The BeerCast

In late 2007 I visited a pub in Birmingham with one of the largest arrays of handpumps I’d ever seen – the Wellington on Bennet’s Hill. Well, the other day a similar bit of business saw me return to the second city and I just had to pay another visit. In short, the Wellington is nondescript on the outside, but the fifteen handpumps more than make up for it. The plasma screens don’t show sport – they have the beer menu instead, and as you order by pump number, you can get a pint by simply saying a single word.

On my return, I had a ‘twelve’, a ‘two’, a cheeky ‘three’ and then finally a ‘nine’. As ever with the Wellington, the majority of ales on offer were from the West Midlands – good for me, as living in Scotland we have almost no exposure to the many brewers from that region. But with fifteen to choose from it was pretty tricky. In the end I plumped for a couple of beers whose names relate to our troubled financial times, before trying another two totally at random from producers I’d never heard of. This was my kind of experiment.

12. Credit Crunch (4.8%abv)
Kinver Brewery, Stourbridge, West Midlands

Kinver are a small brewery in the village of the same name on the outskirts of Stourbridge. Begun in 2004 by Dave Kelly and Ian Davies, they have a five barrel plant that supplies the local area. Like many small breweries they first took the plunge at a beer festival – and emboldened by the punters response have gone from strength to strength. Credit Crunch is so new, it doesn’t feature on their website. It’s light in colour, but hoppy on the palate. It loses a bit of flavour near the end, but as a session beer would be good stuff.

2. Re-Session Ale (3.6%abv)
Cottage Brewery, Lovington, Somerset

Immediately disproving what I was saying about the Wellington specialising in local producers, my second choice comes from the southwest. Cottage have a 30 barrel plant and normally name their beers on a railway theme – but like Kinver have produced something new to ‘celebrate’ the worrying climate, although personally I think their financial pun wins out over Kinver’s. The beer sadly does not – Re-Session Ale was a dark amber beer that was unfortunately very flat. As a result, it tasted like Green King IPA from a can, and was really quite disappointing.

3. Mad Goose (4.2%abv)
Purity Brewery, Great Alne, Warwickshire

From the heart of the Midlands, Purity put out some highly acclaimed beers indeed. Pure UBU was named one of the World’s top 50 beers in 2007, and Pure Gold is the current Champion beer of the West Midlands, so will be going on to bid for the national crown at the GBBF in August. As it turned out, the Wellington had the last of these on offer when I was there – but it was another of their wares that caught my eye. Mad Goose is named after the farmyard fowl that terrorise the brewers. A zesty pale ale, it was far and away the nicest of the night, hoppy and light, almost like a slightly more bitter Summer Lightning.

9. Coastal Snowdrop (3.9%abv)
Coastal Brewery, Redruth, Cornwall

Zipping back to the southwest again for the final beer and a totally random choice selected pump 9 – Coastal’s Snowdrop. Head brewer Alan Hinde moved down to Cornwall from his native Crewe and took some of his brewing knowledge with him. Snowdrop is light but had a strong, almost overly powerful hop taste – but as it goes down the hops mellow and the other tastes comes through. As with most of the others tonight there’s no mention on Coastal’s official website – proof that the Wellington is trusted by the producers and gets the newest brews.

The Wellington, Birmingham

We’re rightly proud of our home city when it comes to decent real ale opportunities, and the other night a select band of BeerCast panellists headed out to a new local. Well, not exactly new – the Stockbridge Tap was renamed after Bert’s was sold, and it became a freehouse. There’s another Bert’s in the city, over in the West End (see our second Edinburgh pub guide). So maybe Edinburgh wasn’t big enough for two of them, after all. The Bert’s that went was pretty plain but always had a varying selection of beers on – and it seems the Stockbridge Tap has picked up the baton, with seven pumps proudly on display. Also, they are currently offering a mini beer festival, so that was even more reason for us to pop in on a chilly Thursday night.

First on the list was Valhalla Brewery’s Simmer Dim (4.0%). We featured Britain’s Northernmost producer on our Northern Isles special back in January last year, and commented that they certainly impart an unusual flavour into their beers. Simmer Dim – although it was almost totally flat – was a pretty decent malty bitter, even if it did smell like a football stadium toilets, according to an un-named BeerCaster. Fireside (4.7%) is one of the lesser-known of Arran’s ales, one of the few that missed our Arran Special. As it happens, that was probably a good thing as it weighed uncomfortably towards the 80 shilling end of the spectrum.

After that, we sampled Homecoming Ale (4.2%) from the Perth-based Inveralmond Brewery. Begun in 1997, they bottle classics such as Ossian and Lia Fail, and cask Thrappledouser that the Hopmeister is so fond of. However, Homecoming was a new one to us, and after a bit of Googling (it’s not referred to at all on their website) we discover that it is practically brand new, having been released to co-incide with Homecoming Scotland 2009, an events programme of Scottishness. Given the brewing history in this country, it makes sense to have an offical beer – an Homecoming Ale is fantastic. All were in total agreement, it was dry and biscuity with an almost raw oat taste. Similar to the nuttiness of Ossian, it got nicer the more it went down – whoever decided to get Inverlamond to brew the celebration beer for Homecoming 2009 should be congratulated.

Next up we moved on to Derventio’s Cupid (4.1%), a beer for the romantics in time for Valentine’s Day perhaps – although nothing says romance quite like portly men in pubs. Derventio began in 2005 in Trusley Brook Farm in Derbyshire, midway between Derby and Burton on Trent. I can’t say we know too much about them, but Cupid was also biscuity, but a bit too watery and with less body than the Homecoming. After checking online, apparently it’s a honey ale – although we were hard-pressed to find any. Finally we plumped for a bottle of something imported – Denver’s Flying Dog Old Scratch (5.3%), a strong amber lager that reminded me of Old Peculier without the dark body, almost like tree sap. Nice, though.

And with that we staggered out into the Edinburgh night – having not even tried some of the beers on offer. We’re all massive fans of the Stewart Brewery, but not particularly their 80/-, and likewise the Black Isle Brewery and their Organic Wheatbeer. I attempted a pint of Little Valley’s Stoodley Stout, but it tasted badly of vinegar (I’ve had it before and was looking forward to it). Full marks to the Stockbridge Tap’s staff though, they took it back without protest and gave me a refund, plus a free pint of something else (Homecoming Ale), and then immediately changed the barrel. Later on when our last round drained Inveralmond’s final cask we had a pint that was a finger short given free, with a free pint to make up for the missing centimetre of ale. If they keep this level of customer service up, they might need more than seven pumps, but we’ll keep coming back…