Bring your own … pub?

The good people at the Evening Standard, who for quite a few years have been much more readable on the web than on old-fashioned paper, informs me that there is a new New Zealand pub opened in London, and I certainly intend to pop in next week.

The pub consists of two forty foot containers shipped all the way around the globe, and is unlikely to win any design award for its exterior. Maybe all the available designers were busy designing Peter Jackson films? Anyway, the containers have been placed on top of Temple tube station, which means I don’t have to wander around dark street in the rain with my battered A-Z to find it.

There is praise for the beer:

Was it worth the journey? In our opinion, it certainly was – the beer is excellent, all thoughts of gassy, pissy liquids dismissed on the first sip – and there’re five beers to choose from. The beer of choice appears to be Speight’s award winning Gold Medal, but our favourite was the malty Old Dark.

CLIENTELE: blokes, mates
NEAREST STATION: Temple station

I promise a report, maybe even a photo or two if the interior is as classy as the exterior. But Stonch, I really trust you to keep us updated on gems like this!

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New York beers

Another reason to start saving up for a transatlantic ticket: The New York Times writes about beers from New York in their travel section this week.

A sample:

O.K., so New York isn’t an internationally celebrated beer capital. But microbrews and craft beers you won’t find in much of the country are sold throughout the city, in flavors ranging from subtle to walloping (but skewed heavily toward walloping). Sure, you might find Saranac and Brooklyn Brewery beers in a state near you, but others are not available in much of the country; one of the state’s finest breweries, Southampton, just made it into its ninth state, South Carolina. Not bad.

(Careful readers may cry hypocrisy, recalling that in August, “Weekend in New York” celebrated cheap beer, mostly of the corporate swill variety. But can’t a Kobe beef snob enjoy a Quarter Pounder once in a while?)

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Brussels: Les Brasseurs de la Grand Place

This is a rather new establishment, but interior architects have clearly made sure that it looks like it’s been around for a century or so. I’m sad to report that it will not be around for much of this century, either, unless they get their act together.

Given its location, I’d guess it’s crowded in the high season, but it was not when I popped in. I got a sampler of 3 of their beers for € 6, which is not bad. I got the wit, the blond and the brown, the amber not being on.

The blanche had a sweet banana aroma, a little citrus sting in the tail, but rather boring. The blond was off. There was an aroma of rotting vegetables dominating the aroma, so it was impossible to finish the sampler glass.

Finally the brune. Syrupy sweet, like they took a beer and filled it up with syrup. Sorry, but this is not good enough!

There was loud Adult Contemporary music as muzak, and it managed to be rather smoky despite being almost empty.

You get some nice nuts to nibble on, I’ll give them that. And if you, even after reading this, end up stranded there, they have some bottled beers, too. Have a Kwak!

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