The Beer Temple : Amsterdam

Just a quickie here, this months Nottingham Drinker has an excellent piece on Amsterdam (aside from The Gollem now being shut) but it didn’t cover the audaciously named The Beer Temple, which is a shame because in short it’s bloody brilliant.

Beer Temple Amsterdam Board

Those taps go on, there's 30 in all.

 

This has been opened by the same people who run t’arendsnest which itself focuses on Dutch beers, The Beer Temple however focuses on American beers though you will find quite a bit of brewdog amongst others in there, including a brew containing viagra, though I can’t say I needed that one.

Beer Temple Amsterdam Inside

Beer Temple Amsterdam Inside

A second board showing the full selection of 30 on tap.

 

Beer Temple Amsterdam Inside

Each of those boards lists bottles you can purchase from the bar!

As the pictures above show, the bar has 30 on tap and the bottle selection is bonkers, I think it’s into the hundreds, the only downside as everywhere in Amsterdam is the expense, but if you’re going out there armed with your Nottingham Drinker don’t miss out on this place, the Flying Dog beer on sale here is worth the trip alone.

http://www.beertemple.nl

Nieuwezijds voorburgwal 250
1012RR
Amsterdam
(020) 62 714 27

Exclusive : Inside Blue Monkeys new powerhouse, The Organ Grinder

The Organ Grinder opens this Friday at 4pm, with free pork pies assumedly while they last!

Organ Grinder

There’s been a lot of talk, and given our web stats a lot of interest in Blue Monkeys new flagship boozer The Organ Grinder; head honcho John Hickling himself was kind enough to let us have a nosey round and answer a few questions this afternoon.

Blue Monkey Organ Grinder bar

8 pumps, beers facing away on the corner right are the regular Blue Monkey beers BG Sips and Guerilla

4 Blue Monkey beers will be available, 2 rotating and 2 regulars. The other 4 being proper guests, not just sourced from around Nottingham. John himself was enthusiastic about the selection, with beers and lagers (more about that in a moment) coming from all over the place backed up by a landlord with over 30 years experience, 2 of which running the award winning Crown at Beeston, it’s not hard to see why!

Money is being talked about more than ever, if you want a cheap pint Batemans XB is always on at £2.20 a pint, it’s a steady drink, and that’s a good price for the budget conscious, Blue Monkey beers vary in price but the excellent session beer Original will be £2.50 a pint, again a reasonable price, and if you can’t get a good pint of it here I don’t know where you will.

Lager lager lager...

A highly polished (literally) section of Lagers and speciality beers accompanies the ale selection. And yes, that's Jaipur on nitrokeg, somewhat of a wild card! Be warned though, typical speciality beer prices.

Ciders

Constantly rotating cider and perry.

Being a freehouse allows you to do what you wish with your drinks, and it’s nice to see such a fine selection of lagers, ciders, and fruit wines, these are often overlooked by other pubs. The saying goes you can’t please everyone all of the time, but they’re giving it a go! They’re even going to be doing tea and coffee…

A proper fire

Yes that burner works, and will be on "as soon as it's cold enough"

Work was still ongoing during our visit, but it looks set to be easily one of the best pubs in Nottingham and is likely to be the jewel in the crown of a canning circus pub crawl that must be looking more and more tempting than ever!

Doors open Friday 24th June, 4pm

Address: 21 Alfreton Road, Nottingham.  NG7 3JE.

Opening hours: From Midday every day.

Manager: Angus Clark

Click for official site.

NottsBrew on Twitter

We’re now on that twitter malarky so we can keep in touch with the Nottingham brew scene by putting @ in front of everything and looking like a complete tool, though we do it so you don’t have to, how nice are we?

I’ll see if I can add a widget or suchlike to the site, The widgets in the top right, if you like it old school here’s a URL,

http://twitter.com/#!/nottsbrew

So why not follow us? though I can think of many perfectly good reasons why you wouldn’t want to.

Horse and Groom, Basford – Review

I like local beer and support the LocAle scheme but variety is a good thing, so it’s nice to see a traditional pub that serves local ales but isn’t shy to reach out to other parts of the country. The Horse and Groom at Basford is one of these quality pubs offering a good mix with excellent variety and is a good place to visit if you fancy a proper ‘guest’ beer.

horse

Occasionally further ale is offered direct from the cellar.

With open fires and multiple quirky rooms it’s always a pleasure to visit, especially if they have a festival on as they tend to open up the large function room at the rear.

As well as bold beer choices from around the country it’s one of few pubs to offer a permanent mild pump, which is very nice to see as it caters for all drinkers.

horse

Just some of the seating area, there's plenty more.

Being only a very short tram journey from the city center it’s a pub anyone who likes their ale should be trying, or indeed as we did you can even combine it with other pubs to create a tram pub crawl, as long as you drink responsibly of course.

You can find out more about this great pub and its interesting history (based next to the old Shipstones brewery) by visiting the official website,
http://www.horseandgroombasford.com/

Hog’s Head starts serving ale, off to a flyer

A quick note of thanks firstly, when we first started nottsbrew we didn’t expect much in the way of interest and where surprised in March when we nearly hit 1,000 visitors. So many thanks to you all in May, we just fell short of 2,500 visitors, not bad for a rubbish site run by two idiots.

So the Hog’s Head then, it’s in this months Nottingham Drinker magazine as now serving proper ale with no less than 5 pumps so I thought it was worth checking out.

Hog's Head

Whilst the interior of the Hog’s Head is (at the time of writing) in need of a lick of paint it still retains its large open feel with two entrances, plenty of seating and a pool table.

Hog's Head bar

Onto the ale, despite 2 being off (it was in fairness a Tuesday) the 3 available where superb, the Salopian brewery again making me wonder why more pubs don’t stock it with its superb Oracle at 4%

CAMRA members get a 10% discount at all times, meaning Tim Taylors Landlord was £2.38, and the other guests £2.25,  given the showing it’s hard not to recommend checking this out. With great prices and great ale it’s hard to see the Hog’s Head going far wrong.