thing we did agree on was the pickles, a snappy little selection of cucumbers, carrot, peppers and green beans (a very underestimated pickling vegetable) that made me want to go home and crack open the Sarsons and make some of my own. (There’s a solid preserving pedigree in my lineage, with our family being the lucky recipients of several jars of legendary Nanny Pickle each year until my Nan recently hung up her apron).

Predictably, just as were leaving Howling Hops, the Bank Holiday heavens opened - which threatened to make the ride on the number 30, all the way from Hackney Wick to Marble Arch, feel like a very long one; especially after the last round of beers. 

But nabbing a spot 'driving the bus' and gaining Prince for company - we picked up his eponymous 1979 vinyl album from the record barge moored by Crate (a compromise that meant the Ewing letting me wail along to 'I Wanna Be Your Lover' at ear-splitting levels if she could get a new record player) meant the promise of some slow jams could make even the slow crawl home enjoyable.

Oh Manchester, so much to answer for

Easter time usually sees us take a trip to Leeds, for a long weekend of eating simnel cake, playing petanque and not winning the pub quiz. This year, however, saw a change of plan, being as my aunt and uncle decided for some unfathomable reason they would rather be sunning themselves on Bondi Beach instead of dodging hail stones in Wetherby.  There's nowt queer as folk.

While I was ruing missing out on a customary surfeit of roast beef and red wine, having four days off work gave us the perfect excuse to traverse the Pennines to enjoy a surfeit of breweries and beer shops. And a pretty big hangover.

First up on Saturday was an early morning trip across a Piccadilly trading estate for a tour and tasting at Cloudwater Brew Co. At just over a year old, they are already one of Britain's most lauded breweries and have created quite a stir with their innovative range of 'modern, seasonal beers'.

We had booked in for the 11 o'clock tour and, being as it's never too early for a beer when on holiday, we were greeted with a schooner of US Light Comet - a session IPA brewed to mimic the lite lagers ubiquitous in the US. A sensible start as the sun was not yet over the yard arm and a refreshing beer for a hot summer session (we'd be so lucky).

While there’s not a huge amount to see on the tour – the brewery and tap are all housed in one large unit and once you’ve seen one holding tank, you’ve seen them all - our guide, one of the half a dozen brewers working at the brewery, was friendly and knowledgeable. The experience probably best suited those who know their sparging from their spontaneous fermentation and want to ask more in-depth questions about home-brewing or their business strategy. 

It was also interesting to hear about some new experiments, based on their seasonal ethos, including the very lively barrel I was stood next to, which lead to a hypnotic few minutes watching the froth intermittently gush up through the bung.

After the tour was some more tasting and first up was the one we’d all been hoping for; their DIPA v.3 straight from the tank. If you have even the most cursory interest in all things keg-related, their DIPA is the beer on everyone’s lips. Or not, as the case may be, with limited stocks meaning this stuff is rarer than a brewer without a beard.

I have to confess, I haven’t tried the previous incarnations – v1 passed me by and by the time v2 was out I had already planned our beery tour up North, and wanted to have something to look forward to. The official release for this wasn't until the Brewdog AGM last weekend, but I had my fingers crossed we’d get a sneak preview. This was a tropical explosion, with a resinous chewiness and a light smack of booze on the finish. Certainly up there with the recent BBNO double IPA and Beavertown's Double Chin.

Beer nerdishness aside, we also tried a couple more of their spring/summer range in the form of the session IPA E.431, named after the 'experimental new hop' E.341 and brewed with German Comet hops and the black lager, like a summery black IPA and a great accompaniment to the bread and olives that appeared Jesus-like on our table while I was in the bathroom (I have many skills - TE). 

I was very pleased to pick up a bottle of Hibernate Imperial stout for our cellar (cupboard under the stairs) from the onsite bottle shop. Although I was also pretty gutted that the last two bottles of IPA Citra that I had only heard great things about had literally just been nabbed from their tower of beer. The fact I was already pretty pissed softened the blow somewhat.

After finally leaving Cloudwater, a few hours after we had planned and several pounds down (monetary, unfortunately), we only had a short stagger to Track Brewery, who were holding an Easter Brewtap in conjunction with Squark Brewing Co. Although it was early afternoon, the party was already in full swing, with lots of beer - both keg and cask - from both breweries, a DJ on the decks and sparkly vegan cakes (I stuck with a bag of prawn cocktail Seabrooks to go with my Sonoma Pale Ale)

Mac Daddies were there bringing the food, and how could my wife, who's entering her fortieth year, resist the 1977. Although slightly dubious about the spice level promised by the 'chipotle infused four cheese macaroni with chorizo and spiced onions and topped with rocket and fresh red chillies', it was mercifully benign, heat-wise, if you avoided the fiery discs scattered across the top. 

The flavour, however, was full-on deliciousness. ooey, gooey, smoky and cheesy, despite the attempted concession to healthiness from the salad scattered across it. The Northern charm was also out in force as our neighbours, who we were sharing a bench with, happily shared their Squark Porter battered onion rings. And very good they were too.

Another recent addition to the Piccadilly Mile, Chorlton Brewing Company make 'contemporary beer inspired by Germanic brewing traditions'. Having first tried their beer (a sandalwood infused ale in Bristol, of all places), I was looking forward to their carefully curated trio for the weekend; an Amarillo Sour, a Citra Brett Pale, and an Eclipse black lager. 

The latter was the Ewing's choice; a schwartzbier brewed for Britain's 2015 solar eclipse that was mashed 24 hours before and then, just at the moment of totality, the yeast was added to the wort. I assume, from the speed in which she drank it, it was a heavenly as the celestial occurrence that inspired it. Not that I got to try it myself...

I had the Sour, which was excellent. With plenty of tangy citrus and sherbet this is proper summer refresher, but remember to bring the Rennies if you suffer from heartburn like I do. It was also good to chat with enthusiastic brewer, Mike Marcus - one of the best reasons to visit breweries, so you can meet some of the passionate people behind the getting pissed. 

We also grabbed a couple of each to take away. I'm particularly interested in how the bretted pale - fermented with brettanomyces not brewer's yeast - evolves. The BB date is 11.02.2021, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to last past the end of the month.

With a rapidly darkening sky beginning to threaten the promised biblical deluge, I was thankful that Beer Nouveau was just around the corner on, the fabulously monikered, Temperance Street - although by the time you read this their new brew tap will probably already have expanded onto the adjacent Great Western Street.

Of all the breweries we visited, I was perhaps the most excited to visit this one, mainly as I had read an excellent blog about their Easter Beer From The Wood Weekend -  with the promise of six beers that had been conditioned in and were being served from wooden casks. More specifically wooden casks that had been bought from Theakstons Brewery, with casks of the same beers also being served through a swan neck and sparkler for comparison alongside.

In contrast to our previous stops here there were no kegs and an abundance of traditional British hops such as  Fuggles, East Kent Golding and Challenger in a range of beers that included their take on Theakston’s Old Peculiar, Lee’s Moonraker and 1960’s Boddingtons recipe.

The Ewing tried the latter of these, a best bitter named Body Snatcher, while I sampled a more 'modern' version of the same ale, the Manchester Son. Both were fabulous, with unmistakable smoky whisky notes after just a fortnight in the wood. A great little place with great people, some interesting modern twists on classic beers and highly recommended for a half or two.

 

The Royal Flush of brewery visits came with our final stop, to the playing-card inspired Blackjack Brewery in the Green Quarter. We arrived with the party in full swing with grub curated by GRUB - including wood-fired pizza - and music curated by Goff. The big outside seating area meant there was also plenty of room to cut some rug

There were two cask and three keg Blackjack brews on offer when we arrived, although these were constantly rotating as they were open for visitors all weekend. And if you weren't trying to drink beers brewed solely withing the city limits (as I was) then they had bagged a good selection of from other brewers, with kegs from 6 North, Wylam and Brew by Numbers amongst others.

The atmosphere was as lively as the glass rinsing machine and we quickly bagged a table - albeit rickety enough to slosh beer on our shoes when we moved simultaneously - to enjoy our drinks. A pint of cask Royal Flush, an English hopped pale, for the Ewing and the Beginner's Luck, a NZ hopped pale, for me. Both decent, but I was hoping for a few of their more experimental ales to be on during our visit. I guess it's the Luck of the Draw - possibly the name of their next brew?

After spending most the weekend in drafty railway arches, surrounded by rubber hosing and stainless steel (a description that sounds far more kinky than the prosaic reality), we still had time for a couple of more civilised stops. First was Beermoth, a well-stocked Northern Quarter beer merchants. Although, by the time we visited there was sadly only an empty shelf space where the, now mythical in my mind, Cloudwater Citra once was. 

They also have an airy new café/bar where we sampled what looked like the world's biggest Jaegerbomb; in reality a pint of Quantum Pale Ale and an Alesmith Speedway Stout. While I had vowed to only drink beers made in Manchester (Quantumn, from Stockport, was the closest I could find in Beermoth) I couldn't pass up the chance to finally try the Speedway Stout - or, more accurately, order it on my wife's behalf and assist her with drinking it....

Last stop was the Port Street Beer House, where I persuaded the flagging Ewing we had time for one last hurrah. As she was ordering her half of Absence of Apples (an apple-less apple saison) from Mad Hatter (another experimental brewer worth looking out for), my eyes drifted toward a glowing orange label, glinting like a jewel through the sea of bottles in their well-stocked beer fridge; the Cloudwater Citra IPA. 

As the all-knowing (and never irritating) Stealth says, ‘it’s always in the last place you look’. In this case she was right, and it was well worth the wait.

Wild Beer at Jessop House, Cheletenham

I like beer, a fact both my both wallet and waistband would attest to, which makes Tryanuary - a campaign encouraging people to try new independent breweries, beers, bars and bottle shops, and a riposte to the far more sobering Dry January - my kind of challenge. (yes, I'm aware it's February already, blame it on all the beer I've been sampling)

And where better to start then at Cheltenham's Jessop House; a stately Georgian townhouse that houses the first Wild Beer - the innovative Somerset brewers, renowned for their experiments with grains, grapes, and pretty much anything else they can get their hands on - bar and restaurant. 

While Wild Beer may not have been new to me - I first encountered their beverages here while on a trip to Somerset a couple of years ago and have lost several nights subsequently drinking them at my local  - a pub focusing on their drinks was. And although I thought I was already a consummate consumer of their brews, a look at the wonders on their beer board soon put me to rights. 

Alongside their own beers (all keg) there are a few other gems on offer that on our visit included a fruity duo of Hawkshead Raspberry Sour and Magic Rock's Grapefruit Highwire, The latter of which we found an animated customer mixing together with Wild Beer's Bibble (an everyday pale ale) to make a craft turbo shandy while talking loudly about jazz clubs. Mmm, nice. (He was good fun!- TE)

We started with Hula, based on a keg of Sourdough (made with a Hobbs House bakery yeast starter) that 'went mental'. And I'm glad it did, as this was lip-puckering libation with notes of apple, lemon, vinegar and bread. It's certainly a bold and unusual beer, and probably not for everyone, but at 3.8% it made a light and zingy beginning.

What I really like about Wild Beer, as their name might suggest, is their passion for going off piste. We explored their untamed side by sampling three more of their sour/wild ales; Firstly was Zintuki, a blend of Ninkansi (their celebratory ale made with apple juice and champagne yeast) and Somerset Wild, which was good but didn't quite live up to the sum of its parts.

There followed Squashed Grape, a beer made using grape must from a nearby vineyard alongside wild apple yeast, making for dashing purple drink with a pleasant fruity funk and background mustiness I wasn't so keen on. And then the Modus Wine, a beer so secret one of it's descriptions is listed as simply '????'. I'll leave the tasting notes as a mystery to be discovered (and nothing to do with the fact it came after an evening of imbibing and I can't really remember....)

I do, however remember the last beer, the Millionaire salted caramel stout. I wasn't so much of a fan of their Yankee Sandwich (a peanut butter stout that's no longer available) but this struck a perfect bittersweet balance and clocked in at an eminently reasonable 4.7%.

After staggering back up the Bath Road to our hotel for the night, we both woke up feeling far more chipper than we ought to. And hungry; very hungry. The perfect opportunity, then to head back to Jessop House to try their set lunch menu - at a very competitively priced £14 for three courses - alongside another libation or two.

To drink, we went with the beer pairing, two third pint glasses per person, available with the set lunch for just 2.50 extra. Normally, as we had already drunk five of the twelve Wild Beers on the board the night before, I would have been keen to chose my own beer selection, less there was any duplication. But new year, new you and all that and I left it in the lap of the gods, or the bar staff, to decide.

First out were two brews we hadn't yet sampled; the Einsteinium lager for me - complex, as you might expect from these guys, but still retaining the easy-drinking nature of a good lager - and the Somerset Wild for the Ewing, a bolder, sharper beer, based on yeasts found in the orchards of the South West. It might look just like cloudy apple juice but it delivers a devilish punch

My calamari - in a change from the advertised squid with salt and preserved lemon - had been slow braised in a tomato sauce with a tangle of sweet onions and dill. Deceptively simple yet delicious, I've already been thinking about creating this at home; maybe with a few black olives and a good glug of pastis.

The Ewing's potted mackerel with Somerset Wild jelly (to match the beer, or should that be the otherway around) - served in an admirably decent portion along with a green salad - had a nice smokiness if a touch too much gelatine 'bounce' for my taste.

I actually preferred the crisp baguette served with this to my own wholemeal bloomer, and thankfully The Ewing felt the opposite, so we started a little bread exchange; two roundels for half a slice being the going rate.

The stars aligned again (or possibly it was a side affect of all the beer) with our next match, with two more untried libations. Madness, my choice, is their interpretation of a West Coast IPA. The label describes it as hops + hops + hops and it doesn't disappoint. The Ewing's pairing was Wild Gose Chase, a gooseberry infused saison that I've enjoyed before, but lacks a little of the fresh fruit zing the description promises.

The slab of pork belly, while lacking in a carapace of crackle, was still a fine piece of meat. Cooked until the fat had rendered and the flesh shredded apart at the hint of pressure from a fork, served on a bed of crushed roots and roasted leek, this was a winter warmer executed with a deft touch.

The fish was a creamy, smoky, thermonuclear dish of joy which proved a timely heat source for the Ewing, as the cold new year breeze blowing through the sash windows started to bite (I actually discovered that my boots had leaked and I had wet feet, and we all know that once your feet are wet and cold, you're cold  - TE). It could have accommodated a little cheese in the mash (few things wouldn't accommodate a little cheese) and maybe a few peas (greens and salad are available as a side order) but was a fine example of its kind.

After enjoying a cracking visit-and-a-half up to this point, we ordered our puddings, a schooner of Millionare for me and a double espresso for the Ewing and sat back and waited; and waited and waited some more... 

Finally, after a faintly farcical passage of play where everybody else around us (or the two other occupied tables) had been served their food and an attempt had been made to re-clear our table, despite having not actually having received our dessert, it transpired our order had been misplaced. And the doughnuts had to be cooked from scratch.

Ordinarily this turn of events might have pushed my mild-mannered Englishness to the limit.  But apologies were profuse and after a gratis glass of Amouse Bouche  - again one of their suggestions, and the penultimate beer on the board that I hadn't tried (don't worry, I picked up a bottle of the final untried beer, Brett Brett to take home and drink later) - was offered, along with another coffee for the Ewing, we were happy to hang on a little longer. It also helped that their was beer related literature to read and the Millionaire was going down very nicely.

Sadly the Shnoodlepip doughnuts didn't prove to up to the delay. While the concept was good - they are based on their Shnoodlepip beer that contains pink peppercorns, passionfruit and hibiscous - the oddly sized dough balls were dry and chewy, making me long for the tonka bean doughnuts at Drygate in Glasgow, one of my favourite puddings of last year.

The Ewing's Beeramisu fared better, being a clever Wild Beer re-imagining of the Italian classic. Sponge fingers were infused with their Wildebeest crushed espresso stout, layered with vanilla marscapone and topped with chocolate and cacao nibs. Rich, tangy and understated this pudding/drink hybrid marked a fitting start to Tryanuary and a great ending to a memorable (for mostly the right reasons) lunch.