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Cardiff CAMRA members and members of the Cardiff University Real Ale Society recently paid a visit to Brains Brewery, the visit took place on the evening of 28 November and was aimed at new and younger members of CAMRA plus the students’ Real Ale Society.
A highlight was a look at the new Brains Craft Brewery (see illustration), a brewery within a brewery, which allows Brains to experiment with small production runs of new beers.
What a week it has been for real ale drinkers in Cardiff!
On Thursday 22 November, the Cosy Club opened in premises above the Hugo Boss shop by Hayes Island. This is primarily a restaurant but also caters for those who simply want to drop by for a drink.
It is part of a chain that also includes the Fino Lounge in Merthyr Road, Whitchurch and the Juno Lounge in Wellfield Road, Roath. Like those, it serves Bristol BeerI Factory No7, rebadged as Toga Man.
In addition, the Cosy Club became Cardiff’s first regular outlet for Newport’s Tiny Rebel brewery, with Fubar.
The Cardiff Branch Committee has recently agreed that it should do more to encourage members to visit their local pub, and not only enjoy a good pint of real ale, but also to record how good, or bad their experience was so others can benefit from this.
For those of you who are not familiar with the CAMRA National Beer Scoring System (NBSS), it is an easy-to-use system devised to record the quality of beer in pubs. The information collected is used by CAMRA branches to select pubs for the CAMRA Good Beer Guide.
This year Wales' largest brewer SA Brain celebrates its 130th Anniversary, and how better to celebrate than by launching a new craft brewery.
The main challenge for Brains was where to fit this new 15 barrel plant in alongside their existing plant that was installed around 40 years ago. After some careful planning the new copper and mash tun were fitted alongside each other with the new fermenting vessels in the room below the existing brewing plant.
We are pleased to report the setting up of another new brewery in our area, albeit right on the edge of Cardiff.
Licensee Richard Angell of the Gwaelod Y Garth pub – a Branch Pub of the Year - announced last year that he was considering setting up a micro brewery.
The first obstacle was to obtain planning permission. Fortunately the immediate neighbours are regulars in the pub so permission was granted without objection. Even so, the process is time consuming and the wait seemed like ages against Ritchie’s eagerness to get going.
For the last four years Cardiff CAMRA has run the real ale, cider and perry bar at this national event at Cardiff Castle.
The cheese festival is the premier national and international event for cheese makers in the United Kingdom and features cheeses from many different producers both large and small.
Cheeses are available for public consumption at the event and for purchase. Talks on cheese and its compatibility with beer and cider are given by food and drink writers.
It’s that time again to select and award the prestigious title of Branch Pub of the Year.
This year, you may have heard that the Pub of the Year award (abbreviated within CAMRA circles to POTY) went to the CITY ARMS in Quay Street, whilst the “Highly Commended” POTY award goes to the GWAELOD-Y-GARTH, on the northernmost City boundary.
So what does a Pub have to do to in order to win the award?
In summary, I like to think of it as the pub that has done most to further CAMRA’s aims.
