Preseli Brewery 'Powder Monkey'.

Powder monkey is a 4.2% abv bitter brewed by the Preseli brewery based in Tenby, and which they now label as 'Tenby Ales'. As I mentioned in a previous post on Tenby you can buy their beers in some tourist shops in the town at quite a price too, over £3 for the bottles I saw.

I wasn't going pay that price for them, they were quite ordinary all those years ago when I reviewed them in my first month on this blog in 2010. This bottle I found in a garage shop outside of Tenby at a much more reasonable price so thought I'd give them a second go.

Going back to that first review there are two things I will mention.
Firstly I said that their website was basic and untouched. 4 years later there seems to be little change showing how much they value/need their online presence.

The second thing is, and this is sort of backing up the first point also, a while back I looked at ratebeer and noted the commercial description of their beer 'Even Keel'.
This is it:


COMMERCIAL DESCRIPTION
Even Keel is a 3.4% bitter probably what you would term a ’session ale’ and it went down very quickly. With a light malt taste and some hop aroma, pleasant enough but not terribly exciting. The kind of drink you would have again but if there was something else on offer you would try that first.


If you go back to my original review you note this has been lifted straight from it! You have to ask why?!!! It's not even that complimentary, I'm suggesting try other beers instead!
I don't know how ratebeer allow descriptions to be placed beside beers but it's possibly not that a stringent process. And I'm not suggesting that a brewery should monitor every aspect of their online presence but a complete lack has probably meant that this 'description' has been tagged to their beer for a couple of years now, something most people would want to remedy you would think.

Anyway back to the current beer.
Not flat but little carbonation. Light fruity aroma which follows through into the taste. Light to medium body, very slight bitterness afterwards. Umm and thats about it really, not really much more to say about it.

Here's a nice picture of Tenby instead.

Stackpole Inn, Pembrokeshire, and Bluestone brewery 'Pasg Hapus'.

 How's that for a beautiful country pub! The Stackpole Inn at Stackpole was one of the places we visited on a trip this week whilst staying in Tenby.

The decor inside sat comfortably between modern and country style, a lot of stone and wood but well presented, warm and appealing. Welcoming friendly staff too.

We were headed for a day out to the Stackpole estate for a walk, it's a National Trust property in South West Wales with great walks and nature aplenty, birdlife, lillypad lakes, and otters if you're lucky enough. Within easy walking distance is also Barafundle bay which is regularly voted one of the best beaches in the UK by those who know.

And when my wife suggested going to Stackpole something pinged in that clogged up head of mine that a pub nearby appeared in one of those '10 best Welsh country pubs' lists.
An early lunch before our walk was planned, a nice menu with plenty of local produce on it, and a bar with, aside from the usual offerings, had a good few Welsh beers on.
The barman said that they like to keep their beer and cider options Welsh, although their lager wasn't. I suggested they try the Gower brewery for their Lighthouse which is a nice lager, or try Tiny Rebel as all their beers are pretty good.

Food was ordered, children's meals were pretty standard for what you expect, I opted for the Cawl with local lamb and veg (£9) and my wife went for a mushroom cheese red onion puff tartlet thing with salad (£11).

As you know a new brewery opens up every 93 seconds these days, and currently according to made up figures there are now 29,537 in the UK. By the time you reach for a newly created beer tomorrow that will have topped the 30,000 figure*.

One of those new is the Bluestone brewery based in Pembrokeshire a 10 barrel operation whose beer was on that day.
'Pasg Hapus' means Happy Easter in Welsh, the pump clip gives it as a Pale Ale at 4.5% abv.
Fresh and in good condition it had a a medium body, smooth yet enough life in it, reasonable citrus bitterness from the hops, a good beer in a lovely pub.



 *all bullshit as I'm sure you know

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.

He was so drunk......

When in Tenby the other day I took this photo of the side of the Coach and Horses.

I mentioned this whilst I did my review on Pubs in Tenby, (which when looking at my stats and tracker has been quite a popular post) and thought I'd put it up here.

Brains aiming to open at controversial Tenby development

Welsh brewers Brains are getting involved at the controversial Tenby development on the South Beach.

Down at the start of the beach was a run down cafe and it certainly could have done with modernising.
The land was sold and are to be "19 luxury apartments - with stunning sea-views". This shows the building August last year.

When you see it in the context below I can see why locally there was a fair amount of opposition to the development. Why people feel the need to build flats there and ruin such a beautiful landscape I'll never know. They have also had to dig into the cliff side to squeeze in all the buildings.

 The local news and events website Virtual Tenby has fairly strong opinions on the matter here.

This is how its progressing last month

Anyway, this is a beer blog you say, what about it?
Well there is to be a bar and restaurant at the site, and posters up showed Brains were seeking the appropriate licensing permissions, and they now have begun advertising for staff.

It'll be interesting to see how this does in the position it is, a very seasonal business surely? And if you end up with drunks, trouble and more litter on the beach, they could be in for a lot of bad press blaming Brains whether they're responsible or not. We'll have to watch this (ugly) space.

Pubs in Tenby, Pembrokshire

Tenby in Pembrokshire, South West Wales, is a beautiful place and well worth visiting for a weekend break, preferably longer to fully appreciate it. If you get bored of the amazing scenery and beaches there is plenty to do in the surrounding area what ever your preferences. It truly is a 'picture postcard' place to look at.

I present the evidence in these photos, my wife has had family here for many years, and first took me down ten years ago. We still visit several times a year, the kids love it.

Anyway, enough of the tourist hard sell, the town has plenty of pubs to refresh those sun soaked bodies if ice creams fail to do so.
The first few years we came we visited most of them in the town, in recent years because our kids were young we haven't been to that many but I tried to make up for that last week during our Easter holiday.

When the tide is out thats pretty much all beach too.

The first couple of evenings were spent drinking in, with poor choice from both Londis and Sainsbury's. Unfortunately the latter has got a small store in Tenby with an even smaller beer range, you certainly wont get your Punk fix here. Londis used to have quite a few bottles from local and interesting breweries, I had my first St. Austell Clouded Yellow from there, but the choice is not as good these days.

The first pub I visited was the free house '5 Arches Tavern'. A pub with dark corners, stone columns and nooks abound, it had 2 pumps with Brains Bitter and Theakstons Black Bull which I chose. It was creamy, almost nitro 'smooth' apart from the temperature, an okay start.

Practically built into the old city stone walls is 'The Bush Inn' a thin and narrow pub, appeared to be many more locals than tourists drinking in there. Welsh brewery Felinfoel seem to have the only ale on there amongst the many keg taps. 

So I headed onto Upper Frog Street, past the Tenby Rugby Club which does serve non-members, and found the 'Normandie'.
It has the appearance more of a bar/restaurant, entry that day was difficult due to the two staff smoking and blocking the door, peering through the window I couldn't see any hand pumps. Next time I'll venture in but that day I had plenty of others to choose from.
Like the The Coach and Horses, Tenby's oldest pub, Dylan Thomas once got pissed there, it advertises itself as the towns 'finest gastropub' esp. Thai food apparently. Their Hancocks was off, so in one of the two small front rooms I had a pint of Doom Bar, unfortunately not in the best condition malty but no hop profile.

I turn onto the high street with a view over the harbour and north beach, see above,  further and I pass on the left the now closed 'Sun Inn' but on the right is a Marstons called 'The Lamb'. I've been in here a few times before, mixed crowd, quite empty today, no single hop series on which was a shame, but Hobgoblin, Banks bitter and Jennings Laughing Gravy which was at 4% a really good bitter, copper coloured, sharp fruit good bitterness. The pub's 70-80's punk soundtrack was pretty cool too.

The Lamb

Later we went for a family meal at The Buccanner , I started with a pint of Felinfoel Double Dragon smooth and malty, a little spicy, its not an outstanding bitter but hits the spot. As I then received an insane pile of Pembrokshire ribs (reminded me a bit of TV's Man vs Food, but on this occasion man wins!) I followed them some how with a pint of Doom Bar, better condition this time, seemed lighter, noticable hops balanced its malt, good pint. A busy pub, serving standard but pretty good food, the only thing I didn't like was they ice chill their glasses, fine for those drinking cider or lager but not mine please! Seriously, some guy had ice crystals on the rim of his Strongbow!

The following day, I went into the Lifeboat Tavern. They have two handpumps, currently  serving Doom Bar and one other which was off so I couldn't tell what it was. Again I previously have drunk in the Lifeboat, good nights, lively younger crowd, with its bar shaped like bow of a boat, and plenty of tenby rich seaside history on display.
 As I'd already had Doom Bar that week I moved down the square passed the Buccanner and down the road towards the harbour and into the Hope and Anchor on the left.

Hope and Anchor, Tenby's best pub?

After being limited to 2-3 taps in the pubs so far this was much better. 3 permanent pumps with Brains Rev James, Doom Bar, and Felinfoel Double Dragon again. But also they have 6-7 guests on, this week it was Wharfebank brewery's 'Tether Blonde, Fullers Chiswick, Kite brewery's Thunderbird, Robinson's Enigma and another I forget.

I started with the Enigma, an amber ale, nice and light, lightly malted, dry and smooth, very pleasant. Looking at the numerous CAMRA 'we're in' good beer guide I order a Fullers Chiswick something I've only had in bottle form before. Fruity, biscuit malty, nice dry bitter finish.
The pub has a pretty standard menu for food except for fish where it has an extensive range for the freshly caught seafood of Tenby.
It apparently is a free house but they seem to be advertising its range of forthcoming guest ales from a Molson Coors flyer which includes Worthington White Shield and others from their 'Shield' range.

I finished with the newish Welsh Kite Brewery. Later when looking them up I realise we pass them on the way down here to Tenby, a detour next time perhaps! Their Thunderbird was excellent, a 4.5% bitter, nice hops, balanced with malts well, fruity and good bitterness.



Back out onto the road, back through the town you pass the Tenby House 'Griffin Bar', its popular at night with a younger larger crowds, its a more spacious pub, selling Hobgoblin, St. Austell Tribute.
I'm sure I'll see plenty of this on holiday in Cornwall next month so I pass this time and proceed back through the town towards the South beach and tucked down Lower Frog Street I go into the 'Crown Inn'.

This is a Brains pub, we've been there several times over the years, always good atmosphere, its basically a large terrace house on a side street.
They have 5 pumps with Abbott Ale, Brains SA and their IPA, Caledonian Raspberry Fool, and Smiles brewery Blonde.
I was tempted by the £2.10 pint offer for the IPA, muted in its hoppiness I thought, light in everything. Started to wish I'd tried the Caledonian or Smiles. The pub however are advertising that soon they will also be serving direct from the cask ciders and ales.

So thats my first round up of the pubs in Tenby, next trip (June) I'll try to visit the ones I passed by this time, and I know there are a couple more I've not mentioned.
A great holiday destination, and for the ale drinker the Hope and Anchor is your best bet.