Cumbria beer

Last weekend I was in London, this weekend just gone I was in the Cumbria which is the Lake district. I got the ferry to Holyhead and we drove towards Boot in Eskdale. Along the way we stopped off in a nice Welsh town called Llanfairfechan and went to the village inn. It was there I had my first Dark Mild and I have to say it was lovely stuff. No picture nor can I even remember who makes it, though I am pretty sure it was a pretty well known UK brewery. If anyone has been to this pub, perhaps they can remember the name of the Dark Mild on cask1. I only had a half as the reason we stopped was a bathroom break and a pint would have defeated the purpose a few miles down the road. Oh and I was not driving, my friend was so I was free to drink all weekend.

They had a nice bar setup and at first I thought they had 4 wooden cask beers but on further inspection it turned out to be wine. The sunset Rosé turned out to be a firm favourite of the girls. The food also deserves a mention as it was excellent.











Later on we stopped for lunch in the second (so the sign says) best pub in Britain, called The Chimneys which not far from Liverpool. It was in fact a very nice pub. I had a Black sheep bitter and Brains SA. I also had a taste of the Sunchaser (pictured here) but it was a little too light and apple like for me. The other two was quite fine indeed but the Black sheep was the best and that one I have had in the bottle before.













Unfortunately I have no idea what this was. If I took a picture I must have enjoyed it. Can anyone identify the mystery beer? ** On looking at the picture again, it seems this is the Brains SA I had at The Chimneys**
I enjoyed this very much.











A Jennings Cumberland Ale went down a treat but it was nothing special. Still it was a very nice ale and I could find no fault with it. It was very smooth but I personally like more hop character in my beers.












More on this in my next blog post, this was an IPA called Final frontier. I will be doing a proper write up on the Woolpack later this week.
















My first and only beer in Chester was this Sam smiths and it was lovely stuff. Very smooth and packed full of flavour. It was not too bitter so my friend enjoyed it. The reason for the lack of beer in Chester was this. We arrived later afternoon, about 3:30 or so and did the obligatory walking around the nice little city centre. The girls spent some time in some shops and by the time it was near dinner time we went to a pub called The Falcon as it looked promising on the outside. Unfortunately after getting drinks at the bar we found the inside was packed and the upstairs was closed making it packed. Someone moved though and we got a table to sit down and rest out feet, half way through our drinks lots of people wearing fine clothes and hats arrived. It seems the whole town was at the races which now being over meant they were in the centre packing everything. It seems we were out of luck when we left for somewhere quieter as not only were all the pubs packed with hundreds of people outside, they had all made reservations to every restaurant in town. We entered empty restaurants to be told that they were fully booked. What really sucked was I found a fantastic looking pub around the corner from the falcon called The Brewrey Tap that had a massive range of beer, much of it from small craft breweries and even their own as it had the look of a brewpub but it was too packed. I do not think they brew on-site but there is certainly a microbrewery linked to it. If I was on my own I would have been fine but with three other footsore and hungry people it was a no go. Here is Tandlemans review which I just found.

Anyway that is a quick rundown of some of the beer I enjoyed. I had some others but not as much as London as I was with friends and we were doing less beery things than if it was just myself and my wife.

1. Thanks to Oblivious it seems to be Brains Dark