Regular Beers
Below are some of our main beers with write-ups by beer writer, Steve Hobman. We have a constantly changing line-up of ales from small brewerys around the country so please pop by or ring the pub to find out what we have on today.
They say we have many things to thank the Victorians for; this beer is just one. Chester’s Eastgate Clock is second only to Big Ben as the most photographed timepiece in the world. Dating back to 1899, it was made by J B Joyce of Whitchurch to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee - actually two years earlier.
We don’t know what Her Majesty made of that delay, but we had to wait a whole 100 years before the clock inspired this traditional bitter from those enterprising Weetwood boys. Eastgate Ale was brewed to mark the famous clock’s centenary and has become pretty well-known itself. Voted Champion Beer of Cheshire at the Macclesfield Beer Festival 2003, it has also taken top spot at the prestigious Ludlow Food & Drink Festival and - much trickier - captured the taste buds of those canny early evening quaffers at the Grosvenor.
A well balanced pale amber ale, there’s a lovely malty, fruit experience here both on the nose and the palate; dig deeper and there’s citrus with a gentle, dry, bitter finish that seems to say ‘another please’ well before you do.
It has also clocked up a strong following as a permanent fixture at the Dysart and has regular showings at the Pant yr Ochan, where it doesn’t stay around long enough to be photographed. So it’s three cheers for Queen Vic then.
Daniel Thwaites have been brewing at Blackburn in Lancashire for 200 years, and have some 455 pubs of their own. This is a well-hopped refreshing session bitter combining bitterness and nutty flavours, with a lingering bitter finish. Thwaites Bitter benefited in our pubs from Interbrew's decision in November 2003 to relaunch Boddingtons (qv) with a new recipe and an increased abv, up .3% to 4.1% from 3.8%. This resulted in several of our freehouses looking for a new session bitter, despite Interbrew's insistence that Boddies remained a session beer even at 4.1% abv (our customers disagreed.) The upshot was that Thwaites Bitter now has a permanent listing at Pen y Bryn, the Pant yr Ochain, the Dysart, Glasfryn and the Fox.
