BRIATRIBE #2 - BEER GLOSSARY

A GLOSSARY OF BREWING & BEER TERMS IN THE 21^st CENTURY (Part I) 

There are many glossaries to be found on brewing but they tend to state what words should mean rather than what they do mean. This is because language evolves and also there are some people out there who want you to give them your money and are quite happy to mislead you – unintentionally or otherwise – to do so. This is why I wanted to set down what various words mean in reality irrelevant of their dictionary definition:

BEER STYLES

ALE – Suggests a top-fermenting beer brewed with malted barley but usually implies an old-fashioned style nowadays and is used to make a beer sound like it is a traditional or old product even if the beer has only just been brewed for the first time. A catch-all word that doesn’t really mean anything specific anymore other than you can expect a cask beer that is probably brown in colour. May be all malt but could contain any adjuncts (rice, wheat etc). A redundant, overused word now, unfortunately, so any great ales are lost in the mire with the ones only fit for the drain.

BEER – Not as obvious as you might think. Beer is the name given to all styles of fermenting grain and not only the lager or ale types but includes all kinds of specials and seasonal drinks including those using fruit or herbs. This is at the top of the brewing family tree below which is dozens of different styles. So if you think you like beer you may be surprised to learn that you won’t like all beers as some could be made with bog myrtle or airborne yeast or cherry juice.

BITTER – The king of British beer styles is now a lost one. Up to the 1970s most family breweries only brewed a mild, a bitter and maybe a strong winter ale occasionally. That was it. No silly names, no weird colours and no peculiar ingredients. When national marketing became the key to success branding was the answer with clever, evocative and memorable names. Even before this there was famous names like Red Barrel and Double Diamond but by the 1980s most brewers had a much larger beer portfolio than 3 and many of them began calling their beers by idiosyncratic names which people could supposedly identify with. At the heart of this though was most brewers’ flagship beer was still Bitter and usually about 3.5-3.8% alcohol. It is increasingly rare for a brewery to name a beer just ‘Bitter’ anymore though. Just like mild became a no-no of a name in the 1980s so did the name bitter a decade or so later. The style still exists in abundance but the name seems to have faded as it is perceived as too old-fashioned, unimaginative or just plain dull. I’m not suggesting that this is particularly a bad thing as it used to imply that the beer was going to be standard but not exceptional - not worthy of its own unique identity but just another beer. The days of people walking into a pub and just asking for a ‘bitter’ or, indeed, a ‘lager’ with no brand name seems to be disappearing but then how many people ask for a glass of ‘cola’ or a cup of ‘coffee’ in a cafe?

BEST BITTER – See BITTER (qv). Browner than a Bitter and about 3.9%.

IPA – Okay, I admit it: This is what made me think of writing this glossary in the first place. The single most used/overused/misused term in brewing this century is IPA. There is even an International IPA Day ( 2nd August). Surely, most people know what it stands for – India Pale Ale – but that only makes it more bizarre how the term is used as many of the beers labelled as such aren’t even what would be considered Pale Ales never mind of the style that was supposedly shipped out to the British who wanted English beer whilst occupying India during the days of Queen Vic’s empire. The phrase doesn’t appear to be patented or owned by a particularly brewery although it is generally reckoned that the best examples were from Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire where the water on its own is probably tastier than most beers that are now called IPA. They were supposedly heavily hopped and high in alcohol in order to be able to mature on the long months it would take the beer to get to India. It has been reported that very little of the beer ever reached India as it was so good the ships’ crews consumed it all before it arrived  - something that is unlikely to happen with airline meals. True or not – which it isn’t – most beers that pose as IPA now can hardly make the journey down the M11 (for example) before it would give any drayman scurvy. This is the primest (is that a word?) case of misrepresentation, if not outright deceit, by calling a beer one thing and it being another. I thought the idea of labelling a product was to indicate to the consumer what type of product they were purchasing. If you buy a curry you would expect some indication of whether it was mild, medium or hot. It is meant to aid your choosing the correct product for you. I have all but giving up on drinking any new beer that is called IPA. Many of them are below 5% and nearly all of them are sparingly hopped. To counter this, thanks to our brewing friends in the USA, there are now Double IPA beer (DIPA), sometimes called Imperial and labelled IIPA, and even *hushed tones* Triple IPA beers (IIIPA)! They are very well hopped, usually at several stages of the brewing process, and high in alcohol (usually 9% or more). I haven’t mentioned the malt. The malt in an IPA was traditionally pale malts making the beer pale in colour (what a surprise) but our Stateside pals have come up with Black IPA (qv) beers. There are great British IPAs to be had but they are rarer than the fakes, unfortunately. The alcohol strength is some indication as most brewers who have gone to the bother of brewing what is considered a niche product is more than likely going for a discerning market rather than a mass one. Still, there are some strong IPAs out there that are just sickly sweet. We all have our own favourites but I would like to see a list of all the IPAs together graded by the drinking public. The biggest selling one will not be in that list - unless there are CAMRA members voting as they did in 2004 to make it Champion Beer Of Britain. Ha ha ha. Some brewers are trying to help as now there are considered styles named English IPA or American IPA (or APA) with the American ones being the stronger more heavily hopped. American Indian Pale Ale, of course, has nothing to do with Native American tribes. It’s all rather unnecessarily confusing and misleading really.

BLACK IPA – An India Pale Ale style but brewed using darker malts giving you the benefits of a pale hoppy beer and dark, malty one all in the same glass. If you have not yet tasted one I suggest you do so fairly urgently and watch your future change in front of you.

SAISON – Traditionally brewed out of season when there were precious little hops or even much malted barley around, Saisons were unusual brews using whatever fermentable commodities were around at the time. Now it’s a catch-all phrase for unusual beers where malt and hops are not the dominant flavours and may not contain one or either of those two even. Likely to taste like a ‘Belgian beer’, if such a style can exist, but that often catches the essence of many of them. A great exercise in seeing what a brewer can produce using fruit, wild yeasts and things that you never imagined could be used in a beer.

LONDON, England

Bri’s Best Bars (London Pub Crawl I) – 3^rd June 2012

Like A Boomerang (Fun with Ed, Trev, Becki, Sadie, Anna and BHD in some of the best pubs in London)

 

Last Summer (what Summer?) my friend, Ed, travelled back to England for a few weeks having emigrated to Australia a few years before. I like to think he came back just to see me, and his family and friends, but there is a distinct possibility that he returned because the craft beer scene here had exploded into life since he had been gone and he knew he was missing out. So a small group of us arranged to meet him in Camden and I would take them on a tour around London to drink in some of the pubs that were now serving some of the best beers available in the country.

After a breakfast in a friendly little café just around the corner from Camden tube station we strolled down to the (then) new BrewDog Camden for a sample of some of their finest. It was too early to dive into their stronger beers, although it is always midnight somewhere, but between the seven of us we tried a good number of the beers on the board. BrewDog don’t sell cask-beers in their pubs, which is a pity as their Trashy Blonde had helped to rewrite the rulebook some years before and is greatly missed, but everyone was happy with their brew and matching t-shirts were purchased for us lads to wear on the remainder of the day. The bar was nearly empty as we were there just as it opened on a Sunday lunchtime which gives you a great view of the fixtures and fittings to see what the place is really made of. It’s bare and very wooden but not uncomfortable. The trend for stripped back decoration is no doubt for ease of maintenance as much as for atmosphere as it can create a sterile atmosphere but BrewDog seem to avoid this in their bars, fortunately. A happy start.
 

Ale, cider, meat ... and tiles

This crawl will utilise the good ol’ London bus for transport more than anything else to get between the fairly widespread pubs so Oyster cards are mandatory. A short hop took us up to Kentish Town where the bus dropped us exactly outside our next destination, the Southampton Arms. Now this pub takes minimalism to the extreme. Only serving ale, cider and meat, as the sign says, I expected this place to polarise opinion. Sure, the beer choice is exquisite and the beer, served in the traditional dimpled mug – preferred by old men for tradition and anyone who is sensible enough to not want to warm their beer up in their hand as happens with straight glasses – is in top condition but there is no music, no gimmicks and precious little furniture or decoration. It is as the beer gods intended. People come here to drink great beer, talk and maybe have a pork pie. Again, nobody dislikes this pub and, in fact, I am pleasantly surprised to find some of our group will rate it as the best pub on the tour. Simplicity and quality win out over over-thinking and obvious, ham-fisted attempts to woo customers rather than just appeal to them.
 

The next pub is proper east so the plan was to use the secret train line that not everybody seems to know about. The North London Link line, part of the London Overground network, cuts across from Richmond or Clapham Junction to Barking or Stratford negating the need to go through the congested city centre or use busy tube lines. Unfortunately, it’s not running today so we have to get a bus or two to get to Leyton. Trevor requested we return to King William IV, the home of Brodie’s wonderful beers.

As always, there is a huge choice of their own beers here from the amazing 3.1% Citra to the 7.8% Porter. Again, not too busy on this Sunday afternoon so we played a few games of bar billiards – very rare for a London pub. No dissenters here. It’s an old pub with a traditional feel with some lovely Victorian touches in the architecture. I’m often surprised that the bar-staff here don’t seem that familiar with the beers they are serving but then this is not a ‘craft bar’ as such as its main customers are locals who come here to eat and talk and drink. Most of them drink the beers brewed on the premises, or lager, but they haven’t come here especially for them like we have. Another success. And another bus across to Leytonstone where the next great pub awaited us.
 

The Red Lion has been a pub a long time, as had the previous pub, but has been transformed into a gastro-pub by Antic (the pub company) who has seen the value in bringing great food and beer to areas that were bereft of them before to serve those local people who are prepared to pay a bit more for it. Leytonstone is such a place. I never drank in the pubs in this area when I lived nearby because they were terrible so it was interesting to see the pub where Slade played their first London gig (over 40 years before) spruced up and lively. It was a bit sanitised for my taste but the beer choice and quality was excellent – many of the current wow breweries were here, such as Magic Rock and Dark Star and the new local breweries like Camden. The food, I’m told by those who ate here, was very good too but some of us held out for the pizza from the takeaway around the corner by the tube station which was very nice. We travelled in relative luxury on the tube train, eating our pizza, towards our next destination.

Praying for great beer or that Anna is at the bar getting another round in?

The Craft Beer Company in Clerkenwell was also new to the scene when we drank there. At the time, the simple concept of shiny, new, uncluttered and exposed was fairly new to the pub scene in England. Restaurants had been doing it for years but pubs always relied on some designed quirk or gimmick to make a new place talked about They invariably rose and fell and then had to be made-over to try and entice the next generation of drinkers through the door. Now there was beer. Now what was in the glass was as important as what was on the label of the bottle some years before. The label had moved from the bottle to the handpump or keg dispenser. Suddenly, ale was the new thing that young people drank. Their dad drank lager or stood at the bar with a bottle of something Mexican with a lime segment in the neck. Real beer had become … cool. Don’t tell CAMRA though as they still refuse to see any beer keg dispensed as worthy and have chosen to ignore it and hope it just goes away. This is not the enemy of good taste that keg was in the sixties that made the originators of the Campaign For Real Ale first voice their discontent. These new beers are passionately crafted using only the best ingredients by brewers who live and breathe beer. They now choose keg as a preferred dispense as the beer will be most like they intended as opposed to relying on the vagaries of untrained bar-staff and pub companies trying to serve a living product with little concern for keeping it at the right temperature for the required amount of time before serving it through unclean beer-lines. Keg has come back all grown up and sensible with an intoxicating charm and dazzling charm. Don’t get me wrong, cask ale is still king but it is far more variable and consistency WITH quality surely has to be worth pursuing. *Steps down from soapbox*

Having said all that, I don’t like Craft Clerkenwell very much. The beer is fantastic but the venue is soulless. When we were there it was packed alright but its location means it attracts a desperately upwardly mobile crowd who seem to be there to be seen rather than to just enjoy the conviviality of drinking alongside others who want to try Mikkeller beers or Hawkshead’s new special stout, for instance. But then the pub isn’t for me so it’s fine because there is so much more great beer and great bar choice now than there has ever been in my (drinking) lifetime.
 

The next venue was going to be the very new and ultra modern Holborn Whippet which had only just started opening its doors at weekends. But not today. It would open on a Sunday starting the following week and not this, as advertised. We would have to come here again another time. Meanwhile, a short stroll took us into the West End and on the edge of Covent Garden is the very pretty, but small, Cross Keys. We were lucky to get a table for us all here but it was not as busy as it can get when there are as many people drinking outside the pub as in. The Brodie’s beers that were on were good. There are always 2 or 3 of their beers on handpump here. The walls and ceiling are festooned with an eclectic mix of prints of famous people and copperware which is totally at odds to the lack of clutter at the new bars of Craft and BrewDog but it gives the place a cosy feel. The foliage covering the front of the pub lends a country pub look to what is an out and out city pub making it a refuge from the noise of the city – that’s if the pub isn’t full to bursting so you need to time it right to get the most from this charming place.
 

The best way of finishing any beer tour around London is to go to the Euston Tap just outside the station of the same name. So we did. It is a remarkable place all the more so for appearing to be the size of an overgrown shed although it is actually a very ornate, historic gate-house. Its sister bar is opposite which is the Cider Tap. That sells, unsurprisingly, mostly cider but the one we were interested in does beer, beer and more beer. It always has 8 cask ales and 20 kegs from all over Britain and sometimes from some wonderful American breweries and, occasionally, from Italy, Denmark or other exotic countries that are producing world class beers now. In addition to that is fridges full of amazing bottled beers from all over the world. Drinking here is a unique experience. It led the way in putting great beer at the centre of everything in a bar. There are a few stools dotted around the wall of the ground floor and a terrifyingly steep spiral staircase with no room to pass takes you to the upper level where there is a relaxed area full of tables and chairs. Its location lends itself to passing trade – people on their way through Euston train, tube and bus stations – but it has a locals feel to it as everyone is there for the same reason: the quality and choice of the beers. It is one of those places where you are constantly torn between trying an old favourite because you know how good it is and trying a beer you haven’t heard of before because you know they never sell average beers in here. A tequila-barrel-aged rye and rhubarb stout may not be your usual choice but if you are going to try one this is the place to try it. The knowledgeable and friendly staff are always keen to offer help and advice and give samples to help you make an informed choice even when the bar is ultra busy and it often is. Most people tend to only stop here for one or two drinks but once you get a seat – and you will – it is difficult to leave unless you have a seat reserved on a train at a particular time. The ‘Tap’ concept is beginning to crop up in other locations too (York, Sheffield) and is invaluable when travelling as there is no better way to begin or end a long journey this way. Only it invariably isn’t the end as you still have to get home. Which is what we had to do. So we did. Eventually. But like the proverbial aforementioned boomerang: we will come back.

 

 

London Pub Crawl I

1.    BrewDog Bar, 113 Bayham Street, Camden, NW1 0AG www.brewdog.com/bars/camden

2.    Southampton Arms, 139 Highgate Road, NW5 1LE - Tube: Kentish Town  / Train: Gospel Oak www.thesouthamptonarms.co.uk

3.    King William IV, 816A High Road Leyton, E10 6AE - Train: Leyton Midland Road www.williamthefourth.net

4.    The Red Lion, High Rd, Leytonstone, E11 3AA - Train: Leytonstone High Road www.theredlionleytonstone.com

5.    Craft Beer Company, 82 Leather La, Clerkenwell, EC1N 7TR  
www.thecraftbeerco.com

6.    Cross Keys, 31, Endell St, Covent Garden, WC2H 9BA

7.    Euston Tap, 109 Euston Rd, Euston NW1 2EF www.eustontap.com

 

Nearest tube/train as location unless stated

 

DERBY, England

Is this the Real Ale Capital of England?

The 3^rd worst pub I have ever drunk in was in Derby quite near the football ground when Derby County was still playing at the Baseball Ground which is why I was there. It was a depressing pub with a terrible choice of beers and those they had were undrinkable. We moved on after one awful drink.

The 2^nd worst pub I have ever drunk in was in Derby about hundred yards from the previous pub I mentioned. Similarly run down and unwelcoming, it was another pub which made enough money to survive from the unfortunate football fans who used it every other Saturday and the brewery and landlord made no effort to make it a pleasurable experience. We had one terrible drink and moved on.

The WORST pub I have ever drunk in … I think you know how this story ends. That was in 1997 and was Derby County’s last year playing at that ground so I doubt any of those pubs exist now. I had not been back to Derby since then despite the irony of it having already begun to establish itself as the self-proclaimed ‘Real Ale Capital of England’ which is, of course, disputed by Sheffield, Norwich and other cities. Well, I recently had an opportunity to see how true their claim is.

As part of a friend’s stag weekend in the Peak District - of which I am unable to say anymore for legal, moral and good taste reasons - I had arranged a Sunday evening wander around some of the supposedly best pubs Derby has to offer. Starting, as most pub crawls do, at the railway station the seven of us immediately came to the pub that apparently started the real ale revival in the city back in 1987, The Brunswick Inn. Now one of several Derby pubs that brews it own beers it began specialising in guest beers from all over the country back when it was not particularly fashionable or common to do so. It is old-fashioned, full of character and had a roaring fire which, as always in winter, is welcoming. We tried all six of their own brews and there was another bank of handpumps that had some Everard’s beers (who now own the pub) and a few other genuine guests from the likes of Oakham. A solid start to a crawl but nobody raved too much about any of the beers although they were all kept and served in great condition. Oakham JHB was the preferred choice for most but Brunswick’s dark, strong Black Sabbath 6% got some plaudits and Rob said it was his favourite of all of them. Trev was not so keen on this pub.

Any group on a crawl is likely to all have different tastes in pubs and beers and I didn’t know what everybody would like which makes it all the more fun watching and learning from people’s reactions as you go from traditional old to modern new incorporating standard British beer styles with those from, say, Belgium and the USA. Derby did not offer an enormous variation in beer styles on this crawl compared to the likes of London and Manchester but that may have been the pubs we chose and the fact that it was a Sunday so some beers may have run out after a busy weekend. Similarly, all the pubs we went in were long established even if they may have evolved over the years.

 

Just a few yards on is the Alexandra Hotel which we happily went into to be greeted by a long narrow bar with eight beers available. Three of them were from the Castle Rock brewery who owns the pub and, as is expected in these parts, the other choices were made up of mostly local independents. As with most of the pubs we went in, remembering that this was a cold Sunday in mid-January between 4pm and 10pm, there were very few people drinking in there and a group of seven people entering never went unnoticed although never commented on. Castle Rock has suffered from Champion-Beer-Of-Britain-syndrome where demand for their great beer explodes and supply can never keep up without some compromise somewhere. Harvest Pale is a shadow of the beer it was a few years back but, as with all the pubs we drank in, the beer was served as good as you are ever going to get it which is essential on a pub crawl if you hope to come away with any useful info about what to look out for in the future and what to avoid. The Alex is a proper railway pub with railway paraphernalia covering much of the walls including a great, big, railway station digital clock the like of which you don’t realise you don’t see any more until you see one. There is a very nice relaxing feel to this place despite its basic, Spartan look. It is another place that oozes character but clearly not to everyone’s taste due to its lack of comforts. Ossett Treacle Stout and Amber Jasmine IPA got the accolades here. BHD liked this pub.

A walk along and over the River Derwent took us to the edge of a trading estate where we began to think there weren’t going to be ANY pubs never mind any good ones. We were wrong. So wrong. But not before we were half right.

I had read that the Smithfield had recently undergone a refurbishment and approaching it made me think that it had probably needed it but once inside I realised that someone had made a big mistake. It was hard to imagine what the interior of this pub must have been like just a few short weeks before because all semblance of character had been removed and painted over with a shade of (off) white paint the smell of which still pervaded the whole pub strongly. The bar was clean, bright, empty and soulless. It was like a museum where you felt compelled to speak quietly as you knew your voice would resonate around the walls and disturb the deathly quiet of the pace. Everything was so new and soulless but it was clear that the place was finished and this is how somebody wanted it to be. It was not unattractive or even unpleasant just unwelcoming and uncomfortable. Modern can be marvellous but clinical is usually unappealing. The beer choice was fine – Salopian, Oakham, Whim and Derby - and the quality of those beers was fine also but it didn’t feel like a place to linger and relax. Fortunately, there were seven of us so we were not so self-conscious of our conversation being so audible to the only other couple in the place. Only time will tell if such a drastic modernisation will be accepted and embraced by the locals or maybe it was an attempt to survive by being different to all the other traditional pubs in the area. It was not a bad pub but on a Sunday night it certainly didn’t have any charm. Maybe it needs to be full to create a more acceptable ambience but that really doesn’t seem likely to happen often because only a short walk away is the next pub.

 

Like a beacon, the Exeter Arms draws you towards it. Entering the bar is like coming home. Immediately welcoming, comfortable, relaxing and friendly – you feel like kicking your shoes off and looking for a sofa to lounge on. This was the first place we had tried that was busy and although that could have been because it was now 6pm and we were closer to the city centre it is more likely to be because it is just such a great pub. The lighting was a little more subdued and subtle compared to all the other places we tried and the distinct bar areas more cosy and warm than most. It is clearly a couples pub as identified, logically, by the number of couples in there but our small group didn’t feel out of place in the nook we found to seat us tucked around the corner from the main bar. The staff were very friendly, helpful and informative. There was a great choice of beers to be had from Dancing Duck, who own the pub, and several other local breweries. We all shared a pork pie and some olives to snack on and were all very impressed - so much so that there were comments from some that we should remain and order another pie and another round. But the rules of a pub crawl in an area that has not yet been visited state that you must move on no matter how good the pub you are currently in is or else it is no longer a crawl but becomes a … pub stay! I can’t think of what else to call it. So we moved on despite the grumblings of a few and they would thank me later … but not immediately.

Just around the corner from there is the Brewery Tap, so called because … well, you know. The brewery in question is the Derby Brewing Company, situated about half a mile east of the pub, where we had stopped on our way through two days before to buy a few polypins of their beers - Triple Hop and Hop Till You Drop - beers that fuelled the shenanigans of which I cannot speak but they had pleased every one of the attendees of the stag weekend. This is a spacious 2-bar local that has got modernisation right. Pleasant, bright and relaxing, the bars have light wood throughout with two clearly separate bars and, bizarrely, the hottest pub toilets I have ever visited. It was like a sauna in there! We had their rack option: a tray of samples of their own beers coupled with a bowl of local cheese which is a rare promotional device in England though very common in American brewpubs. A great idea it is too as you get to try a variety of beers so you can then buy a pint or whatever of the one(s) you liked most. The beers were all good and the local cheese excellent although I believe it was locally made cheddar and not actually Derbyshire for anyone concerned about that sort of thing.

 

Within a few minutes’ walk from there, and over the bridge, you are in Derby city centre. Again, seeing it on a dark Sunday evening may not show the city in its best light as the streets were deserted and no shops were open but then we were not really here for sightseeing or shopping. It’s not much of a walk to get to two historic pubs, the Old Silk Mill and Ye Olde Dolphin Inn. Both pubs had been mucked about with (a technical term) by the breweries or pubcos that owned them so had lost much of the charm that I’m sure they once had but they were not particularly inviting and a combination of loud, generic musak, surly looking locals and an uninspiring collection of mostly national beers on the bars made me decide our time would be better spent elsewhere. Also, I don’t like pubs called Ye Olde anything even if it is hundreds of years old(e).

Some people are uncomfortable about entering a pub and then leaving without making a purchase as it may seem to be a slur on the landlord/ladies/managers/owners/bar-staff. Well it mostly is but as pubs are in a service industry, and much of the price you pay for a pint is for the service provided by the establishment, then it is not unreasonable to inspect the place before deciding to make a purchase - you don’t usually buy a car without taking a test drive or get married without … that’s enough analogies for now, I think.

So with two of the central pubs heartlessly rejected could the third be worth stopping in? Oh yes. The Flower Pot is another old, traditional pub but it had a laid-back and timeless appeal. Several distinct drinking areas over a large area meant that you could still hold a conversation quite comfortably in the front bar whilst live music was taking place in the back. A very comprehensive range of beers included a few from the local Black Iris brewery whose beers had impressed me before. Other decent beers included those from nearby Black Jack and Whim breweries. Ed was impressed with the mushroom soup he had, although it wasn’t very hot, and James bought a sausage roll to tide him over as a meal in a city pub on a Sunday night is not that common so hearty snacks were most welcomed. I liked this pub. It was lively without being overbearing, busy without being uncomfortably so and the back bar serves several beers straight from the cask at weekends in addition to the dozen or so on handpump.

We still had time for one more pub so we retraced our steps back past the two olde pubs then headed out north of the centre. Just after walking underneath the ring road is a pub in a quiet location yet you would be unlikely to just stumble upon despite being so close to the centre and just by St. Mary’s Chapel. The Furnace Inn is a gem. When we walked in, at about 8pm on a Sunday, the place was deserted. I mean empty. But this was not because it was unpopular but we were fortunate to be here in a quiet period so we got on the dartboard and had much of the friendly, helpful landlord’s attention. We tried a couple of the house beers brewed by Shiny and a handful of other local ales. All were in fine condition and we were all more than satisfied to see out what we had left of the evening here but I had managed to postpone our transport pick up time by fifteen minutes which would mean we were able to visit the next pub on the list if it was worth visiting. It would be. The landlord asked me where we had been on the pub crawl and then said The Five Lamps did some great beers. He told me how to get there too: “You go down the jitty to the end, carry on and turn right at the main road by the kebab shop … you don’t know what a jitty is, do you?” He could tell from my blank expression. “Well, I was going to ask,” I replied. A jitty is an alleyway, apparently. When we had drank up and were saying our farewells he escorted us outside to show us the way. He said to us all, “You go up the jitty …” and was met by similar blank faces to the one I had given him. “Come on,” I said, “You must know what a jitty is!”

So we walked up the jitty to The Five Lamps. It’s on the main road in/out of the city so is effectively on an island between two one-way streets. It was certainly the most comfortable of the pubs we had been in. More couples and mixed groups than we had seen so far. I had recently read a review of this pub that described it as having “corporate feel” and I think they meant that it was clearly aiming for a more upmarket clientele than some of the more basic pubs. There are pubs that you would choose to go to on your own, or with a friend, or with a group, or with a partner, or with your parents and so on. They are rarely the same pub. The diversity is what makes pub crawls so special and it means you go in pubs you will never enter again and they may never be the same again: a snapshot in history. I would say this pub ticked all the boxes for most people. Maybe nobody’s favourite pub but it would be hard to find it unappealing. It had a great range of beers including the best of the night, for me, Buxton Blonde.

It was a great pub to finish on and our taxi arrived on time to take us back to our old(e) farmhouse in the Peak District just as the snow began to fall and lay. The pub crawl had been a great end to a wonderful weekend of debauchery involving [*DELETED ON LEGAL ADVICE*].

So I said I wouldn’t do travelogues in this blog and, what do you know, I’ve gone and done a travelogue! I’ve tried not to deviate from the essence of the piece though which is this: Is Derby the real ale capital of Great Britain and/or the world? Well, it may be a purely arbitrary title but it does have a ring of authority to it so it is worth commenting on. I think that by sheer numbers it has an extraordinary amount of different beers from different breweries available in a high percentage of their pubs which may be hard to match but in terms of variety and quality that may be contested. I know I am basing this on only nine pubs, and on a cold, winter Sunday evening at that, but I saw few beers from any of the more innovative breweries in the country. This was noticeable especially as some of them are reasonably local, such as Buxton, Raw and Thornbridge. The landlord of the Furnace Inn had told me that his range had been depleted by a busy weekend, and I think the beers we had just missed were worth inventing time-travel to go back and drink, but although most of the pubs beer ranges were extensive they were not always especially diverse. You may think I am being picky but don’t I have to be when the accolade of best in the universe may be at stake here? I saw no Black IPA, no Saison, no single hop varietals and not one of the keg beers that have been tearing up the place in London, Edinburgh, Leeds, Brighton etc. But then maybe that is why the title is ‘real ale capital’ rather than ‘beer capital’ or ‘bar capital.’

What Derby has done, so successfully, is introduce more good real ale into more pubs over the last 25 years until now when having a variety of well kept ales available is the rule rather than the exception and many of the beers are brewed locally if not on the premises. Many cities are not great to drink in because that never happened and that is why Derby isn’t being swamped by new bars opening in old shop premises because many of the old pubs have been regenerated because the local drinkers have demanded quality and choice. Obviously, with the general decline in sales of beer in pubs due to the ongoing recession there will be closures yet Derby has reputedly the best Wetherspoons in the country (Babington Arms) and it already has its first micro-pub, Little Chester Ale House, which specialises in craft beers, so Derby is hardly anachronistic. In fact, it’s a model for any town where the pubs are being shut down and converted to shops as it demonstrates that run down, unprofitable pubs can become a going concern again with just a little imagination, attention to detail and a few decent beers. That is, of course, if the pubcos/property developers that own them have any interest in rejuvenating a stock of classic, traditional pubs that is forever dwindling. Which they don’t because the buildings are worth more as land or as a new venture (supermarket, bookmakers etc) than as a pub. Ho hum. Still, enough publicans/ entrepreneurs/ small pub companies took the initiative a few years back in Derby to help perpetuate the interest and availability of good beer leading to a reputation that is hard to match; that’s why the seven of us were trudging around on a freezing Sunday night in a strange city: because of the promise of great beer. We were not disappointed.

So is it the best? Well I look forward to going back to some of those same pubs and to trying many more that I have heard about before I make my mind up. I have to stop writing now to go and remove the splinters from my backside.

Derby Pub Crawls:

I have not been to all these pubs but my research shows they are worth going to as well as the ones I have written about. Let me know if I’m right or wrong.

 

EAST

Brunswick Inn, The, 1 Railway Terrace DE1 2RU                           [Brunswick]                 (10  H)  Q

Alexandra Hotel, 203 Siddals Road DE1 2QE                                 [Castle Rock]               (8 H)               

Smithfield, Meadow Rd DE1 2BH                                                       [locale]                        (8 H)               

Exeter Arms, The, The Flat Exeter Place DE1 2EU                            [Dancing Duck]           (8 H)               

Brewery Tap, The, 1 Derwent Street DE1 2ED                                   [Derby]                        (12 H)             

 

CENTRAL

Old Silk Mill, The, 19 Full Street DE1 3AF                                        [Nat/Reg]                     (9 H & 3 G)    

Ye Olde Dolphin Inn, Queen Street DE1 3DL                                    [Nat/Reg]                     (6 H)               

Standing Order, 32 Iron Gate DE1                                                     [JDW]                           (8 H)   Q

Flower Pot, The, 25 King Street DE1 3DZ                                          [Black Iris, locale]     (15 H & 3 G) Q

 

NORTH EAST

Peacock Inn, The, 87 Nottingham Road DE1 3QS                          [Marston]                     (9 H)               

Little Chester Ale House, 4a Chester Green Rd DE1 3SF                [Craft]                           (4 H)               

 

NORTH

Furnace Inn, Duke Street DE1 3BX                                                     [Shiny]                         (8 H)               

Five Lamps, Duffield Road DE1 3BH                                                  [Evs, Buxton, Peak]    (11 H)   Q

Horse & Groom, 48 Elm St, West End DE1 3HN                               [Bass, Thornbridge]  (4 H&G)

Mr Grundys Tavern, 34 Ashbourne Road DE1 3AD                        [Mr Grundy, locale]  (10 H)             

Greyhound Inn, 76 Friar Gate DE1 1FN                                            [Derby]                        (10 H) 

 

SOUTH

Babington Arms, 13 Babington Lane DE1 1TA                                 [JDW]                  (18 H)    Q

 

WEST
Rowditch, 246 Uttoxeter Rd, California DE22 3LL                          [Rowditch]         (4 H&G)

New Zealand Arms, 2 Langley Street, New Zealand DE22 3GL     [Dancing Duck]   (11 H)             

 

H = Handpumps    G = Gravity dispense           Q = Quiet; no canned music             

Local breweries are underlined