Confederacy of a Dunce - Pembury Beer Festival

Friday, November 17, 2006

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This week was time for another beer festival, this time at the Pembury, sister pub to our local and quickly rising into the top tier of London real ale pubs since the very early, very quiet days (e.g. my post from January). We've been there on a few occasions since our first visit, and every time it seems to have improved: more customers, something on the walls to improve the ambience, pub games, even a fantastic kitchen. And its rating on Beerintheevening.com has skyrocketed (up to the point at which pubs enter the "top 10" list, where tactical So how could we miss the beer festival?

As soon as we finished work, we jumped on a bus and made our way there. Just in time too, every table but one was occupied (although... the tables are quite large and fairly well suited for sharing). There were 20+ beers available (plus a few in the cellar not quite ready to be served). Ten or so from the Milton brewery, but a good assortment from elsewhere. I have to say the landlord made some excellent choices; it was very hard for us to find anything worse than a "half smile" on our simple beer rating scale (explained at the bottom of this post). And not because of drinking to excess; we chose to drink half-pints in order to taste more of them. Along the way we had a very nice dinner (the special Ploughman's sandwich featuring four different Neal's Yard cheeses for me [I've already reached the point where I find it difficult to even consider anything else], a vegetable cheese bake for Mrs. Dunce, and an order of root vegetable chips [fries] for both of us), and we finally took a chance at playing bar billiards (thanks to a local friend of ours who taught us how to play, thrashing us in the process). The pub seemed quite busy all night which is very encouraging. Without further ado, here are the beers and our ratings (note that only the "owner" of a beer was permitted to give it a rating. Where there were two ratings, we each had one.):

Dark Star: Old Ale (4.0%). Full smile rating from me, half smile from Mrs. Dunce. This was a dark beer with quite a smoky taste. Not quite as strong as the German Rauchbiers but sometimes the latter are somewhat like drinking a big glass of bacon. Mrs. Dunce thought it was a little too much smoke for the time of day (although thanks to the Pembury's no-smoking policy this was the only smoke we experienced).

Dark Star: Winter Meltdown (5.0%). Mrs. Dunce's beer of the night (full smile rating). Not as flavorful as you would expect from the beer tasting notes which ran to four lines. But very drinkable, and a good hit of ginger as an interesting touch.

Milestone: Crusader (4.4%). Full smile, A blonde Belgian-style ale, very smooth and tasty but perhaps slightly too balanced for me. I did still like it quite a bit.

Milestone: Rich Ruby (4.5%). Mrs. Dunce gave it a half-smile. Initially it was horrible: the aroma was vaguely reminiscent of urine (verified by me [not that I went and smelled some urine, but that I sniffed the beer too and agreed]) and this carried over into the first sip or two. After that it was fairly nice, but hard to get that initial impression out of your mind.

Milton: Gargantua (5.6%). I was going to avoid the Milton beers which are usually readily available at the Pembury and the Oakdale. But I'd never tasted this one before, and the description "extremely hoppy" suggested it was my kind of tipple. Yes indeed, a full smile it is, and my choice for beer of the night. Maybe a little less than subtle, but I'm a sucker for the hops.

Milton: Mammon (7.0%). I had one of these late in the evening: it's just too strong, and rich, and sweet, and everything else. The notes indicate that it was brewed in September 2005 and had over a year to mature. It was just too much and I had to give it a flat-mouth rating. A special offer was noted, a pint of Mammon and a plate of Stilton for £4. Stilton is perhaps the only food that could stand up to the aged Mammon. Just not my thing on this occasion.

Nottingham: Bullion (4.7%). I rated this one only a half-smile, rather bland and light in flavor. Lacking any sort of distinct finish, but still nice enough.

Nottingham: Dreadnought (4.5%). Mrs. Dunce was blown away by the flavor, describing it as quite biscuity, and almost too complex for its own good. Still deserving of a full smile rating.

Saffron: EPA (3.9%). Mrs. Dunce gave this one a half smile. It's a bit hoppy but all right. She prefers the malty beers; I've had this one before and thought it quite nice, although light and perhaps better suited for summer.

Saffron: Silent Night (5.2%). Described as a dark and hoppy bitter, so I jumped at the chance to try it. It didn't seem so hoppy to me, but more chocolatey and stoutish. I still found it quite lovely, giving it a full smile rating.

Springhead: Cromwell's Hat (6.0%). Mrs. Dunce gave this one another full smile: malty with a cinnamon hit (although she didn't notice the juniper mentioned in the tasting notes).

Finally we had two beers as a sort of quiz challenge: Tring: Buzby (4.0%) and Tring: "It's for you!" (4.0%). The quiz came from the tasting notes ("Amber coloured and spicy. Suggestions gratefully received as to what the spice actually is"). Sadly, we had no idea what the spice might be (and didn't even notice the spice in the "It's for you!"). I took the Buzby, giving it a half smile as "decent but not special"; Mrs. Dunce appreciated the maltier character of the "It's for you!" (I'm not sure I approve of drinking beer whose name contains multiple punctuation marks) but didn't rate it higher than a half smile.

And that's about it. We were a little disappointed that a couple of the listed beers were not being served yet (Nottingham's Rock Mild, and Milton's Marcus Aurelius in particular), but the selection was already plenty good.

consume

Friday, November 17, 2006 5:18:21 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)