Penarth Bottle Shop, and Brains Craft Brewery 'The Crafty Chairman'

Another from the Brains Craft Brewery.
This was bought from what has easily become my go-to beer shop, its five minutes from work and one staff member must be now used to having a nurse coming in grumbling to himself about patients and the look of desperation and hunger for beer in his eyes.

The Bottle Shop in Penarth is the second opened by the team that started in Roath, Cardiff, (a shop I've looked for on a couple of occasions but never found!).

It is situated next to the train station in Penarth town, the shop used to be Arth Wines which had unfortunately ceased trading the year before. They have a great choice of Welsh, British and import beers, and frankly at some extremely reasonable prices, I know a few places in Cardiff where I would be paying more, another reason I've been there back several times.

I've picked up plenty from Flying Dog, Beavertown, Left Hand, Brooklyn, Siren, Kuichi, Founders, to mention a few, and the last time I went in they had a record player set up and stacks of vinyl.
Choosing beers to The Cure was such a great way to wind down!!!


On one of my visits I bought 'The Crafty Chairman' from Brains Craft Brewery, it was described on their website as

 "a vibrant golden beer with a Belgian twist brewed by the Chairman of Brains, John Rhys. Pale Ale, Cara and Wheat malts combine with three British hops – Phoenix, First Gold and East Kent Goldings – and Belgian golden ale yeast"

Originally released last December on cask only, it has now had a very limited edition run in bottles, the Penarth Bottle shop being one of the very few who had a case to sell.
Certainly lively, and a Belgian yeasty aroma on the nose, it certainly looked the part.


It was however let down by slightly confusing nature, it was to light and thin for a good Belgian beer, as a golden ale the Belgian yeast is distracting, you want something quenching, fresh and hoppy but it isn't quite those things, and your left thinking what am I supposed to be drinking. Perhaps it drank better on cask although ratings on Untappd were average too.

Well worth a visit, friendly dog, friendly staff, you really should be going to the Penarth Bottle Shop for your beery needs if in that part of South Wales, and being next to the train station means in and out of Cardiff is so easy as well. No excuses!

Roath - twitter.com/CF24BottleShop
Penarth - twitter.com/CF64BottleShop

it's all gone crafty!

(Adopts booming voice)
Yes it's craft craft craft here at Tesco.
You too can be hip and happening, drink cool beer, and not need hang around in craft beer bars with people that have tattoos and strange facial hair.
Now that Tesco is stocking more more more craft beer from small independent breweries such as Greene King, Marstons, Fullers and Brains. Gasp at the range, bask in the coolness of a beer produced in a shed/nanobrewery round the back of the car park of the megamassive main brewery.


Don't miss out, go craft craft craft beer crazy!!!!!!

Ok so a bit piss takey but it's how my mind worked when I went into the mega super massive Tesco yesterday. 'Oh new bottles' I thought as I looked on the shelf, and quite a number of new ones too. Quite a few were 'craft lager' but a red ale and a hefeweizen also. 

If stocking Brains Craft beers most shop's will only have Barry Island IPA and Boilermaker, so it good to see some new ones, 'Bragging Rights' which is a braggot style ale and quite nice, and ' Ides of Marzen'.

Looking at the other bottles though you soon notice they are all from the larger breweries, mentioned above.  Over the last week a few bloggers have been commenting on the Sixpoint beers appearing in Wetherspoons (and I hope to get some soon) and it possibly being a turning point/milestone for craft beer (and I hope it is) I look at these on the shelves and do wonder. With the power and foot already in the door that these big breweries have, and the almost instant ability to supply the 'latest trends' you see small independent producers could always be struggling against the tide.

Anyway enough thinking it hurts my head. What about the beers, and yes I did buy some of them, like you I like to try new ones when I see them.
The two Marstons 'Revisionist' label beers I got were the red ale and wheat beer. Both being fairly innocuous, the wheat beer being a bit spicy but otherwise bland as a very bland thing. The Brains Craft marzen was nice but I prefer the 'Bragging Rights', nicely spiced and balanced.
I also picked up one from Greene King 'Suffolk Strong' because it says its been blended with their old ale 5x.

Tenby (holiday break) and beer update

After a few days in Tenby during half-term, expecting poor weather and being pleasantly surprised that most days stayed dry enough to get on the beach with the kids for walks and rock pooling, I thought I'd post a sort of beer update on the town. (My previous post on Tenby's beer scene.)

The Lamb pub, owned by Marstons, has been closed.

The Preseli brewery which is based in Tenby has changed its name to 'Tenby Ales'.
I've yet to see any of their beers on cask in the pubs I've visited surprisingly, but I saw their bottles in a Welsh tourist shop on Frog St. and in the Deli. But I'm not buying them at £3.69 a bottle, they were pretty ordinary beers when I tried them a couple of years ago, and unless they've significantly improved i'm not sure they can justify those (tourist) prices.

The Brains pub 'The Crown Inn' now also serves an ale straight from a cask on the bar, that day it was from their Craft Brewery 'Farmer Walloon' a 4.5% saison which was ok although a bit tired and tellingly they took the cask off soon afterwards.

The Giltar Hotel up by the South beach has one cask beer on in the bar that's open to non residents. I had Celtic Pride from the Felinfoel brewery, which was perfectly fine but uninspiring to be honest.

As you can see the eyesore that is the Waters Edge development is progressing at rate of knots. Well, no actually its not. A company now in administration has stalled the building work, leaving it as you can see going nowhere.
 


 The South Beach Grill, owned by SA Brains of Cardiff is part of the development, and been open for a while. I've not been in yet for a drink, I will remedy next visit. Wonder how much they've been affected by the building uncertainty and delay.
A photo on their Facebook page showed a van delivery from Brains and the Craft Brewery so it will be interesting to see what's on sale.
As you can see in the photo they've had to dig themselves into work following the recent storms!



As always the best pints I had were in The Hope and Anchor, guests on were from Otley, Purple Moose and Skinners.

Brains Craft Brewery 'Black Mountain'

One of the things I like most about the Brains Craft Brewery is the labels they use, nice cartoon style brewery set up depicted, and usually little unique characters or items added for each different beer, lovely little details have gone into them.

'Black Mountain' is described as a 'hoppy Black IPA' , 5% and as with all their bottles 330mls. I picked this one up at Wally's Deli in the Royal Arcade in Cardiff, paid £2.35. It was brewed in conjunction with the Craft Beer Youtube channel.

Poured pretty black but with a small head that went soon after the photo.
Nice medium body, little toffee aroma, and a little floral and spicy elements. It does not however give the 'explosion of hops' promised from the Amarillo, Pacifica, Citra, Summit and Apollo hops used. The 'coffee, liquorice and burnt toffee' is there but also quite muted.

Overall its an okay beer,but compared to other well known Black IPA's its a bit of a light weight.
Its been reviewed reasonably well on untappd on cask so I thought that perhaps it has lost some of that freshness in the bottle, but seeing as it was only available in late December in Brains pubs this bottle isn't that old really.