Matt's Blog

06 March 2008

Beer & Buskers

Okay, so I’m dreadful at keeping this page up to date so I’ll have a quick rant for 10 minutes to at least stop people telling me off for not updating it.  Firstly massive thanks to all 95 of you that attended our Burns’ night bash this year, the most successful event we’ve ever done!  I was hoping to blog a bit more about it, but I’m still waiting for the pictures from Mark’s wife’s digital camera…  We actually ended up with a big waiting list so apologies to those of you who were disappointed.  We will be prepared next year… NEC maybe?

Ok… what’s new?  Beers and ciders I think need a big mention, since we’ve seen a lot of recent activity as more and more local brewers are starting to bottle a greater number of beers.

Recent additions include:  From the now award winning Purity Brewing Company, their ‘Farmers Harvest’, a 4.8% premium ale brewed to mark the centenary of the National Farmers Union, which is the first beer to carry the Red Tractor farm assurance logo.

From Jon Pilling, our most, erm… experimental brewer, based at the North Cotswold Brewery in Stretton on Fosse, we have his ‘Global Artic Warmer’, a hedonistically rich and strong 15% Stout.  Yes, I said 15%.  It is actually a truly amazing beer and I can say it’s the best stout I’ve ever tasted, you don’t need a great deal of it though so I’m pleased he chose to bottle it in 375ml bottles.

We’ve extended our range of beers from Tunnel Brewery, based over in Ansley and now keep their slightly more sensible 4.7% black stout ‘Shadow Weaver’ and their very interesting 5% Cloudy Wheat beer ‘Stranger in the mist’.

We’re also had two new Brewery additions and a third lined up when we can find space!  Firstly, from the Slaughterhouse Brewery (yes, it used to be a slaughterhouse, but it certainly isn’t any more so please don’t send them threatening letters about the slaughtering of animals as it’s starting to upset them…), we’ve got their trusty 3.8% best bitter called ‘Saddleback’ and also their fantastic ‘Wild Boar’, a 5.2% strong dark bitter (Jon disagrees about it being strong of course…), which was voted Champion beer of Warwickshire in 2007.

Also now on the shelves are a selection of beers from the Warwickshire Beer Company over in Cubbington.  Right now we’re stocking their ‘Best Bitter’, a 3.8% classic real ale that speaks for itself.  We’re also keeping their ‘Warwick Market Ale’, a slightly more premium 4.9% Ale, originally brewed and bottled to commemorate the re-opening of Warwick Market Place back in 1999.  Also on the shelf is their superb ‘Kingmaker’, a 5.5% rich, fruity beer with characters of dark chocolate and orange.  As space becomes available we’re looking at a couple more of their beers, including their dark and full-bodied 4.9% ‘Churchyard Bob’ and their aromatic golden 4.2% Ale ‘Godiva’, interestingly labelled with a naked picture of Lady Godiva on the front with the tag line ‘Blonde, full-bodied, goes down well’.  Moving on…

Finally, we have a third brewery addition in the pipeline… Church End Brewery in Nuneaton.  They have 3 bottled beers in the offering:  ‘Nun’s Ale’, a 4.5% Golden Ale, ‘Rugby Ale’, a 5% Strong dark ale and ‘Arthur’s Wit’, a 6% Strong golden ale.

So many great beers, so little space…

Alongside these excellent beers we have the range of ciders from our local cider maker, Allen Hogan of ‘Hogan’s Cider’, based in Haselor.  Now, next to his dry and medium cider’s, he’s bottled a great 6% vintage Perry.

Finally, as Mark’s out of the country for a few weeks, in his absence I have to say something about the world’s worst busker that now puts in an appearance within 50 yards of my shop almost every day.  This middle age guy sets himself up on the bench opposite the shop, armed with a guitar.  Can’t be too bad you think… It can.  He can’t sing, he really can’t sing, he shouts and he actually shouts out of tune.  Also, he has a guitar… he can’t play the guitar.  At all.  In fact, for most of the time the guitar lies dormant, but occasionally he does a random strum for effect.  He happily ruins a number of classics such as Oasis’ Wonderwall, adjusting with his own lyrics so out of tune we get ‘Today is gonna be the day that you’re gonna throw some change at me’.  My favourite has to be ‘If you’re happy and you know it throw some change’.  People do bizarrely throw change at him, presumably in the hope he’ll shut up.  Unfortunately, due to fear of making my ears bleed if I got too close I haven’t been able to take a picture.

Okay, I’m done and I hope to update this page again before the year is out!

Slainte!
Matt.