Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: London

  • London – Barking and Dagenham (Borough of) – Travelodge Barking

    London – Barking and Dagenham (Borough of) – Travelodge Barking

    The cheapest accommodation option (or at least the cheapest that I considered safe) in London was the Travelodge Barking, a hotel that I’ve never stayed at before. The frontage is certainly colourful and it’s above a Tesco Express store for anyone who wants some snacks or the like. I arrived just before 23:00, which is never really an ideal time to arrive at a hotel on a Saturday night, but all was well. Other than I managed to get behind some other customer’s crisis at reception, but that was soon resolved. I always have to try and stand in a way that makes me not look annoyed whilst I have to wait for staff to deal with crisis matters like this (as it’s not their fault), despite being slightly annoyed that I am having to wait.

    The room, all clean and tidy. Travelodge are consistently decent in terms of their accommodation, there was nothing here for me to be disappointed by. The only limitation for me is how far the plugs are away from the bed, but Travelodge seem to be fixing that when they modernise the rooms.

    I can’t recall having an electric window in a hotel room before, but because it was recessed some way back there was a little switch to open and shut it. I like having an open window, although it meant listening to some rather drunken conversations outside which kept me awake because I was insistent on listening in and not missing out on anything interesting. The temperature in the room was fine and there was a fan available for anyone who was too hot.

    One of the harder to read fire escape plans that I’ve seen, but I decided not to let this bother me. The reviews for the hotel aren’t exactly ideal, although by far the lowest rating on Google is for the location. I’m not sure what the hotel is meant to do about that given that it’s two minutes away from Barking railway and underground station, but there we go.

    One guest stayed at the hotel before her wedding and was disappointed that there was no air conditioning, car parking or intercoms in the room (I assume that’s a phone). I can sense the disappointment for anyone staying in a Travelodge as a pre-wedding night treat…… There was another guest annoyed that they had to wait five minutes for a receptionist who told them to wait until the check-in time when they arrived early, but that definitely comes with the territory of a Travelodge for those who don’t want to pay for an early check-in.

    Anyway, I liked this hotel, the room was just over £30 for the night and everything was quiet, clean and organised, with the staff member being friendly (although she looked exhausted trying to do everything herself). The hotel could do with something of a refurbishment of the public areas, but it was all still serviceable. If the Ibis down the road is a bit expensive, I’ll likely stay here instead in future.

  • London – Westminster (Borough of) – Marble Arch Mound

    London – Westminster (Borough of) – Marble Arch Mound

    I’m a bit behind with my blog efforts at the moment, but I’m now in London after a successful few days in York at the LDWA NEC meeting. But more about all that in other posts.

    It’s fair to say that this project at Marble Arch on Oxford Street in London has been causing some controversy recently. It’ll an artificial construct which is there for just a few months until January 2022 and it’s effectively lots of scaffolding with some earth dumped on top. It’s quite unpopular judging by the local press, but I really like it, I think it’s quirky. And, I’m an expert in hills as everyone knows as I’ve summited Beeston Bump in Norfolk.

    The opening was a bit of a disaster and everyone was refunded their admission fee money. Given that, the nice thing about this is that the mound has been made free of charge for everyone in August, so I took advantage of that little deal. I had to pre-book on-line yesterday for a visit today, but there was lots of availability.

    The ticket checking process was all a bit informal, with two young team members jostling over who could get my QR code to scan first. I quite liked the informal approach, although I suspect they’ll get some complaints if they’re not careful from some grumpier people. The security process was also informal and the team members conversational, although this a project that is heavily overdone with staff at the moment.

    I started my ascent and it was raining, which wasn’t ideal if I’m being honest. I wouldn’t say that the steps were slippery, but the entire scaffolding structure is visible through the gaps and I didn’t like that as I’m scared of heights. But, I remained very brave as everyone who knows me would imagine….

    The trek up the scaffolding continues and it’s 25 metres to the top (so, that’s nearly a mountain).

    The views now start to become apparent. There have been some complaints that the views aren’t very exciting, but to slightly misquote one of my favourite BBC comedies:

    “Well, may I ask what you expected to see from Marble Arch? Sydney Opera House, perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically?”

    More views from the top. There was a sheer drop on just one side, and I didn’t dare poke my phone through the fencing at that point in case I dropped it and it smacked onto someone’s head (likely breaking their head and my phone). Otherwise I thought that it was a different perspective of this part of London.

    There is going to be an exhibition reached by going down those stairs, but it’s closed at the moment. The popularity of the summit is visible here, with two team members sheltering in the rain.

    Stuart Love, the Chief Executive of Westminster City Council, said:

    “Now is the time to bring the buzz back to central London and to see people visiting the West End again. We are working hard to resolve the outstanding issues and create an attraction worthy of our fantastic city. It’s going to look great and be an amazing experience once we’ve got it ready!”

    And time for the descent. My biggest complaint about this arrangement is that it’s not there long enough, it’s being taken down in a few months. So that’s a lot of resources to build a big fake hill and then take it down again, without any real meaning. It was meant to increase the number of people visiting the area, although I’m really not entirely sure that Oxford Street has many problems with that. I’m not negative about what they’ve done though, I like it as it’s quirky, it’s a talking point and I can imagine that kids will like it. I’m quite pleased to have experienced it and hope that it increases a bit in popularity over the next few months.

  • London – Redbridge (Borough of) – Ibis Styles London Seven Kings (Update 2)

    London – Redbridge (Borough of) – Ibis Styles London Seven Kings (Update 2)

    I complained quite a lot on this blog about what I considered to be the badly run Ibis Styles London Seven Kings (Post 1 | Post 2) which I thought was brand damaging to Accor Hotels. And, just ten days after opening, the hotel appears to have decided to scrap tens of bookings so that they can accept a larger block booking. The room inventory has been removed from aggregate sites for months with, if reviews are to be believed, no real attempt to deal with the number of disappointed Accor customers given just hours notice.

    Hopefully, this hotel management company won’t get the opportunity to damage Accor’s brand further and hopefully that Ibis Styles signage will soon be taken down.

  • London – Islington (Borough of) – Grave of Joseph Grimaldi

    London – Islington (Borough of) – Grave of Joseph Grimaldi

    I came across this grave by chance at the weekend in what is now known as Joseph Grimaldi Park, but which was once the burial ground of St. James’s Church. For anyone interested in visiting, it’s about a ten minute walk from King’s Cross St Pancras railway station, just walk along Pentonville Road.

    Here’s the church from 100 years ago, but that’s now gone (demolished in the 1980s) and the churchyard has been turned into a park which seemed to be a sea of litter when I visited. A few graves remain, most notably that of Joseph Grimaldi who is considered to be one of the people who has most influenced the clown and their performance methods. There is also an artwork in the park where apparently if you dance, then it’ll play some music or something. I didn’t fancy giving that a go to be honest….

    At least the renaming of the former churchyard in honour of Joseph Grimaldi means that his grave isn’t forgotten, although sadly many of the other graves here have now become rather neglected.

  • Chiltern Railways : London Marylebone to Birmingham Snow Hill

    Chiltern Railways : London Marylebone to Birmingham Snow Hill

    I can’t recall travelling with Chiltern Railways before, but they offered a £12 fare to get from London Marylebone to Birmingham Snow Hill, which seemed excellent value to me. Marylebone Railway Station is a fascinating location and one I rarely go to, and it nearly closed entirely in 1986 and was saved only at the last minute. It opened late for a mainline railway station, starting service in 1899 and it was 100 years before another entirely new station of its size was to be built again. It’s compact compared to the other London mainline railway stations, which means that there’s a limited amount of seating and facilities.

    I sat down to check Facebook for the eighth time in an hour, just as the platform number was called, number 4, which was around twenty minutes before the train departed.

    It’s the train on the right and I’m not much into trains or train spotting, but for anyone interested, it’s a Class 168 Clubman diesel. This route between London and Birmingham hasn’t been electrified and it’s a route that was nearly lost in parts, but like Marylebone, it has managed to survive.

    The train was never that busy, so I had my bank of four seats to myself for the entire journey.

    Nicely functional seats, with a pull-out section of the table for laptops and two power points. All comfortable and practical for anyone who wants to get work done. There was a ticket check from a friendly and cheerful guard midway through the journey, although he said he had no scanner to check my digital ticket and so he wouldn’t need to verify it. That seems to be a slight flaw in the ticket checking process, but there we go……

    I wasn’t in a rush, so I was happy to stay on the train for a little longer getting things done if there was a delay. This came to pass as the train in front of ours broke down and we were delayed for 20 minutes at Banbury. This meant that I was getting hopeful of a 30-minute delay so that I would get half my fare back. Unfortunately (for me), the train’s delay was limited to 20 minutes and, as Chiltern don’t operate compensation for 15 minute delays, I didn’t have a Delay Repay claim to make this time.

    And here we are safely in Birmingham Snow Hill. There’s a theme in this post of things nearly being shut down, but with this railway station it was closed in 1972 and demolished in 1977. It was then realised that this was something of a mistake and a new railway station, which was smaller and less architecturally interesting, was built and opened in 1987.

    I had a look at the Birmingham Daily Post from 13 March 1970, when there was some excitement that there would be four tower blocks on the site of the station that they were demolishing, as well as two hotels and a cinema. They were looking at using the rail tunnels to be used by buses instead to help city transit. A completely idiotic decision, as was clear given they had to rebuild the railway station not much more than a decade later.

    Anyway, I was very impressed by Chiltern Railways as they delivered a cheap fare, a comfortable train, friendly staff, updates when there was a delay and there were no issues. All rather lovely and it’s a convenient way of getting between London and Birmingham. It’s not clear what will happen after HS2 opens, but I assume that this service will continue in the same form.

  • London – Islington (Borough of) – Brewhouse & Kitchen – Islington/Angel

    London – Islington (Borough of) – Brewhouse & Kitchen – Islington/Angel

    This chain has 24 locations across the country, but I’ve never managed to visit a Brewhouse & Kitchen before. The concept is that they brew their own beer and customers are welcome to just have a drink, but there is also a substantial food menu as well.

    I deliberately waited until just after 14:00 as I thought it might be busy on a Sunday lunchtime in this part of London. As is evident from the above photo, it wasn’t. I was welcomed immediately on entry and the staff member was helpful and friendly. I didn’t quite understand the ordering system, but it transpired I had chosen the one table without a QR code to the ordering process, something I worked out eventually. The drinks were brought over soon afterwards which meant the system worked well after I had understood it.

    There was some effort to make the decor interesting and a little quirky. I always felt comfortable in the pub, it was clean and there were signs saying which tables had been sanitised.

    The menu, although not many customers were ordering food. Actually, there weren’t many customers to order food.

    What could possibly go wrong…..

    On another matter not related to nine-pint dispense at the table, this is one of those pub chains which is encouraging the shift to flexible working and people visiting pub environments during the day. They offer unlimited soft drinks such as coffee and coke for £10 per day.

    I went for two half pints, one of Myddleton Tropical IPA and one of Hotblack Desiato. They were both fine, the former had a refreshing tropical taste and the latter had a rich chocolate taste. Neither had quite the depth of flavour to make them exceptional, but they were reasonably priced and entirely acceptable. Given these are brewed in-house, it’s not a bad standard at all.

    This location is well reviewed on sites such as Google and TripAdvisor, with the beer tasting they offer seeming to be popular and I thought that’s a rather good idea for a pub such as this. Anyway, I thought that this was a perfectly pleasant visit with friendly staff and a choice of various different beers. I shall look out for others in the chain.

  • LDWA – Fleet Street History Walk

    LDWA – Fleet Street History Walk

    This is the first walk I’ve been on that was listed in the new national LDWA history group and although it went from Kensington High Street to Canary Wharf, it was centred on the Fleet Street theme. The walk was led by Dame Julie Welch who worked in Fleet Street as, amongst other things, a sports journalist. She has written a book about women in Fleet Street, which is well worth a look and I’ve linked to it at the bottom of this post. There were fifteen or so people on the walk and it was interesting to meet LDWA members from other parts of the country.

    The walk started outside High Street Kensington underground station.

    This is Northcliffe House in Kensington, current home of the Daily Mail.

    It’s fair to say that the weather was hot and there were plenty of people in Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. We bravely kept up quite a pace to cross the park.

    Buckingham Palace.

    The Royal Courts of Justice, which are on the Strand, which is at the end of Fleet Street. Incidentally Fleet Street is named after the river, a walk I went on a few weeks ago led by Des.

    The former Strand underground station, which closed in 1994 as usage was low and the cost of repairing the lifts would have been too expensive. It’s today used for filming and there’s an underground train down there which can be used if required. There’s a connection to the Piccadilly line should there ever be a need to bring the station back into usage, although that’s not very likely.

    The former Wig & Pen club, more about this at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/nov/29/pressandpublishing.uknews.

    It was interesting to hear about what Fleet Street was like in the 1970s and 1980s. A male dominated environment where drinking and smoking was commonplace, but Julie also explained just how vibrant and exciting a place it was to be. They would hear the news first and it felt like a separate town within London, with the clattering of the print presses and the smell of printers ink in the air. I must admit, it sounds a working environment that must have been challenging (especially for women), but endlessly exciting.

    One of the locations that Julie showed us was El Vino (more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Vino) which for a long time required men to wear ties and didn’t allow women to order at the bar. This was only overturned in 1982 when the matter went to court, with the bar fighting hard to maintain their right not to serve women. There was work going on at El Vino, so no photo of the frontage, but instead I took a photo of the tempting doughnuts in the shop next door.

    We had time for a drink at Black Friar pub which is located at the end of Fleet Street and Julie pointed out some other pubs that I’ll visit on Fleet Street during the week. Many of them are now closed on the weekends, but back in the day when Fleet Street was in its prime, they’d be open every day.

    Julie mentioned that every newspaper would have its own pub where journalists and workers would go. It was possible for anyone to go to any pub, but people just tended to stick with the pub that their newspaper most commonly used. Above is the White Swan (also known as the Mucky Duck) on Fetter Lane, just behind Fleet Street, which I think Julie said was used by the Daily Mirror.

    Nothing to do with the walk itself, I just liked the Poland Consulate building with its Polish and EU flags when walking by.

    I left the walk at Wapping as I had to go and have my second jab at Guy’s Hospital (I was very brave), but Julie led the others on to Canary Wharf. Wapping was an essential part of the walk as the opening of the printing presses there by Murdoch in the 1980s saw an effective end to Fleet Street as the heart of the newspaper industry in London.

    A few minutes before a group photo was taken. Thanks again to Julie for leading this walk, something very different.

    Julie hopes to lead the walk again, so look out for it in the LDWA history group and LDWA London programmes. Julie also wrote the book below which was published by Trapeze last year.

  • London – Redbridge (Borough of) – Ibis Styles London Seven Kings

    London – Redbridge (Borough of) – Ibis Styles London Seven Kings

    [NB, I wrote this post mid-stay, and it got a little worse…..]

    I was very excited to hear about the opening of this new Ibis hotel in Seven Kings, near Ilford. Ibis Styles is my favourite brand within Accor, I like the quirky, informal and innovative design approach which often has some intriguing and brave themes. It’s also located next to a railway station and some rooms have views over the new Elizabeth Line trains (not yet officially called that, but they’re running into Liverpool Street and being tested through the central zone).

    I was eyeing this up to be my new favourite hotel given that it’s this side of London, especially as I’ve stayed at Ibis Styles Kensington 15 or so times over the last year. The omens were positive that Accor could pull something off here. I e-mailed the hotel asking if I could take photos of the public areas, as other hotels have said to ask them that and they can ensure I see everything that they want to show off. This hotel didn’t reply, but since it only opened on Monday, I thought that they might be busy. Although as a side issue, hotels ignoring e-mails does irritate me, it normally shows up wider problems.

    I had good cause to be hopeful, as the Ibis Budget Whitechapel have had a sensationally good renovation and they are absolutely on it. The management there replied to e-mails nearly instantly, they’ve got a cool design theme and they use Instagram to promote their hotel. I really rather love that hotel and will have to stay there more often.

    And before I start writing about this hotel, I know that nearly no-one will care and this post will never get more than 2,000 or so accesses, but there we go….. And I am also aware that the hotel has different rooms which might have led to me writing a very different post.

    The check-in process was torturous, although the team members here are enthused, friendly and clearly trying their best. Three asked if I had been having a good day, so I assume that’s part of the training. Unfortunately, the management here have skipped the rest of the training, with the knowledgeable and personable team member at reception not knowing much about Accor’s loyalty programme. That isn’t ideal for a new hotel opening, but these things happen and I didn’t view it negatively. It did mean I had to request a drinks voucher, which the hotel don’t have yet, but after consulting with a manager, they agreed they would provide a free drink.

    I paid for the room, after some confusion about whether the hotel accepted Amex (they thought they did, but it transpired that they don’t). I then realised that I had already paid for the room in advance, leading to a quick refund being issued. Anyway, I was still quite content at this stage as the team members were really engaging and so it would be unnecessarily harsh not to expect some mistakes here. To reinforce that point, the team members were as friendly as realistically could be possible, they were really doing their best.

    Back to the design, I’m not sure what the hotel’s theme is, I think it’s just an environmental one. I still like some of the mainland Europe themes, like Romans or space, something very different.

    The view from the hotel bar and reception, they’ve got a really good location here. It’s a fast rail route into London Liverpool Street, all really convenient. There’s also free car parking available for those who want to drive in.

    The room is dreadful and entirely inadequate as far as I’m concerned. The room photos for this room type had photos of a desk, but this small room didn’t have one. This sort of room size is in Ibis Budget territory (and Ibis Budget provide a desk) and it’s only marginally bigger than the deliberately designed small rooms of Hub by Premier Inn.

    I’ve on five different hotel advisory panels (including two from Accor, although I suspect with posts like this I’ll be purged) and they come up with some brilliant and innovative ideas. Premier Inn’s Hub concept is really thought through, they’ve made great use of the space, they’ve built in a desk, air conditioning and all I could want in a very small room. Other hotels have put forward for advance feedback some intriguing room concepts. The room designers here haven’t burdened themselves with any design attempt, they’ve shoved a bed in and some clunky lumpy thing in the corner. That green wall might look fine in a larger room, but in a small room it’s made the thing feel really quite drab.

    The next problem here is that the hotel windows don’t open. I don’t like this, but it’s manageable if there’s air conditioning. The hotel is boldly advertising that every room has air conditioning, but they don’t have, they have a cheap centralised air warming and cooling system (although I suspect the hotel operating company will argue they paid a lot of money for it). The rooms are simply too hot and there’s nothing that can be done. No windows, no fans, no cooling mechanism.

    The air conditioning system they’re using seems gloriously ineffective as well at pushing any fresh air into the rooms, it’s like the old aircraft that pump the same stale air around. At least Dreamliners and the like pull in fresh air to circulate, but goodness knows what system is in place here. I’ve digressed to writing about aircraft…..

    As part of the hotel’s plan to make their rooms as dingy, sterile and miserable as possible, they’ve put in sound proofing from the outside. I accept that’s likely appreciated by nearly every guest, but I like road noise, although I can’t really fault the hotel for my strange likings. Internally, the hotel doesn’t feel well built, as sound circulates around the building and I can hear neighbouring rooms.

    Nothing says “welcome” like some smashed biscuits. Although to be fair, they didn’t have to offer this.

    Anyway, rather than complain here when it was too late, I went to tell reception that I didn’t like the room and asked if they had one with a desk. Apparently they don’t, otherwise they’d have upgraded me, only the hotel’s five suites have a desk (which is not what the photos suggest). I did offer to pay more money for a better room (although Platinum guests should be upgraded anyway for free), but they apparently couldn’t help. The team member was polite, but it was clear that this was the best room the hotel had available. The Accor web-site has substantial room availability for this hotel on-line, so I’m not sure if the hotel’s room inventory system is broken (they were having technical problems with their hotel management software).

    Back to being positive, the hotel bar is much better, the designers have put some considerable effort into having a bright and airy feel to the public areas. For customers who want it, they can enjoy a drink with a view over the station for those who like people watching, it’s nice. I have no idea what the food menu is though as it’s not published on-line or in the rooms, but they serve meals.

    The beer selection is the worst I’ve seen in an Accor hotel in recent years, limited to Corona and Budweiser. Two generic beers with sod all effort made at localising the menu or offering some local beers. I’m not expecting decadent craft beer (although some hotels do make an effort in this area), but other Ibis hotels in the city do manage to have local beers from London. Accor were meant to be promoting an element of their localisation of their food and drink, but I can see no evidence that the hotel is reaching out to the community and local producers at all here.

    I think it’s clear that I don’t like this hotel and I can’t recall any Accor I’ve ever stayed at having worse rooms. For a new-build hotel where the rooms are five days old, this doesn’t bode well for the future of the hotel industry if this is the sort of rubbish that is going to be pumped out. Travelodge rooms are simply far better and I think even by their own measure, Travelodge are seen to be at the lower end of the scale in that regard. Really this hotel is operating at Ibis Budget standards, although is still someway behind locations such as Ibis Budget Whitechapel.

    Early media reports stated that this hotel would be the first UK venture for Novum Hotels, who I’ve stayed with numerous times and have been impressed with. They don’t list the hotel on their web-site, but if this mess of a hotel is anything to do with Novum I’ll be extra disappointed [I’ve checked since writing this, and I’m delighted this has transpired to be nothing to do with Novum and I’m not surprised at that. It’s actually run by Black & White Hospitality, part of the Marco Pierre White operation]. I suspect that this hotel will score fine initially in reviews, as I’m not convinced their rooms are all as basic and so I can imagine might be quite exciting with views over the railway and some seem to be more airy. But, I can only judge what they gave me, which was worse than I’d expect in an Ibis Budget.

    A five minute drive or a twenty minute walk away is the Holiday Inn Express Newbury Park, I’d recommend anyone stay there instead. The quality of the whole experience there was in a different league to this Ibis Styles. Incidentally, I should add that the prices here were low, but seem to be increasing, so they might have had lower rates initially to build up occupancy. And I have to credit this hotel with being the first one I’ve stayed in since the pandemic started which is cleaning the rooms daily, with the hotel paying for plenty of staff to be available.

  • London – Central London – The London Stone

    London – Central London – The London Stone

    There’s not much that I can add to the collective on-line resources about this stone, but I still find it an interesting survival. It was once part of a larger stone structure that might date back as far as the Saxon period (some say the Roman period), although the written record is more substantial from the medieval period. It’s known that in 1450 Jack Cade, the leader of a revolt against the governance of the country, entered London and struck the stone with his sword, which he claimed made him the Lord Mayor of London. He was dead soon after, the process wasn’t quite as smooth as he might have hoped.

    Here is the stone in its current home, 111 Cannon Street. It was once located at Candlewick Street, which was later widened to create the current Cannon Street. It has been something of a tourist attraction since the sixteenth century (I suppose they didn’t have many other options then, places like the London Dungeon weren’t trading in the way that they are now), although it had to be moved as it was in the way of traffic. Bloody typical that they move items of historic interest to make way for traffic, but nothing much changes. From the seventeenth century, the stone was placed safely in the wall of St. Swithin’s Church, but that was damaged during the Second World War. It was though included in the replacement building to ensure its future.

    The situation became a little ridiculous more recently when the stone became included in the WH Smiths store and got stuck behind the magazine rack. The entire building was demolished in 2016 and today it’s back in a nice alcove so that the public can easily see the stone. It might not be much to look at, but it’s a remarkable survivor and there’s some considerable heritage to the whole arrangement.

    There’s an information board by the stone (clicking on the image makes it larger). I accept that individuals have to use a lot of imagination here when looking at this lump of rock, but I like that it’s there.

  • London – Brewdog Tower Hill (Scramm’s Mead)

    London – Brewdog Tower Hill (Scramm’s Mead)

    My friend Richard was on another of his decadent trips to London at the weekend, which was handy as he was dropping my tent off for my week of camping. We popped into Tower Hill Brewdog and I wasn’t going to write about this, as I’ve written before about this bar which is near to the Tower of London (I’ve taken my main photo for this post from an earlier visit as well). We were slightly surprised to get a table as it two hours before the football started, but, fortunately, the fans weren’t much interested in Brewdog until the football was about to start.

    Two things of note though. Firstly, Richard wasn’t impressed at his avocado and feta bowl (I don’t know why he ordered this, but I didn’t say anything) as it was mostly leaves with only limited sprinklings of anything else. I didn’t bother taking a photo of the meal but would have done if I had known how disappointed he was with it. He was about to tell the staff his thoughts about it, but there was no check back and the staff member who collected the mostly left plate of leaves didn’t say anything either. I was a little disappointed by this, I would have been interested in what they had to say. Probably “why didn’t you order a burger?” or something….

    Anyway, of more relevance was the very decadent Marionberry from Schramm’s Mead which Richard spent a small fortune on. I was fortunate enough to pinch a little of it, because I noticed that this is one of the best rated breweries in the world. Schramm’s Mead are located in Ferndale, Missouri and I’ve decided that I need to have a visit to their taproom at some point in the future. Untappd note that this brewery averages at 4.52 from their 111,386 ratings, a quite phenomenal score. I accept that not everyone gets excited by very high scores on Untappd, but I’m easily excited by this.

    As for the Marionberry, which is a fruit mead (or melomel), this was absurdly good. Made with Marion Blackberries it had the taste of a rich jam and it was moving towards being a red wine in my eyes. Smooth for its 14%, but packed with flavour and a very different drinking experience. Not the cheapest, but I’d absolutely order from this brewery again if I see anything of theirs in the UK. And if not, I’ll just have to wait until I go and see them in the United States. A very lovely drink indeed and full credit to Brewdog for making this available.