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The Rifleman’s Arms, Greenside, Kendal
Kate’s parents live in Kendal, so quite often we end up spending the weekend in the Lakes, enjoying a walk during the day then going out for a drink in the evening. The two places that we end up in most often are The Brewery Arts Centre (disappointingly no longer a brewery; just a very good arts centre) and Burgundy’s.
The Vats Bar at The Brewery Arts Centre is relatively expensive, but does usually have a few ales from around the Lakes on, notably their excellent house beer Ale N Arty from Hawkshead. Burgundy’s similarly has a range of around four local cask ales at a time, often including Coniston beers, as well as a good bottle fridge with Orval, Trappistes Rochefort and even the odd bottle of Goose Island IPA.
The Rifleman’s Arms is a less obvious choice. It’s on a nice green, after what on the first climb appears to be a horrendously steep walk up the hill from the main street, appropriately called Beast Banks. Postman Pat was conceived in the imagination of children’s author John Cunliffe when he was living on Greenside, a few houses up from The Rifleman’s Arms and the former Beast Banks sub-post office.
The Rifleman’s is a pub which has reportedly gone through a few shakey moments in recent years but now seems to be on the path back to good health. On a Friday night it seems busy with locals playing dominoes, darts and also in the side room, pool. Posters advertise a weekly knitting circle and the new landlady/manageress seems to be involved in a number of events on the green and keeping the pub involved in the local community.
They have beer from the SIBA list and when we were in two weeks ago that included Ossett Spellbound and Moorhouses Pendle Witches Brew, alongside the Tetleys and Abbot Ale which seem to be the standards. Spellbound in particular was a nice pale ale to enjoy by the gas fire on a wet windy night, whilst the dominoes clattered in the background. However it was served in incorrectly branded glasses. Hardknott Dave would not approve.
Perhaps symbolic of the decline and resurgence of The Rifleman’s is the literature on offer. On a sideboard by the toilets (pictured) is a complete collection of Good Beer Guides for the years 1995-2003. This might be indicative of when the management lost interest. But now they have up-to-date copies of CAMRA’s “Beer” magazine and the local CAMRA newsletter, “Lakes & Ale”.
The Rifleman’s isn’t in the Good Beer Guide at the moment, but it is a friendly local on the edge of town, with a relaxed atmosphere and some good beer.
There’s just one thing though, which is a bit jarring when you go to relieve yourself in the (clean but typically freezing) toilets after a few: the urinal has lumps of coal in it. Coal. Moreover, I am informed that exactly the same lumps have been there for years. Coal apparently gets rid of odours and I assume that’s what they’re for. But I’ve never seen this anywhere else. Have you?
The Rifleman’s Arms, 4-6 Greenside, Kendal, Cumbria LA9 4LD
The Bree Louise, London NW1
Last year, for reasons too convoluted to go into, I found myself working on the Euston Road in London, but living in and commuting from Milton Keynes every day through Euston station. I investigated a lot of pubs around this time, ranging from Sam Smiths pubs to icy gastros that weren’t really pubs any more, such as The Queens Head & Artichoke, where you felt like you were putting the serving staff out in some way if you just went in for a pint, even when it was empty.
One pub that I found myself returning to a number of times was The Bree Louise. Just around the side of Euston, it’s a shabby, frayed-at-the-edges traditional pub with terrible toilets. But sometimes the best pubs have awful bogs.
The Bree Louise has two things going for it:
1. It has a huge selection of real ale, with up to 11 beers on gravity and 6 on hand pumps. It looks like a beer festival behind the bar, with all the casks sitting on saddles. For me it was a good place to explore a wide range of beers from a decent selection of breweries.
2. In summer it was a great place to sit outside, or (more likely, given how busy it got) stand outside and enjoy a little bit of evening sun, on a quiet sidestreet just away from the dashing commuters rushing between Euston and Euston Square stations.
Today I note that on the comments to Pete Brown’s entry on the (very exciting) Euston Tap, there’s a bit of hostility towards the Bree Louise. One commenter says:
As long as the whole bar doesn’t smell of piss like the Bree Louise, then I’ll be happy.
Which is probably fair comment. Opinion is deeply divided on Beer In The Evening, where it retains a solid 7.2/10 but attracts criticism for the condition of some of its beers and the quality of the food. Back on Pete Brown’s blog, The Beer Monkey noted:
The lacklustre Bree Louise now has some serious competition down that neck of the woods.
I think this is both fair and positive. There’s room for more good pubs in that end of London, and if the competition from a shiny new craft beer pub forces the Bree to up its game a bit in the areas where it’s been subject to criticism to keep beer fans coming in, that’s all for the best. But I’d hate to see it close.
(For another take on The Bree Louise and helpful links to some largely unimpressed reviews on a number of other blogs, see Boak and Bailey).
Into The Mild: Brewdog v Tetley’s v Leeds Brewery
I’ve just started reading Martyn Cornell’s fascinating book Amber, Gold & Black: The History Of England’s Great Beers. So far I’ve learned an lot about each of the styles covered and their history, which seems inseparable from the beer itself.
A style which has always confused me is mild. I simply didn’t know what it was. This wasn’t helped at all when I tried a bottle of Banks Mild recently, which is a light chestnut colour, and tasted completely different to the predominantly dark milds I’d tried before. Even in relation to dark milds I’m not sure where the dividing line is with porter.
I now realise, from Cornell’s book, that this variation comes from mild’s historical definition as simply a beer meant to be drunk young. Mild is not monolithic, although many modern examples are dark. It seems that modern milds are either a persistence through history of variations on a style that wasn’t rigidly defined to start with, or a retrospective recreation of something mostly lost.
I decided to put theory into practice and compare a few different cask milds. It was an ideal time to do this as Brewdog have released their own take on a weak mild, Edge. It’s available in many JD Wetherspoons now as part of their ale festival, but I tried it in Nation Of Shopkeepers on Great George Street, where for some reason it monopolised three of the four handpumps.
Brewdog Edge is a 3.2% dark mild, which made it easier to excuse a whole pint at lunchtime. It was a lively pour with a creamy head, but one that soon disappeared. It tasted quite… er, mild; and thin the point of watery. There was a hint of cola as it tingled on my tongue and left a roasted bitter aftertaste.
Compared to Brewdog’s core range and expensive specials – and indeed their recent press releases – Edge is completely contrary. It’s a weak cask beer, that lends itself to drinking in considerable volume. It’s a pleasant enough drink but I can’t imagine anyone getting too excited about it. But how does it compare to the local competition?
I went to Leeds Brewery’s Brewery Tap near the train station after work, as I knew it would do both Leeds’ own Midnight Bell and Tetley’s Mild, the latter of which may or may not currently brewed by Marstons for Carlsberg (according to Wikipedia it is, but there seems to be some debate).
I confess to confusing myself over the similar looking halves on the way to the table, but when I tried them it was easy to tell them apart. Tetley’s Mild has the same dominant taste as Tetley’s Cask Bitter, that almost chemical sulphur taste that I presume comes from the “Burtonising” salts, albeit in a pair of beers traditionally from West Yorkshire.
Beyond that taste, there wasn’t much to the beer at all. It was similarly thin, and perhaps even more watery than Edge. It was refreshing enough and there were some puny roast flavours struggling to compete with the sulphur in the aftertaste, but failing.
I’m not completely sold on Leeds Brewery. They have nice branding and some good pubs, but their beers tend not to be particularly exciting (relative to the local competition such as Roosters and Saltaire) and I’ve been left quite disappointed by a few dodgy pints recently. That said, the Midnight Bell was by far the best of the three milds for my tastes.
It had more of a smell than either of the others, mostly cocoa. That came through in the taste, which was a nice balance of chocolate and mildly roasted coffee. More than anything, it had a much creamier feel in the mouth, and seemed much more satisfying than the others.
However, it’s worth noting that the Midnight Bell is described by Leeds Brewery as a 4.8% “premium dark mild”. This is 1.5% above the Tetleys and 1.6% above the Brewdog. I suspect any comparison should not be regarded as like-for-like.
However, Cornell makes it clear that, at least just before WW1, there were some very strong milds. Moreover, former “Champion Beer Of Britain” Rudgate’s Ruby Mild (which I’ve previously tried and liked) is 4.4%. So, with the qualification that my tastes probably tend towards stronger milds, I’m happy to declare that on this occasion I enjoyed a Leeds Brewery beer more than a Brewdog one.
(Rigorous experimentation over, we stayed for some dinner. The Midnight Bell also tastes very good in the Brewery Tap’s steak and ale pie. However, I ordered a stout and Kate a pale ale, both from Abbeydale.)