December 2020 round up

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Except it isn’t. We came out of (too late) lockdown 2.0 and debates around Christmas dominated the month. Things got very heated. Covid cases kept going up. Tiers kept changing. It was chaos. The chaos cancelled our usual New Year break in the Lakes, finding us at home for the first time in about 20 years. December has been a very quiet one, punctuated by a local walk each weekend, one on Christmas Eve, and one on each of the last 3 days of the year. The walks were the best bit, a chance for exercise and fresh air and time away from screens.

Usual beer deliveries from The Needle & Pin continued throughout the month (including the 22nd dark beer selection box and 24th “normal” selection box), a nice selection from Elusive, my second Northern Monk Patrons box and some sauces from Tiptree, who take the award for slowest service of the year. Nearly everything I’ve ordered this year has been dispatched within 24 hours, so 10 days between order and delivery was very strange.

Once again, I’ve still not had time to bake sourdough, take up new hobbies, learn new skills, or even write loads of blog posts. I’ve still not had any time to finish off old blog posts, or catch up with other things that I want to write about. Work has been all consuming as it has all year.

Snowy local scenes

Beer of the month was a toss up between Duration’s Fortitude, a classic no-nonsense imperial stout, and Elusive’s Oregon Trail, a classic no-nonsense west coast IPA. Oregon Trail just shaded it.

Pub of the month is irrelevant again as we didn’t get to a single one. The best we could manage was a couple of portions of fish’n’chips from George’s. At least 2020 is over now.

October 2020 round up

One more month in the strange year that is 2020. With Covid cases rising after schools went back, University returns saw huge spikes all over the country as lots of students started to mix together.

Our month began as many Octobers have, with a trip to the Lakes. This was our postponed June holiday, and we managed another 3 Wainwrights to take our total for a disrupted year to 14, which is not bad at all! We managed three meals out and a couple of takeaways, which felt very luxurious compared to the rest of the year. Another trip to Beer Ambleside kept us topped up with beer for the holiday. It was lovely to be away from the home office for a week.

The following weekend saw another postponed trip, this time from April. After a Friday in Leeds taking care of some things, we travelled on to our camp site for the weekend. Or so we thought. Due to an administrative mix up, it wasn’t our camp site for the weekend, so we then spent some time sitting in a layby doing some Googling and ringing around. We managed to find a new site just outside Holmfirth (home of Last of the Summer Wine), so the weekend was saved. We had a nice stroll on the Saturday despite some poor weather and on the Sunday we went to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park which was a fantastic day out. The highlight was probably the giant Portugese chicken, which lights up at night. Sadly we didn’t see it lit up.

Giant Portguese chicken!

Little did we know that it would be our last trip away of 2020. We’ve had some great ones, despite the disruption.

Once again, I’ve still not had time to bake sourdough, take up new hobbies, learn new skills, or even write loads of blog posts. I’ve still not had any time to finish off old blog posts, or catch up with other things that I want to write about.

Beer of the month was the first one that I had, Arbor’s “My Little Sabrony”, an absolute Sabro delight. October also saw the resumption of the Needle & Pin craft beer club, with a dark beer selection box kicking things off after a 7 month hiatus,

Pub of the month is tricky, because we didn’t actually visit any pubs. A couple of licensed establishments on our last day in the Lakes (Lakes Distillery and Lucy’s) but all beers were consumed outside of licensed premises once again. Not much chance of that changing before 2021 now I suspect.

September 2020 round up

Another month in the strange year that is 2020. Schools are welcoming back all of their pupils. Covid cases are going to rise. Plans for a return to the office (for at least a couple of days a week) were made and then soon abandoned. Another month of working from home.

We started out with a nice bike ride along the Cloud trail and then had an extended weekend of camping in Derbyshire. A small site with hook up and a tap, on a working farm. A few good walks and a tricky one over Chrome Hill with occasional walking companion Andy, who we met for the third time this year. We also revisited a favourite walk over Ecton Hill.

Chrome Hill, Derbyshire

The next weekend we were in Cambridgeshire, at Highfield Farm in Comberton, for the fourth time. Not as hot as the last time we were there (summer 2018) but a very pleasant weekend of walking in the sunshine. Sadly fish and chips from a van didn’t happen, because the van didn’t turn up, so we had to make an emergency trip to Tai Yuen in Toft, a Chinese takeaway that also does fish and chips. We got there just in time to have the last portions for the evening.

Our final camping trip for the month was a nice little site near Hopton in Staffordshire. The first two walks were not so great, the maintenance of the footpaths in the area was definitely somewhat lacking, not the first time we’ve said that about Staffordshire. Our last walk of the weekend near Aston Marina was much better.

Once again, I’ve still not had time to bake sourdough, take up new hobbies, learn new skills, or even write loads of blog posts. I’ve still not had any time to finish off old blog posts, or catch up with other things that I want to write about.

Beer of the month was the last one that I had, Yuzu Galaxy from Dundee’s Vault City (soon to be Edinburgh’s Vault City). They have been cranking out some cracking sour beers and fruited hoppy numbers with many more great things to come.

Pub of the month would have to be The Bull’s Head in Monyash. We had a Friday afternoon pint during a walk in the area, and it was our only pub visit for the month. A nice pint of Baby Ghost from Silver Brewhouse in Staveley just outside Chesterfield.

August 2020 round up

On the road again. In the before times, we were supposed to be off to Sussex for a week for a Geocaching event. That was cancelled long ago, but the trip remained on. For me it was pure nostalgia for the first part. After a stopover in Kent we made our way around the Sussex coastline through Hastings, Bexhill, Pevensey Bay and Eastbourne, before arriving in Alfriston for our first stop. This area is where I spend numerous childhood holidays, and it’s still as lovely as I remembered it.

Some beautiful walking on the South Downs Way in glorious sunshine was then followed by more nostalgia at Birling Gap and Beachy Head. There are fewer houses at Birling Gap than on my last visit 30 years ago. Three have been lost to the sea, and the steps down the cliffs have been moved twice. Beachy Head is still glorious.

Beachy Head lighthouse

We stopped over in Littlehampton for 2 nights in order to catch up with old friend Gale. The campsite was pretty terrible because it was next to a busy main road with a level crossing nearby. Noisy and full of traffic fumes. Thankfully the weather was still amazing so more sunny walks and pub trips were on the cards. After that we moved on to a tiny camp site in Ansty (not that one) which was lovely and quiet. The weather kept getting hotter. We had to cut short a few walks for health reasons. It turned out to be the hottest week of the year.

Two weeks later, a cycling and camping trip to Cannock Chase, and the only time we would go camping with Mark & Al this year. A gentle walk on the Friday afternoon, 2 good rides on Saturday and Sunday, and a few adventures on Monday. A great long weekend of laughs.

For the bank holiday weekend we returned to Yorkshire, although the weather decided to take a turn. From 35 degrees C just a few weeks ago, it was struggling to get above 10 at times. We stayed just outside Grassington and had some nice walks around the Wharfe, it just could have done with being a bit warmer.

Back home, beer deliveries continued with a selection from Brass Castle (one of a number of breweries that I’ve contributed to crowd funding projects for in recent years) and No Heroes (this month’s #CraftBeerHour hosts). A selection of new Verdant beers from the Needle & Pin and a lovely selection of Sauce Shop sauces also arrived.

Once again, I’ve still not had time to bake sourdough, take up new hobbies, learn new skills, or even write loads of blog posts. I’ve still not had any time to finish off old blog posts, or catch up with other things that I want to write about.

Beer of the month was probably Burning Sky Tail Crush, a delicious table beer enjoyed with fish’n’chips in a field in Sussex when it was still above 30 degrees in the evening. A summer delight.

Pub of the month would have to be The Fox Inn in Patching, where we had our second of two pub meals of the month, eating out to help out. A couple of lovely cask pints and a classic steak and chips all in the beer garden. À la recherche du temps perdu…

July 2020 round up

Back to life. Back to reality. Of sorts.

Lockdown number one is over. Summer is here. Life could start to be a bit more normal. For a while at least. As anticpated last month, as soon as it was over, we were up the M6 like a shot, or as close as a 3 tonne vehicle gets to that. We had booked 2 sites in Cumbria, in Glenridding and Dockray Meadow. The weather was less than fantastic, but another 11 Wainwrights were completed. The idea was to get to some further afield summits, and that worked out nicely. This month’s photo is of Ennerdale Water, one of those harder to reach places.

We went back to the pub. On our first evening we had the chance to have a couple of pints in the beer garden at the White Lion in Patterdale. We met up with fellow Leicestershire lepers Pik & Deb who had also made the great escape. The city of Leicester is still in lockdown because of high numbers of cases, but we are outside of that area, and decided to be from Derby to avoid tricky conversations about districts, boroughs and the like. We managed a second trip to the pub, the Traveller’s Rest in Glendridding, and then a third, the Scafell Hotel in Keswick for lunch on our transit day. We returned home refreshed and reinvigorated. It was a much needed break.

We had a socially distanced walk in Gedling country park with friends as well as a bike ride on the Five Pits trail, and then another camping trip to Malvern which mixed some big storms with some sunshine.

Regular Needle & Pin deliveries continued this month, with some lovely Vault City sours and a selection of local lagers from Braybrooke. Some new Framework beers finally arrived, alongside a super six pack from Pentrich.

Once again, I’ve still not had time to bake sourdough, take up new hobbies, learn new skills, or even write loads of blog posts. I’ve still not had any time to finish off old blog posts, or catch up with other things that I want to write about.

It was nice to have a freshly pulled pint of cask ale but it wasn’t my favourite beer of the month. It just couldn’t compete with Duration’s Dripping Pitch and Sweeping Coast, Pentrich’s Jumbo King and Birthdays in Isolation or even S43’s Wu-Tangy Clan.

Pub of the month has to go to the White Lion in Patterdale for being the first pub we visited since March.

Joiners Arms, Bakewell, July 2019

Bakewell has been crying out for a decent pub for a long while. For somewhere that’s the home of the Thornbridge brewery, you’d expect something a little better than some Greene King and Marston’s houses, but that’s what you’ve had to put up with.

Until May 2019, when the Joiners Arms opened its doors for the first time, serving 6 cask lines of local and further afield beer, alongside 6 keg lines which included on opening night (and still do today) Pravha, Staropramen and Aspall’s cider. We’ll come back to them later.

The Joiners Arms is cast in the classic micropub mould, a nice minimalist design based around joinery (I love the planes inset into the bar). It’s all about the beer, which is kept in excellent condition. Food wise, there are some crisps, nuts and other small snacks around, and they have a selection of wines and smaller batch gins as well as soft drinks for those not wanting a beer. They are dog friendly too, with free snacks for your canine companions, and a water bowl for them as well.

I spent a few hours here (with a break for fish’n’chips down by the river) with regular MOFAD drinking companion Steve, and much less regular drinking companion (and friend to badgers everywhere) Andy. Our fourth member was unwell so had stayed back at base.

In different orders, we worked our way across all of the cask ales. The keg lines were ignored, as two of them were empty, one had Thornbridge Satzuma (a permanent fixture, which some of us had yesterday), and the other three contained the offerings mentioned above. On a weekend, you’d expect all of the keg lines to be in action, so it was a shame to miss out on some potential bangers. The cask line up was pretty decent though, so let’s explore what we sampled.

I started out with West of the Sun from nearby Torrside Brewing, a lovely NZ hop profile coming through. Fruity hoppiness continued with Downdays from Rivington Brewing Co which was mellow and superbly sessionable. A more familiar name came next, Deception from the just over the border Abbeydale Brewery. A classic showcase of another New Zealand hop, Nelson Sauvin.

After our lunch break, the final three beers, all of which were familiar to me. My third encounter with Hawkshead Red, sweet maltiness and much better on cask than the bottled versions that I’d had a few years ago.

I passed on the Jaipur as I’ve had it (and variants like Jaipur X and Dry Hopped Jaipur) many times. That left one more beer, Lucaria from Thornbridge, which I had twice. I first had it back in December 2016, and remember it fondly as chocolate ice cream in a glass, a smooth, milky vanilla porter. There are now four other variants (strawberry, salted caramel, rocky road and mint choc chip, which sounds like old Thornbridge favourite Baize).

It was a nice way to round off our afternoon in the Joiners Arms, which is a pleasant micropub in the centre of Bakewell. You can’t miss it, it’s on the big roundabout on the A6, and passengers in cars can spot you as they pass.

I think the lady behind the bar was having a bit of an off day today, since she got very confused when being offered £11 to pay for £6 worth of drinks.

If I still had time to do my pub of the month round ups, this would definitely be in contention for July 2019. Given that I’m 18 months behind with that, I can’t see them coming back any time soon I’m afraid!

Pub of the month, October 2017

For the second time this year, and the second time ever, there is no pub of the month for this month. A few trips to very dull bars in Portugal and a couple of trips to functional pubs at the end of the month, and that leaves us with very little to choose from.

So I choose nothing, and we’re now down to just a potential ten pubs in the running for pub of the year. I’m pretty confident that November and December will have entries…

 

Pub of the month – September 2017 – The Narrowboat, Skipton

What a bumper month for pub visits! Twenty one in total, four pubs got two visits each, and one got four. Just like its 2015 counterpart, it is dominated by Skipton pubs, as we recreated the walking tour of Skipton. There’s also the same pub that we camped near to and pubs from a work trip. Very similar months.

We start with “work trip pub”, and an inclusion on exception criteria. Toilets. The most ornate pub toilets that I have ever encountered. This exceptional piece of work can be found in The Philharmonic Dining Rooms, in Liverpool.

To the “camping pub” next, and it was nice to be back at The Beehive in Combs, where we have had some lovely meals, twice in September 2015, and twice already this year (July). It really is a great village pub, friendly atmosphere, lovely food and well kept beer. Once again it didn’t disappoint, with a couple of pints of Thornbridge Rattlesnake (dangerously easy drinking 6.5% west coast IPA), a classic fish’n’chips and a posher fish special.

Another honourable mention to last year’s winner, The Needle & Pin. This month it was “Cloudwater night” and as I am a bit of a fanboy, I couldn’t not go. Featuring cans such as  ™ Life and Awkward Phase, it was a good Cloudwater celebration.

For the rest of this round up, we find ourselves in Skipton. Firstly, at the pub that wasn’t here when we last visited, the “Early Doors” micropub. Six cask ales on handpull and some other interesting things in the fridge. Much like a pub used to be, no Sky Sports, no fruit machine, just beer and good chat.

Another favourite from our previous visit next, The Castle Inn. Not much has changed in 2 years, it wasn’t quite so sunny today but we sat outside again and had a pint of liquid and a pint of food. The liquid was Barista Stout from Theakston, a lovely sweet coffee stout. I remember having this one on a walking tour of Loughborough, and it’s still a lovely pint that could stand up to having a bit more coffee added. The second pint was a pint of chips.  We had pints of chips last time, so we had to have them again. Plates are always preferred, but the occasional quirky pint of chips is ok, especially when they are decent chips. It does make it hard to get the salt and vinegar evenly distributed though…

To the September 2015 pub of the month next, The Beer Engine. This year there was no-one in talking about “London swearing” just lots of people enjoying good beer on a Saturday afternoon. It is a place that knows its market and caters to them. There’s not much point sticking 5 keg lines in here and trying to convince local drinkers to have thirds of double dry hopped triple IPAs.

There are 5 cask ales on hand pull, ideally suited to the local market. There are around 4 ciders and some good bottled beers including some nice Belgian numbers. The perfect place to enjoy a relaxed pint and a chat. Today that was Vale Ale by Three Castles Brewery from Pewsey in Wiltshire, a tasty caramel bitter.

So, to this month’s winner, The Narrowboat. This was on 2015’s walking tour, but this year we had dinner here on the Friday night, and came back for a drink after dinner on the Saturday night, so it was not used on the 2017 walking tour. Declaring it the winner might be slightly controversial, because they did send out a burnt pie for Hazel to eat (it was eventually replaced with pizza, but they didn’t refund the difference). However, my pizza was fantastic, the beers were lovely, and Mrs MOFAD had her (to date) “best beer ever!” in the form of Passion Fruit Gose from Hawkshead.

A cask ale with Sorachi Ace hops, a Citra Star from Anarchy Brew Co and a Galaxy from Brewsmith – three excellent hoppy pints. Combine these with some lovely keg filth (the aforementioned Passion Fruit Gose from Hawkshead), Tiny Rebel Mojito Sour and Pogo by Wild Beer Co and you have the ingredients for a pub of the month.

A worthy winner.

Pub of the month – August 2017 – The Brotherswater Inn – Sykeside

In a month of very few pub trips, it was a fairly easy choice to award it to the one that we went to five times. We were camped in its grounds, and had dinner here almost every night, as well as having breakfast here once too.

So it didn’t take too much soul searching to award pub of the month to the Brotherswater Inn. From dinner on our first night:-

to a venison casserole:-

to breakfast:-

to a lovely chowder (which lost points for being presented on a plate set into a bread board, double hipster nonsense!)

There were also beers, mostly Tirril Eden Valley which is a standard golden ale.

An easy choice for pub of the month. Just a shame that we didn’t have 2 million quid lying arount to buy it when it came up for sale recently.

Pub of the month, May 2017

There isn’t one. For the first time since records began, I don’t feel able to award pub of the month this month.

A bland chain pub with no frills? Meh.

A quibble over an optional 10% service charge? Nope.

A dull pub paella? Narp.

So there is no pub of the month this month. This gives the other (probably) eleven pubs a statistically improved chance of taking the overall title at the end of the year.