Friends Of Ham Ilkley

It's that time of year again, the festive season is upon us. For many of us that means catching up with family and friends who we have not seen in a while, more often than not with some form of tipple in hand.

For anyone who has read my previous blogs, or even followed me on twitter will notice that one of our current favourite places to drink is Friends Of Ham in Leeds City Centre. On Saturday night we had arranged for a family get together in Ilkley, where Friends Of Ham have recently opened up their second bar/charcuterie.

The Ilkley bar is instantly recognisable for those who have sampled Leeds. As you enter there is a rustic looking bar full of various beers that you hardly ever see anywhere else. To your right is the 'shop' side of the bar, where you can purchase your beer, cheese or meat to go! In the back and downstairs are rooms where you can sit and eat, however I can not say much about the rest of the place as immediately became settled on the large table by the bar. Now it is a small bar, so our family basically took up the whole place!
The main difference between Leeds & Ilkley is that the Ilkley bar is a little bit more 'polished', where the Leeds one seems very mix and match, Ilkley is smart whilst still keeping the rustic theme...I'm not sure which I prefer, but the Ilkley bar is clearly aimed at the local crowd, who may not necessarily drink in the Leeds bar.

Before I get to the beer I want to mention two great aspects of this bar. First of all the food, midway through the evening olives, bread, a cheese board and a charcuterie board appeared infront of us, at this stage in the night I was distracted by my beer so can not tell you the names of the cheeses, but lets just say there was enough for the 9 of us, with something for everyone...yum !
Secondly, after leaving the bar we all agreed that the staff were brilliant, they were engaging with us as a group...helped pick out which beers to sample, and generally made it feel like we had been going there for years!

So we now get to the beer! Following our trip to Bruges we have really acquired a taste for strong Belgian beer...so Friends of Ham is the right place for that. Liz, Julie and Becky were straight on with the Delirium...swapping between the sweet fruity 'Red' to the festive caramely 'Noel'. At £4.25 and £5.25 for half a pint it is not a cheap bar, but it really is not somewhere you go to get drunk. The Delirium Red was 8% and the Noel 10%, so you don't really mind paying the extra.

As you know, I will drink anything! However at this time of year I really enjoy stout & porter...and there is only really one person that I know who shares my beer taste properly, that person being the father in law. We started on a pint of spiced coffee porter each before we noticed that a couple of members of our party had a tasting platter infront of them...I was given an approving nod and knew what we would be drinking. Over the course of the night we had two boards, but we liked our selection so much we pretty much had the same board twice...which was made up of all the Christmas beer on offer. Our platter consisted of: Anchor Christmas, Highwire, Mary Christmas, Old Faithful, Black Chocolate Stout and Delirium Noel. For £10 for a platter, you can not go wrong!!

Out of all the beer on offer, the Delirium Noel tasted the most festive of them all, but the winner of the night had to be from Brooklyn Brewery. If you asked my what my favourite lager was, I would say Brooklyn. I have had their Pale Ale before but never before this evening had I tried their Black Chocolate Stout (10%). This Imperial Stout was quite sweet compared to the first beer of the night, with an intense chocolaty flavour, I also tasted hints of liquorice in it. This has topped my all-time favourite chocolate stouts...sorry to Saltaire and York breweries !

Due to our location, it is just as easy to access Ilkley as it is Leeds, so we will definitely be visiting again soon, if your in the area this is worth a try...just make sure you have a big budget, you dont want to run out of money before you have sampled all their selection!

First Dabble into Sloe Gin - Part 2

As you probably read a couple of months ago, after many years of toying with the idea I decided to have a little 'dabble' into Sloe Gin making.

It was great fun making the gin, I ended up with a classic Sloe Gin, an Xmas Sloe Gin and finally (with the leftover sloes) I made a bottle of Sloe Vodka. The recipes can be found here.

Every couple of days I have been shaking the bottles, holding in my anticipation to finally sample these delights...well that time has come.

After leaving the tipples for at least two months all you need to do is bottle up. For this I sterilised the intended bottles and made a make-shift filter. I took a measuring jug, a blue kitchen cloth (unused) and one of Liz's bobbles. Once the filter was 'assembled' all you have to do is slowly pour the contents of your jars into the jug, depending on the amount made it may fill up several times. Once the filter has done it's job all you have to do is pour your tipples into their bottles, then when you fancy a festive treat pour some into a shot glass and enjoy.

Once I had sampled all of my Sloe Tipples I had made some notes for next year. The classic Sloe Gin had the intended flavour, where as the Xmas blend had a bit too much of a hit of aniseed - it really overpowered the cinnamon flavour that I was after. The main note I made was that even though the taste and colour were all to plan, it was a bit too thin. The other day I tried a family members blackberry vodka which had the texture that I wanted, sad to say mine did not match up. So if you are in the Guiseley/Otley area please let me know where I can find fresh sloe's ready for next year, as I do think that this will be my last attempt using dehydrated sloes. Just as an added note, after wittering on about Sloe Gin for months I have to admit, the tipple with the strongest and fruitiest flavour was actually the Vodka!

At the weekend we had a couple of friends round for a little get-together and naturally I wanted to showcase the tipples...so find below the 'reviews' of the 2015 vintage.

"Not harsh, quite tasty" - @andybrindley
"Mmmmmm, really nice considering I dont usually drink Vodka" - @elizabethrdawson
"I liked the cinnamon taste as it hit the back of my throat, it warmed me up and tasted just like how Christmas would taste" - @chloeconnett
"Sweet but not too sweet, it has the right balance of spices and alcohol" - @ameliavictoriax

As I type this I am ready to pour myself another glass, knowing that by the new year it will all be gone.

Have you made any this year? If so tweet my a picture so we can compare.

- Sam

Cafe Craenenburg, De Garre & 2Be - Our visit to Bruges

When you think of Belgium what do you think?
Beer and Chocolate...their two most famous exports.
So when Liz & I booked onto a P&O MiniCruise to Bruges we knew that we could enjoy a well deserved break full of beer and chocolate.
As this is a beer blog I will not bore you with a full account of our trip, but will just focus on two of the best bars that we found. However, in a nutshell we would fully recommend the P&O Mini Cruises...value for money and the town itself is beautiful, we will be visiting again soon!

This cafe/bar is well worth a visit

Lets begin our beer tour. We spent out morning exploring the town, after a couple of hours we were well in need of a coffee. The weather was great for November and the market was full of stalls from the Christmas Market. We found an empty table at the Grand Cafe Craenenburg, the waiter came out and we ordered our coffee...well we intended on a coffee and ended up with a couple of beers. The cafe/restaurant was clearly aimed at tourists, but felt really welcoming and a million miles away from town centre chain restaurants that we are all used to in the UK (in a whole day we only saw 2 brands that are found in the UK!).

Better than ordering Coffee!

Liz wanted a fruity beer, as she normally has cider back home we just asked for what the barman recommended, he brought her a glass of Belle Vue Kriek 5.2%, it had an intense cherry flavour, but was not too sour. As for me, my first drink in Belgium was a beer that can be found everywhere in the UK, but as it is one of my favourites I could not resist, Leffe Brune 6.5%, this having slight fruit notes but mainly caramel/coffee flavours that you would expect with a dark beer...thats what I love about belgian dark beers, they are easier drinking and not as heavy as english Stouts, but still pack in the flavour. Both drinks were served in typical chalice glasses and whilst sat on the
market square watching the world go by we both knew, we would be back!

De Garre, blink and you miss it.

Following a hotdog and a wander around the Christmas Market we searched for De Garre. Now when I say search, I mean search. This bar is situated down an alley which if you do not know what you are looking for you will walk right past it. It's like the Diagon Alley of the Beer world. Walking down the alley we did question whether we were in the right place, this being due to the uneven cobbles and the fact we were venturing down a dark alley. Luckily we were in the correct place.
De Garre is like a traditional english country pub, as you walk in you are greeted by the barman, the room itself is tiny with maybe 8 tables inside. As all the tables were full we ventured up the old wooden staircase to the second floor, where once again we found a small bar and about 6-7 tables. We  took a table next to a group of old english blokes who we laughing and made sure we knew they had been drinking strong belgian beer for 3 days!

Just a sneak peak of the huge selection
of beer on offer in De Garre

Once again we were undecided as to what to drink, the menu was full of a variety of different beers to match all pallets...I have to admit though that the menu was a little overwhelming. At this stage we looked to our english friends in the corner for a recommendation. We were torn between the house Tripel and the house Dark beer...so as their were two of us we ordered one of each. What arrived were two small doorknob shaped glasses full of foam above some deliciously strong beer. These were served with a small portion of cheese.

Best two beers of the trip, in the best bar.

The house triple is actually named after the bar itself. At 11% the amber ale was full of flavour, it did not taste as strong as it was...which could have lead to us drinking a lot without realising how hard it would be to walk after. I chose to try the house dark beer, Gulden Draak 10%. Brewed at the same brewery as the house ale, Gulden Draak was surprisingly fruity considering it was a dark beer. Our drinks were accompanied by a small helping of cheese. If we had more time to spend in Bruges we would have likely stayed here for a couple more rounds...one thing to note is that due to the strength you are limited to 3x beers each! At 9 euros for the two drinks I thought it was a bargain, considering the strength of the beer.

Wall of Beer !

Our trip to De Garre was followed by a shopping trip. We had decided that we would purchase a couple of beer glasses for the bar, as I do not own any form of beer chalice...I have been jealous of my twitter friends for some time. The shopping trip lead us to the 'Wall of Beer', the clue is in the name here! Down an alley we found a long glass cabinet filled with bottles and beer glasses from hundreds of different Belgium beers.

View of 2Be from the Canal

 As we reached the end of the bar we entered 2Be Bar. We had noticed this place earlier in the day as we noticed beer drinkers in a courtyard overlooking the canal and made a point of deciding to have our last beer there. The bar itself was very modern (in comparison to De Garre), but kept a slight traditional feel due to the old building that it was situated in. Looking at the menu I was undecided, Liz ordered a medium glass of Kriek Boon 4.5% which was very similar to the Belle Vue cherry beer that Liz tried in Craenenberg. As I could not make my mind up I ordered a sample platter. For 10 euros I enjoyed 4x small beers alongside some chorizo and peanuts. I sampled all four then drank in order of least - favourite. Now when I say 'least' I do not mean that I didn't enjoy it, because I did, it was just the least enjoyable of the four. I started with the Blanche de Namur 4.3%, this was a smooth wheat beer that had a sour aftertaste...similar to Hoegaarden, the sour aftertaste was not too overwhelming and left you wanting more. After this I had some of the Kriek Boon, which is what Liz ordered (see above). I have to admit, I found it difficult to choose my favourite of the last two, the strongest of the four Paix Dieu 10% was an abbey triple which similar to the De Garre beer didn't taste as strong as it actually was, it would not be out of place in a craft beer pub in the UK. They did make a point of telling us that this is only brewed during the Full Moon !!! As I write this I have now decided, the Gouden Carolus 8.5% was my favourite...surprise surprise it was a belgian dark beer, from this I found it to be not too sweet but with an subtle caramel taste...Yum ! it is no surprise that this was voted the best dark beer in the world 2012 by WBA.

One happy beer drinker!

So there you have it, a run down of the beer from our trip. We are already talking of going again with friends for my birthday next year. For the money, the P&O day trip is a bargain.

-Sam