Take flight - beer tweets

I love beer and I also love twitter, so inevitably I tweet my beer encounters. A delve back over the last 4 years has revealed what I have discovered (and mostly forgotten!) from my beery exploration of the UK. So this is for me as much as it is for you!

My first beer recommendation and a great one - Bishops Farewell is still one of my favourite beers!

An exotic foreign beer landed on our shores - tried this one in Holyrood 9A still a favourite pub-restaurant of mine in Edinburgh.

I'd obviously not found the camera before now - Screech Owl (5.5% ABV) is a Castle Rock IPA and the Kean's Head one of their best pubs in Nottingham.

Another favourite Oakham Ale beer and another excellent pub in Edinburgh.

This was the moment when I discovered that Wetherspoons had started to sell decent real ale and they have gone from strength to strength ever since!

You can't beat a good pint of Doom Bar especially in the seaside resort where it comes from !

When in Edinburgh the Guildford Arms is my first pub-port of call, my refuge and real ale mecca !

One of the best pubs in Belfast....

This is all I will drink in Wetherspoons at the moment, its brewed in the UK too (by Bank's) - superb!

This is easily the best beer that Brew Dog make - the perfect American-style IPA.

This looks like an unfeasibly large beer !

Tiny Rebel is an excellent brewery (that recently won Champion Beer of Britain with another beer, Cwtch) and this bar a fortuitous find in an unlikely place!

A bizarre day by the seaside with the Mitchell clan and we sheltered in a pub which turned out to be pirate central - Aarrrrrggghhhh !

I'm lucky to live within walking distance of one of the best pubs in Nottingham, The Old Volunteer, which is sensible enough to have 2 beer festivals a year !

That's all folks!

Clive Mitchell, BeerFlights Blogger, 31st October 2015

Twitter @BeerFlights

Great British Beer Festival - A festival of flights

Spent two days in August at the Great British Beer Festival (GBBF) in London Olympia. I was working for part of the time as a volunteer for the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) press office. For the rest of the time I was trying lots of new beer at the festival - a tenuous link to beer flights? Well maybe not....

Beer flights are all about trying new beer styles typically in small glasses. At the GBBF they have introduced 1/3 pint glasses which are perfect for sampling beer, which is exactly what I did!

GBBF had 900 beers and ciders to try, I only had 48 hours.... Suffice it to say I tried as many beers as would fit into my 1/3 pint glass. No apologies this blog will mainly consist of photos from GBBF!

One of the main halls during the trade day at the GBBF at London Olympia. 

One of the many well-stocked bars at the GBBF.

The Champion Beer of Britain 2015 is ...... Cwtch (4.6% ABV Tiny Rebel Brewing Company) pronounced Cutch (which means 'cuddle' in Welsh) - possibly the first Welsh beer to win CBOB and probably the only one with no vowels!

Note the pen and GBBF guide, I was assiduously working my way through the best of the American style IPAs.

Apricot Jungle (4.8% ABV Grafton Brewing Ltd) - very fruity golden ale. 

Affinity (4.6% ABV Shiny Brewing Company) - excellent American style IPA.

My winning photo for the @WellsBrewery #BombardierBus selfie with a pint twitter competition!

Feeling a little green?! Here's a beer to match - Venom (5.5% ABV Potbelly Brewery). 

What a gent! Met up with the famous beer writer and Camra Good Beer guide editor Roger Protz.

St. Austell Brewery bar - lively with Tribute (4.2% ABV Pale Ale) and Proper Job (4.5% ABV IPA) on tap a very popular destination!

Finally, my favourite beer of the GBBF - Revelation (5.7% ABV Dark Star Brewery) - superb citrus hoppy real ale - a winner!

That's all folks!

Clive Mitchell, BeerFlights Blogger, 17th August 2015

Twitter @BeerFlights

Seven flights over Canada

Seven beer flights over the space of a 3-week holiday in Canada (Ontario & Quebec) in June/ July 2015 - this was my baptism into the world of the beer flight. No turning back now!

Amsterdam Brewery (Weds 24th June) - we came across this on our first day in Toronto wandering along the newly rejuvenated water front. Our very friendly server, & beer expert, Nicole guided us to our first beer choices. I opted for one of the hoppier 'Flight Tours' - four 5oz samples for C$8 - Big Wheel Amber Ale (5% ABV), Cruiser All Day Pale Ale (4.9% ABV), Boneshaker IPA (7.2%) and instead of Fracture Imperial IPA (9% ABV), which had run out, I had Starke Pils (5.8% ABV). My favourite was Cruiser All day pale ale which had the classic citrus hoppy taste with just the right amount of bitterness. This place reminded me of 'The Lucky Shag' bar in Perth, Australia - with the beer reminiscent of the IPA from Little Creatures Brewing in Fremantle.

Mill Street Brewery (Sat 27th June) - with the weather on the turn it was time to think about undercover beer exploration! After sampling a Peameal Bacon roll at St Lawrence Market, we went to Mill Street Brewery in the Distillery District. My beer flights included 100th Meridian Amber Lager (5% ABV), IPA (6.1% ABV), Tankhouse Ale (5.2% ABV) & Tankenstein (5% ABV) - my favourite beer of the day was Tankenstein, a classic American-style IPA.

Amsterdam Brewery (Tues 30th June) - a day spent touring the bookshops of Toronto. Took the 5pm Amsterdam Brewery Tour. Afterwards had a Flight Tour in the bar - Boneshaker IPA (7.2% ABV), Fracture Imperial IPA (9%ABV), Orange Weise Summer White (5% ABV) and Leaf Hop Saison (6.2% ABV). From the look of the photo below I was enjoying them all rather too much !

Old Port area of Montreal (Thursday 9th July) - a Boréale brewery beer flight including IPA (6.2% ABV), Rousse (5% ABV) & Monark (7% ABV) at a pizza restaurant. My favourite being Monark IPA, brewed with Citra hops for that classic citrus hoppy taste.

Le Saint-Bock (Fri 10th July) - found the best craft beer pub in Montreal - Le Saint-Bock on Rue St.Denis. This is the starting point for many beer tours of Montreal. They had 43 draft beers on tap with digital displays around the bar listing all of them. I had a beer flight with 6, each a 4oz glass, probably the best and most feasible way to try a wide selection. This meant I had a few beer styles I've never been brave enough to try before! The beers I tried were mostly from the Saint-Bock brewery: Trinite (4% ABV Session IPA), Pénitente (5% ABV Blanche Épicée), Evcensoir (4% ABV Rauchbier), T'Amere Équinox (6.5% ABV SMaSH, (Single Malt (Maris Otter) and Single Hop (Équinox)), Tombee de la Nuit (4.5% ABV Espresso Stout (Azote)) and Hickson IPA (6.5% ABV Brasserie de la 2 Fevre brewery). My favourite being T'Amere Équinox.

Bar Hop (Sun 12th July) - penultimate full day in Toronto, we walked west along the shore of Lake Ontario. Later went for a beer in Bar Hop (391 King Street West) - I had a beer flight (4 x 4oz) - Canuck (5.2% ABV Great Lakes Brewery - N American Pale Ale), Headstock (7% ABV Nickel Brook Brewery - N American IPA), Wheat Ale (5.4% ABV Side Launch Brewery - Hefeweizen) and Blak Katt (4.8% ABV County Durham Brewery - Stout). My favourite being the Wheat Ale.

Mill Street Brewery (Mon 13th July) - our last full day in Toronto. Went back to the distillery district, a lot drier and sunnier than our first visit just over 2 weeks ago. With lunch at the Mill Street Brewery I had a beer flight, 4 x 6oz - all of them brewed by Mill Street - Ginger Beer (5% ABV), Tankhouse Ale (5.2% ABV), Tankenstein (5% ABV) & Cobblestone Stout (4.2% ABV) - also had a sample of Lemon Tea Beer (5% ABV). My favourite was Tankenstein.

That's all folks!

Clive Mitchell, Beer Flights Blogger, 1st August 2015  

Twitter @beerflights

Beer Flights 101

What is a beer flight? Essentially 3, 4 or more small glasses of beer (typically a third of a pint or 4/6/8oz depending where you're from) from the draught beer selection available in the pub or bar. This might seem like a lot of messing about with small drinks but, as I've discovered, its a great way to try new beers or some of those beer styles that you have encountered but never tried. After all who wants to be stuck with a pint of a beer that you discover turns out to be pretty nasty or just not your cup of tea (yes you guessed it I'm British!).

Here I am with a typical beer flight - they often come with wooden paddles (easier for serving I guess) - each of these glasses held 4oz (Imperial) which is about a fifth of a pint (114mls).

After a recent holiday in Canada (where there are beer flights everywhere it seems) I came home with the vague plan of seeking out more beer flights and then spreading the word - hence this blog (and twitter @BeerFlights). As beer flights appear not to be that common in the UK this may turn out to be a very short lived venture or, hopefully as I'm a glass half-full sort of guy, a voyage of discovery (they are called flights after all!).

If you have discovered a beer flight in the UK (or anywhere for that matter) please let me know at BeerFlights@outlook.com or on twitter @BeerFlights - hopefully I'll get to try them out on my travels and tell you how it went.

So watch this space for the occassional BeerFlights blog.....

Clive Mitchell, BeerFlights Blogger, 18th July 2015