Beer

We have a huge, eclectic selection of beers from all over the world but our philosophy remains constant.  We are interested in well made beers that have real flavour & complexity. This usually means that we are sourcing from small producers whose livelihood is based on their product & not their marketing department.  We are blessed in the South East with a glut of good local breweries, so our British selection is based on a core of local products. 

Our quest for quality has led us to continue an old tradition of serving real ale straight from the cask to take away.  We serve this in 2 or 4 pint containers or in larger pins for parties, & this really is the best way to enjoy British beer.  We are certainly unique in this area serving cask conditioned ale to take home (see the draught beer section for more on this).

As for the rest of our beer grotto, we specialise in British (mainly local), Belgian, Dutch & German beers & have a smattering of beers from other parts of the world as and when we can get our hands on the good stuff.

We source beers direct from local breweries & through specialist beer wholesalers, if we have not directly tasted the beer we will research it & buy only through trusted suppliers to keep our quality at an outstanding level.  This also has the added benefit of us knowing all about our beers so any help or advise you need, we are happy to lend a hand.

As with our wine selection, we have a finger in many pies, sourcing the best products & suppliers.  Therefore, if you have a hankering for something a little unusual that is not in our current stock list, we will stand a good chance of tracking it down.  Anything from a tasty cheap lager to a smoked dark beer, to a Belgian gueuze, to a British session beer we will be able to help & advise.

What have we been trying?

Brewdog/Stone Brewery Bashah 8.6%

Oh what a nose, just divine,loads of swet malt & barley & dark fruits, even peraps some banana floating about in there.  The palate is good, nice & silky, that fruit is still in there, sweet barley, malt & then a very bitter, dry finish.  It doesn’t quite have the layers of complexity to make it a truely great beer, perhaps that will come with time, I had it from the bottle & I know they only bottled it recently.  It’s still bloody good though, lots of flavour & that nose, jesus it would make Gerard Depardieu jealous.

RateBeer

If you fancy having a little play on the internet there’s a great site called ratebeer.com.  Almost anything ever brewed is on there along with folks ratings of the beers.  You have to be a little careful with the ratings as very full flavoured (therefore often stronger) beers tend to rate higher & session British beers & lagers tend to fare badly.  There are many reasons why this is, the obvious one being that if you have to rate a beer using a purely numerical value, almost everyone will rate a strong beer with lots of power & complex flavours higher than a well made, clean & fresh German lager.  That doesn’t mean one is not infinitely better in some circumstances to have in your hand than the other, however, as long as you know this, the site is an invaluable tool for all beer lovers. My user name is Bacchanalia so by all means have a look at my ratings.  I don’t rate everything I try as I just don’t have time but there’s a few on there.

How is it made?

It is a constant source of amazement to me that such simple humble ingredients can produce such a wide variety of stunning beverages.  I have not seen a better explanation than this one; go to http://www.thornbridgebrewery.co.uk & click brew.  By the way Thornbridge brewery are producing some awesome beer at the moment.