Category: Beer Festival

The Dog celebrates with Wild Weather

by Ian Webster -
Landlord John McLaughlin

This coming weekend marks the third anniversary of the reopening of The Dog on Lichfield Street. The pub won Burton & South Derbyshire CAMRA Pub of the Year in both 2017 and 2018 are holding a birthday beer festival which runs from Thursday 17 to Sunday 20 May, where drinkers can sample 35 real ales, craft ales and ciders.

“This will be our sixth beer festival, we do two a year,” says Landlord John McLaughlin. “This year I am partnering up with Wild Weather from Reading, they are the brewery that I’ve featured here the most, apart from Thornbridge who have a permanent tap on. They do great beers; they’ve only been going a couple of years themselves.”

The festival kicks off in style on Thursday: “We’ve got the owner and the Head Brewer coming down to do a ‘Meet the Brewer’,” says John excitedly. “We’ve got some local bands playing, barbeque , meat raffle, games … it’s more of a social one for the staff, it’s hard work at a beer festival but we can all let our hair down and have a laugh and enjoy the job.”

The only ever cask of End of Level Boss

Wild Weather are bringing an array of beers that cover all different styles: “We’ve got eight casks and six kegs, everything from a normal 4.2% English Pale Ale, an 8% Imperial Russian Stout, a mango and lime milkshake IPA, a rosemary and lemon sour and a dry hopped sour using Simcoe which is one of my favourite hops.”

John is also able to boast an exclusive: “I’ve got the only cask they have ever done of End of Level Boss which is a 9.2% Double IPA, it’s not even a full cask, it’s just a pin. I often get the stronger beers on the keg lines, but it is nice to get them on cask; I imagine that will go quickly. At the last festival we had another Double IPA on cask and that was the first to go. We only sell it in thirds as it gets a bit silly people ordering pints of a 9.2% beer.”

Come down and join John and his hard working staff this coming weekend: “It’s going to be absolutely fantastic; I can’t wait to drink a lot of their beers!”

@TheDogBurton

https://www.facebook.com/thedoginnburton/

https://wildweatherales.com/

@WildWeatherAles

Burton Bridge Beer & Cider List

by Ian Webster -

The beer and cider list have just been released for next weekend’s Beer Festival with Bangers that runs at Burton Bridge Inn from Thursday 10 to Saturday 12 May. Don’t forget that there will also be wooden barrel aged and dry-hopped Old Expensive and Stairway To Heaven on sale, but supplies are very limited!

 

REAL ALES

Foundation stone 4.5% – Lymestone

Beyond Reasonable Stout 6% – Scribblers

Waymans milk stout 5.4% – Peakstones

Gottle of Geer 4.2% – Church End

Golden glow 4.4% – Holden’s

Surprise 5% – Sarah Hughes

Big Red 4% – Osset

Ghost rat 4.2% – Osset

Islander 4% – Kelham island

Cwtch 4.6% – Tiny Rebe

Fubar 4.4% – Tiny Rebel

Sapphire blonde 4% – Gemstone

1050 5% – Grainstore

Choc Orange Odyssey 4% – Springhead

Salem Porter 4.7% – Batemans

Mandarina Bavaria 4% – Oakham

Citra 3.9% – Crouch vale

Yorkshire terrier 4.2% – York

Atlantic Hop 4% – Merrie City

Reservoir 4.6% – Gates

Lord Marple 4% – Thornbridge

Western APA 4.3% – Slaters

Rapture 4.6% – Magic Rock

Dark arts 6% – Magic Rock

Song Bird 4.2% – Castle Rock

Trinovers Gold 4.3% -Colchester

Chinook 4.2% – Clark’s

Double mash 4.6% – Derby

Gold Rush 5% – Elephant school

 

CIDERS

Mango 4% – Lilleys

Loubi Lou 4% – Abrahalls

Crooked branch 5% – Once upon a tree

Very Perry 5.1% – Snailsbank

Nice pear 5% – Scrumpy wasp

Painted lady 5% – Barbourne.

Happy second birthday to The Last Heretic

by Ian Webster -

 

This weekend marks the second anniversary since the opening of The Last Heretic on Station Street. They are celebrating in style with a beer festival which runs from Thursday to Monday.

“We have a range of beers, strong to pale, to fruit beers,” explains landlord Pete Spittles. “If the weather stays good, we will shift more beer which means more will be on. I’ve got about eighteen on at the moment and at least another ten ready to go.” The current beer list can be seen at the end of this article.

Prior to becoming a publican Pete worked as cabin crew for Thomas Cook: “I’d got knowledge of beer from drinking it, I’ve never drunk lager, even when I was sixteen / seventeen; too cold too fizzy.”

Before settling on The Last Heretic, Pete did his homework: “I went to around six micropubs, some I liked and some I didn’t. I think you need a bar,” he muses. “It’s a focal point especially when people come in on their own, also if I hadn’t got a bar and I was busy I’d be spilling more beer on the floor as I wouldn’t be able to get through people to serve the drinks!.” There is also a practical reason, “I wanted to keep down the staffing costs, if you’ve got a bar near the cool room you haven’t got to leave the area; three paces I am pulling a pint, three paces I am back in the bar. The glass panels work well as people want to see the barrels, 99% of pubs you won’t see a barrel as it’s down in the cellar. The flipside is you have to keep it really clean as there are people looking in and taking pictures so it’s always spotlessly clean in there! Most pubs wouldn’t want you to see inside their cellar, there are bags of potatoes and all sorts!”

Pete serving Ricky

The Last Heretic is situated right next to the railway station and attracts a lot of the visiting football fans.

“It is always busy with the football crowd. When Bristol City came we sold more cider than real ale, six lots of twenty litres in a day! That’s a lot of pints,” he laughs. “I’ve just learnt how to use Twitter in the last six months, the football fans tend to be into Twitter more than Facebook, so they just re-Tweet where they are meeting. I am the first pub open on a Saturday at eleven o’clock, so they all pile in here; before you know it there are five … ten … twenty and then thirty in. Will it be that busy next season if Burton go down, I don’t know.”

Pip in the cool room

Pete has his eye on a second micropub: “I am looking at trying to open another, not too far away from here, probably five or ten miles. I’d looked at one in Stretton but I backed out. I’ve heard that someone else is interested and they’ve asked if they can use the plans I had drawn up, it’d be good for Stretton to have a micropub.”

Lisa and Pip

As well as a wide range of beers, there is a barbecue on Saturday and Sunday, so what better way to enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend?

 

 

 

 

 

CURRENT BEER LIST

Black Hole Brewery Milky Way 6.0% Pale ale, honey & banana notes, dry spicy finish

Dancing Duck Duck A L’orange 6.4% IPA infused with orange peel

Dancing Duck Dark Drake 4.5% Oatmeal stout

Blue Monkey Evolution 4.3% Golden Ale, fruity & dry hopped

Blue Monkey Funky Gibbon 4.1% Copper session ale, hoppy finish

Blue Monkey Infinity + 1 5.6% Pale ale, citra hopped

Fernandes Brewery Dragon’s Breath 4.3% Golden, spicy ale from Yorkshire

Kinver Brewery Over The Edge 7.5% Golden strong winter ale

Leatherbritches Brewery Bohemian Dark 5.9% Dark ale, coffee, malty, dried fruit flavoured

Leatherbritches Brewery Lemongrass & Ginger 3.8% Pale ale with real lemongrass and ginger

Lincoln Green Tuck 4.7% Full bodied porter

Muirhouse Brewery Shopping For Hops 3.9% Pale, fruity, hoppy session ale

Tiny Rebel Stay Puft 5.2% Marshmallow porter

Titanic Brewery Iceberg 4.1% Pale, citrus & hoppy

Totally Brewed Punch In The Face 4.8% Amber ale, fruity, packed with American hops

XT Brewery XT8 4.5% Porter, rich, smooth roasted coffee flavour

XT Brewery XT13 4.5% Red Ale using US/NZ/Oz hops

@Micropubheretic      https://www.facebook.com/The-last-heretic-480571588810654/

Burton Bridge Inn has wood!

by Ian Webster -

Burton Bridge Inn have released more details about what to expect at their forthcoming Beer & Bangers Festival on 10 to 12 May.

The sausage flavours are: Farmhouse, Spanish, Smoky BBQ, Black Pudding and Cumberland Ring.

Beer wise although the list has yet to be made public, there are two very special treats lined up. Old Expensive and Stairway to Heaven are to be made available from wooden barrels. One will be opened on the Friday and the other on the Saturday. Both ales have been barrel aged and dry-hopped. Can’t wait!

@BurtonBridgeInn

3rd Birthday Festival at The Dog

by Ian Webster -


Voted CAMRA pub of the year for the last two years, The Dog on Lichfield Street are hosting their 3rd Birthday Beer Festival between 17 & 20 May. With plenty of beers and ciders to chose from, it promises to be well worth popping in. There is a Meet The Brewer session with Wild Weather Ales https://wildweatherales.com/ from Reading.

More details when we get them.

https://www.facebook.com/thedoginnburton/ @TheDogBurton