Night out in E1: Brick Lane & BrewDog

Some friends recently arrived back in the UK after living in the US for just over a year. While they were over there their love of decent, flavoursome craft beer had grown. So it seemed only right that we should all go to a BrewDog pub together, as they always have a good selection of interesting beers to try. Having been to the one in Camden a few times, my hubby and I decided to try out the new-ish bar in Shoreditch. I'd walked past it recently and it looked very different from the Camden one - more a bar than a pub, with its floor-to-ceiling glass and burly bouncers on the door.

We walked up from Aldgate East (nice and easy way to get to Shoreditch if you live on the District Line - none of that changing-lines-waiting-for-connections rubbish to deal with), heading up the vibrant Brick Lane. Along the way we were accosted by a few restaurant touts, promising us mouth-watering deals (curry plus wine for a tenner, etc..), but we passed them by in favour of a dosa restaurant on Hanbury St. 

Brick Lane and its side-streets are a street photographer's paradise, with colourful locals (from all over the world), quirky shops and restaurants, shisha bars, bagel shops, temples, smart architecture, and huge amounts of creative, artistic graffiti.

We arrived at the BrewDog bar to a text from our friends informing us that they were downstairs, a bit of a relief as the upstairs was heaving and very noisy. The downstairs bar took a bit of finding - following a few instructions scribbled on the walls to find the place. Inside it was extremely dark and took our eyes a good few minutes to adjust. The acoustics were great, in spite of being busy down there too, so it was possible to have a decent conversation, something which would definitely have been more of a struggle upstairs. The crowd was a little older and calmer down below... Various groups came and went on the tables around us, with some staying around for quite a few. The barman gave us a few recommendations; I tried the new #Mashtag beer while the others stuck to various IPAs. My #Mashtag - an American Brown Ale - was delicious, but strong at 7.5%, so after a couple I felt rather tipsy. I learned that it was a Twitter-created beer, with various ingredients determined by popular vote!

 

 

After a bout of unexpected hiccoughs (after only three beers!) we headed off and stopped in for a quick nightcap at a little bar called Monty's on Brick Lane. As we wandered back to the tube the curry houses and late-night partying were in full-swing; police meandered around to ensure things didn't get out of hand (and that the revellers used the public conveniences provided!).

By the time we got the tube it was past 11.30pm, so we joined the usual sociable late-night crowd for the journey back west along the District Line.

White Horse Old Ale Festival Preview

Last night it was back to the White Horse in Parsons Green for another great beer-tasting event. Today is the opening day of their 30th Anniversary Old Ale Festival and last night a few of us had a special preview of some of the massive selection of ales that will be available this weekend - from stouts to milds, porters to barley wines, Scotch Ales and Strong Ales.

 

The event was hosted by Jamie Percival, the White Horse's Cellar Manager - a great job if ever there was one. He took us on a short journey through the world of Old Ale, giving us a little taste of what we could enjoy over the weekend.

We began the tasting with a Coniston No.9 Barley Wine, a taste I'm unfamiliar with, being a relative newcomer to the world of beer enjoyment. I was accompanied by my husband, sister-in-law and brother-in-law, who were visiting from the States. My brother-in-law is not a great fan of beer, but very much liked the sweet, complex taste of this little tipple. As usual, the pub upheld their long-held tradition of pairing decent beer with decent food and some delicious amuse bouche were brought out to wash down with the Coniston. The sausage rolls (not the kind you get in Greggs) and chunks of soft, tasty beef were swallowed down too quickly to photograph, and were, of course, very yummy. At 8.5% the barley wine was quite a knock-out of a starter.

With each sample, Jamie gave us a quick explanation of the beers, and all present listened avidly, and tweeted their thoughts along the way. After each beer was introduced he then moved around from table to table to answer any questions and get our thoughts on the beers.
Next up was the Rockstar, an American-style brown ale - a collaboration from Darkstar and Magic Rock Brewing. At a mere 6% it was a lot milder than the Coniston, and was rather fruity. Plates of salami were brought round to enjoy with this one.

The third beer was possibly my favourite - another strong one at 8.5% was Marble Beer's Dubbel Chocolate. For a beer with such strength it was very drinkable. Melt-in-the-mouth Scotch eggs were making the rounds by now - will have to go back for some more of those.
Number four was one of those not-for-everyone stouts - Harviestoun Old Engine Oil Special Reserve, at 8%. It certainly had a passing resemblance to engine oil, but it gave it some bite. I quite liked it; I seem to have developed a taste for the rather dark, strong ones. The brother-in-law was not impressed and passed on that one. Some mature cheddar bites helped soak up some of the alcohol.

A slight change in direction led us to the first Old Ale on the list from Binghams Brewery - at only 4.5% it was the lightest of the selection. It was a bit light in flavour for me, especially after the rather harsh engine-oil taste; something I might come back to - at the beginning of the evening.

Last but not least was the Festivity Rum-aged Porter from Bath Ales. It's only 5% but has a much richer flavour than the alcohol content might suggest. The taste of rum and vanilla definitely comes through - another one to go back for!

The evening wasn't over once the beer was gone - some of the press were invited down to the cellar for a tour, but we headed downstairs to the main pub for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for our American visitors - roast turkey and trimmings. No room for pumpkin pie after all that beer, nibbles and turkey (although we did manage to fit in a couple more beers).
Looking forward to heading back there this weekend to sample some more. There's a huge selection of beers on cask and keg - particularly looking forward to the BrewDog Paradox Jura Stout, one of the brewery's limited releases that the pub's been saving all year for this event (may not have many, as it's a whopping great 15% and has a flavour to match!). The festival runs from Friday 23rd November until Sunday 25th, but there'll probably be some leftovers still available next week. Don't forget it's a dog-friendly pub - we'll be taking our little spaniel along too!

Information on upcoming events at the White Horse is best found by following them on Twitter - @WhiteHorseSW6.

Beer for Punks: The BrewDog Phenomenon

I am lucky. The White Horse in Parsons Green is my local pub. For anyone with an interest in decent beer, it is an amazing place. Sometimes it can be overrun with pushy, entitled Sloaney types, which earned it the nickname the "Sloaney Pony" many years ago. But it has a nice garden out the front, does great barbeques in the summer, has a lovely quiet bar upstairs, a restaurant at the back, and an amazing selection of international craft beers. And most of the people are just fine.

The pub hosts a few events during the year. For the past five years they've held an American Beer Festival over the July 4th weekend, at the end of August they have a celebration of Belgian Beers, and then there's a British Ale event in late November. Occasionally they host one-off events, and so the hubby and I excitedly booked tickets for a BrewDog beer dinner.
We'd just visited the wonderful BrewDog pub in Camden, and had previously tried the rather extreme Tactical Nuclear Penguin, via a mail-order purchase.
I'm not an expert on beer, and I'm not giving a detailed review of the beers, but just a bit of a flavour of the evening. We were greeted with a small glass of Dead Pony Club, the first of many delicious and interesting beers, the antithesis of the tasteless stuff that had led the creators to start the company in the first place. It was full of flavour and depth. We sat down at communal tables and made new friends. It promised to be a very good evening.

James Watt, an ex-fisherman from Fraserburgh in north-east Scotland,  started off by telling us the story behind BrewDog.

He and a friend were fed up with rubbish beer that had nothing going for it other than the fact that it got you drunk and was relatively cheap. They longed for something with some real flavour and so decided to try to brew their own. To cut a long story short, their passion, determination, good taste, hard work - and a few early white lies to unsupportive bank managers - have brought them to where they are today: a world-renowned brewer of incredibly diverse, and incredibly delicious, craft beers. James' story was an incredibly inspiring one. Some of the beers are very drinkable, every-day IPAs and lagers. Some of them are so strong and distinct in both flavour and alcohol content that they can only be enjoyed in small doses! Their notoriety has been part of their success, and is the reason my husband found out about them in the first place - no publicity is bad publicity, after all. Tokyo*, at 18.2% had problems after its label was banned in Scotland as it was seen as encouraging excessive drinking. They followed this up with a statement beer called "Nanny State" at a mere 0.5%, before heading back on track to produce Tactical Nuclear Penguin at 32%; this had the accolade of being the world's strongest beer. Some Germans were determined to recapture this record, producing a beer of 40%, encouraging BrewDog to go one further: the final creation was Sink the Bismarck, at 41%. It is now out of stock; I'm not sure if there's any more on the horizon.
James talked us through each of the eight or nine beers, before we were allowed to try them. He told us that we had to get to know our beer, to commune with it, to say hello to it.

With the first few beers we were given delicious amuse-bouches, the taste of the beer complementing the taste of  mouthful, and vice versa. Over the first smaller few courses we were given samples of Punk IPA, Barrel Aged 7.7 Lager, before being supplied with blindfolds, for a blind tasting of AB:08, possibly my favourite of the evening. I took a few snaps around the table while wearing my own blindfold - amazing what you can achieve with good autofocus.

The beer tasted very dark-coloured to me, perhaps even black, but it was a rich amber-colour; we were all quite surprised when we removed the blindfolds. Next was the main course - a scrumptious pork belly, accompanied with a glass of "I Hardcore You" - a blend of BrewDog beer with a brew from Mikkeller, a Danish craft beer company with whom they have had a few collaborations.

Stilton was helped along with the intense, almost chocolate-like Tokyo*,  chocolate parfait was paired with the 15% Paradox Jura, a stunning stout aged in old oak whisky casks (you could taste the peaty Jura influence), and finally we got to taste the infamous Tactical Nuclear Penguin, accompanying a Scottish Coffee (the cream was infused with the Penguin for double impact). We toasted "To Evil" and said hello to our beer before hitting our mouths with each wonderful mouthful.

At the end of the tasting some people left, but living a stone's throw away we could linger a little and not worry about catching the last tube home. We hung around, met some more fascinating people, drank a bit more beer and went home thoroughly satisfied.

If you want to try some amazing beer, please head along to the BrewDog pub in Camden, or any other of their bars near you - they're popping up everywhere. I highly recommend the 5am Saint - a lovely rich "iconoclastic amber ale." Beware, though, it may become addictive...