Archive for November, 2009
Party at the Dispensary, Aldgate
Nov 29th, 2009 |
I’ve written about the Dispensary in Aldgate before in my Aldgate lunchtime series. But on Friday 20th November I left my last job and had my leaving party there. The turnout was very good as you can see from this picture.
Annie, who runs the Dispensary, always keeps the beer well and I was sustained for the evening by pints of Dark Star Hophead and Harvey’s Best. I didn’t try the Itchen Valley Gold or the Dark Star Porter but I’m told they were good too.
If you are ever in the Aldgate area I do recommend the Dispensary for a fine pint – it’s a bit cheaper than some pubs around as well. They put out complimentary nibbles on a Friday evening too.
The Sovereigns in Woking
Nov 19th, 2009 |
The Sovereigns in Woking
The Sovereigns in Woking is part of the Ember Inns chain but is definitely a cut above the normal Ember Inns pub.
The Sovereigns in Woking: Read the full post »
It’s Movember
Nov 18th, 2009 |
The Beeralist is growing a ‘tache in support of Movember – a not-for-profit charity which draws attention to men’s health issues.
Please consider making a donation at: http://uk.movember.com/mospace/457833
If you want to read more about Movember you can visit http://uk.movemberfoundation.com/.
Thanks for listening. Normal beer related stuff resuming soon – I’ve been busy working on setting up a company. Must get out more…
A Tale of Two Wetherspoons
Nov 7th, 2009 |
I recently visited two Wetherspoons pubs in the Tower Hill area in London – both on the same day. The two pubs are actually quite close to each other and the experience showed the contrast between good and not-so-good in the same chain.
A Tale of Two Wetherspoons: Read the full post »
Salisbury Pub Crawl – Part 2
Nov 4th, 2009 |
This is the second part of my write up of a recent pub crawl round Salisbury on a grey Saturday afternoon in October. This post covers our time at the Wyndham Arms and return trip to the Village. Part 1 covered the Village, the New Inn and the Market Inn as well as a couple of others that were shut.
The Wyndham Arms
Having left the Market Inn we walked up the hill towards the bypass and the Wyndham Arms.
Wyndham Arms, Salisbury
Much has been written about the Wyndham Arms (Estcourt Road) and it’s not everybody’s cup of tea. However it’s a favourite of mine and Jon’s, and Richard liked it too.
The Wyndham Arms is a Hop Back pub – in fact the brewery used to be here before they moved out of Salisbury to Downton. The interior is quite plain but the main reason to come here is to drink the excellent Hop Back beers. There were 6 real ales on during our visit:
- Crop Circle
- GFB
- Summer Lightning
- Taiphoon
- Spring Zing
- Mixed Hops?
On the bar at the Wyndham Arms, Salisbury
(Apologies for the vagueness at the end of the list, my notes are illegible.)
Entire Stout was also available in keg form – ironic since the bottled version is bottle conditioned. Unusually there was no guest beer from the Downton Brewery.
I lost count of the number of drinks we had here but I can tell you that 1) the Summer Lightning was just as you’d expect, 2) the Mixed Hops had a distinctive flavour which I was still not sure about when I got to the end of the pint, and 3) the Taiphoon was noticeably spicey but not over the top – I’d not had it this good before.
We’d seemingly only been there for ten minutes when it was time to start our journey back to the station. Of course we’d probably been there for over two hours.
The Village – Again
Having abandoned plans to get the original scheduled train we headed to Deacons on Fisherton Street for a final round. But the beer selection did not inspire so we actually went back to the Village for the last one.
One of us even suggested taking advantage of the carry-out containers and he bought some dark beer that we can’t remember the name of to accompany us on the train. Two of us were still carrying pint glasses when we boarded the train so many thanks to the Village for their selfless provision of glasses when they were obviously not going to see them again.
Summary
All in all the trip was fantastic, and one day I’ll visit the numerous good pubs that Jon and I never got to. In Salisbury there are so many good pubs that we omitted a couple (Wig & Quill, Deacons) that you would dearly love to have as your local.
Like to Subscribe?
If you'd like to receive email updates from Good Beer, Good Pubs whenever a new post or review is published then head over to the Subscribe page. Just enter your email address and it'll all be taken care of. We will not use your email address for anything else without your permission.