Tag Archives: review

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Ropewalk leads fight on Nottinghams big real ale rip off.

If you haven’t read the article below this about Blue Monkeys new Canning Circus powerhouse opening in June, then do so, because Canning Circus looks like it could be turning into quite the force!

You will be forgiven for mistaking The Ropewalk as still being under its previous guise of a 'scream pub' other than the repainting of the garish yellow walls not a great deal else has changed exterior wise.

 

A great selection, this picture was taken during the mild trail hence 2 milds.

Amidst Nottinghams sea of inflated beer prices (£3+ a pint is becoming far too common, and frankly ridiculous) it’s nice to see a pub offering geniunely good deals on quality ales, and assuming it’s some kind of dosshole full of students would be quite far off the mark, it’s actually light and very spacious with a good mix of clientele.

 

Nice and open, plenty of seating.

Proper pint glasses.

So here’s the deals, and what makes this probably the most competetive in Nottingham, as the deal states above between 5pm till 9pm weeknights all beers are £1 off, when we went in this makes them between £1.75 to £2.10 a pint.

It’s also worth noting when the above deals not on, it’s 50p off for CAMRA (biggest in Nottingham) averaging the price of a pint at around £2.50, reasonable.

And no, you can’t combine the offers!

 

 

 

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Plough Inn Radford, Nottingham / Nottingham Brewery

What a diverse area I thought, as I caught the bus from Upper Parliament street outside the ‘private triple x’ shop, and progressed my way from the city centre into Radford, destination, The Plough Inn – home of the Nottingham Brewery.

Carpark

It looks like a normal carpark, because it is. Behind this though is the brewery.

The Plough is a bit of an odd one to get to from the city centre, it requires a 10 minute or so bus ride and then a short walk that you really need to look into on google maps before setting off, with that said it is easy enough to find once you have a general idea of where you’re going* you would be forgiven for being a bit touristy in trying to find it, especially as other than the group I was with I didn’t hear anyone else talking English.

*we took the number 28 bus on the pink line and got off when we saw the white horse cafe (which looks like a pub) then walked up St Peters’ Street

 

Plough

The Plough, untouched by time.

After a stroll through modern Britain it was nice to see the Plough is an old fashioned honest boozer, much like their rivals Castle Rock the Nottingham Brewerys Plough is very much of a traditional decor, or as some would pen them ‘spit and sawdust’ the interior is what it is and after seeing the picture of one of the lounges below, you will know if it’s for you or not.

Interior

One of the lounges.

I set out to the Plough for one reason if I’m honest, to try one of my favourite all time beers again Nottingham – Supreme, I hadn’t seen it in what seemed like forever, so where else better to go and get some? Well, as it turns out they canned brewing Supreme 2 years ago, this news knocked me back like a pint glass to the face (not that I have exprienced that, but it was unpleasant news) this was not the start I was hoping for.

Board

Add 4p due to todays budget.

The Nottingham Brewery do some great beer, we’re both huge fans of Rock Bitter and E.P.A, so despite the Supreme dissapointment I made my way through their card. I always get my hopes up when going to a brewtap expecting the beer to be the literal best example I have ever had, however it simply wasn’t the case; now don’t get me wrong they where good pints so perhaps I got my hopes up too high, another thing to keep in mind is I have had Nottingham beer in countless pubs round Nottingham, consuming a huge number of pints, versus the 5 on this one evening!

Which really brings me to this, despite being a very nice pub it’s hard to recommend  this colourful trip out when Nottingham beers are so freely available in the city centre.

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VAT & Fiddle Review

VAT

Castle Rock – Harvest pale is 2010 CAMRA champion beer of Britain, so for somewhere to sell it for £2.30* is a good thing, but you can make a good thing better when the beer hasn’t had to travel.

The VAT & Fiddle you see is the Castle Rock brew tap, the brewery is literally right behind this no nonsense pub with a friendly cat†.
As you would expect a large cross section (6) of Castle Rocks finest adorn the bar along with 4 guests, it’s hardly surprising then that this is the place to try Britain’s champion, every pint of Castle Rock beer I have tried at the VAT has been consistently up with the best.

VATbar

No, you don't have to wear a tracksuit to get in.

It’s hard not to recommend the VAT & Fiddle if you want a decent pint, sure it’s a no frills boozer but when it’s only 3 minutes from the train station and a great way to kick off a journey into Nottingham (or indeed a good pub prior to walking to the football/cricket) it’s undoubtedly one to keep coming back to, no matter what you think of the decor.

*prices correct at time of publishing, you can get it even cheaper with Wetherspoons/CAMRA 50p off vouchers.

†the cat is worth a specific mention being as it will come and sit with whoever it fancies, whenever it fancies.

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Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem – Review

Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, or just The Trip To Jerusalem, or more realistically ‘The Trip’ so where do I start? well it’s old, infact world record old though this is contested, thankfully I went there to drink last week not a few hundred years ago.

Jeru

I won’t mix my words here, at one point The Trip was embarrasingly bad, though this was several years ago when Greene King first took over, I’ll hold my tongue on my beef with Greene King somewhat but needless to say a popular tourist attraction was serving up the blandest Greene King beer they could ship in from their HQ in Bury St Edmunds.

pine

In real life pinecone people will not serve you, sorry.

As you can see from the bar picture, this is now thankfully not the case as they have a couple of Nottingham beers on (EPA and Legend, both tried, both very pleasant as expected) not only that they have a second bar round the corner as well.

bar2

On this bar was Nottinghams Rock Mild, and the best beer they had on; Seance by the Full Mash Brewery which was one of the best pints I have had so far this year.

mix board

Calm down, you don't do that many beers.

So would I recommend it? yes, it’s a great pub with a decent smoking area and cave walls (not all real) it often has ghost hunts and suchlike and is steeped in history, it used to make tourists think Nottingham can’t brew, now it doesn’t, that’ll do from the boys from Bury St Edmunds.

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SIBA National Champions Beer Festival : Nottingham 2011

This is a compararable festival to the champions league, each region of the UK has its best beers put forward to fight it out in various categories for the SIBA gold medal, the best beer of the entire festival then being given the prestigious top SIBA award.

Halves range from £1.30 – £1.50 with NO CAMRA discount.

As per 2010, 56 handpulls on an impressive custom length bar. This was taken at 5.02pm, by 5.20pm it was completely rammed.

Thornbridge Kipling has been steamrollering pretty much everything recently and to be quite honest rightly so, but not tonight, the Kipling on offer was a good to average beer that left its self open to the competition, fortunately for Thornbridge the rest of the strong bitters category where of a similar dissapointing ilk; all failing to impress having tried the lot other than the Cairngorm – Wildcat (5.1%), that seemed to have been off from the word go. Kipling then will no doubt get this category victory but perhaps a little cheaply, regardless on the night it was in our opinion the best strong bitter.

The top award however? well, this is where the current Nottingham Beer Festival champion (and others!) is left trailing in some fashion, Salopian – Prohibition (4.6%) with its wonderful fresh citrusy grapefruit feel and a sublimely dry finish was in a different class and surely in with a good shout to top the premium bitters as well as the festival champion, closely followed by Dorset Brewing Company – Ammonite (3.8%) a full bodied pint with a lot of depth that belies its alchol content, a shoe in we reckon for the bitters & pale ales up to 4.0% category, a nod also due to a speciality beer Coach house brewing Co – Blueberry classic bitter (5.0%) beers like this can usually go one of two ways, crap, or great, it went the latter.

We are far from done though as things could change tomorrow night, we have had most, but not quite all of the beers so far!

http://www.siba.co.uk/events/?page_id=883

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Review: The Salutation Inn (Nottingham)

The Ye Old Salutation Inn is one of the Oldest Pubs in the UK, I say “one of” because 2 other nearby pubs lay claim to the same title and rather than get involved in this argument ill be straight and say CBA.

Sally

If I’m honest however I would say the Salutation is the “least modernised” of the pubs which lay claim to the title and represents an authenticate English pub to the tee. To give you an idea of how old this place is it was built in 1240, lets not beat about the bush, that’s bloody old.

pete

The interior is made up of a lot of stone and a lot of old timber which makes a beautiful change to the usual modern pub interiors, its obvious the owners have been careful not to change the old feel of this pub.

inside

Beneath “The Sal” are caves (Nottingham is known as the “City of Caves”) which date back to the 9th century which people are free to take a look at (assuming Pete the landlord is in a good mood likely) and are usually given to “LARP” and role-playing geeks (and to be clear I myself in the past have role-played occasionally)

Inside 2

Keep your eyes peeled for the resident ghost which is apparently a small girl (no really..)

The pub is broke up into 4 main rooms. 2 smaller rooms near the entrance are nice and cozy, the main bar is a quite large room with a great jukebox (usual MP3 one with a zillion choices, however is usually dominated by rock/metal)

The upstairs is a large room usually for functions or karaoke and live bands. I had my wedding reception up there (for a small fee Pete kindly put on a barman and a barrel of Nottingham: EPA which was sublime) which was fantastic.

The Salutation has a great selection of beers on, usually with a great backup of real ciders and a myriad of bottled beer/cider and spirits (They even have the Dan Akroyd vodka in a skull bottle)

To be clear the selection in the Sal rivals wetherspoons for sheer volume

Selection

There is usually at least 3-5 real ales on as well as the usual fare. The beer is always kept excellently with a great selection usually rotating daily. The Sal doesn’t appear to favour any brewery over another with guests from The Nottingham Brewery, Blue Monkey (Pete seems to have a monkey fetish), Milestone and many more regularly appearing.

Occasionally there is a beer festival and about 10-15 barrels materialise in the main bar.

CAMRA discounts apply here if you’re a member.

Another great point of the Sal is the food. You would be forgiven for looking at the beer stained folded sheet of paper with the menu printed on and thinking “cripes”. The reality is The Sal has a great chef and do some great food at decent prices.

The Chilli the salutation do is literally the best I’ve had anywhere. Its nice and spicy and well worth a try. The burgers are handmade and excellent.

While the Salutation is primarily a rock pub (Its motto is “Rock and Ale”) don’t let that put you off. The Sal is a friendly pub, with friendly staff, great food and ale.

Just what you should expect from a real ale pub.

Click here for google maps location

Cheers!

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Riverside Farm and the Nutbrook Brewery

Food isn’t really our focus here, but it’s mixed with ale, so get over it.

Riverside Farm is located at the old Harry Ramsden site next to the Riverside Retail park. It’s a little out of the way but offers something different for those willing to make the short journey, or perhaps have been out shopping and need something to shut the kids up, or can’t be bothered to cook a meal.

Riverside Farm

The food is pretty much standard fare, portions are average and having been three times now nothing much on the menu sticks out as being exceptional. The puddings are certainly worth avoiding however, they’re expensive and small, to somehow ‘fool’ the customer a mountain of whipped cream is put on top of pretty much everything, lame.

Thankfully the Nutbrook Brewerys beer single handedly rescues little issues such as above, they have 2 dedicated Nutbrook pumps rotating and they’re always quality ales. The last visit offered Bitlyke (4.2%) and Responsibly (4.4%) the former being the difference between a good and an average meal, a real top pint.

Is the Riverside Farm worth a visit? why not really, Nutbrook beer isn’t exactly everywhere in Nottingham, so just for that reason it’s a decent enough shout, just watch out for that whipped cream…

http://www.riversidefarmpub.co.uk/

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King William IV

Ice Hockey fans, lots of them.

That was my initial impression on walking into the King William IV, otherwise known as the ‘King Billy’ My first thoughts from the outside revolved around why I wasn’t wearing a stab vest, it’s based towards the outskirts of the city centre near the Ice Arena (hence the hockey fans) it looks a bit rough round the area in general, and the windows have bars on them, but looks can often be decieving.

Poncy glasses and the unnecessary in general are not present.

Any doubts you may have had are quashed upon entry, 8 hand pumps are practiclaly on the other side of the door, the bar staff are very pleasant and the beer priced fairly. Of the beers I’ve had there in 2 visits, Newby Wyke – Kingston Topaz stood out as exceptional. At night lit by bulbs with a soft pink/red glow you would be forgiven for thinking you where in Amsterdam, but they don’t serve Amstel thankfully.

Being badgered to go made me finally give in and make the journey to this pub, and I’m glad I did as it’s a fantastic place to have a drink prior to Panthers/Forest or watch the mighty Notts County VS Manchester City; you could also use it as a good starting point for a pub crawl snaking your way back into town.

Unexpectedly they have a TV in the drinking area at the rear that has sky sports, a nice bonus! A pub then that’s  a little off the beaten track, but well worth the journey.

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Review: D.B.A (New York City, USA)

Another great bar in NYC which is off the beaten track so to say which myself and Mrs.Hoppkins  set out to find is D.B.A.

What D.B.A stands for is a long standing mystery it seems, or perhaps the landlord just winding everyone up. But common theories are:

Don’t Bother Asking
Drink Better Ale

As much as i would like to think its the latter I’m sure the landlord is cackling behind the bar the whole time at the hilarity of the gag….possibly….who knows….anyway

First off if your looking to get to this bar prepare for some confusion unless you’re actually from New York. Me and my wife came out the subway and immediately set off in the wrong direction. After we got our bearings and found a good landmark to work from (Katz Delicatessen from “When Harry Met Sally”) we found the place.

DBA

This small and dark looking bar holds possibly the largest beer selection I have seen in any pub in any country. It is phenomenal…

As you can see from the below pic it doesn’t end at beer…they stock a gob smacking selection of Whiskey, Tequila, Vodka…you name it.

Woah

I dived in and had half of an excellent Japanese Beer (which tasted distinctly Belgian) which was matured in sake kegs. It was veeeeeery heavy but absolutely delicious…and cold…which in the heat it was that day was a pleasant thing i can tell you (About 32 degrees Celsius plus and very humid)

sake beer!?

The bar is quite small, dark and cramped but since you can drink at the bar and there are numerous small tables and a nice beer garden its not an issue. For its size the bar is stocked like its ready for war…on your liver.

I would of got a picture but I’m not sure people sitting in a veeeery dark room would of appreciated a camera flash going off in their eyes.

If you drink at the bar you get a complimentary cheese platter at certain times (Check website@ DBA Website for details of times of any offers)

Despite the majority of the beers on offer being bottled there is a pump selection seconded only by the Bree Louise in Euston, London (UK)

Not even Wetherspoons has a real ale selection this wide and this place is 1/10th of the size of an average spoons. The beer was kept beautifully and although the price is high, its the price you pay for excellent real ale (more importantly in my opinion the price you pay for great ale you have never seen)

Another redeeming feature of this great bar is they have a sit down pac man machine (Dr Lovesale will appreciate this I’m sure being a fervent pac man lover)

In short this is a bar not to be missed if you swing by New York which has a great selection, great atmosphere with friendly staff.

Easiest way to get to DBA is:

Subway
# F Train – The Second Avenue stop is closest to d.b.a.
# 6 Train – Take the #6 to Bleeker Street and walk to First Avenue.
# R Train – d.b.a. is equally close to either the Prince Street or 8th Street stops.

CHEERS!

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Roundhouse Nottingham : Review

In-case you’re wondering, the roundhouse got its name because of its large triangular nature.

This magnificent hexagonal beast is located at the top of St James’ street and is actually part of Nottingham’s old general hospital, hence the trapezium shaped nature, synonymous with UK hospitals at the time.

This is a great pub actually, and due to its location one of the best ways to kick off a pub crawl, it’s easy to float down into the heart of the city centre as it’s pretty much all down hill, much like your night likely will be.

Round House Bar

Quality beers, and make sure to try the Tyrells crisps!

The bar is well stocked with a good selection of Ales which change frequently, The Roundhouse have a deal in place with the Full Mash brewery, they brew an exclusive Ale Roundhouse Gold (4%) and sell it at £2 a pint, it’s worth visiting the pub for this beer alone.

Because of its previous usage and the fact that they sell food (which is a popular choice) the roundhouse has a lot more comfortable seating than an average pub as well as benches in a courtyard at the rear for the summer, or winter if you’re a smoker.

The Roundhouse is a characteristic pub with a warm friendly atmosphere and offer a lot more to drink that just ale,  it’s well worth a visit, so if you haven’t do so.

You can check out menus and more from the official website by clicking here.