Isle of Purbeck

Whilst we were in Dorset over the New Year period, I enjoyed some delicious ales, from Badger of course, but more interestingly from the smaller Isle of Purbeck brewery. I tried their bitter named, Fossil Fuel and a lighter golden ale as the name suggests, Solar Power.

Having researched the brewery since, I realise that they're actually a microbrewery and brew just 4 of their own real ales. The brewery is located within Bankes Arms Country Inn on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset. The brewery also produces their own real ale mustards, pickles, marmalades and sauces!! This pub is definitely on my list of 'to do's' for this year, and in August they hold a four day beer festival which is great as it's right near the beach, perfect for soaking up those long summer evening rays!! Ahh.....

The Gardener's Arms

Whilst we were in Lewes, we also visited our favourite pub in town, The Gardener's Arms.


This absolute wonder of a pub always has the most interesting and unusual of ales and ciders on tap from both local and nationwide breweries.

Simon's choice was GYD's, Firey Fox, a deliciously dry but fruity Welsh cider, and mine a very warming(!), Chilli stout (brewery name to come!) followed by Beachy Head's Original Ale - a scrumptious bitter. Perfect.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon...

On Sunday, fancying a bit of a lazy afternoon, we headed out to the Red Lion pub in Ealing. We first discovered this Fullers' gem sometime back at the beginning of the year whilst strolling around off the main road of Ealing Broadway looking for a nice quiet little boozer just like this. This lovely, homely pub has to be one of my London favourites. It has also been one of CAMRAs favourites for the last 5 years!!


The Red Lion serves a wide range of fine ales and good food, and the reason we decided to come, is because Sunday at the Red Lion is PIE DAY!! Pieminister pies are served from 5pm - although we arrived a little earlier than that to enjoy some tasty ales in the beer garden. My choice of tipple was Fuller's Discovery - a light, golden ale with a fruity taste. Simon was on the Golden Delicious from the Burton Bridge Brewery, a slightly more bitter tasting ale than mine but really moorish!

Then the pies came!! Mine was a Wildshroom and Asparagus and Simon's a Heidi pie - with goat's cheese and herby roasted sweet potato - Just the ticket for a lazy Sunday afternoon! Ahh.

Ale Jaunt

On Sunday, my friend Kate and I were in the mood for some very fine real ales, so we made our way to Parson's Green to the very fine real ale pub, The White Horse. This pub is AMAZING!! They have over 135 bottled beers from all over the world, from America to Belgium, and also a wide choice Cask Ales and Draught beers. They frequently hold beer festivals too! The next one is the American Beer Festival which is being held over the first weekend in July. It will have a huge variety of American beers on offer, and also some beers from English Brewery's, such as Dark Star and others inspired by the American style.

We took it easy on our first drink, fancying a light one, so my first tipple of choice was a half of Adnam's Broadside 'a heart-warming English beer', one of my 'chipping away' favourites, and Kate's, half of a light golden ale, which was delicious but for the life of me, can't remember the name of (I'll have to ask her and let you know).

Kate and I are both big fans of Belgium beer, and seeming as we took it easy on the first we decided to go for some Lambic next! I decided on the Oud Beersel Oude Gueuze;


This beer is delicious!! It was actually the first time I've tried Lambic (Kate is a old time connoisseur in this department) and I was very surprised at how it tasted! It's really quite vinous, like cider and it finishes off with a almost sour, fruity kick. I shall definitely be having it again! I'm converted!




Kate decided on the Cantillon Gueuze which went down dangerously easier than mine!

For our last half we both decided to try the Black Cat, from Moorhouse. This one just caught my eye, mainly for the logo and I thought I'd give it a try... a mild, almost black in colour with a lovely coffee, chocolate flavour.




Well, this is all we had time for on this particular afternoon, but we shall be back very soon for more tasting!!