I refer, this time, to the excellent Burnt Pig Ale 'Ouse that has been something of a feature on here for a while now. Today I want to talk about the board of offerings that they ad on this Saturday and the stout that I was lucky enough to snag with a game of shut the box again, not as good as the collaboration with Urban Chicken but still a decent catch.
In the last year or so I have been doing a bit of reading and I have been struck by the number of people that tell me that pubs are declining. And there is some truth to that, there is truth to the fact that there are a number of older hostelries disappearing from their proud places at cross-roads and on the side of busy and still used thoroughfares through the areas of the county I currently call home. Those sprawling inns and food-places that I recall from my own youth seem to have taken a big hit and seem to have fared badly with the rise of brewery-ties and the rise of the big breweries that I saw dominate in my youth. The makers of inoffensive and creamy ales, largely brewed for the fact that people wanted to drink beer rather than taste something, seem to have won victories and lost the war. That said, I have also seen both in my local area and across other small conurbations something of a rise in the micro-bars and micro-pubs.
My father took me to one in Hinckley, I found a couple of them opening or taken over in London and then the Burnt Pig opened in Ilson. It was followed by the Crafty One and I believe that there is a cafe that is licensed in the north of the centre that stocks some of the bottles from the local brewery of Urban Chicken. I haven't gone there yet but it seems to be getting good reviews and feel-good factor from the people I know locally on the Tweets.
All of which serves as background to my decision to use The Burnt Pig as my local and as a place to pop in every now and again and pay something of my money for a half or a flight to pass the time and contribute to the local economy. The addition of the shut the box game and the fact that I am something of a moth to the flame of chance games played by a single player is, of course, entirely by the bye. I went in and got myself a half of Three Kings Brewery Black and Blanc stout at 3.9% ABV because it was a stout and because it was low enough ABV to justify me stopping off and not getting drunk. Combined with a game of shut the box and it was a lovely addition. This was smooth and not too thin, something that I rate quite highly in my stouts. Not the kind of thickness that would have kept a blizzard at bay but perfectly fitting to the slight edge to the wind amid the warmer air that was swirling through the streets. It had enough of a biscuit-like quality that kept it firmly in stout territory due to the malt and a good helping of what appeared to be lactose to keep it smooth. It had the depth required of a stout with the dry nose that I like in my stouts.
Thick and black, with a warming aspect, and a good deal of stand up and shout in the glass meant that it was a sipper despite the safe alcohol content. Not a big artillery piece of imperial this one, but a welcome addition to a day of shopping and following on from a porter of renown the night before. It looked the part, smelt like one would imagine a decent stout would smell and then drank like it should have been had with something like a pork pie or scratchings. This was no dessert ale and nothing like the caramels and chocolates that I appear to be drawn to, but it was a good dry stout that would go well with manual labour and the kind of pub meal that part of me remembers other people eating in Preston and Carlisle back in the days before I knew what on earth I was seeing.
In short, I can recommend the Burnt Pig again as a place to pop in and just see what they have on because you can stop and have a quick half, playing shut the box, like I did or you can engage people in conversation and see where it all takes you, as other people clearly do. In this game, I see only winners, and those winners are the publicans who take the risk, the breweries that supply this kind of venture and people such as me with more money than sense who are willing to see where the industry will take me next. God I sound pretentious.
Good, I am pretentious.
No comments:
Post a Comment