ucked away in an arcade off Southport’s Chapel Street and Lord Street is an unassuming little shop with quite an Aladdin’s Cave of beery treasure. Southport hasn’t had much of a presence for bottle shops until the Inn Beer shop opened a few years ago, but now things have taken a leap forward, whilst the former supplies some excellent continental stock, Tap and Bottles have introduced craft keg lines alongside cask and a rather exciting array of bottles. On the odd evening, Tap and Bottles also host Meet the Brewer nights at their premises to give some added social dimension to their bar. Tap and Bottle stock beers from Buxton, Pressure Drop, Red Church, Mad Hatter Brewery, Kees, Fell Brewery, Mikkeller and many many more. This is yet another establishment, only a stone’s throw from the train station where it would be easy to lose a lot of time poring over the selection of bottles, without even considering what they have on tap. I managed to catch up with Tap and Bottles’ Luke Randles, who passed on some responses to a little quiz: So, who are the main players in Tap and Bottles and why did you feel Southport was a good place for such a venue? “JB (Owner/Spreadsheet Ninja) and myself, Luke (Manager/Beer Nerd). Jen, Joe, Mark and Alex make up the rest of our great team. Primarily, we felt like Southport had the space for a hub of cask ale, so we decided to constantly rotate some of our favourite cask breweries like Salopian, Hawskhead, Thornbridge, Barngates, Liverpool Craft, Moor, Oakham, Arbor etc - I could go on forever. Then it was about bringing the craft beer to our little seaside town. Our eight taps (four of which feature craft beer) are as popular now as our four cask ales are… so we like to think it’s mission accomplished. JB and I nearly had a crisis of confidence before we opened; when we sat down and thought, we love big IPA’s and boozy impy stouts… but will the people of Southport like them? Fortunately for us, they do… and we’re finding a there is a greater appeal than ever for interesting beers that break the norm and challenge the palate.” What would you consider to be your best sellers/back bone breweries for sales? “It is difficult to judge our bet sellers as all our beer constantly rotates and changes…but i’ll try. Cask-wise we have Titanic Plum Porter that is always a big hit, as it is in most pubs. Anything interesting and tasty that’s not stocked anywhere else tends to fly out (eg. Siren, Keg: We fly through key-kegs of Beavertown and Mad Hatter in no time. Again, anything interesting sells… recent examples would be Weird Beard - Defacer (11.1% Sorachi TIPA) and Omnipollo - Fatamoranga (beautiful Swedish Wheat IPA) in Bottles and Cans. We usually have a whole shelf (24 bottles) dedicated to Mad Hatter…so they certainly grab peoples attention as they walk in the shop. Lots of Beavertown cans sell well too… Amager Bryghus and To øl (Denmark) go really well also.” Are there any exciting breweries you'll be stocking stuff from in the run up to Christmas? “We’re going to dedicate a tap each to Thornbridge, Mad Hatter and Beavertown for the next few weeks which will be pretty fun. We’ve got Belgian Halcyon (Thornbridge) which is on at the moment and tasting great. Cask for the next few weeks features Ilkley and Tempest which we’re excited about.” What MTBs do you have coming up... how often do you hold them? “So, I guess I have to talk about Beer Club in this section. It’s our baby…our pride and joy…the day of the month we look forward to most. Beer Club is a night we hold monthly, were we host a quality brewery and invite our customers to come in a drink from our set menu, while putting up with myself and the brewer in question ranting on about hops, malts and other mundanities. Luckily it’s been a huge success, and we’ve been delighted to have often welcomed 40+ beer nerds into the bar for the Club (considering our small town and the we host the event on a Wednesday night…we’re even prouder!) So far we’ve hosted Mad Hatter, Hawskhead, Track, Ad Hop, HardKnott and Liverpool Craft. Unfortunately… I’m keeping our next brewer a secret for now!” What a lovely chap…
Hope you enjoyed the read this month guys, see you again soon – in the mean time, go and pop in to see the guys at Tap and Bottles, marvel at the selection and have a beer or two with them, you’ll be amazed how quickly time goes. Anwyay, there’ll be another bottle shop and bottle review coming for December, with a big wide and sweeping bottle round up (for your Christmas ideas) from across the area, so keep your eyes peeled!
Pedro. ------------------------------------------------- Tap and Bottles 19 Cambridge Walks Chapel Street Southport Merseyside PR8 1EU Tel: 01704 544322 Twitter: https://twitter.com/TapandBottles Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tapandbottles
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