Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Brewery Tap

  • Thursday : The Tiny Rebel Tap Takeover at the Brewery Tap in Norwich

    Thursday : The Tiny Rebel Tap Takeover at the Brewery Tap in Norwich

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    As I had surprised and delighted my friends by coming back to Norwich a little early due to a rail strike, it seemed a wise idea to get some of them together to be entertained by the Tiny Rebel Tap Takeover at the Brewery Tap in Norwich. There were ten beers, which I’m pleased to say that I had a third each of, along with some cans, but I didn’t get chance to try those as they ran out nearly immediately which is a slight shame.

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    Not the most decadently poured, but these are the four cask beers. The staff here were friendly and helpful, they certainly know their beer and it’s one of my favourite pubs. I don’t go to it that often, but I’m always pleased when I do make it here.

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    There were a lot of crisps and chips acquired, which complemented the beers beautifully. It was rather lovely to see Bev, Steve, Gordon, Brian and James, especially good to see Steve who has just returned from his huge Camino adventure in Spain. He’s been very brave and he’s clearly lost some weight during the whole trip.

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    I must admit, I had to work out in my mind which beer was which…. I forgot how similar in colour these three were when I got them back to the table.

    I won’t go through each of the ten beers, as I can’t imagine anyone is in the slightest bit interested in that level of detail. My favourite beers were the Wood Aged Belgian Birthday Cake, but that sounds delightful anyway as a concept. The Mixed Berry Double Froozie Sour was right up my street and the Thai PA had a taste of Asian food to it, another intriguing way to add flavour to a beer I suppose. I was less impressed with Baby Cakes, which had a confused taste profile, whilst the Peloton Pale was also quite drab. But, I have no complaints about the overall selection, some very different beers from Tiny Rebel and they like to be experimental. The brewery is quite near where Dave Morgan, the Welsh Walking Wizard, lives, so another great thing to come out of Wales!

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    I tend not to eat crisps very often unless beer is involved, another fun fact for everyone….

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    After I got rid of my first wave of friends, I popped to the White Lion to meet Julian, whose birthday the following week I’ll miss as I’m away so I wanted to make an effort to meet up.

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    The King’s Head and more crisps. Julian is a drinking professional, he can go for hours on real ale, whereas I’m rather more moderate with my volume of alcohol consumed. I don’t think I’ll ever be as professional as him.

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    I can be led astray, but I was being very sensible, as the night progressed rather late, I stuck to water, I know my limits…. There was much gossip and chat, just what pubs are for.

    Anyway, it was great to see some friends in Norwich, rather lovely to be back and also I very much like tap takeovers, so that was a decadent treat at the Brewery Tap.

  • Norwich – Brewery Tap (Brew York Tap Takeover)

    Norwich – Brewery Tap (Brew York Tap Takeover)

    I was very excited a couple of weeks ago to discover that the Brewery Tap in Norwich (who I’ve written about before, so won’t repeat myself as it probably wasn’t that interesting in the first place….) had a tap takeover by Brew York. Sadly, I don’t have any friends who were equally excited about that (sniff, need to get more beer friiiieeennnddss I guess, if people will excuse the Inbetweeners reference), so I just had to assemble a random group of friends who would be vaguely interested.

    Above are the cask and keg menus from the evening, with some really quite exciting options available. Anyway, the five friends I dragged along were really for the gossip rather than for me to share beer notes with, but that just had to suffice. And I suppose they were good company, although they need training up a bit in the beer front.

    There were other beer options available for those who didn’t want to sample products from Brew York. That transpired to be most of our group, it was just Steve drinking these with me.

    We can ignore the other four here, as only Steve and I decided to go with the Brew York options, ordering thirds to allow for the sampling of as many beers as realistically possible. Above are the four cask options of Haze of Thunder (a modern pale ale), Big Eagle (an American West Coast IPA), Honey I Shrunk the Impys (a honey and oatmeal stout) and Tonkoko (a tonka bean, coconut, vanilla and cacao milk stout). Thanks to the careful nature of the bar staff, they’re in that order in the photo as well.

    My favourites here were the dark beers, which is perhaps not surprising. The Honey I Shrunk the Impys had a decent flavour, but there wasn’t quite the honey flavour that I’d anticipated, but still all rather pleasant. I forgot that I’d had the Tonkoko before (at Chilli Devils in Hull) and this was the star of the casks show. Rich with the taste of coconut and vanilla noticeable, although it didn’t quite have as much taste of Bounty Bar (which the brewer mentioned) as the Arcade City from Overworks that I’d had a couple of weeks ago at Brewdog Ealing. But no bad beers out of the four, but it was time to move onto the kegs, which is a bit more of my thing.

    The bar staff had carefully chalked on the names of the beers, which made things much easier for me. In the top row of the photo are Ripple Twister (a raspberry and vanilla ice cream IPA), the Mangolorian (a juicy mango and lime milkshake IPA) and Kirsch Russell (a cherry pie pastry sour). In the bottom row are A New Beginning (a coffee, blueberry, cacao, walnut and vanilla imperial stout), a decadent pack of Mini Cheddars (cheese and nectar of the Gods) and the Dream Child (an ice cream pastry imperial stout).

    Frankly, these were all excellent and a delight to be behold (I need to get out more being this easily pleased….). But, with a focus on just one, the Dream Child, which was one of my favourite beers of the year so far. There were some really powerful tastes in this, rich and it didn’t feel like its 14% ABV. It really was like the Rocky Road dessert that it set out to replicate, with marshmallow and chocolate flavours running through it. An absolute delight, worth going just to have that as far as I was concerned.

    I’m certainly very excited to be going to York in a few weeks to experience some more beers from Brew York, with none of the nine that I had on Friday evening disappointing me. I’m not sure that Steve was quite as impressed, but I wasn’t bothered about that, I was enjoying my beer tasting.

    Bev, who was on fine form as ever during the evening, left the table for a few minutes and left Gordon (above) alone with her bag. I’m not one for gossip, so I won’t say what Gordon was doing here. But Bev has suggested that there needs to be more gossip content again on this blog, so perhaps that’s something that I can manage to deliver on    🙂

    Anyway, a very lovely evening, and a delight to have five people to bore with my explanation of why some of these beers were exceptional. And Gordon was full of gossip, he rarely fails to surprise and delight in that regard.

  • Peterborough – Brewery Tap

    I’ve managed to miss visiting the Brewery Tap during my previous visits to Peterborough, but it seemed well reviewed and worth trying. They stock beers predominantly from Oakham Ales and the pub is also known for its Thai food, which did look rather tempting. It was formerly an employment exchange and CAMRA note that the building was recently nearly demolished.

    I asked if there were any dark beers on, but there weren’t. I didn’t have huge expectations of that given it’s the height of summer, but I went for Citra which I’ve had before. It was at the appropriate temperature and it tasted well kept, but I was surprised at how lacking in taste it was. Personally, I thought the brewery notes of the beer having a “pungent grapefruit, lychee and gooseberry aroma” as perhaps just a little aspirational. Citra hops are a bit of a US thing, and my experience of similar beers there is that they have a much punchier citrus flavour and a more refreshing taste.

    Anyway, back to the Brewery Tap. It was pretty much empty when I visited, which is a shame as it’s a sizeable venue and the lunch menu looked interesting and creative. The staff were all friendly and helpful, with the pub being clean and well presented.

    Being honest, it all felt a little tired and behind the times, but it was comfortable and clean. The food seems really well reviewed and it seemed a shame that their pub was pretty much empty, but perhaps it’s a lot busier in the evenings. Certainly a good location though for a larger group as it’s spacious and everything seemed organised. I only discovered later on that there is a discount for CAMRA members and also a reduced price beer of the month.