Brummie Brews

The delights of a business trip to the heart of the West Midlands can be offset, if you know where to look. Here on the BeerCast we’ve been banging on about the Wellington at Bennet’s Hill for years (see here, here and here). Recently I was back and managed only the most fleeting of trips there, but I did manage to get hold of a couple of local bottles of ale I’d not seen before, to make up for the solitary pint I had time for.

Davenport’s Original Bitter (4.0%)
Highgate Brewery, Walsall

Highgate’s amber ale is bottled on behalf of the revived Davenports brand (the original having closed their Birmingham brewery in 1986), and pours extremely light and clear. Very bitter on the palate with a slight hop finish, it’s drinkable but to be honest not really that special. It would undoubtedly be nicer on cask, as it could mellow out the upfront bitterness a bit. Unfortunately Highgate went into administration last week with debts of over £1m, and although they’ve been purchased by new owners, the outlook is uncertain. They are continuing to brew however, which is something at least. (Publican Link).

Grainstore Ten Fifty (5.0%)
Grainstore Brewery, Rutland

The Grainstore Brewery are fond of their slogans – they take pride in being ‘the largest brewery in the smallest county’ (Rutland being only 18miles by 17miles at it’s longest spans). This gives rise to it’s motto ‘Multum in Parvo’ – ‘Much in Little’. They started in 1995 in an abandoned railway grainstore in Oakham, one of the two towns in Rutland. Ten Fifty is also a bitter, but this one pours with a mid-toffee brown colour and an opaque haziness. It tastes much nicer, with a rounded biscuity, hoppy finish from the Bramling and the tang of the Fuggles. It’s really quite nice and I’d certainly seek it out again.

Dashingly Dark (4.5%)
Derby Brewery, Derby

The pint I managed to knock back at the Wellington was during a wait for a train to the airport – but it was worth it. As ever, the plasma telly beer boards were lit with 15 beers, the majority from producers I’d never sampled before, or even heard of. Warwickshire Winters T’Ale? Morgan’s Gunpowder Ale? Salamander Figaro? I could have consulted one of the battered beer guides there, but the fun is just to charge in and pick one. I fancied a porter, so plumped for tap 13, Derby’s Dashingly Dark (4.5%). Served well, cask ales have no competition with bottled ales, and comparing porters to bitters doesn’t work either. So I’ll just say that DDD was smooth, dark, and had that classic roasted malt backbone with a hint of chocolate to add the sweetness. It was great stuff, and just the thing to take the boredom away from a long wait for a train…