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Wild Grapes Infographic - A World In Wine
Created by Wild Grapes
Wild Grapes provide wine storage solutions, such as bespoke wine racks and elegant wine cellars in the UK. Take a look at their Wine cellar design gallery for some inspiration.
Recently at the Rake Bar – Wheat Watcher launched to an appreciative audience. Wheat Watchers is a raspberry wheat beer and was brewed with one eye on taking note of the issues facing beer when trying to overcome some pretty well-established misconceptions around beer in general.
Louise Ashworth came up with the beer and the name as a result of a competition run by School of Booze, Brewster’s Brewing Company (http://brewstersbrewery.wordpress.com/) and Divine Choclate – @BeerBeauty filmed the launch and interviewed the successful Designer.
Follow our link to view the interview in full - @BerBeauty Interviews Louise Ashworth over Wheat Watchers success!
I am very rarely genuinely surprised by beer any more. I’ve drunk more than my fair share of beers, ales, lagers and stouts over the years of my long and distinguished career as a human being and very little now makes me stop and think “Holy Cow”. Unfortunately not much makes me think more than “ooh…” these days and I may be becoming more reactionary as I age. But I did have a “Wow” moment this week.
On the World Fancyapint Tour of places you might otherwise not have visited we took in Stockport, Sandbach (services not town) and Stoke on Trent. Not quite the Riviera but equally not quite Warrington. And this visit threw up the most delightful surprise that I’ve had for some time.
Titanic Brewery’s Cappuccino Stout. At 4.5% ABV it had the exact balance of flavour to alcohol, the right velvety texture versus harshness from the strong malt/chocolate notes. I could have downed a gallon – but an incredibly early start coupled with a looming afternoon meeting meant that we had to abandon the boozing 7 pints short of where we wanted to be.
It then raised a question that has been intriguing me for some time though – which is why Dark Beers don’t sell as well as their lighter cousins? I am a self-confessed Dark-ophile – I appreciate the lighter more amber beers, but give me a heavy stout or a gravity laden Best any day of the week – but am I in a shrinking minority? I once had a conversation with a brewer at a beer festival and he received all manner of gongs for his beers (indeed being awarded the champion gong of all gongs for just such a dark beer as I adore) but the chat with him at the festival concerned, as I remember it, went something like:
“Your Best is superb”
“Thanks”
“But I can’t take more than one pint”
“Yeah, that happens a lot with our beers”
“Do you sell much?”
“Er…not as much as we’d like and not as much as everyone thinks we do.”
So wither Dark Beers? The Cappuccino from Titanic is only a “Titanic Occasional Brew” http://www.titanicbrewery.co.uk/c/our-beers/titanic-occasional-specials/ And other than Guinness I can’t think of a terrifically flavour-packed dark beer that sells by the bucket load – don’t you dare even whisper ‘John Smith’s’. And yet just a short time ago Dark was all there was.
Time and time again in my career I have seen a dark brew launched alongside a lighter sibling and they always are the first to come off the bar – Budvar Dark, Sagres Bohemia to name just two [As an aside here - if you ever get the chance - try Sagres Preta, which has to be one of the most incredible dark lagers you'll come across]. And I am puzzled.
Can Cappuccino and other brews like it lead a renaissance? I for one shall, like some fatty Darth Vader, be leading the fight to champion the Dark Side. Who’s with me?
In association with the Old Red Cow, Long Lane Smithfield – Fancyapint brings you:
Ghostbusters were spotted in the Enfield area recently as North London Paranormal Investigations began their search for things that go bump in the night in Enfield’s historic pubs and houses.
Inestigations began at The King & Tinker, inWhitewebbs Lane- one of the oldest pubs in England and it’s thought that a pub has stood on this site for over 1,000 years. The Investigators arrived in CSI-style uniform armed with ghost-hunting equipment, including infra-red Cameras, ghost grid lasers and digital voice recorders for capturing electronic voice phenomena (thought to be voices of the dead which are not heard by ear but are only heard upon playback of the recording).
EMF detectors and laser thermometers were also set up to detect sudden temperature changes and electromagnetic fields which are indicative of the presence of a spirit. Mickey Gocool, Founder, Lead investigator and experienced psychic medium began with a walk around the building to conduct baseline measurements of the temperature. “During my workaround upstairs in the landlord’s bedroom, I picked up on the spirit of a very tall man who was very active. I had also felt a very painful chest pain. I mentioned to the two independent witnesses what I had felt but it was not until I went back downstairs and reported my experience to the landlord that a customer approached me and stated that I had described a former landlord “Paul” who died in that room of a heart attack quite recently”
It had been reported to the N.L.P.I. team previously that the spirit of a little girl is seen in the pub kitchen. Remotely controlled night vision cameras were left in the kitchen along with a trigger object, a soft toy to encourage the spirit girl to interact.
During the investigation, the kitchen produced some great results, including sudden temperature drops and very strong EMF readings. A hand held night vision camera battery was completely depleted despite being fully charged as did the walkie talkie battery. The mains-powered night vision camera also failed to operate. This is common in the presence of spirit and the EMF detected a field which was about the same shape and size as a little girl.
The main bar area is unique has it has a fireplace that is oversized for the small pub. It is believed that the fireplace, which may contain a “priest hole”, and the manor house-style front door are parts of the original Whitewebbs House which was demolished sometime in the 1700s.
A “spirit box” session was conducted by the fireplace by the team and a few friends of the landlord. The spirit box did produced some audio specifically hearing “oi” quite clearly. Light anomalies were seen and videoed.
The evening was concluded with a Ouija board session. The landlord’s family and friends participated and seemingly made contact with “Paul” a former owner. “We hope to investigate as many ofEnfield’s buildings of interest,” said Gocool. “We have our own historian Charlotte Suleyman, and we were also accompanied by an independent observer, author Jason Hollis.”
“Jason is currently writing a book about Enfield ghosts, so we invited him to observe the investigation. Between us we have uncovered a lot of hidden or forgotten information about the pubs in the area – it’s been fascinating”.
North London Paranormal investigations are interested to hear from anyone in the area who has a “Haunted Property” and would not mind a team investigating.
Contact details on the website: www.nlpi.co.uk
CAMRA's plea to the government aims to exploit the unease at the high level of duty on Beer
Fancyapint? and CAMRA are to work together to try to force the Government into t are-think over not just the Beer Duty Escalator but also the high levels of taxation on beer in the UK at all stages of brewing, retailing and purchase.
The beer and pub industry supports almost 1 million jobs and contributes £21 billion to UK GDP. It’s time to speak out against the Government to stop damaging pubs, real ale, and your pocket.
FAP and CAMRA urges everyone with a stake in the Brewing and Pub industries to back the campaign and sign the e-petition here: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/29664/?friendly_id=saveyourpint
We will be doing all we can to get to 100,000 signatures and force a review of the current legislation before Budget 2013.
Please – sign up today.
Worth a visit: Marlborough’s Pubs
David Tutin, a Fancyapint follower living in Marlborough, Wiltshire explains why it’s a town worth heading to for a beer.
Tell us where: Marlborough is a small market town focused around Britain’s widest High Street. It’s perhaps most famous for Marlborough College, the large public school which has educated royalty and politicians, among many. It’s a lovely little town.
What’s the pub scene like? There are in the region of 13 pubs, bars and restaurants where you can go for a pint. There’s quite a bit of choice for every drinking preference – it’s pretty good for one little High Street. Over the years I’ve been to them all, but have never really attempted a proper Marlborough pub crawl!
What are your favourites? All on the High Street, I love The Wellington Arms – it’s a busy place serving great pub food – it’s a very welcoming place and good value. I like The Sun, which is very rustic and old fashioned – the atmosphere in there is fantastic, and if I want to watch some sport with a pint, I head for The Bear Hotel.
What else can you do? You’re within striking distance of ancient historic sites such as Avebury, Silbury Hill and West Kennet Long Barrow, or if you want other beery distractions, head down the road to Devizes for the Wadworth brewery tour.
Where can I read more? Sites including http://www.marlboroughwiltshire.co.uk/ and http://www.visitwiltshire.co.uk/site/around-wiltshire/towns-and-villages/marlborough can provide just about all the detail you’ll need.
One of the most popular searches on Fancyapint? is from people looking for pubs with Wi-Fi. This is now the third biggest searchable feature on the site behind TV Sport and Real/Guest Ale so if you as a publican don’t have Wi-Fi installed then seriously make that investment.
Given that we list several thousand pubs and bars who offer it, we’d thought we’d pick out those with the best combination of beer and bandwidth. Here’s our top ten in London:
| Ye Olde Mitre Tavern | 020 7405 4751 | “A true pub in all senses of the word”. 5-pint rating. | EC1N 6SJ | Farringdon |
| King’s Arms | 020 7207 0784 | “A great little pub and well worth stopping by.” 3 pint rating. | SE1 8TB | Waterloo |
| Counting House | 020 7283 7123 | “We could stay here all day . . . we nearly did”. 4 pint rating. | EC3V 3PD | Bank |
| Duke ofHamilton | 020 7794 0258 | “A solid 4-pinter’. 4-pint rating. | NW3 1JD | Hampstead |
| The Queen’s Head | 020 7603 3174 | “A great place to be,” “You won’t be disappointed.” 4-pint rating. | W6 7BL | Brook Green |
| The Seven Stars | 020 7242 8521 | “Excellent selection of well kept ale on the hand pumps.” 4-pint rating. | WC2A 7JB | Fleet Street |
| The Talbot | 020 7241 2995 | “A decent local pub serving a good drop of ale.” 3-pint rating. | N1 4JY | Dalston |
| The Dovetail Bar | 020 7490 7321 | “I must admit I simply love this pub!” 4-pint rating. | EC1V 4JP | Clerkenwell |
| Windmill | 020 7491 8050 | “Will definitely be back – well done to all at the pub.” 4-pint rating. | W1S 2AT | Soho |
| WindsorCastle | 020 7723 4371 | “History, celebrity, royalty, eccentricity and a decent pint all in the same spot – excellent.” 5-pint rating. | W1H 4LQ | Marble Arch |
SIBA calls for Chancellor to ‘give beer a break’: Keith Bott, chairman of the Society of Independent Brewers, has used the occasion of SIBA’s annual conference to call for the Chancellor and other government policy makers to ‘give beer a break’. Bott claims that the current alcohol taxation regime is iniquitous and is ‘unfair to brewers, to pubs and to drinkers’. Bott goes on to say that the changes in beer taxation have been at least partly to blame for societal changes such as the propensity to drink shots, to pre-load and to drink at home rather than in the regulated environment of a public house.
