Good Ale in London - Non pub venues.

I agree with Roy re the quality of the Durham RABs. I bought some up on Lindisfarne in the summer and they are all excellent though quite pricey. Coincidence but I had a lovely bottle of Durham Black Abbott (5.6%) Stout this evening.

That's certainly the one I was referring to.

Brian

You may know this already but the cinema is no more. Great loss to the town.

The restaurant downstairs is the one I was referring in my earlier reply in this thread - they bought up the Swale brewery a while ago and you can now get draught Whitstable ale in their various outlets in the town.

d.

Oh, nice coincidence there, yes, I had heard about the Whitstable brewery & the connection to the folks behind the Oyster Stores. A couple of years ago I knew some people who know the owners, they were very impressed with their refurbed hotel (Continental?) which I've just read as another outlet for their beers.

Shame about the cinema closing, but I never saw it anywhere near full, so not a great surprise?

Not been back in the area for a few years - I went to college in Canterbury & brewed & supervised customers at the ill-fated Great Stour Brewery (brew-it-yourself brewery) cheers MikeMcG.

Meaning the Philharmonic Hall, I suppose, as opposed to the long time cask ale venue (and noted ornamental lavatory), the Philharmonic Vaults.

Good news - but I'd still want to end the evening in the Vaults!

Which suddenly reminds me of a few other venues that do live drama and living beer, notably the many pubs-with-a-theatre-upstairs that seem to flourish in London. (OK, that's completely off topic for this thread, but hey! this is Usenet!)

The Red Lion in Islington comes to mind. They may not do the world's most exciting beers, but they are real and the plays are highly entertaining (IME).

Now that you come to mention it, I've had my doubts about this place for a while now. It keeps entering and leaving the GBG which suggests that CAMRA have their doubts about it too.

The last few times I've been there (and I'm not a regular), the beer has had that dodgy slightly sparkling feel to it, suggesting to me that either it's still got too much condition in it or else that it's been contaminated by extraneous gases.

Can anyone else comment on it? I find the beer is still drinkable but not quaffable, IYSWIM, and certainly the fantastic must-drink stuff of years back.

apologies, yes I did mean the Philharmonic Hall (concert venue) not the beautiful famed pub - incidentally the latter 'Phil' has, according to local CAMRA MerseyAle mag, recently had a sensitive refurb - cleaning up & using lighting to make more of some of the architectural & stained glass elements of the building.

(BTW I'd never heard it referred to as the 'Philharmonic Vaults' - I'd heard 'The Philharmonic Dining Rooms', or just 'The Phil')

The Phil. Hall itself is good for an interval pint if they have the cask stuff on, but is not really a pub/bar, unlike the Everyman Bar/Bistro mentioned elsewhere.

for architecture sure, but i've never been that fond of the atmosphere in The Phil pub, IMO there's better places in town. (not been for a while tho)

BTW re theatres & drink - I just spotted Cain's keg Bitter - (rearing its font with great regularity) & Hoegaarden on tap in The Playhouse (no cask). they also had a load of those good Fentimans soft drinks, but it was a 15min interval & we popped down to DrDuncan's for lovely Cain's Mild & Skinner's Spriggan afterwards instead. cheers MikeMcG

yeah, it was the q noticeable bubbles in the glass (bigger bubbles than I've noticed in even q conditioned cask beer before) that led me to suspect, but . . .

I have definitely found the beer fresh & quaffable, I like the combination of decent food & drink served late, & it seems to manage to be both lively & friendly. I've still not managed to get over for the weekly folk session tho - must try harder. cheers MikeMcG

Yes, but unfortunately, the beer at the Continental is patchy - sometimes excellent, sometimes a bit ropey. The bottled stuff is consistent enough, but then it is not bottle-conditioned.

Well, the real reason they closed it is because they want to turn the space into a bar/club, and there's talk of them relocating the cinema to one of their other sites (the same site where they are planning to install the brewery). We'll see what comes of that...

I'm not familiar with that one, but then I only moved back into the area a few years ago. I'll ask some of my local Camra friends and see what they have to say about it. I expect they will share your nostalgia.

d.

You can get a similar effect by visiting the Market Porter in Borough Market, which is just down the road from a cheese shop..

I doubt it :-) - it didn't last v long (9months?), and didn't sell any beer into trade, nor IIRC did we have too many CAMRA members brew with us either.

All of the beer was unfiltered & unpasteurised tho, even the lagers - we brewed 14 different beers I think - & used sheps ale & lager yeast, malt extract, grains for flavour, and whole hops. They turned out very nice - I'd love to know what happened to the decent custom-built brew-kit (incl semi-auto bottling plant, cask washer, 6 mini-kettles, etc) cheers MikeMcG.

Must just be me then! I see it's listed in the Good Beer Guide and elsewhere as the Philharmonic Dining Rooms, no mention of the Vaults.

Hmm... I've been meaning to visit that particular Theatre and Bar for years. Ever since it got a mention in London Drinker ages ago.

So, you help out there, do you, Martin? *cough* Jamboree.

BTN