The VegHog: Beer festival

Showing posts with label Beer festival. Show all posts

4 March 2017

Craft Beer Rising London 2017

Last weekend we went to Craft Beer Rising beer festival in London's Brick Lane. This is a yearly tradition for us, and it was great once again. We met some old friends, made new acquaintances and tasted some excellent beers and ciders. Here is only a quick overview of the beers tasted, accompanied with a few photos.

Hoppy Seabird is a new craft beer range by Gower Brewery in Swansea in Wales. These were lovely new beers to get to know. They also had a friendly and enthusiastic guy talking about the beers and the brewery. I just loved their branding.

My lovely partner won me a t-shirt featuring this dinosaur from the Butcombe Brewing Co.'s wheel spinning game. What a good win and nice beers to go with it. Their dinosaur beer's logo is one of my favourites anyway. I always appreciate good artwork on beverages and food, and that can be a major factor when making purchase decisions.

There were also some Scandinavians preset: Amundsen and Ægir breweries from Norway had brewed an excellent collaboration beer. We visited Ægir in Norway last autumn, so it was nice to see them in this country. I hope both breweries will be successful in the British market. From Sweden there was Kungsbryggeriet from Stockholm, once again great beers.

Prancing Pony Brewery from New Zealand was another new acquaintance for us. I really liked their beer and branding, and we also bought a couple of bottles to take home. We are still saving them for a special occasion.

We already visited UBREW last autumn in the Bermondsey Beer Mile in London, but I just had to get another dinosaur beer.

Some of our old friends were luckily there, it's always nice to see a familiar face: Big Hug Brewery with their lovely beers and cans, Goose Island, who now even had a tap room downstairs, Caple Road ciders had some new products to taste, and on the snack side my favourites, Karkli, spicy handmade Indian style lentil snacks.

We didn't eat a lot there, as the vegetarian food offering seemed to be a little bit less this year. We managed to get a decent mac'n'cheese though. However I would have hoped for a bit more veggie food.

So this was it, hopefully we can go again next year.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Your VegHog

26 June 2016

Vibrant Forest Brewery Summer Beer Festival

I had a lovely day out yesterday. First a forest walk in New Forest spotting wildlife and plants and then a beer festival. I haven't been much to New Forest lately, even though it's basically right at our doorstep. It was nice to go again to watch ponies and cows graze.

The beer festival was organised by the local Vibrant Forest Brewery. Already last year I went to their autumn beer festival. This time we also got to sample excellent beers and ciders and there was even a vegan café, Radical Roots Cafe. Also all the beers are vegan friendly, as they are unfined. Vibrant Forest launched their new beer called Bourbon Oktober, an imperial Russian stout. It was a really tasty and strong dark beer. Belgian Zuur is one of my favourites and I had quite a bit of that. It's a pale sour, very drinkable and citrusy.

Here are a few photos from yesterday, which was a partly thundery and partly sunny day.

28 February 2016

Craft Beer Rising London

Here are a few photos from my visit yesterday to Craft Beer Rising beer and cider festival in London. This year I thought that it was even better than ever, as they had moved it into a slightly bigger and brighter part of the Old Truman Brewery. We tasted many different beers and only one cider, but it was very good.

The highlight of the festival for me were Mikkeller. I hadn't seen them on the list of the brewers in advance, so I wasn't expecting them to be there. Their Blueberry Bluebic and Peter, Pale and Mary Pale Ale were just amazing beers. I was sad that the bluebic sold out before I could have more, but on the other hand glad to see that it was successful.

Big Hug Brewery had some excellent beers once again and they are just such nice people, so it's a pleasure to support their brewery. Also by buying their beer you can save the rain forest at the same time.

From Goose Island we tasted this amazing stout, which has been aged in bourbon barrels. I might make a separate post about it later, as we also took a couple of bottles for take away, but it was just incredible, so not sure if I could find the right words to describe it.

As I mentioned we concentrated more on beers this time, but the new cider I detected is a really significant find and they had quite a proud cider section this year, which was nice to see. You might remember my recent review of the Caple Road cider. Well, they were there introducing their new dry version of the Caple Road! I really liked it, and I would expect to post more about this soon.

Also the food offering was better this year and we got to taste some yummy vegetarian street food like margherita calzones and Indian lentil snacks. I was so happy that we took a six pack of cheese and onion pies by Square Pie with us for the train journey back. No train snack has ever been better, I now also want to make some mini pies!

So that was my day out yesterday, today I'll be just chilling and cooking at home.

Your VegHog

13 September 2015

Vibrant Forest Beer Festival 2015

Vibrant Forest Brewery is a microbrewery in New Forest and yesterday they organised this Vibrant Forest Beer Festival that I had the pleasure to visit. I often go to New Forest for walks, as it is nearby. This time we also had a little stroll through some parts of the forest, which was very vibrant indeed and we got really lucky with the weather as well. Here are some photos from the walk and from the beer festival.

I tasted a variety of the beers and one cider and they were all excellent and different. The beer by the Vibrant Forest Brewery is unfined, which makes it suitable for vegans and vegetarians. The beers are therefore cloudy, but very fine in taste. I also bought some bottles to take away and will be enjoying them home.