Cask Ale Indulgence Part II Pub and Beer List

Cheers for that Mark. It's nice to hear you had a grand old time and you enjoyed the beers and pubs. It seems we rarely hear back from folk who drop by for recommendations. Shame really, if their visits weren't all they'd hoped for or exceeded expectation, a bit of feedback might help finesse our advice.

 

Nice.
Roosters almost never gets a mention yet they produce so many good Beers.

 

This is my chief gripe with the “craft” nonsense – it is only ever a small number of fashionable, mainly very new, breweries who get the hype. When do you ever hear “craft” enthusiasts raving about Roosters? Or Acorn? Or Amber Ales or Kirkstall or Gadds or Great Heck ...

 

Possibly due to the Londoncentric nature of blogs and rating sites and the fact that the breweries you mention don't brew super hopped craft keg beers or yet another barrel aged sump sample so no-one will wet themselves over them. I can tell you more about the Bermondsey Mile brewers even though some have been around for all of a month or not even brewing yet, than Gadds. Great Heck were dull as shit when they started, they've improved a lot since but maybe the damage has been done? Acorn? Again maybe too traditional for people to get loquacious about?

That was a disjointed jumble of bollocks but I'll let it stand as is.

 

Its because we're living under the gun of the tickers these days where's its all about rambling down a few random words and attaching some even more random numeric score to the enjoyment of beer before the next big thing comes forward. The very culture of Ticking is the antithesis of the UKs beer tradition.

As for the older cask producers, I just love the beers of Adnams, Highland, Bateman's,Timothy Taylor, Harveys,Traquair,Orkney, Houston, Dent and Big Lamp among others and I hope they never become a ticker target. And Rooster's? Yankee has always been my favourite from them.

 

And Roosters, very underwhelming I've always found (bottled at least).

Zimbo I'm not so sure. Tickers, in the purest sense of the term, I always associate with getting numbers rather than specific beers. I.e. they'd be just as happy with Magic Rock Unhuman Cannonball or whatever whale-esque beer, as with the next local seasonal special.

The hyped ones just seem, to me, to be the ones with a large twitter and facebook presence, and distinct branding (stuff like Magic Rock and Beavertown), as well as quite good beers so word spreads quite quickly. Especially so when done via sites like this, and Untappd.