Cometh the hour, cometh the err… Brewery? Gathering around twenty people to a secret location in Liverpool city centre for some blind tasting of some great bottle beers was some time in the making; thankfully the event came off rather well. The selection of the beers was made, some weeks before the event with the intention of contrasting the styles on show and putting some local breweries head to head with some others from further afield with some fairly weighty reputations behind them. The styles of beer were selected to give each brewery a chance to shine within 3 categories. The first up for tasting was a Pale style beer, be it English, American or Wit style, being lighter on hopping and lighter generally in alcohol compared to the following categories (so as not to cloud the attendee’s palate too much). The second style of beer was the IPA category (for the uninitiated readers, this acronym usually means India Pale Ale or in some cases Imperial Pale Ale, the latter of which is noted for additional alcoholic strength). The final style was that of a stout or porter, with flavours ranging from coffee, toffee malts through to liquorice and some chocolate and vanilla in sweeter styles. To begin with, the event was only meant to cover four breweries, but a last brewery jumped into the fray eager to have their beers tasted blind by the discerning panel. In total, this meant there were fifteen beers to taste, rate and as an added twist, all the attendees were asked to guess which of the five supplied each of the beers. So, the line up of breweries and the beers they supplied (Pale, IPA, Stout respectively) were as follows: Thornbridge (Bakewell, Derbyshire) – Wild Swan, Jaipur IPA and Beadecea’s Well; Mad Hatter Brewery (Toxteth, Liverpool) – Liverpool Wit, Follow the White Rabbit IPA and Fatter Stout; Liverpool Organic Brewery (Kirkdale, Liverpool) – 24 Carat Gold, Shipwreck IPA and Kitty Wilkinson; Meantime Brewery (Greenwich, London) – London Pale, Meantime IPA and London Stout; Melwood Brewery (Knowsley, Merseyside) – Paleface, Equinox and Derby Stout. The beers were all tasted by attendees in batches of 5 (in each category) before they were supplied with a rating of 1 to 5 for the respective placing. Each of the numbers in the ratings were added together and then the beer with the lowest score was placed first in the category, then the next lowest in second place and so forth. The overall brewery rating was then gained by the relative placing of the beers in first to fifth position, adding the numbers together again, with the overall lowest score being the winning brewery in this round. Hopefully that all makes sense, trust me, after a few drinks adding the scores up was rather a demonstration in focus! The winners were then announced at the event and the competition run for some excellent craft beers, supplied from Holborn Cask Ales in Ormskirk; I did promise a shout out to the winners, so congratulations to: Andrew Barlow (1st place) Jason Peters (2nd Place) Mark Toney (3rd Place) Les O’Grady (4th Place) Incidentally, Andrew and Jason both guessed 7 breweries correctly and Mark and Les guessed 6, so a tie-breaker was required in the form of guessing the month and year of Germany’s Reinheitgetsbot, which split the winners accordingly. So, which Breweries won then? Continue reading below for full details. Pale Ale Category 1. Mad Hatter Brewery – Liverpool Wit 2. Thornbridge Brewery – Wild Swan 3. Meantime – London Pale Ale 4. Liverpool Organic Brewery – 24-Carat Gold 5. Melwood Brewery – Paleface IPA Category =1. Thornbridge Brewery – Jaipur IPA =1. Liverpool Organic Brewery – Shipwreck IPA 3. Meantime Brewery – Meantime IPA 4. Melwood Brewery – Equinox 5. Mad Hatter Brewery – Follow the White Rabbit IPA Stout or Porter Category 1. Meantime Brewery – London Stout 2. Mad Hatter Brewery – Fatter Stout =3. Liverpool Organic Brewery – Kitty Wilkinson =3. Thornbridge Brewery – Beadecea’s Well 5. Melwood Brewery – Derby Stout Overall Brewery Placing 1. Thornbridge Brewery – 6 points 2. Meantime Brewery – 7 points =3. Liverpool Organic Brewery – 8 points =3. Mad Hatter Brewery – 8 points 5. Melwood Brewery – 14 points Although the scores seem stretched from top to bottom, the voting was quite tight in some places and all the beers received quite positive reviews; the Derby Stout in particular was particularly unlucky, just missing out on a lower score. Anyway, congratulations and thanks to the Breweries for getting involved and helping out with glassware loans and providing a discount on the beers to keep the ticket costs as low as possible, many thanks to John and Julie at Melwood for jumping in with provision of additional beers for the event too. Thanks also go to Gaz and Sue at Mad Hatter for glassware loans, especially to Karen Reilly for organising the venue and Angela Mulligan for helping to keep the event running smoothly. Finally special thanks to all the people who attended to make the event a veritable success; I think I’ll be hiring some elves to help run the event and keep things ticking along without having to run around with trays of beer! Stay tuned for the next event folks, I shall be putting feelers out for breweries to get involved and will spread the news on my Twitter feed, Facebook page and via this blog. Cheers and catch you all soon, Pedro x
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A busy few weekends have bookended the spring weeks of late; the forthcoming May Bank Holiday weekend will be no exception in the stakes of busyness. Having done a quick scan of the delights for those of you across the Northwest region, there is an abundance of beer festival goodness around. I’ve put together a quick list of those that may be of interest to the readership; although am not promising that I have missed any! In no particular order we have the following events: ROLFest (Republic of Liverpool Beer Festival) takes place in Crosby at St. Luke’s Parish Hall on Liverpool road between 25th and 27th April (yes, I know this technically cheating, but with it being a new festival and only a week before it deserves a mention if only to whet the May appetite). It is likely at this stage there will be tickets left on the door, with a tax of £6 this isn’t exorbitant; there are 70 beers on offer and ciders/perries too. More information can be found here: [http://www.rolfest.com/]. The latest instalment of the ever-successful Waterloo Beer Festival is taking place from 1st May until 4th May with its usual arrangement of day and evening sessions braced with around 200 different beers on offer. The venue remains the same as previous festivals in the Old Christchurch; just 5-10 minutes walk from Waterloo Station on the Northern Line between Southport and Liverpool. More information can be found here: [http://www.waterloobeerfestival.com/]. The Mad Hatter Brewing Company continue building on the momentum and good will that has greeted them since setting up only a year or so ago. Their relocation from meagre premises to the Baltic Triangle in Liverpool’s so-called ‘creative quarter’ is going ahead over the next few weeks and will be crowned with a Micro-brewery Tap opening and mini-festival. The launch event at the brewtap, located on the corner of Watkinson and Jamaica Street will take place on Friday 2nd May from 5pm until 10pm, Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th from 12 until 5pm. More information is here: [http://madhatterbrewing.co.uk/]. Further afield, but taking place in its 19th year, the Eagle and Child Beer Festival in Bispham Green near Parbold/Mawdesley is a great festival running from the 1st May until the 4th. It doesn’t carry the same variety of some larger festivals, with a smaller programme, but it does have much more serene surroundings in the Lancashire countryside. The Eagle and Child is a superb country establishment and their attention to detail at the pub usually translates into the festival being well organised, affordable and should the weather be kind, perfect outdoors! If the weather is less than kind, there is a large marquee to take some shelter, getting to the venue early will usually mean getting a seat without issue. More details are given here when they update their site: [http://www.ainscoughs.co.uk/The-Eagle-Child/special-events.html]. Over in Manchester, one of the excellent drinking holes on Grosvenor Street by the university campus is Sandbar, which is planning its Spring Beer Festival on the 2nd and 3rd May. Information is currently sparse on the event online, but they do state the following: “Starting from 5.00 pm, our pop-up festival bar will have eight different beers on sale each night in addition to our eight handpulls on the main bar. We will be serving a good selection of local ales with an emphasis on seasonal and fruit beers. Breweries tbc.” More information here: [http://gmcr.alenewsnet.com/calendar/sandbar-spring-beer-festival-2014/]. Heading North beyond Bispham Green and the Eagle and Child towards Preston and out to Darwen, there are three festivals that are advertised as beer and sausage festivals (no sniggering at the back, I can see you…). The 3rd Fulwood and Broughton County Cricket event is taking place on the 2nd until the 4th May at the Cricket Club. Entry to the Festival is free running from 6pm in the evenings until 11pm on the Friday, with Saturday and Sunday sessions running from 1pm until 11pm. The second festival of note takes place from the 3rd May until the 5th May at the Crown Inn pub on Redearth Road in Darwen, which states there will be many cask ales on and lots of different sausages on offer (stop it). More here: [http://www.thecrowndarwen.com/events_pages/real-ale-cider-and-sausage-festival-3456.html]. The third festival is the Whittingham Beer and Sausage festival (seriously… what’s the with the sausage fascination?); which also takes place on the 2nd to the 4th May at Whittingham Club with a £3 door tax (including commemorative glass), taking in around 50 different beers and ciders. More information here: [http://www.whittinghamclub.com/beerfest]. Down in Chester, there are two notable events taking place in some of the city’s establishments. The Pied Bull has a beer festival with some of its own beers taking centre stage from 1st to the 4th May in the pub. There’s not too much information floating around on the net at the moment, though they have been putting information up via their Twitter feed - @PiedInn [https://twitter.com/PiedInn]. The Kash Tap Rooms are also rumoured to have a festival going on at their establishment from 2nd to the 4th May, although details are extremely Spartan. For something less ale orientated, there is a day of food celebration over at the Scarisbrick Food Fayre, taking place at Vincent’s Garden Centre near to Southport. This event is free entry and on the 4th to the 4th May, starting at 10am and finishing up at 4pm, the Southport Road nursery will feature some local food and drink heroes and ‘artisan producers’ displaying their wares. More information here: [http://scarisbrickfoodfayre.wordpress.com/]. Finally, on a non-gastro tip we mustn’t forget that Liverpool Sound City is taking place from the 1st to the 3rd May in the city. Lots of goings on will be had there, best thing to do is check the website: [http://www.liverpoolsoundcity.co.uk/]. That’s about it round-up wise, but the next article will be the write up of the Battle of the Breweries event (round 1) which took place in Liverpool (held by yours truly with some remarkable help). Pictures, scores, winning breweries and people who won prizes are all covered in the article, which will hopefully become the first of many such events. There were a few surprises for the attendees, with them wary of their pre-conceptions into certain breweries at stake. I suggest that it’ll be a must read for anyone interested in attending or getting involved! Until the next article…. Pedro. Selina Periampillai, the ‘proprietor’ of Yummy Choo since 2012 is a self-taught cook who has been inspired by her Mauritian heritage and the home cooking of her family. This inspiration has led to the creation of supper clubs in Croydon and numerous appearances of her dishes at Pop-ups across London including at the Friday Night Socials, Clifton Nurseries and Hilton Mayfair. Having received an invitation to experience Yummy Choo’s cookery from friends to attend a Pop-up at Tooting Market (where close friends and pop up restaurateurs Kusina Ni Lola had previously appeared to showcase their Filipino cuisine) as a diner rather than my previous pop experience of working a rather hectic shift at the Williamson Tunnels for Kusina Ni Lola in February, I arranged a weekend away in London to take in a rather enjoyable and colourful experience. The transformation of Tooting Market from a bazaar comprising mixed cuisine street food kitchens, carpet sales, butcheries, barbers and hairdressing services to a night time oasis of colour and fragrance was marked. Picnic bench seating and fairy lamp lighting adorned the market place, soon filled with the sound of Sega Dancers and Mauritian music which was followed by a procession of some delicious and competently prepared food and heady rum cocktails provided by the Pop-up Dining Club Bar. The Gajack Platter starters comprised three deep fried components and two dipping sauces to compliment the split pea and chilli fritters, aubergine and chickpea fritters and shrimp croquettes. Each of these fritters had a perfectly fried coating, satisfying crunch and seasoned, flavorsome inner, working rather well with the coconut and mint sauce and coriander and chilli chutney providing an earthiness twinned with fragrance, spice and refreshing herbal flavours. Cari Poulet is a Mauritian style chicken curry cooked in a variety of spices, with a much less oily and creamy texture than Indian counterparts, something reminiscent from days spent in the kitchen with a friend at University, also from Mauritius. The dish had a good robust spicing and depth of flavour thanks to the use of chicken thighs rather than breast meat. The Prawn Rougaille a creole style prawns in an earthy smoked sauce edging towards a burnt flavour, very succulent and slightly sweet. The dish was a welcome contrast and a good foil for the chicken in filling up one’s plate. Along with the curry style dishes, a plate of soy eggs and rice was presented to each table to give ballast to the main course, it was again, complimentary to the other dishes, fluffy and eager to soak up the sauces, with the taste benefit that the soy eggs provided an interesting twist to the sundry. Dessert was a caramelized vanilla pineapple dish, deliciously sweet and juicy with a contrast in temperature and texture with a coconut ice cream; a pretty satisfactory combination to end the pop up experience. Tooting Market is a great setting; having a low-key vibrancy and events such as this provide a shot in the arm to the market itself, making use of a public space and thus adding to the character of an area. Pop ups are a great alternative to dining at a restaurant or café, somewhat akin to eating at a large dinner party, but with a much more convivial atmosphere and often more strangers than you can shake a stick at, who are usually on the same wavelength. On this occasion, I was even lucky enough to meet a fellow blogger from London who made me feel less anxious about breaking out my camera! The event as a whole was a success, full tables and full stomachs with plenty of rum flowing around the market. The hard work from Selina will no doubt take her far, with future ventures already gathering momentum. Pop-up Dining Club will no doubt be back at the Tooting Market as they have hosted Mexican, Korean and Filipino experiences in the last 6 months or so, stay tuned on the Twitter feed for forthcoming events. Pedro. ------------------------- Yummy Choo Website: http://www.tastemauritius.com/ Email: [email protected] Pop-up Dining Club: http://www.edibleexperiences.com/p/68962059/Pop-Up-Dining-Club Twitter: http://twitter.com/popupdiningclub Email: [email protected] Tooting Market Twitter: https://twitter.com/TootingMarket In the unlikeliest of setting lies Yukti, an Indian style restaurant looking to fuse some British classic cooking with the strictures and spice flourishes of the subcontinent. The Old Swan area of Liverpool, following a main road from the city centre out past the regeneration of Kensington is not renowned for its culinary offerings. First impressions from Yukti were gleaned from their presence at the 2013 Liverpool Food and Drink Festival at Sefton Park; their dosas surprisingly tasty and competently prepared and other smaller bites enticing enough to warrant further investigation beyond the confines of the city centre and along Prescot Road. At first glance, there was a very polished feel to the inside of Yukti, with soft blue lighting, brushed steel and dark hardwood rubbing shoulders with some traditional British curry house touches of ornate decoration and splashes of colour from pictures depicting scenes from Indian literature and life. The setting is ultimately comfortable and airy with some more intimate seating arrangements present at the sides of the restaurant. Following being led to the table, we were presented with an amuseé bouche consisting of some Chennai Chickpea bites, a staple street food from the region, in Yukti these were crisp and earthy, with a mild spicing and no hint of excess oil. For the starter, the Mixed Platter consisted of four different components; the salmon was exceptional, charred to provide a smoky flavour, but it retained moisture in a well-balanced herb crust, perfectly cooked and succulent. The seehk kebab was soft with a good resistance to the bite and spiced as such, allowing the meat to compliment the additional spices. The lamb starter was also incredibly satisfying; soft and tender again continuing the theme of complimentary spice. The addition of a gooseberry chutney and pea shoots provided respective acidity and freshness to cut through the fattier meat. The platter also had additional attractive flourishes from red sorrel and pea puree to feed the eye. The Duck for main course was excellent, soft and tender with a hint of pinkness, crisp skin and no residual fattiness or greasiness. This dish was complimented with an acidic and sweet berry sauce, the vegetables were no doubt cooked well, but the broccoli and cauliflower could have done with something extra to kick the dish up a notch, as it was a little flat beyond the duck breast and sauce, crying out for one more element to provide that feeling of completeness. The Biryani dishes were presented in a pie crust, with fluffy rice with once again, a pleasant level of spice and plenty of pockets of flavour, although there was the feeling that the dish was a little one dimensional in terms of texture and elements contained therein. All the curries were excellent, accompanied by a silence over the table for the most part; it was observed that there was no surface oiliness, which often accompanies a curry that has been left to rest too long before it leaves the kitchen. The measured application of spices throughout afforded a clear definition between the curry types, promising care and attention on behalf of the chef. The sea bass was also a delight, cooked perfectly no application of heavy spices to preserve the delicate flavours, a salty and sweet bass tang augmented by the cooking allowing the sweet and moist flakes of sea bass to fall apart. The Chickpea and spinach gateau accompanying the sea bass provided an earthy tanginess to the fish, a good contrast of flavours and of textures. The Paneer was also excellent. A tasty, salty dish and accompanied by the now thematic level of perfect spice to allowed the salty tang of the cheese, which retained the driving seat in the dish. The Dessert menu was notably balanced too, providing some excellent options. Alas, without wearing for forgiving trousers, there was only room for one dessert, an excellent chocolate mousse with berries and a thin veneer of strawberry jelly, closing off a rewarding experience. Finally, the wine menu was very good value and it was pleasing to see some different and notable quality on offer rather than the usual ‘afterthought’ which often is on display at Indian style restaurants. Many grapes and styles were on offer to accompany deep cumin driven dishes, lighter bodied reds for chicken and vegetable dishes, a very balanced pinot noir for the duck and classy whites nodding at the seafood on the menu. Overall, there was little fault with the cooking on offer; the front of house was competent and not overbearing in the slightest. One gets the feeling, if the location of Yukti were a little more accessible to the city centre dweller, there would be no shortage of people clamouring for no small step up in class provided by the team here. It is worth stepping off the beaten track and down to the Old Swan for an excellent experience where the influence of the sub-continent and classic British cooking meet. Until next time! Pedro. ------------------------------------------------------------- Website: http://www.yukti.co.uk/index.html Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheYukti Address: 393 Prescot Road, Old Swan, Liverpool. L13 3BS Tel: 0151 228 2225 |
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