Euston Tap & Cider Tap

The Euston Tap is one of the more welcome real ale houses to have opened in the Euston area, and popping in a couple of nights ago I was pleased to see the place is still going strong. I had a pint of a new ale made for them by the Nethergate brewery called One for the Road. Sadly it was a unremarkable pint. Although it was labelled on the board as "Wild Hopped" there weren't any exciting flavours coming through and it was all rather bland. Thankfully a pint of Ilkley Tap 3 was on good form and had in abundance the refreshing hoppy flavours that One for the Road was missing.

Euston Tap have opened a new venture across the road that specialises in "real" cider. After thinking long and hard they came up with the name Cider Tap. This is probably a better name then Euston Cider which as we all know is a euphemism for tramp piss. Although to be honest I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a glass of real cider and a glass of tramp piss. Let's just say I've never understood the appeal of cider. As far as I'm concerned the stench, colour and taste are all designed to warn people away from drinking it.

Going by the current rise of alcohol prices, in five years time you'll have to choose between buying
six bottles of Rekorderlig or buying a car.

I once ordered some Strawberry "Real Cider" for The Lovely Jemma from the delightful The Harp near Leicester Square. On sight of the drink TLJ was convinced I had actually gone outside and convinced a vagrant to piss into a half pint glass. It was a wretched sight and smelt like a corpse that had soiled itself. The look on TLJ's face after the first sip assured me that this half pint was going to be left untouched and unloved on the table. I tried a sip myself and was thankful my tongue didn't just pack it bags and leave my mouth after the offense I had subjected it too. I honestly don't know how anybody could drink the stuff and I imagine the makers can only drink it because their tastebuds have been eroded away by years of horrific acidic cider.

There seems to be two very different camps when it comes to cider. There are those where cider is a pint of Strongbow or Magners, or a glass of sugary sweetness from Sweden such as Kopparberg or Rekorderlig. Swedish ciders in particular seem to be priced ridiculously high and it would probably be cheaper just to mix some Strawberry and Blackcurrant Ribena together and shove some vodka in it. You'd get the same effect. The other camp of cider drinkers are the real cider fans, those who prefer to have their cider made in a bathtub by two bearded gentlemen from Dorset. Unlike beer drinkers where lager fans might go for a ale and ale fans may plump for a lager, there doesn't seem to be the same crossover with cider drinkers. And unfortunately real cider (and perry) just isn't getting the same fanbase as real ale is enjoying.

The Cider Tap bar.  I liked the rustic wooden panelling.

So I was not surprised to walk into the Cider Tap and find it fairly quiet. The Euston Tap across the road was packed and bustling. However the smaller crowd suits the small space and the atmosphere was pleasant. There were about 15 ciders on offer (excluding bottled options.) I went for a half of Hogans Dry Cider. I'm no cider expert but I managed to finish it so it can't have been to bad.

I wish the Cider Tap all the best but cider is already a marginalised market so aiming for a niche of the market may not pay off. Hopefully word will go round and business will pick up. But to be perfectly honest I wouldn't mind if the place became an extension of the Euston Tap - perhaps with a few cider offerings chucked in.

Cambridge Pubs Part 1

I forgot to bring my camera again. Sorry.

A couple of weekends ago I paid a visit to the charming city of Cambridge. Glorious buildings, a charming river, and of course plenty of lovely real ale pubs. I still prefer Oxford to be perfectly honest but Cambridge ain't bad. It's certainly better than the university I went to, the wonderful Bournemouth University. While Cambridge colleges have amazing fifteen century architecture with fabulous chapels, Bournemouth is a 1970's prefab nightmare with a shabby library attached. Still the union bar was cheap, and at £1.10 for a pint of Fosters you couldn't really complain (except that you were drinking Fosters.) Heaven knows what the price of drinks is now, but with students having to pay £9,000 a year just to attend I imagine they can afford it.

Cambridge is blessed with some cracking pubs and it was my mission to visit the highlights. We were in town for a weekend to visit The Lovely Jemma's friends so a crafty pub crawl to her house was devised. We started off at the Free Press, a lovely little Greene King boozer. This small pub has no music, no TV and mobile phones are not allowed. Clearly run by a militant bore but the pub was very pleasant. A welcome pint of Titanic Iceberg was poured which was in tip top condition, and highly refreshing. The rest of the ales were the usual Greene King suspects, although the rarely seen Mild was on. Sadly I didn't get to try a pint. A group of lads who had taken over the snug were clearly trying make up for the lack of TV's by recreating their own episode of The Only Way Is Essex by being as loud and obnoxious as possible. Still this didn't detract from an excellent Ploughman's lunch. A lovely little pub and well worth a visit.

Visit this pub it's ace.

Next stop was the Cambridge Blue, voted Cambridge Pub of the Year 2011 by those knowledgeable blokes at CAMRA, and not something ridiculous like TV Quick Magazine. Incidentally it always amuses me when I see something proudly proclaiming to be "Show of the Year," but when you look at the small print you see it's actually "WOW! Really?! Magazine Readers Choice Show of the Year 1989" and your heart sinks because you know these readers of WOW! Really?! are bound to be idiots and the show is going to be trash. Basically my advice is never watch anything that has won a Readers Choice award. I had to suffer through We Will Rock You which has won many such awards. How I managed to sit through the show without punching others or myself in the gut even when they changed the lyrics in Radio Gaga to mention "Internet Gaga" I'll never know. Brian May must be spinning in his grave. I hope never to return to the show because they've most likely shoved a Lady Gaga joke in there and I will be forced to run around the theatre frothing at the mouth and ruining some poor Grannies birthday.

The Cambridge Blue was great, with a fine selection of ales and a gigantic beer garden out back. I enjoyed a delicious pint of Nethergate Dew Drop which was in fine condition and appeared to be a house favourite. We visited on both Friday and Saturday, and on Saturday there was a hog roast and "real live" reindeer, which I suppose is better than real dead reindeer. The hog roast was excellent and paired with a pint of WharfeBank Camfell Flame I'd pretty much found pub perfection. Sadly a reindeer roast never appeared but overall the Blue is an excellent boozer and was quite rightly packed out.

That's enough for now, to keep up the suspense and to boost my post count I'll post comments about the Kingston Arms and the Devonshire Arms in my next post. Ta-ra for now.