Tomorrow lunchtime, BeerViking will be raiding the White Horse 40 Ales from 40 Miles Beer Festival.  It will be running all weekend but if you can make it down it would be great to meet you.

Previous years has seen this key London beer fan pub source it’s beers for this festival from a 25 mile radius but by going a little bit further they can now include Dark Star.  Some of the other breweries who will have beer there this weekend are:  Fuller’s, Meantime, Sambrook’s, Twickenham and Brodie’s to breweries further afield like Rebellion in Marlow Bottom, Ha’Penny Brewing in Ilford, Surrey Hills in Guildford or Buntingford in Royston.  Pencil & Spoon also tipped us that new nano-brewery Kernel will have some beers there.

Regardless if you come or not, stay tuned for field reports (apologies in advance if the Hunter decides to show up and jack the proceedings) and also make sure this May Bank Holiday weekend you drink good beer – taking a turn of phrase from our friend Steve Leighton – Life is too short for bad beer.

The White Horse (or Sloaney Poney giving it it’s proper name) is located on Parsons Green, SW6 in West London (it also used to be one of the BeerViking crew local’s for 10 years).  Here is a map to help you find it:

View Larger Map

Posted via email from beerviking’s posterous

Dark Star – Please bottle more in your lovely new brewery

Posted via email from beerviking’s posterous

Well its been almost 3 weeks since the BeerViking crew raided the La Gothique pub for the Wandsworth Common Halloween Beer Festival. Better late than never – here’s our report…

Over 2000 people attended this excellent beer fest – which ran for 3 days. We ran into Steve from Beer Justice and some of the Shepherd Neame team as well… We guestimate that over 125 casks were consumed. The ratio of girls to guys was high with over 40% of the attendees being female. This is a sweet great result for the 2nd beer festival at this venue – a younger, hipper and more female crowd than your average beer fest. This may also have been the 1st festival to have Meantime London Pale Ale on Cask (at a beer festival that is, its on tap at many fine pub around London) – Meantime were one of the event sponsors, btw… Be sure to follow BeerViking on Twitter as there will be more beer and maybe even wine related events on Wandsworth Common coming up soon.

Here’s what we drank…

1. Shepherd Neame Faversham, Kent: Tipping the Admiral 4.0%, October
brew to celebrate Nelsons victory in 1805. Brewrank 10 – not so nice,
but drinkable.

2. Buffy’s Brewery of Tivetshall St.Mary’s, Norfolk: Norwich Terrier
3.6%, Amber coloured with grapefruit notes. Styrian, Mount Hood hops.
Brewrank 12 – reasonable brew.

3. Dark Star Haywards Heath, Sussex: Ocktoberfest 5.2%, Using German
malts and hopped three times. Brewrank 15 – NICE! Dark Star rock.

4. Downton Salisbury, Wiltshire: Pumpkin Ale 4.4%, Special dark version
of Downtons Halloween Brew for this festival. Brewrank 13 – nice
stew like taste of pumpkin.

5. Twickenham Fine Ales Twickenham, London: Strange Brew 4.1%, Dark
golden ale. Hint of spice. Five different hops. Brewrank 15 – golden
syrup with a hint of lime.

6. Wolf Attleborough, Norfolk: Werewolf 4.5%, Red-brown with
pronounced malty bouquet. Brewrank 6 – yuck!

Beers 7+ (maybe it was 12 in total?)… After this the rating notes seemed to have vanished. Well it was Halloween. But I know we drank some Downton Quadhop, Moorhouse Black Cat, More Dark Star Octoberfest (nice!), Japanese Asahi Ale (smooth) and Triple fff Stairway to Heaven (tasty).

Beyond this it did get a bit crazy and we mainly drank dark beers as I recall… Below is our random photostream of people enjoying the Halloween WCBF on Friday Oct 30th. Video of the winner of the Meantime case coming out next.

Halloween WCBF on Friday Oct 30th:

The first event from Mark and the team at Le Gothique was in March and was such a roaring success he’s followed it up with his second, this time with a focus on Dark, Winter and Mild ales.

From looking at the full beer list of the 75 ales, we believe he has curated one sweet collection of brews that will be great to try and make it through.

There are several featured breweries, like Downton (proving 7 from their range), Twickenham, Ballards, Shepherd Neame will once again be doing a micro-brew.

The following shouldn’t be a surprise to any of our readers but due to the touted generous use of hops (Goldings, Cascade (including a 2nd late hopping) and  Cluster).

One beer we’re keen to try is London Pale Ale from fellow sponsors, Meantime Brewing.  They are calling it a London Pale Ale and watch out for our brewrank on this one.

From a quick scan other highlights are:

1. Sarah Hughes, Dark Ruby
2. Robinsons, Old Tom
3. Orkney, Skullsplitter
4. Moorehouses, Black Cat
5. Exmoor, Beast
6. Batemans, Victory Ale
7. Buffy’s Brewery, Norwich Terrier
8. Burton Bridge, Thomas Sykes
9. Dark Star, Oktoberfest and Porter
10. Houston, Warlock Stout

Make sure to check out the microsite for the full list and information on tickets.

One of Beer Vikings favourite and a leading light in the UK Craft brewery scene,  Dark Star Brewing Co. are hosting a beer festival at their pub the Stand Up Inn in Lindfield, West Sussex.

The poster below is pretty much it for details but it’s running Friday 22nd May through to Monday 25th May.  Perfect for a Bank Holiday weekend.

Lindfield is on the cusp of Haywards Heath and is a beauty of an English village.

More details as we find them out.

Historic Beers at an historic Building

26th – 29th March 2009 will be the inaugural Wandsworth Common Beer Festival.

Beer Viking has been helping get the word out  for what should prove to be a fun and interesting event in a really cool place, a Grade II listed Great Hall and gardens.  It’s being organised by Mark, the owner of Le Gothique, who will be providing the food.

Free Tickets and Free Beer

If you book your ticket through the event page on eventbrite, then you will get free admission and a free half-pint.

The Important Bit, the Beer

For a full list of the breweries please go here.

The glass sponsor is Sambrooks Brewery, the only microbrewery in Wandsworth

Mark (the organiser) is going to Shephard Neame to brew his own microbrew for the event (hops, hops and more hops we say)

Full ranges from Ballard’s Brewery, Downton and Twickenham

Plus selections from Beer Viking favourite:  Dark Star

And selections from among others: Batemans, Exmoor Ales,  Holdens, Harviestoun Brewery, Kelham Island, Tripple fff, Traditional Scottish Ales, Hook Norton Brewery

Location and Dates

Thursday 1 – 10.30pm., Friday 1 – 11pm., Saturday 1 – 11pm, Sunday 12 noon to 4pm

Le Gothique,

THE ROYAL VICTORIA PATRIOTIC BUILDING, John Archer Way off Windmill Road

Wandsworth Common

London

SW18 3SX

More Details

Still want more details:

Follow WandsworthBeer on Twitter

Signup to the Facebook group

Visit the official page at Le Gothique

As first read about from beermerchants. Dropped in at the Evening Star (caught the tail end of the Six Hop availability) and they had some more details on the collaboration between Dark Star and Thornbridge.

Mark Tranter headed North to wonderful Derbyshire.  It’s a 7% Old Ale using Maris Otter Pale Ale, Crystal Malts with Aurora, Atlas and Liberty hops.

There is talk about watching the development and potentially adding things along the way…

The great news for me is that it’s going to be available in bottles.

From the list of ingredients and what I know of these brewers, I’m thinking this will a wonderful rich dark beer with a great length where the hops are there very quickly staying with you for a long time after your ‘sup.

I will come back later to add more details but wanted to capture initial thoughts:

If this is the plan these guys have for pubs, sign me up as a licensee.

Great to see six casks on pull, all local from Sussex

• Dark Star Hophead
• Dark Star American Pale Ale
• 1648 Winter Warrent
• 1648 Signature
• Harveys Old
• Haveys Best

How many pub loo’s do you know with marble and fittings from Crapper. Actually how many pub loo’s do you know where you want to take a crap.

This isn’t a boozer, a bit sanitised but I know my wife would come here ( a good thing) – now if only they get some country one’s with awesome children’s playgrounds.

The beer is served in tankards – Cool!

The beer is actually a bit warm.  And by that, don’t worry. I might be from Canada but appreciate my beer at cellar temperature but I reckon we’re pushing 15C here.

The interior is a bit odd.  On one hand big brass look, with lots of wood (nothing wrong there) but why the wallpaper that has faux bricks peeking through.

The barkeep couldn’t tell me where 1648 was from.

Surprisingly small collection of bottles (ok, maybe I’ve been spoiled by the White Horse, Rake and Evening Star) but I would have expected some more.

What, a fake fire.

Forthright and free with letting one try samples.

Very yummy food.

End result on first glance. Would visit again and look forward to the development of the concept but there’s a lot of room for improvement. Still, love the tankards and local focus.