Storm Arwen

[Psychalist]

10 hours ago, LadyG said:

I just want a straightforward wind forecast for my area hour by hour, can't seem to find one, the one I have showing precipitation etc, does not show real wind and direction. 

Looking out, I d say wind is veering, moving in a clockwise direction, but its difficult to tell, its so gusty. 

 

 

Barrowford top lock: wind - 50% more than anywhere locally, direction nearly always from the boats opposite. Not the most peaceful mooring - it's better round the bend on the pontoon but it's a walk to the services. "Weather Forecast UK" app uses Met office data and shows wind stength and direction hourly for the current day

[Athy]

48 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

There hasn't. Craft beer is an entirely different thing.

Do expand; do you agree with Frangar's differentiation or do you have a different one?

To me, "craft beer" implies men in leather aprons brewing beer in Victorian outhouses  rather than robots producing it in factories - as does "real ale", though I appreciate that some real ales, such as Pedigree, are made in large factories. So, is craft beer never a natural, living product, or do the two terms overlap?

[Mad Harold]

1 hour ago, MtB said:

 

I'm really struggling with a micro pub that sells keg beer. Beer MUST be served directly from the barrel on trestles in my book. 

Many years ago (1960's) before a lot of these so called micro pubs,there was a delightful pub in Beverly E.Yorks known locally as Nellie's Kitchen.Proper name The White Horse.

The beer was served straight from the barrel and brought to your table by two very old ladies one of whom was Nellie.

The beer (Younger's if memory serves) had no head and tasted superb.The pub was like a time capsule,stone flagged floor and gas lighting and no aural chewing gum  (piped music).

Wonder if it's still there?

The closest pub I have seen that is similar,is The Sair near Huddersfield a muddy steep uphill walk from the HNC.

[Naughty Cal]

Woke up to bright blue skies here in Worksop. No snow, no sleet, even the wind isn't as strong as forecast.

 

Very disappointed.

[Alan de Enfield]

Storm Arwen hits Greater Manchester with 120 HGVs trapped in snow on M62 - and almost 70,000 properties without power as trees brought down - Manchester Evening News

 

Storm Arwen hits Greater Manchester with 120 HGVs trapped in snow on M62 - and almost 70,000 properties without power as trees brought down

The Met Office reported wind speeds reached 98 mph in Northumberland overnight.

 

Engineers were racing to carry out urgent repairs this morning.

Residents in parts of Oldham, Rochdale and Tameside were waking up to snow today - as a Met Office weather warning remained in place.

The M62 remained closed near Milnrow in Rochdale - between junctions 21 and 22 today - after police said more than 120 lorries got stuck in heavy snow at around 2.30am.

 

The situation on the motorway mirrors scenes when the 'Beast from the East' Arctic blast hit in 2018, which led to rescue missions to reach HGV drivers stuck inside the cabs of their stranded lorries.

 

 

[Chris Lowe]

Well I'm not going out unless I have to, the white stuff has just arrived in my bit of Northants.

[mrsmelly]

3 minutes ago, Mad Harold said:

Many years ago (1960's) before a lot of these so called micro pubs,there was a delightful pub in Beverly E.Yorks known locally as Nellie's Kitchen.Proper name The White Horse.

The beer was served straight from the barrel and brought to your table by two very old ladies one of whom was Nellie.

The beer (Younger's if memory serves) had no head and tasted superb.The pub was like a time capsule,stone flagged floor and gas lighting and no aural chewing gum  (piped music).

Wonder if it's still there?

The closest pub I have seen that is similar,is The Sair near Huddersfield a muddy steep uphill walk from the HNC.

Tinterenet advises me that the pub is indeed still there. It still has Gas lamps and is often known still as Nellies. Sam smiths beer.

[Nightwatch]

1 minute ago, Athy said:

Do expand; do you agree with Frangar's differentiation or do you have a different one?

To me, "craft beer" implies men in leather aprons brewing beer in Victorian outhouses  rather than robots producing it in factories - as does "real ale", though I appreciate that some real ales, such as Pedigree, are made in large factories. So, is craft beer never a natural, living product, or do the two terms overlap?

I have asked in various establishments the difference between ale and craft beer. I have never received an answer. My own humble opinion is that it’s small time breweries brewing beer and that other stuff that I can’t pronounce, then add sometime like kiwi fruit or blackcurrant. That’s the crafty bit I think. If I was still a drinker, temporary cessation, I would stick to ale, beer, draught etc. 
 

A micro bar in Banbury boosting to be Banburys first has closed, presumably as a result of the past couple of years of restrictions. Sad really. I never went in there but always got sidetracked on my way.

[Mike Todd]

32 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

We just had 15 mins of snow flurries here in Wiltshire. 

Returned again here in Devizes

[mrsmelly]

1 minute ago, Nightwatch said:

I have asked in various establishments the difference between ale and craft beer. I have never received an answer. My own humble opinion is that it’s small time breweries brewing beer and that other stuff that I can’t pronounce, then add sometime like kiwi fruit or blackcurrant. That’s the crafty bit I think. If I was still a drinker, temporary cessation, I would stick to ale, beer, draught etc. 
 

A micro bar in Banbury boosting to be Banburys first has closed, presumably as a result of the past couple of years of restrictions. Sad really. I never went in there but always got sidetracked on my way.

You probably got sidetracked in to The Three Pigeons?

[Naughty Cal]

1 minute ago, mrsmelly said:

Tinterenet advises me that the pub is indeed still there. It still has Gas lamps and is often known still as Nellies. Sam smiths beer.

Just last weekend someone suggested to us that we should go to Nellie's.

[Nightwatch]

2 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

You probably got sidetracked in to The Three Pigeons?

It has been known that I got that far!!!

[MtB]

22 minutes ago, Athy said:

Do expand; do you agree with Frangar's differentiation or do you have a different one?

To me, "craft beer" implies men in leather aprons brewing beer in Victorian outhouses  rather than robots producing it in factories - as does "real ale", though I appreciate that some real ales, such as Pedigree, are made in large factories. So, is craft beer never a natural, living product, or do the two terms overlap?

 

Craft beer is 'designed' and brewed by people under 40 (and often under 25!), hipster types who don't drive and get around on trendy fixed-wheel bicycles or Uber taxis. Their beer is always pale, often adulterated with novelty stuff like strawberries or chocolate or coffee, and is keg, and tastes like grapefruit juice. Has stupid names like "The Sage Continues". 

 

Real ale on the other hand, is proper live beer that comes in barrels and needs drinking within 2 or 3 days of hammering in the tap. Mostly consumed by old fogeys with beards that have owls etc living in them and wear sandals (with socks in winter). Instead of strawberries and chocolate, it sometimes contains stuff like acorns. Has sensible and descriptive names like "Gruntfuttocks Old Dirigible". 

[Victor Vectis]

3 hours ago, MtB said:

 

What a curious micro pub. Only one person in there appears to have any beer!

 

 

 

I was thinking that too.

[Guest]

Well we have lost a large section of fence during the night and had two shortish power cuts. Didn’t sleep a ruddy wink till I gave up at 5am and went down stairs to kip on the sofa where I couldnt hear the howling wind so much.(and the creaking roof trusses!).

[David Schweizer]

1 hour ago, Athy said:

There used be be a separate type of licence for a "beer house", which indeed forbade the place from selling spirits and such. When I lived in London (1980s) there was one in the Hampstead area. I don't know whether this sort of licence still exists.

I've known the term "beer engine" for many years. I suppose that strictly it should apply only to pumps which serve keg beers, as they are powered, like wot engines are.

   And finally.....I have enjoyed "real ale" since first encountering it in the Farriers' Arms in St. Albans about 1975. Why has there been a recent move to rename it "craft beer"? Or are they two different beasts?

 

For as long as I can remember, and certainly back into the early 1960's,  my father brewed his own Real Ale, not from kits, but the real stuff - hops, malt etc,  every month or so the house smelt like a brewery. He brewed up a cask for our wedding, and it proved extrememly poular with the guests, who drank the barrel dry.

[MtB]

My first experience of 'real ale' was when I first got my driving licence in 1972 and we discovered a pub called "The Hautboy" in Ockham, Surrey, where they served a magical brew called "Bishop's Finger". 

 

Nothing like the Bishop's Finger one gets nowadays. 

[David Schweizer]

51 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

Returned again here in Devizes

 

We have had short lived horizontal Blizzards on the hills just outside Bradford on Avon.

 

[MtB]

I'm off out shortly to mend a boiler down in deepest darkest Hampshire. Wish me luck.

 

 

Ok, its Basingstoke.

[David Schweizer]

2 minutes ago, MtB said:

My first experience of 'real ale' was when I first got my driving licence in 1972 and we discovered a pub called "The Hautboy" in Ockham, Surrey, where they served a magical brew called "Bishop's Finger". 

 

Nothing like the Bishop's Finger one gets nowadays. 

 

Are you sure it wasn't Bishop's Tipple which apparently tasted quite different from the more recent Shepherd Neame Bishop's Finger.  I am told by a Real Ale enthuasiast  friend that Bishops Tipple was bought out by Wadworths of Devizes some years ago,  but  that the Wadworths product is not a patch on the original.

[dmr]

39 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Craft beer is 'designed' and brewed by people under 40 (and often under 25!), hipster types who don't drive and get around on trendy fixed-wheel bicycles or Uber taxis. Their beer is always pale, often adulterated with novelty stuff like strawberries or chocolate or coffee, and is keg, and tastes like grapefruit juice. Has stupid names like "The Sage Continues". 

 

Real ale on the other hand, is proper live beer that comes in barrels and needs drinking within 2 or 3 days of hammering in the tap. Mostly consumed by old fogeys with beards that have owls etc living in them and wear sandals (with socks in winter). Instead of strawberries and chocolate, it sometimes contains stuff like acorns. Has sensible and descriptive names like "Gruntfuttocks Old Dirigible". 

 

Quite a few little breweries produce both real ale and keg "craft beer". In a few cases you can get the same beer in both varieties. Some of the modern craft kegs are really very good, but for some reason are usually much more expensive than the real ale

 

I think many of us, and CAMRA, are still reacting to the really bad factory mass produced stuff from 40+ years ago (Watneys etc) . This was bad keg beer and the antidote was good real ale. Good keg beer is equally possible.

[tree monkey]

25 minutes ago, dmr said:

 

Quite a few little breweries produce both real ale and keg "craft beer". In a few cases you can get the same beer in both varieties. Some of the modern craft kegs are really very good, but for some reason are usually much more expensive than the real ale

 

I think many of us, and CAMRA, are still reacting to the really bad factory mass produced stuff from 40+ years ago (Watneys etc) . This was bad keg beer and the antidote was good real ale. Good keg beer is equally possible.

They re-released watneys red barrel recently, in a "party 7 " can as well

[matty40s]

21 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

They re-released watneys red barrel recently, in a "party 7 " can as well

I'm waiting for the Bodkan..Boddingtons 8 pinter

[Nightwatch]

8 minutes ago, matty40s said:

I'm waiting for the Bodkan..Boddingtons 8 pinter

Why would anyone want to buy Boddingtons, let alone 8 pints of the stuff. A friend of mine doesn’t drink ale, but would walk miles to get a pint of John Smiths. I do despair. 

[frangar]

38 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

Why would anyone want to buy Boddingtons, let alone 8 pints of the stuff. A friend of mine doesn’t drink ale, but would walk miles to get a pint of John Smiths. I do despair. 

Handy if you need to clean a drain I guess. Mind you I can’t stand landlord and others rave about it!!