In praise of the Wellington…part 2
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.
