Beer List

[erica graham]

I'm just in the middle of updating our beer list, and although we have plenty of English Ales, Beers, Porter and Belgian/French beers, I'm struggling to add some English bottled lager. Any suggestions- has to be bottled as we don't have pumps and anything from the Cotswolds or SW England would be perfect, although I haven't had any luck searching!

You could always come with samples to try over lunch!!

[BrentKulman]

I'm just in the middle of updating our beer list, and although we have plenty of English Ales, Beers, Porter and Belgian/French beers, I'm struggling to add some English bottled lager. Any suggestions- has to be bottled as we don't have pumps and anything from the Cotswolds or SW England would be perfect, although I haven't had any luck searching!

You could always come with samples to try over lunch!!

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Not in England so I don't know what may be available to you, but Samuel Smith's makes a good lager.

[Gary Marshall]

I'm just in the middle of updating our beer list, and although we have plenty of English Ales, Beers, Porter and Belgian/French beers, I'm struggling to add some English bottled lager. Any suggestions- has to be bottled as we don't have pumps and anything from the Cotswolds or SW England would be perfect, although I haven't had any luck searching!

You could always come with samples to try over lunch!!

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Not in England so I don't know what may be available to you, but Samuel Smith's makes a good lager.

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i think that is the only sentence that i have ever seen the word 'good' used in connection with 'sam smiths lager'

if we are talking about the tadcaster brewed stuff. They have a fantastic estate but the beers are awful, and everything is sam smiths they have virtually no other brands in there!

not sure i've ever come across british lager, our local beer specialists are www.beerparadise.co.uk or www.jamesclay.co.uk

[Bapi]

Erica, I need you to trust me on this. If Gary hasn't found an English Lager, then it's unlikely one exists

I agree with Gary re Samuel Smith's drinks though, they are not particularly nice but god they are cheap. I forget the name of the Sam Smith's pub in central Manchester that's near Selfridges( Thom will know)- but two pints; a lager and a bitter cost just £2.62.

What is your place called by the way Erica?

Edited February 3, 2006 by Bapi (log)

[Niall]

Carling.

St Peter's have a Golden Ale that is very lager like.

http://www.stpetersbrewery.co.uk/shop/prod...=GACASE&SubCat=

Cains beer do one, although I've never drunk it.

http://www.cainsbeer.com/index/articles_vi...&first_art=true

Edit: Brainwave. Remembered Cains.

Edited February 3, 2006 by Niall (log)

[Richard_D]

There is a Cotswold brewed lager that I had at the Great British Cheese Festival in Cheltenham last summer. It was called 'Cotswold lager' and it was fab!. It tasted something like Budvar and was about the same strength. Apparently only a few pubs in the Cotswolds do it. I just did a quick search and got this site up which I think is the right one. There is a picture of a bottle on the site but I've only had it from a pump and yet to find a local pub that sells it

If you get that in then I'll come to your restaurant!!

[Pweaver1984]

Try here, Shepherd Neame Beers Best one down here.

See what you think?

[erica graham]

If you get that in then I'll come to your restaurant!!

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[Andy Lynes]

Freedom Pilsner is British, made in Burton on Trent. Mash restaurant used to have their own micro brewery and bottle their own lager but I'm not sure if they still do it.

[Bapi]

Niall- now you are talking. The St Peter's Brewery produce some wonderful ales. I remember being delighted when we stopped off for a drink before a meal at St John and the fabulous Jerusalem Tavern in Clerkenwell, sold nothing but their ales.

Erica- I would definitely go for their ales as part of your new stock, more places should.

Their website

[BrentKulman]

i think that is the only sentence that i have ever seen the word 'good' used in connection with 'sam smiths lager' 

if we are talking about the tadcaster brewed stuff. They have a fantastic estate but the beers are awful, and everything is sam smiths they have virtually no other brands in there!

not sure i've ever come across british lager, our local beer specialists are www.beerparadise.co.uk or www.jamesclay.co.uk

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Now that you've blasted me on the Samuel Smith's recommendation, perhaps you would be so kind as to explain why so many of the UK brewers export their beers to the US in clear bottles. Skunkiness is a huge problem with beers from Samuel Smith's as well as a number of other brewers yet the simple solution of bottling in brown bottles goes ignored.

[SBonner]

Hi Erica,

You may want to look at this link:

The Oxford Beer database...it may help; I've found some interesting beers on it in the past. Looking forward to trying some of your beers when Helen and I are in the Cotswolds again in December.

Cheers,

Stephen

Vancouver

Oxford Beer Database

[erica graham]

Thank you everyone!

Will post the list in a few days once finalised!

Erica

Edited February 4, 2006 by erica graham (log)

[Scott]

I agree with Andy, I was thinking Freedom was the one

[Gary Marshall]

Now that you've blasted me on the Samuel Smith's recommendation, perhaps you would be so kind as to explain why so many of the UK brewers export their beers to the US in clear bottles.  Skunkiness is a huge problem with beers from Samuel Smith's as well as a number of other brewers yet the simple solution of bottling in brown bottles goes ignored.

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sorry can't help you there, my antipathy with sam smiths comes from growing up in a town where they owned a great many very nice pubs that you would like to drink in but couldn't due to the poor beer.

the co is still family owned and they are amongst the richest in the UK so what do i know

[Gary Marshall]

Bapi -Restaurant is Allium, in Fairford Glos (Near Cirencester)

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As recommended to us recently by that well known starred mushroom fancier of cheltenham!

[Bapi]

Bapi -Restaurant is Allium, in Fairford Glos (Near Cirencester)

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As recommended to us recently by that well known starred mushroom fancier of cheltenham!

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Mmmm, I too have heard and read good things about your place. Excellent, we will certainly pay you a visit when we are next down that way.

[Marco_Polo]

Not strictly a lager, Erica, but O'Hanlons Brewery in Whimple, Devon (not far from where I live) makes a very quenching bottled wheat beer that would be worth trying. O'Hanlons is a good, local, relatively new small brewery that is making really distinctive beers. Following the demise of Eldridge Pope (one of Britain's great regional brewery, located in Dorchester), O'Hanlons seems to have acquired the recipes and rights to famous beers such as Royal Oak and the outrageously strong bottled Thomas Hardy's Ale. I haven't tried the latter, though I do have a few vintage bottles of the original dating back to the 80s and 90s. However, I have to say, sadly, that for those of us who loved Eldridge Pope's draught Royal Oak as one of the finest cask-conditioned classics ever brewed, the new version is a pale shadow of its former self. But that takes nothing away from the quality of the beers O'Hanlons are brewing: simply that an iconic classic ale such as Royal Oak is more than merely a beer recipe: it's the result of myriad factors, the unique yeast ("the soul of a beer," the head brewer at Eldridge Pope once told me), the Dorchester water, no doubt the source and quality of the malted barley and hops, and much else. Thus, it simply can't be transplanted elsewhere and recreated faithfully to satisfy or replicate the original and real thing, in my opinion (even acknowledging that memory is a fickle and imprecise thing - for Royal Oak to me brings back fond summer recollections of 'three pint sails' down the Exe to the Turf Locks in Exminster. Why three pints? Tack downriver into the stiff sea breeze, moor up and have a pint; have the second pint and you risk a lull in the wind; but stay for the third, and trust that the evening land breeze will kick in, for a brisk three-pint-sail back home - oh, those were the days!).

Marc

[Gary Marshall]

Mmmm, I  too have heard and read good things about your place. Excellent, we will certainly pay you a visit when we are next down that way.

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apologies in advance erica.

[erica graham]

There is a Cotswold brewed lager that I had at the Great British Cheese Festival in Cheltenham last summer. It was called 'Cotswold lager' and it was fab!.

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Unfortunately they are only bottling for family and friends at the moment, so it will be a bit of a wait until we can have this local lager, although the list of pubs in the area stocking seems to be growing weekly!

[Digijam]

Unfortunately they are only bottling for family and friends at the moment, so it will be a bit of a wait until we can have this local lager, although the list of pubs in the area stocking seems to be growing weekly!

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After painstaking (and painful) research at several locals - esp the excellent Horse And Groom at Bourton On The Hill - I'd say it's more an ale/lager cross than the name suggests, and a whole lot heavier than Budvar.

Definitely worth holding out for if they start bottling, though do be warned it's a real meal in the glass sort of drink, so maybe not one a restaurant might shift many of. Not to customers working their way through a gourmand menu, at any rate. Which reminds me, must get down to Fairford...

[Richard_D]

Unfortunately they are only bottling for family and friends at the moment, so it will be a bit of a wait until we can have this local lager, although the list of pubs in the area stocking seems to be growing weekly!

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After painstaking (and painful) research at several locals - esp the excellent Horse And Groom at Bourton On The Hill - I'd say it's more an ale/lager cross than the name suggests, and a whole lot heavier than Budvar.

Definitely worth holding out for if they start bottling, though do be warned it's a real meal in the glass sort of drink, so maybe not one a restaurant might shift many of. Not to customers working their way through a gourmand menu, at any rate. Which reminds me, must get down to Fairford...

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Do you think so? I thought it was wonderfully refreshing and so good I had two, but perhaps my stomach had been stretched by the vast volume of cheese I'd eaten that day.

[erica graham]

Well here it is- the final list that we are going with for now!

Butts Brewery, Hungerford, Berkshire

Le Butts Biere 5%

Butts Brewery, Hungerford, Berkshire

Barbus Barbus Organic Ale 4.6%

Butts Brewer, Hungerford, Berkshire

Blackguard Porter 4.5%

Bath Ales, Bath

Gem Best Bitter 4.1%

Whittington Brewery, Newent, Gloucestershire

Cats Whiskers Ale 4.2%

Wywood Brewery, Witney, Oxfordshire

Circlemaster Organic Golden Pale Ale 4.7%

Wychwood Brewery, Witney, Oxfordshire

Fiddlers Elbow Wheat Brewed Beer 4.5%

Hook Norton Brewery, Oxfordshire

Old Hooky Ale 4.6%

Hook Norton Brewery, Oxfordshire

Double Stout 4.8%

Westons, Herefordshire

Westons Organic Cider 6.5%

Timothy Taylors, Knowle Spring,Yorkshire

Landlord Pale Ale 4.1%

Goose Island Beer Co, Chicago

Honker’s Ale 5%

Les Trois Taverenes, Alsace

Kasteel Cru, Champagne Yeast Lager 5.2%

Hoegaarden, Belgium

Belgium White Beer 5%

Abbaye de Abdij van Leffe, Belgium

Leffe Blonde 6.6%

Duvel Moortgat, Belgium

Duvel 8.5%

Liefmanns, Belgium

Kriekbier 6%

WM Magner, Ireland

Magners Original Vintage Cider 4.5%

The first ten we would class as local, the rest obviously not!!

Cotswold Lager- well we hope we can have it sooner rather than later

The only problem we have now is deciding what to have to drink after work on a Sturday night!!

[Digijam]

Do you think so? I thought it was wonderfully refreshing and so good I had two, but perhaps my stomach had been stretched by the vast volume of cheese I'd eaten that day.

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Definitely. Has that ice cold but heavy bodied quality that reminds me of Kilkenny. Could never sink more than 4 or 5 of those in a session, either. But it may just be down to the fact that Cotswold is less suited to winter drinking than lighter lagers or warmer, flatter ales... or maybe it's just me being a big girl's blouse.

By the way, Erica, probably a bit too late, but have you tried any of the bottled ales from the Ottery Brewery near Honiton, Devon? Their Otter Bright is made with lager malt, and so isn't that far removed from the Cotswold.

[erica graham]

By the way, Erica, probably a bit too late, but have you tried any of the bottled ales from the Ottery Brewery near Honiton, Devon? Their Otter Bright is made with lager malt, and so isn't that far removed from the Cotswold.

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To be honest, we've had so much fun putting this list together, that we may change around the 8 "none local" beers later in the year as we find new beers