Edda gig for Folk in the Park

Should be an interesting night. Edda has become a good venue 

for local small scale concerts - four bands for a fiver!

Is there life after Christmas?

After months of the seasonal hype that begins just after you have returned from your summer holidays, it's about now that people start wondering: is there life after Christmas? Well, here in the North West, these might provide something of an answer.

First is the CAMRA Manchester Beer & Cider Festival (MBCF) which runs from Thursday 24 to Saturday 26 January 2019 in Manchester Central, Windmill Street, Manchester, the fourth year at this venue. MBCF is the North’s biggest pub crawl but safely protected from the weather. With

around 750 different drinks, there’s bound to be something to suit everyone. MBCF aims to encourage people to try new beers, and this year it will feature some specially commissioned beers, collaborations and ales that are rarely, if ever, seen in this region. 15,558 eager beer lovers attended in 2018. The nearest railway station is Deansgate. Buy tickets here.

Next is the St George's Hall Winter Ales Festival from Thursday 31 to Saturday 2 February 2019 in one of Liverpool's most iconic buildings. Expect up to 200 different real ales and ciders alongside an indoor gin garden with a selection of boutique gins, spirits, wine and prosecco. There will also be entertainment for all sessions except Friday daytime, and hot and cold food to soak up the alcohol, provided by local food providers. Though it's not a CAMRA festival, they offer discount for CAMRA members with valid membership cards on the Thursday evening and Friday daytime sessions. St George's Hall is on Liverpool's famous Lime Street. Tickets available here. 

CAMRA Liverpool & Districts Branch are once again holding their annual beer festival from Thursday 21 to Saturday 23 February 2019 in the impressive surroundings of the crypt of the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral on Brownlow Hill. More than 200 ales and ciders will be on offer. The Brasswürst Bavarian Band will provide entertainment on Friday and Saturday evening, and food stalls are there should you get peckish. The CAMRA Liverpool Beer Festival is the longest-running festival in Merseyside. Get your tickets here.

Public Meeting To Save The Blundell Arms

The Blundell Arms on its final day of opening

The campaign to save the Blundell Arms in Birkdale, Southport, held a successful public meeting at Birkdale Conservative Club on Friday 30 November. An attentive audience listened to speakers discussing various aspects of the campaign, including the possibilities of success and the obstacles that still remain to be overcome. There were speeches from two of Southport's parliamentary candidates: Labour's Liz Savage and the LibDems' John Wright, both pledging support for the campaign. Three of us from CAMRA attended, and Mike Perkins addressed the meeting on behalf of the local branch. After the speeches, the meeting was opened to questions from the floor, some of which were quite searching.

While there is no doubt that in its final years the Blundell fell on bad times, the campaign is clear that they don't intend to return to that sorry period of the pub's existence. Instead they wish to recreate it as a community centre as well as a pub with plans that include a dementia café, a children's play area, food and a venue for functions.

My own memories of this pub come from attending the Bothy Folk Club there on most Sundays for 25 years until 2003 when the club moved. Until the final years, it had been a perfectly decent street corner local, sadly the kind of pub that is disappearing from our communities. I attended quite a few functions there myself, such as weddings, wakes and birthdays, including one of my own.

At the meeting, Jason McCormack stated that a video of the meeting is to be posted on the group's Facebook page: "The Blundell Arms Community Pub" - have a look for it. He also mentioned an on-line petition; I'll give details here when I get them.

Mad Hatter calls time

I was sorry to hear that Liverpool's Mad Hatter Brewery has ceased trading. Launched in 2013, it was situated in the Vauxhall area of Liverpool and was one of the few breweries to be run by a woman, Sue Starling. It produced a number of interesting and sometimes quirky beers, a few of which were named after local places such as Penny Lane Pale and Toxteth IPA.

Some commentators have been suggesting that there are now too many breweries in a slowly declining market. There's probably some truth in that, but I don't get the impression that was the case here. Sue has said the pleasure of brewing has gone after the departure of her co-founder, Gareth Matthews, whose creativity she has sorely missed. That loss, coupled with a change of premises, means that she no longer wants to run the business herself, but she is open to offers to buy it "so it could live on".

It's certainly a pity to lose a distinctive presence on the local beer scene, so you've always fancied running your own brewery, this may be your big chance.

Launch of new brewery in Southport

The Grasshopper, venue of the launch of Tyton Brewery

Exciting news for local beer drinkers: a new brewery in Southport will be launched at a popular local pub next month. Tom Anderson from Tyton Brewery in Ainsdale will present his first beer at the Grasshopper, Sandon Road, Hillside, on Monday 3 December at the start of a meeting of CoLAPS (the Coast of Lancashire Ale Preservation Society). The meeting opens at 7:30pm.

This group is a branch of the Society for Preservation of Beers from the Wood (SPBW), CAMRA's older sibling. The SPBW has similar aims to CAMRA but tends to have a more social focus; quite a few people belong to both, and if you wish to join CoLAPS, why not apply on the night?

As well as presenting Tyton's first beer, this meeting will double up as a Christmas Social, and attendees are encouraged to bring partners, friends and family (over 18s). There will be a buffet with a £2 per head contribution towards costs, and for planning purposes the Grasshopper requests that you give them an indication of how many will be coming along (tel: 01704 569794).

Extract from an article I wrote for the CAMRA column in the Southport Visiter and Ormskirk Advertiser.

Losing your bottle

In a couple of TV dramas recently, I've noticed that when the characters drink beer at home, they drink out of bottles. While I know some people do this in real life, I don't see it that frequently. This may be partly attributable to the kind of pubs I tend to drink in, but I do also go into local micropubs that offer a good choice of bottles in addition to draught beer and I've noticed that most bottled beer drinkers will opt for a glass. This may be because they are drinking a premium product and want to enjoy it at its best, while the direct-from-bottle drinkers are more likely to be swigging bog standard foreign beers such as San Miguel.

Drinking out the bottle is a much less satisfying experience than drinking the same bottled beer out of a glass. The beer fizzes up in your mouth and in your stomach, with a consequence that you cannot fully taste the flavour and you become bloated more quickly. It can also develop a huge head in the bottle. I expect that dramas like to depict people drinking out of bottles because it looks more rugged or some such nonsense, but bottles were not designed to be drunk out of. On the few occasions when I drink bottled beer at home, I use a glass and find that guests always do as well.

There is also the question of hygiene. Bottled beers can be stored in insecure premises in breweries, warehouses, pub cellars or supermarket storerooms. These types of areas are not kept clean to a food safety standard and there is the real chance of rats, mice, cockroaches or other vermin crawling over crates, urinating and defecating as they go. Some drinkers then put these bottles straight into their mouths. Unless there is some visible dirt on bottles, they are not normally cleaned, and even when they are, it would be quickly for appearance rather than thoroughly for hygiene.

Still, we mustn't be too harsh on the bottle drinkers: if they poured their beer out and supped it from a glass, they might find they're not actually that keen on the flavour.

Bass and the Mad Hatter

In my early days of beer appreciation, Draught Bass was regarded as the Rolls Royce of beers which we would go out of our way to find. The bottled version, Bass Pale, was similarly well regarded; it was slightly stronger than the draught and was known all over the world, being shipped to many countries, especially India, and was the first foreign beer to be sold in Japan. Edouard Manet depicted bottles of Bass in his painting ‘Le Bar Aux Folies Bergere’ in 1882, and thirty years later 12,000 bottles went down with the Titanic. Bass Pale was a world-wide phenomenon whose history, it has been claimed, goes back to 1777.

The brand is now owned by global brewer AB InBev who will relaunch it next month. In 2013, they decided to rename this iconic beer as “Bass Trademark Number One” to acknowledge the fact that the famous Bass red triangle was the first registered trade mark in the UK. This move was described by beer blogger Zythophile as “a classic example of How To Royally Screw Up Your Brand” (see his full post here). AB InBev say they are bringing this beer back with its original name to “invigorate the premium ale category”.

The beer scene has changed a lot in recent decades, with a younger generation of beer drinkers who have a far wider choice of real ales, craft beers and bottled ales than ever before. Classic brand or not, it will be competing in a very crowded market place and the beer will have to be very good to make any serious inroads. Still, I look forward to giving it a try.

Closer to home, I was sorry to hear that Liverpool's Mad Hatter Brewery has ceased trading. Launched in 2013, it was one of the few breweries to be run by a woman, Sue Starling, and produced a number of interesting and sometimes quirky beers, some of them named after local places such as Penny Lane Pale and Toxteth IPA. Sue has said the pleasure of brewing has gone after the departure of her co-founder, Gareth Matthews, whose creativity she has sorely missed. That loss, coupled with a change of premises, means that she no longer wants to run the business herself, but she is open to offers to buy it “so it could live on”.

It's certainly a pity to lose a distinctive presence on the local beer scene, so you've always fancied running your own brewery, this may be your big chance.

This is one of a series of articles that I write for the CAMRA column in our local papers, the Southport Visiter and Ormskirk Advertiser.

The Baron's Bar, Southport

The Scarisbrick Hotel, home of the Baron's Bar

The Scarisbrick Hotel is a landmark building on Southport's Lord Street, and is home to the famous Baron's Bar. In the 1980s, this bar was particularly popular as it offered 4 or 5 beers from different breweries. Such a choice is unexceptional today, but back then it made the Baron's unique in the town.

I decided to see what's on offer nowadays and when I called in there were 8 real ales and one real cider, Old Rosie. There are three beers on all the time: Baron's Bitter, the house beer brewed specially by Moorhouses, Moorhouses Pride of Pendle and Tetley Original Cask. The changing guests were: Scaredy Cat and Pendlewitch, both from Moorhouses, Doghouse Citra, Brewhouse Mosaic, and Lancaster Red.

The 'coming soon' board looked interesting with Salopian Pipe Dream, a personal favourite of mine, and George Wright Cheeky Pheasant among those lined up. The three beers I tried were in good form; the real cider I'd sampled on a previous visit and had found it satisfactory. Among the usual range of other drinks, there is a good choice of Scotch whiskies.

The baronial interior

The Baron's Bar is usually described as being in a mock-baronial style, and there is a preponderance of dark wood. Around the bar are displayed dozens of pumpclips from previous guest beers. A beer festival was held in this room last September. The bar is in the heart of the building and has frosted glass on one side, which gives the effect of being cut off from the town centre. A complete contrast is the Scarisbrick Lounge: this is a bright, airy and more modern bar with large clear windows through which you can watch life go by on Lord Street while drinking the real ales from the Baron's. You pays your money and takes your choice. 

Children are admitted until early evening, and dog are allowed too. Happy Hour is from midday to 1.00 pm with a reduction on the Tetley's, the keg cider and a lager. There is free WiFi for customers. The opening hours are 11.00 am to 11.00 pm during the week; on Friday and Saturday the bar closes at midnight.

The Baron's could be called a 'no frills' bar: no food, live music, quizes or TV sport. It just concentrates on serving good, reasonably-priced real ales, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

This is one of a series of articles that I write for the CAMRA column in our local papers, the Southport Visiter and Ormskirk Advertiser. Previous reviews are here.

Gig tomorrow

Free admission - all welcome.

The Beer Den, Southport

The Beer Den

The Beer Den, Southport's newest real ale micropub, opened for business a fortnight ago. It is operated by the Parker Brewery of Banks, north of Southport. My friend Mick and I went along as it opened: in fact, we were the first customers through the door. We were made welcome by Kie who was just about to unlock the door as we rolled up.

There are four handpumps offering two beers from Parker Brewery and two guest ales. On my first visit the Parker beers were Golden Samurai Ale and Dark Spartan Stout, while the guest beers were Melwood Paleface from Knowsley and Red Star Hunky Dory from Formby. On my second visit last weekend the guest ales were Melwood Knowsley Blonde and Bowness Bay Tern IPA from Kendal. I managed to try most of them, finding that all were well-kept and the prices very reasonable.

Kie (left) and Sarah

The bar is in a former computer shop which has been pleasantly refurbished in a light and airy manner. As well as real ale, there is a craft beer and a lager on fonts and the usual range of spirits, including speciality gins, a good wine list, Prosecco and coffee. In one corner there is a large cabinet with a wide range of bottled beers from various breweries, including some in gift packs and, for Parker beer fans, T-shirts in various colours displaying the brewery's name.

On the opening day, the Beer Den became quite busy and Kie was soon joined by Sarah behind the bar. On my second visit, it was even busier. Clearly this bar meets a need in the local area as there are no pubs or bars in this part of Southport. Although the bar is new, I found people were willing to have a friendly chat.

The Beer Den is at 65/67 Duke Street near the corner with Shakespeare Street; the 46 and 46A buses pass nearby. If you get peckish after a few drinks, there is a takeaway just next door.

Please note: restricted hours and closed Mondays.

This is one of a series of articles that I write for the CAMRA column in our local papers, the Southport Visiter and Ormskirk Advertiser. Previous reviews are here.

Southport Beer & Cider Festival 2018

It's back after a two-year absence caused by some local whingers who moaned that they didn't like this venue and wanted another in the town centre - not that they had any suggestions themselves, of course. As this is the only suitable central venue, the festival has returned there. Tickets here - free admission for CAMRA members.

3rd Hillside Cider Festival

I've received this message from Andrew of Grasshopper fame about this forthcoming local festival in Southport:

"The 3rd Hillside Cider Festival is at The Grasshopper on Sandon Road, Hillside, Southport from 24th to 26th August and will feature 30 of the best Real Ciders and Perries from around the UK.

"We are pleased to have the CAMRA Champion Cider of Britain 2018 - Harry's Scrummage and also the CAMRA Champion Perry of Britain - Nempnett's Piglet Perry. We also have a range of fruit ciders including Rhubarb, Strawberry, Lemon, Ginger and Pineapple and many more. There will be a barbecue with a range of specialist sausages and entertainment in the evenings.

"The festival starts at 7pm on Friday 24th and runs until 10:30pm on Sunday 26th or until the cider runs out. The Grasshopper is a short walk from Hillside train station and is on the 47 bus route."

A true story

Not the dream woman!

I had a strange dream last night. A woman was holding up a Higsons "Famous Old Higsonians" beer mat with a sign that said: "Will exchange for sex."

This puzzled me for a while.

Then the truth dawned on me: until I'd had that dream, I had no idea that I had such an unrequited, deep-seated and subliminal desire to own Old Higsonian beer mats.

Peaky Blinders, Churchtown

Peaky Blinders, Churchtown

I decided to hop on the 49 bus to Churchtown to have a look at - and a drink in – the new branch of Peaky Blinders which opened in March 2018 in an old bank. It has an L-shaped bar with modern furnishings, including some tall tables and stools, and large windows overlooking the road. It is light and airy, with walls decorated with a reproduction of old newspaper adverts and cuttings.

There is a outdoor drinking terrace on two levels to the front where smoking is permitted. A disability ramp can be reached on the right hand side of the building as you face it, where there is also a cash machine, a relic from its days as a bank. One thing I didn't realise until my visit is that they offer accommodation.

It has four handpumps which, when I called in, were serving Timothy Taylor's Landlord, Black Sheep Bitter, Cross Bay Blonde and Bowness Bay Amazon Amber. I found all to be in good condition. This range does change, although I was told the Taylor's is often on.

Non-real beers included Löwenbräu and Weihenstephaner Bavarian-style Weissbier. They have a choice of wines and their own range of spiced gin, rum and whisky; I noticed on the hot day I was there that various gin drinks piled up with ice were flying over the bar. They serve food until at least 7.00 pm: reasonably-priced light bites, paninis, and cheese or meat platters.

When I rolled up, the friendly bar staff were cheerfully singing along to Beatles songs on the bar's sound system, although other musical eras are available. There is a television and free WiFi for customers; families, including your canine pal, are welcome.

Peaky Blinders is at 145 Cambridge Road, PR9 7LR, close to the 49 bus route and the buses on Cambridge Road. Its opening hours are 10am to 11.30pm every day. Website.

This is one of a series of articles that I write for the CAMRA column in our local papers, the Southport Visiter and Ormskirk Advertiser. Previous write-ups are here.

Supping nostalgia

An original R Cains poster

I see that the Cains name is to be revived with a new brewery set up within the old Higsons Brewery building where the most recent incarnation of Cains was brewed until 2013. Its disappearance wasn't much mourned, following as it did a drastic and sudden drop in quality; I wrote about it at the time here.

An entrepreneur called Andrew Mikhail, owner of bars and hotels in Merseyside including Punch Tarmey's, has acquired the name and states that the brewery will create 200 jobs and "partly model itself" on the Guinness Brewery visitor attraction in Dublin. If the 200 jobs do materialise, it would be a fairly sizeable operation.

The big old Higsons brewery building, Grade II listed, is being developed into a brewery village, which I wrote about in 2013 here. Mr Mikhail has given no indication yet whether he will revive the previous Cains beers or start from scratch with new recipes, as the latest manifestation of Higsons has done. I tried one of the new Higsons beers recently and didn't think it was anything special.

I'd be very surprised if this announcement will engender much excitement locally, but I'll save my judgement until I've tasted the product. This will be the second revival of the Cains name. The original Cains ceased to be brewed in Liverpool in the 1920s, but the name was called out of retirement in 1991. As for Higsons, we are now on the fourth version, if you include the original that was destroyed by Whitbread. I wonder how many times you can resuscitate a brand before its credibility evaporates completely?

Generally I don't see much point in using an old name and producing beers that have no resemblance to the originals; it's simply cashing in on brand nostalgia, but I suppose there's no harm in it because your beers will have to stand or fall on their quality: people won't sup solely for nostalgic reasons indefinitely.

Real ale in Southport - 1985 and now

While sorting out some books in preparation for a house move, I came across a 'Merseyside Guide To Real Ale', published in 1985, a booklet I'd completely forgotten about. It cost 50p (£1.53 now, so it was quite a bargain) and is a fairly slim volume which could easily slip into a coat pocket. As was usual in those days, the pub descriptions were rather sketchy, but I think it's safe to assume, in an age when beer choices rarely changed in pubs, that the beer situation was accurately described. This was published four years before the Beer Orders which turned the pub world in its head.

Looking at Southport, where I lived then as now, there were 25 pubs, bars, clubs and hotels listed as serving real ale. There were quite a few more non-real ale pubs, of course. In contrast, off the top of my head I have counted 41 outlets that currently serve real ale in the same area, and there may be one or two others that have slipped my mind.

Most of the beers sold in pubs were from the brewery that owned them and, as the chart shows, most pubs had only one or two real ales on. Nowhere had more than four real ales, and only one real cider was listed (Bulmers Traditional). In contrast, serving four or more real ales is quite commonplace in the town nowadays, with a few venues hitting the eight to eleven range. Real cider is still fairly uncommon in Southport, but at least we can do better than just one.

Unusual beers for the time in this area included:

• McEwans 70/-
• McEwans 80/-
• Youngers No. 3
• Boddingtons Bitter
• Marstons Pedigree
• Ruddles County
• Wilsons Original Bitter

All the rest were standard house beers from Allied Breweries, Bass, Burtonwood, Whitbread, and Matthew Brown/Theakstons. I know there was a couple of Greenall Whitley houses but I presume none sold real ale. As variety goes, this all looks fairly tame today, even the comparatively 'unusual' choices, although it's worth noting that in 1985, Pedigree, County and Boddingtons were much more highly rated than they are now.

It strikes me that, in all the doom and gloom over pub closures - and some venues listed in this guide have since been lost - we may forget that overall the situation is a lot healthier in terms of choices of beers and places to drink them than ever before, largely due to the numbers of micro-breweries and the rise of micropubs and other bars serving real ale.

I am not blasé about losing traditional pubs, and I know that some people consider the market is over-saturated with breweries and micropubs that may not survive in the long term, but despite all that, I can simply say that I much prefer to drink in today's Southport than that of 1985.

It's a gas!

Disappointed gas cylinders await the call

In case you haven't noticed, there is Europe-wide carbon dioxide shortage. I've been reading that brewers are running low or have run out of products because of the shortage; some have temporarily had to stop brewing and packaging altogether.

Some pubs and bars have been complaining that they cannot receive deliveries of popular beers such as John Smiths Extra Smooth, Amstel Lager and Fosters. It's not just the big boys who are affected: one craft brewery was uncertain they could get through the following week, while another has stopped packaging some of its beers to allow the brewery to continue working.

Any pubs and bars affected must be spitting feathers: it's been sunny and the World Cup is on - perfect conditions for beer sales. It's not just keg bitters, stouts, lagers, ciders and craft beers that are affected; the same problem applies to soft drinks as they too are served using CO2.

As a real ale drinker, I'm not too bothered in the short term for obvious reasons, but if this goes on, drinkers like me will be affected. As the Good Book* says: "Pubs shall not live on real ale sales alone". As we all know, keg products usually constitute a large percentage of a pub's turnover.

I'm reminded of the power cuts in the 1970s when pubs were lit by candles and none of the electric beer dispensers worked. Only in the very small number of pubs that had retained their handpumps could you still get a pint of draught beer when the power went off; the same applied to the only two pubs that I knew were still serving beer by gravity dispense at the time.

* GBG.

Gig in the Guest House

Pleased to say that I've been booked - 

at fairly short notice, but better than never!