Looking forward to my beer tasting at Waterstone's in Albion Street next Saturday evening, as part of the Leeds Bookend events.
There will be eight beers to try from Moorhouses, Caledonian, Greene King, Everards, Ilkley, Fullers, Bateman's and Exmoor.
www.bigbookend.co.uk
Sunday, 10 June 2012
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
...but what I may do
...is post answers to specific clues.
I know that the trail is really really hard – it was supposed to be – and I'd love to know how people are getting on with it.
If you have a specific question, ask away – so long as you know that:
1) I reserve the right to answer your question with another question
2) That I may not answer at all
3) That any answer I do give, will be published here for all to see.
So? Who's actually doing this? Anyone? Did you find the 22 heads, or where you can make a greyer bolthead? Tell me! Tell me!
I know that the trail is really really hard – it was supposed to be – and I'd love to know how people are getting on with it.
If you have a specific question, ask away – so long as you know that:
1) I reserve the right to answer your question with another question
2) That I may not answer at all
3) That any answer I do give, will be published here for all to see.
So? Who's actually doing this? Anyone? Did you find the 22 heads, or where you can make a greyer bolthead? Tell me! Tell me!
And no, before you ask...
...I will not be publishing all the clues to the £1,000 prize here. For that, you have to buy the book.
I may put some extra ones here. In fact, if you look hard enough, you may find that I already have done.
But the real stuff – the clues and (crucially) the entry form – is all in the book. It's in all good booksellers (well, their Leeds branches anyway), most rotten ones (worldwide) and I do have one or two on my shelf here, if anyone wants to send me a tenner.
A tenner, Cheryl. Not a tenor.
I may put some extra ones here. In fact, if you look hard enough, you may find that I already have done.
But the real stuff – the clues and (crucially) the entry form – is all in the book. It's in all good booksellers (well, their Leeds branches anyway), most rotten ones (worldwide) and I do have one or two on my shelf here, if anyone wants to send me a tenner.
A tenner, Cheryl. Not a tenor.
The Angel
(Review first published in the YEP, December 22 2011)
The Angel
Angel Inn Yard, Leeds
CUT UP between Fat Face and Curry’s, dive into the dark and meander round the winding alley before you arrive at the front door of The Angel, home to some of the cheapest beer in the city.
My pint of Sam Smith’s Old Brewery Bitter set me back the princely sum of £1.67 here a few lunchtimes ago. This keenly competitive pricing policy draws a lively, thirsty crowd to this popular city centre drinking den, along one of the ribbon-like alleys which run between Briggate and Land’s Lane.
It doesn’t have the beauty or history of Whitelock’s, the trendy cafe bar feel of the White Swan, nor the unspoiled alehouse ambience of the Ship, but the Angel makes up for this with its good prices, great atmosphere and “something for everyone” appeal.
At £1.67 there is inevitably something of the Wetherspoon’s effect here. Downstairs is very much a simple bare-floorboarded taproom, while the alley’s wooden tables are a big draw in summertime for those who want to get fairly tanked up on the cheap.
Somehow though, the upstairs remains a little more exclusive with its tartan carpet and comfortable leather chairs. There is a separate bar up here, but on this occasion only the downstairs counter is in action, requiring drinkers to negotiate the narrow, winding stairs, loaded up with beers. One of my fellow drinkers commandeers the dumb waiter to transport his mates’ round of six pints between floors.
I find a seat in the crimson-painted upstairs lounge where the walls are dotted with monochrome prints of old Leeds, the ancient buildings and the great and the good captured for posterity and extravagantly framed like the proud forbears of some grand stately home. Industrial and architectural pioneer Colonel Harding, civil engineer John Smeaton and Victorian notable Ambrose Edmund Butler are all here, casting their stern gaze on all who pass beneath. Many of the pictures have been clad in Christmas wrapping paper as a curious extra festive touch; some have had the paper torn away to reveal their faces and streetscapes like the scenes of some gigantic advent calendar.
Matching fireplaces at either end of the room speak of the Angel’s true longevity – Sam Smith’s may have only been here for a decade or so but the building itself is much older.
I run into a party of retired YEP staff: proud pre-press men and printers whose working lives were forged in the bowels of our beautiful brutalist building, their days and duties discharged at the heavy-duty end of bringing you the news. The beer is flowing freely of course; their Johnston Press pensions being spent carefully on an afternoon of pre-Christmas leisure.
Licensees Daniel and Joanne Hazelgrave have been here for nearly ten years. Joanne had previously been with Whitbread, running food pubs in their Brewsters and Brewer’s Fayre chains. “I wanted a proper pub and we got lucky seeing this place advertised. Sam Smith’s took a risk with us; we had never had a pub like this.”
She has never looked back: “It’s a special place. It’s only 11 years old but it’s just like an old-fashioned pub. It has a great atmosphere and we have a lot of regulars who make sure that people behave.”
It’s a key point. The balancing act between cheap alehouse and desirable dining house is a hard one to achieve. With a pint of mild at just £1.25 and Alpine lager at £1.59, this could easily become a favoured haunt of the hard drinkers, at the expense of those who want a more convivial pint, or something from the menu. Sam Smith’s other city centre pubs – the General Elliot and the Duncan – are markedly down market compared to here and there might have been a danger that the Angel would have declined in the same way.
That it hasn’t is a tribute to Daniel and Joanne yet also the trademark of a pub whose regular customers are exercised sufficently to ensure that it remains unspoiled.
They have managed to steer clear of much trouble: “We don’t employ door staff and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times we’ve had to call the police. And customers know that once they are barred, they stay barred.”
The food is simple pub grub from the Sam Smith’s menu – choices such as fish and chips (£5.95), cottage pie (£5.50), banghers and mash (£4.95) and Thai green curry (£6.50), each offering the same kind of no-nonsense value which is the absolute hallmark of the place.
Email: s.w.jenkins@ntlworld.com
Twitter: @jenkolovesbeer
FACTFILE
Name: The Angel
Hosts: Daniel and Joanne Hazelgrave
Type: Cut price city centre alehouse
Opening hours: 11am-11pm Mon-Sat, noon-10.30pm Sun
Beers: Old Brewery Bitter (£1.67), Sovereign (£1.68), Mild (£1.25), Alpine lager (£1.59), Taddy Lager (£2.05), Purebrew (£2.80), Extra Stout (£2.14)
Wine: Decent choice from £2.20 small glass
Food: Good choice of bar meals served noon-3pm Mon-Sat
Children: Welcomed until 5pm in upstairs room and outside only
Disabled: Slightly tricky access and no special facilities. No lift to upper floor
Beer Garden: Alleyway with outdoor tables
Parking: On-street and pay-and-display areas nearby
Telephone: 0113 245 1428
The Angel
Angel Inn Yard, Leeds
CUT UP between Fat Face and Curry’s, dive into the dark and meander round the winding alley before you arrive at the front door of The Angel, home to some of the cheapest beer in the city.
My pint of Sam Smith’s Old Brewery Bitter set me back the princely sum of £1.67 here a few lunchtimes ago. This keenly competitive pricing policy draws a lively, thirsty crowd to this popular city centre drinking den, along one of the ribbon-like alleys which run between Briggate and Land’s Lane.
It doesn’t have the beauty or history of Whitelock’s, the trendy cafe bar feel of the White Swan, nor the unspoiled alehouse ambience of the Ship, but the Angel makes up for this with its good prices, great atmosphere and “something for everyone” appeal.
At £1.67 there is inevitably something of the Wetherspoon’s effect here. Downstairs is very much a simple bare-floorboarded taproom, while the alley’s wooden tables are a big draw in summertime for those who want to get fairly tanked up on the cheap.
Somehow though, the upstairs remains a little more exclusive with its tartan carpet and comfortable leather chairs. There is a separate bar up here, but on this occasion only the downstairs counter is in action, requiring drinkers to negotiate the narrow, winding stairs, loaded up with beers. One of my fellow drinkers commandeers the dumb waiter to transport his mates’ round of six pints between floors.
I find a seat in the crimson-painted upstairs lounge where the walls are dotted with monochrome prints of old Leeds, the ancient buildings and the great and the good captured for posterity and extravagantly framed like the proud forbears of some grand stately home. Industrial and architectural pioneer Colonel Harding, civil engineer John Smeaton and Victorian notable Ambrose Edmund Butler are all here, casting their stern gaze on all who pass beneath. Many of the pictures have been clad in Christmas wrapping paper as a curious extra festive touch; some have had the paper torn away to reveal their faces and streetscapes like the scenes of some gigantic advent calendar.
Matching fireplaces at either end of the room speak of the Angel’s true longevity – Sam Smith’s may have only been here for a decade or so but the building itself is much older.
I run into a party of retired YEP staff: proud pre-press men and printers whose working lives were forged in the bowels of our beautiful brutalist building, their days and duties discharged at the heavy-duty end of bringing you the news. The beer is flowing freely of course; their Johnston Press pensions being spent carefully on an afternoon of pre-Christmas leisure.
Licensees Daniel and Joanne Hazelgrave have been here for nearly ten years. Joanne had previously been with Whitbread, running food pubs in their Brewsters and Brewer’s Fayre chains. “I wanted a proper pub and we got lucky seeing this place advertised. Sam Smith’s took a risk with us; we had never had a pub like this.”
She has never looked back: “It’s a special place. It’s only 11 years old but it’s just like an old-fashioned pub. It has a great atmosphere and we have a lot of regulars who make sure that people behave.”
It’s a key point. The balancing act between cheap alehouse and desirable dining house is a hard one to achieve. With a pint of mild at just £1.25 and Alpine lager at £1.59, this could easily become a favoured haunt of the hard drinkers, at the expense of those who want a more convivial pint, or something from the menu. Sam Smith’s other city centre pubs – the General Elliot and the Duncan – are markedly down market compared to here and there might have been a danger that the Angel would have declined in the same way.
That it hasn’t is a tribute to Daniel and Joanne yet also the trademark of a pub whose regular customers are exercised sufficently to ensure that it remains unspoiled.
They have managed to steer clear of much trouble: “We don’t employ door staff and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times we’ve had to call the police. And customers know that once they are barred, they stay barred.”
The food is simple pub grub from the Sam Smith’s menu – choices such as fish and chips (£5.95), cottage pie (£5.50), banghers and mash (£4.95) and Thai green curry (£6.50), each offering the same kind of no-nonsense value which is the absolute hallmark of the place.
Email: s.w.jenkins@ntlworld.com
Twitter: @jenkolovesbeer
FACTFILE
Name: The Angel
Hosts: Daniel and Joanne Hazelgrave
Type: Cut price city centre alehouse
Opening hours: 11am-11pm Mon-Sat, noon-10.30pm Sun
Beers: Old Brewery Bitter (£1.67), Sovereign (£1.68), Mild (£1.25), Alpine lager (£1.59), Taddy Lager (£2.05), Purebrew (£2.80), Extra Stout (£2.14)
Wine: Decent choice from £2.20 small glass
Food: Good choice of bar meals served noon-3pm Mon-Sat
Children: Welcomed until 5pm in upstairs room and outside only
Disabled: Slightly tricky access and no special facilities. No lift to upper floor
Beer Garden: Alleyway with outdoor tables
Parking: On-street and pay-and-display areas nearby
Telephone: 0113 245 1428
There's no need to take this seriously...
...but if you are, there are now less than six months to go to follow the clues in the Great Leeds Pub Crawl, and try to claim the £1,000 prize.
Those you really are taking it seriously will know that the tiebreak hinges on how many paces it takes for me to walk across the city centre from the Palace to the Highland. I walked to the pub the other day with my good friend, the world-renowned classical composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad, who announced, once we were at the bar, that when she walked 100 paces, I walked 91. She had been counting, apparently. This may not help you, unless you happen to know Cheryl. (She's a small Cambridgeshire redhead too, but that really is of no use at all.)
Those you really are taking it seriously will know that the tiebreak hinges on how many paces it takes for me to walk across the city centre from the Palace to the Highland. I walked to the pub the other day with my good friend, the world-renowned classical composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad, who announced, once we were at the bar, that when she walked 100 paces, I walked 91. She had been counting, apparently. This may not help you, unless you happen to know Cheryl. (She's a small Cambridgeshire redhead too, but that really is of no use at all.)
Sunday, 13 November 2011
Pub Review – The Garden Gate, Hunslet
(First published in the Yorkshire Evening Post in July 2010)
But the Garden Gate hangs in downtown Hunslet, at the end of a concrete cul-de-sac, and hard-up to a charmless red-brick job centre. It looks lost in its surroundings, abandoned, bewildered by change, though the community it serves now is essentially the same one it catered for in Victorian times. The houses are newer, the pace of life a little quicker.
The Garden Gate
Whitfield Place, Hunslet, Leeds
simon jenkins
A MILE out of town, well south of the river and way past the Armouries, surrounded by low-rise offices and seventies housing, lies Leeds’ most beautiful pub.
If it were in Briggate, or in a fashionable suburb – or even close enough to the city centre to be part of the regular crawl – it would be lauded like Whitelocks and the Adelphi, Chapel Allerton’s Regent, Kirkstall’s Cardigan, and prized yet more highly. Tourists would flock to gape at this working museum and try a pint of traditional hand-pulled mild, Nikons clicking like grasshoppers. Guide books would have it on the cover.
But the Garden Gate hangs in downtown Hunslet, at the end of a concrete cul-de-sac, and hard-up to a charmless red-brick job centre. It looks lost in its surroundings, abandoned, bewildered by change, though the community it serves now is essentially the same one it catered for in Victorian times. The houses are newer, the pace of life a little quicker.And it thrives. Not by being old, or beautiful, nor by having the most amazing unspoiled interior you’ll find anywhere, but by continuing to serve the people of Hunslet, and serve them well.
This hasn’t always been the case. Not every landlord has treated the place with the respect it deserves, nor ensured its customers did so. Incredible as it seems now, even the city fathers once plotted to flatten the place as part of the seventies redevelopment of the area. That crass move was resisted, and led to the Garden Gate winning Grade II listed status, which has underwritten its long-term survival.
Still better news is that Punch Taverns, which inherited the Garden Gate as part of its takeover of the old Tetley empire, and oversaw several decades of gradual decline, has now sold the pub back into the community. For Leeds Brewery, whose city outlets the Pin Bar, the Brewery Tap and the Midnight Bell have each made an impact on the urban circuit, this is their first out-of-town venture. For Hunslet, it’s the clearest sign yet that their pub is in safe hands.
It is a ceramic palace, from the ornate brown and cream tiled exterior, to the greens of the pub’s long central corridor which divides little snugs, nooks and crannies, from the two main drinking areas which are either side of a central bar.
The corridor is itself a gem, tiled from floor to ceiling, save for polished mahogany panels and panes of etched and decorated glass. The floor is an ornate tiled mosaic; a tiled archway arcs over the corridor at one point.
Wood, mirrors and glass predominate in each room, though it’s the ceramic which makes this place truly special. No-one seems to know for sure, but it’s only a part-romantic notion that these tiles were Burmantofts Faience, a relic of the time when the east Leeds suburb was famed for its pottery.
There has been a pub here since 1833, and it was known as the Garden Gate from 1849, probably a reference to the nearby market gardens which were a source of significant local income at the time. The present building – a perfect example of late Victorian and early Edwardian architecture – dates from 1902, when pottery production at Burmantofts was still in full swing.
Even the cellar is tiled. It’s untidy now, gleaming Leeds Brewery barrels side-by-side with heaps of detritus, accumulated over the careless years of decay. The new team are working through it, slowly.
In these bowels of white-faced brick is glimpsed another past; a time when every pub and club, factory and church fielded teams of men who carried their proud names across the whitewash. The Garden Gate had a fearsome reputation for rugby league. One can imagine great hulks of working men, stirred to the cause and striding into battle, local honour at stake.
Beyond the barrels, beyond the heaps of junk, arched doorways open onto abandoned changing rooms, a forgotten shrine to these local heores. A leather table, where once a masseur would have pummelled players back into shape, stands forlorn in its midst.
The showers, the communal bath, are all still there, relics of this glorious past. Ghosts must hang here, echoes of these great men, stepping through the fine hot mist of the showers, nursing their wounds and cursing still.
Their sporting museum lies derelict, awaiting some love and attention, the new owners having prioritised the core business of getting customers through the doors. So after a brief closure and a heavy-duty deep clean, the Garden Gate re-opened on July 4.
Where were once just lager fonts are now handpulls dispensing Leeds Best, Leeds Pale and Midnight Bell – the wonderful trinity of real ales which have gained such a hold on the affections of the city’s drinkers these past few years. This was a warm Sunday evening, and the sharp and citric Leeds Pale was the perfect antidote to the muggy weather.
It’s rare to be served with a bad pint of Leeds beer, and perhaps that’s because the brewery’s spies are everywhere, and always thirsty. Scarcely do I visit one of their pubs without bumping into at least one of them, like here, where baby-faced brewer Venkatash Iyer is posing as a Carlsberg drinker, hoping not to be spotted.
He introduces me to manager Adam Browett, who comes here as an alumnus of all the company’s four previous sites, three pubs and the brewery too. It was at the Brewery Tap that he met girlfriend Ciara Metherell, and the couple are now setting up home at the Garden Gate.
Ciara’s just finishing the quiz, so Adam comes over to chat. At 22, he’s one of the younger landlords on the circuit. Yet he has a clear idea of what it will take to take the Garden Gate back to the heart of the community.
“It’s a balance,” he tells me. “It’s about serving good food, keeping the bar prices down - certainly cheaper than in town – but keeping the troublemakers out.” He’s mature enough to know he must learn to walk before breaking into a run. So future plans – a snooker room upstairs, a beer festival – remain on hold.
Prices aren’t nailed down as low as some of the local competition, but Adam and Leeds Brewery are putting faith in quality fare and friendly yet firm management as the formula that allows the Garden Gate to swing once more.
It deserves to succeed.
FACTFILE:
Name: The Garden Gate
Hosts: Adam Browett and Ciara Metherell
Type: Ultra-traditional suburban alehouse
Opening Hours: Noon-3pm and 5-11pm Mon-Thur; noon-3pm and 5pm-midnight Fri; noon-midnight Sat; noon-11pm Sun
Beers: Leeds Pale (£2.50), Leeds Best (£2.60), Midnight Bell (£2.70), Tetley’s Dark Mild (£2.50), plus one guest beer currently Two Halves (£2.50). Carlsberg (£2.60), San Miguel (£3.30), Beck’s (£2.70), Kaiserdom Pilsner (£2.35), Erdinger (£3.80). Guinness (£3), Gaymer’s cider (£2.60), Gaymer’s pear cider (£2.70).
Wines: Small selection
Food: Pub meals served until 9pm daily
Disabled: Welcomed, reasonably straightforward access, though slightly cramped inside.
Children: Welcomed, half-portions of meals available
Entertainment: Quiz Sun, games machines, Sky Sports TV coming soon.
Beer garden: Some outdoor tables to front
Parking: On-street parking nearby
Telephone: 0113 270 0379
Website: www.leedsbrewery.co.uk/
Beer review – Innis and Gunn Highland Cask
Innis and Gunn Highland Cask
“Small but perfectly formed” is an epithet which could have been coined for this beer, another absolute gem from Scotland’s Innis and Gunn.The clue is in the name. Once brewed to a formidable 7.1 per cent ABV, the beer is matured in oak vats which were once used to mature Highland scotch. During the 18-year maturation, the wood takes on some of the complex peaty, smoky characteristics of the whisky – attributes which it now imparts back to this lovely rounded beer.
It pours an attractive ruby-brown colour and there some attractive Christmas cake notes to the aroma, which continue in a fulsome taste of raisins and marzipan, backed by this full-bodied draught of rich spirit flavour.
You can taste the oak, you can taste the whisky, and the slight oily sweetness of the texture gives a clue to its significant strength. The aftertaste is long, developing some interesting wheaty flavours as it dies away.
It is perhaps a blessing that Innis and Gunn decant their ales into 330cl bottles. Any more and this could be seriously addictive.
Star Ratings:
Presentation: 4
Aroma: 4
Taste: 5
Aftertaste: 4
(1: Poor, 2: Average, 3: Good, 4: Very Good, 5: Excellent)
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