White Hart Beer Festival

The White Hart, Machen, Caerphilly Borough, will be holding their annual beer festival this weekend. 20 real ales and cider. Now, you may wonder what this all has to do with with the photo of the liner the Empress of France above, well the ship was scrapped in Newport by Cashmore's in 1960 and the fixtures and fittings were auctioned off and used to decorate the pub. So the White Hart is in the possibily unique situation of being an art-deco pub with features from the 1920s that were only put in in the 1960s.
The pub is also home to Carter's Brewery and the landlord Alan Carter will be brewing a beer or 2 for the festival.
Thur 6th-Sat 8th Nov 08
White Hart
Machen
CF83 8QQ


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Bus stops on the main road - Newport- Caerphilly service 50

Beer cheaper than water!

Nigel Evans MP for Ribble Valley and Vice-chair of the Parliamentary Beer Group, has tabled an early day motion slamming supermarkets for selling beer cheaper than water.

EDM 2159
PRICE OF BEER IN SUPERMARKETS

That this House notes with concern that Asda supermarkets are selling Skol lager at a price of £0.90 pence for 4x440ml cans which is the equivalent of 5.11 pence per 100ml; further notes that Asda supermarkets are selling Evian still water at 5.55 pence per 100ml; is appalled that any supermarket is selling beer cheaper than water; questions whether this is an example of loss leading sales; encourages all supermarkets to cease this practice immediately; recognises the negative effect that this has on the brewing and pub industries, with 36 pub closures a week; and calls on the Government to look at the pricing policy of beers in supermarkets as opposed to public houses.

According to Nigel Evans MP, "These are lunatic prices and are creating a high street booze war. If not checked, the problem will escalate and everybody will loose. Binge drinkers will fall ill, the NHS will see a rise in alcohol related cases and the pubs and brewing industries will be crippled. We need to act now before the situation gets any worse.I will also be writing to the Secretary of State for Health to make sure that he is aware of the situation.”

37 MPs have signed this motion so far by Friday 10th October check if your MP has signed the EDM here - if you want to help save local pubs then please write to your local MP asking them to sign EDM 2159
The address for MPs is
House of Commons
Westminster
London
SW1A 0AA

Brew Wales spotted beer from a local brewery available at a discounted price in Tesco earlier this year. A quick call to the brewery established that the beer was being sold by this major supermarket chain at a loss, ie, they were charging less than the purchase price for it. What seems to be happening is that major supermarkets are selling alcohol at a loss just to get customers in through the door. Bad news for pubs who are charged extortionate prices for their beers by pub companies. No wonder we have 36 pub closures a week!
Just spotted the latest ludicrous price for lager - Tescos doing 18 bottles of lager for £5! Down from £14.99.
Anyway I'm off to the pub to celebrate my birthday!

Beer List 2008

It's June so that means the Great Welsh Beer & Cider Festival is nearly upon us. Provisional Beer list below, subject to change due to war, famine, floods or Darling and Gordo putting up beer tax again and a brewery going bust.

WELSH BEERS
Black Mountain Black Five 4.50%
Black Mountain Porter 5%
Brains Dark 3.5
Brains Bitter 3.7
Brains SA 4.2
Brains Reverend James 4.5
Brains SA Gold 4.6
Brains seasonal 4.6
Buckleys Best 3.80%
Breconshire Pen Y Fan 6.20%
Breconshire Welsh Pale Ale 3.40%
Breconshire Golden Valley 4.2
Breconshire Ramblers Ruin 5
Breconshire Cribyn 4.5
Breconshire Spirit of the Dragon 6.50%
Bryncelyn Holly Hop 3.9
Bryncelyn Buddy Marvellous 4
Bryncelyn Oh Boy 4.5
Bullmastiff Iechyd Dda 4.6
Bullmastiff Son of a Bitch 6
Bullmastiff Welsh Black 4.80%
Celt Experience Bronze 4.5
Celt Experience Golden 4.2
Newman's Cave Bear 5%
Newman's LLOB 5
Coles Cwrw Blassus 4.40%
Coles Stout 4%
Conwy Cwrw Mel 4.40%
Conwy Welsh Pride 3.80%
Cwmbran Stout 4.20%
Cwmbran Pink Panther 4.50%
Cwmbran Golden Wheat 4.50%
Dare
Evan Evans Cwrw 4.20%
Evan Evans Bishops Revenge 4.20%
Evan Evans seasonal
Facers Daves Hoppy Beer 4.3
Facers Northern County 3.80%
Facers Clwyd Gold 3.50%
Ffos Y Ffin Cothi Gold 3.80%
Ffos Y Ffin Paxtons Pride 5.50%
Felinfoel Celtic Gold 4.2
Great Orme Extravaganza 4.40%
Great Orme Ormes Best 3.80%
Jacobi Light Ale 3.80%
Jacobi Dark Ale 5.00%
Kingstone 3 castles 3.80%
Kingstone Seasonal/Gatehouse 5.10%
Miws Piws seasonal
Miws Piws Snowdonia 3.60%
Miws Piws Dark Side of the Moose 4.60%
Miws Piws Cwrw Glaslyn 4.2
Heart of Wales Heart of Wales 4.10%
Heart of Wales Aur Cymru 3.80%
Otley O1 4.10%
Otley O Garden 4.60%
Otley Dark O 4.10%
Otley OG 5%
Otley O8 8%
North Wales Farmers Favourite 4%
North Wales Moelfre Mild 3.60%
Plassey Border Mild 4.5
Plassey Owain Glyndwr 4.3
Plassey Dragon's Breath 6
Rhymney Dark 3.9
Rhymney Export 5
Rhymney Rhymney Bitter 4.5
Rhymney Hobby Horse 3.8
Swansea Deep Slade Dark 4%
Swansea 3 Cliffs Gold 4.7
Swansea Original Wood 5.2
Tomos Watkin Merlin's Stout 4.2
Tomos Watkin OSB 4.5
Tomos Watkin Cwrw Haf 4.20%
Vale of Glamorgan Grog y Vog 3.3
Vale of Glamorgan No 1 Best Bitter 4.5
Vale of Glamorgan seasonal 5
Warcop Pitprop 3.80%

FOREIGN BEERS (okay English and Cornish!)
Archers Crystal Clear 5.00%
Archers Red Admiral 4%
Corvedale Dark and Delicious 4.50%
Hobsons Mild 3.40%
Hobsons new beer 3.50%
Ludlow Gold 3.80%
Salopain Shropshire Gold 3.80%
Six Bells Goldings 3.80%
Spinning Dog Hereford Cathedral 4.00%
Spinning Dog Mutleys Revenge 4.80%
Spitting Feathers Basket Case 4.80%
Three Tuns Three 8 3.80%
Weetwood Cheshire cat 4.00%
Woods Shropshire Lad 3.80%
Wye Valley HPA 4
Wye Valley Butty Bach 4.5
Wye Valley Golden 4
Wye Valley seasonal ?
Wye Valley ? 4.4
Bays Best 3.7
Blackawton 44 Special 4%
Blackdown Devon Pride 3.80%
Branscombe Vale Summa That 5.00%
Branscombe Vale Branoc 3.80%
Clearwater Ebony & Ivory 4.20%
Country Life Golden Pig 4.70%
Exe Valley Exeter Old Bitter 4.80%
Exe Valley Barons Hopsit 4.10%
Keltek King 5.10%
Keltek Kornish Nectar 4.00%
O'Hanlons Double Champ Wheat 4.00%
O'Hanlons Dry Stout 4.20%
Otter Bitter 3.60%
Otter Head 6%
RCH Pitchfork 4.20%
RCH Old Slug 4.50%
RCH Firebox 6%
RCH Seasonal
Scattor Rock Teign Valley Tipple 4.00%
Sharps Cornish Coaster 3.60%
Sharps Eden Pure Ale 4.40%
Skinners Cornish Blonde 5%
Skinners Heligan Honey 4%
South Hams Eddystone 4.80%
St Austell Proper Job 4.50%
St Austell Tribute 4.20%
St Austell Tinners 4%
Summerskills Tamar 4.30%
Teignworthy Beachconber 4.30%
Wooden Hand Cornish Buccaneer 4%
Bath Ales Dark Hare 4
Bath Ales Bath SPA 3.7
Bath Ales Gem 4
Blindman's Black Bess 4.1
Bath Ales Barnstormer 4.5
Battle down Sunbeam 4
Cotleigh Barn Owl 4.5
Cotleigh Buzzard 4.8
Cotswold Spring Codrington Codger 4.2
Cotswold Spring Gloucestershire Glory 4.1
Exmoor Fox/ Gold 4.4/4.5
Goffs White Knight 4.7
Hidden Pleasure IPA 4.9
Hopback Thunderstorm 4.6
Hopback Summer Lighting 5
Matthew's Brewery Tim's Bier 4.6
Matthew's Brewery Brassknocker 3.8
Moor Ported Peat Porter/ Peat Porter 4.7/4.5
Moor Old Freddy Walker 7.3
Moor Revival 3.8
Nailsworth Artists Ale 3.9
Nailsworth Vicar's Stout 4.5
North Cotswold Mayfair 4.1
North Curry The Withyman 4.6
Seven Vale Severn Sins 5.2
Uley Pigs Ear/ Old Spot 5
Wickwar Mr Perrett's/ Station Porter 5.9/6.1
Wickwar Old Arnold 4.8
Wickwar Coopers 3.5
Wickwar IKB 4.50%
Yeovil Ales Summerset 4.1

Brewing at Tredegar House

The Gwent Branch of CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, may be running a real ale bar at the Newport Folk Festival this weekend but the story of beer at the historic house goes back further. Nowadays visitors to the house can enjoy a meal in “The Old Brewhouse” which as its name suggests was the brewery for the house and estate. An unusual two-story building, it is more reminiscent of a maltings than a brewery – the long, wide profile would give a large surface area for kilning barley. But then again most of us are used to seeing 19th Century tower breweries – the brewhouse here is far older – it is clearly marked on a map of 1770, along with the barn opposite and brewing was carried out here at least 100 years earlier. The present facade of Tredegar House dates from the 17th Century but there are parts dating from the medieval period so brewing was likely to have been carried out here from that time.
An inventory of 1688 lists the contents of the cellar underneath the house. There were 30 hogsheads for cider and 16 for ale, table beer and small beer as well as 3 vessels holding 4 barrels of ale, 1 vessel holding 3 barrels of ale and one large vessel containing 6 barrels of cider. In 1704 the brewer was called David and was on a wage of £2 10s a year.
In 1688 the brewing equipment consisited of 2 furnaces, 1 cooler, 3 vats, 2 trinds, 3 tubs, 2 lappers, 1 ladle lapper, 20 pails, 1 kettle and 1 iron shovel.
The beer that was brewed here would have been made for both the house and the estate workers, even a funeral of one of the Morgan family in 1719 stipulated a barrel of ale for the mourners.
There are springs nearby providing water for the brewery and the barley and hops were grown on the estate which was about 1000 acres in 1770. A cider mill was also situated on the estate and there were orchards here as well.
There we have it then, a few hundred years ago, if you were a guest of the Morgan family then you would have been offered locally brewed ales and cider at your visit to the house. At the present day Newport Folk Festival, the Campaign for Real Ale offers you a choice of 15 different ales and 10 different ciders. I think the Morgan Family would approve.




The Old Brewhouse

Tredegar House Update

The beer are stillaged and tapped, just waiting for the customers now when we open friday. One small change to the beer list is that Mutts Nuts did not arrive but we've replaced it with Spinning Dog Hereford Cathedral.
Cider from Gwynt Y Ddraig will be arriving shortly, along with a fridge to chill the bottles of Black Dragon, Orchard Gold and the new Perry Vale.
Further Information:
Newport Folk Festival, Tredegar House,
CAMRA bar open Friday 9th May 7-12,
Saturday 10th May 1200-1200,
Sunday 11th May 12-5
www.gwentcamra.org.uk

Bootleg Budget

Today our badger-look alike Chancellor imposed a rise in the duty for beer of 4p a pint - this translates as almost 15p a pint when the customer pays for a pint over the bar. Or to put it another way, a small-scale brewery will be paying an extra £20k a year in revenue to the Government. A fantastic way to support our small businesses with a recession on the way.

If the storms were not so bad, you could see the white vans heading to Dover to stock up on cheap French booze. A bootleg budget like this will only benefit the ferry operaters, owners of Calais hypermarkets and the French alcohol industry. It does not benefit our pubs with almost 700 closing last year, it does not benefit our growing brewing industry and it does not benefit the customer who from Sunday will see an unjustified increase the cost of their pint.

Can you see any other country in Europe taxing and treating their businesses in this way?

And where is all this money raised from increasing the price of a pint? No doubt to buy more cans of Argentinian baked beans for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. This Government won't even support the farmers or food factories in this country by buying their produce to feed our troops so what chance does any food producer or brewery in this country have of Government support. Or the money will be going to Nothern Rock, in order to stop Labour MPs being voted out of their North East seats at the next election.

The result of this budget - the average beer drinker hit harder in the pocket and more pub closures. A budget for bootleggers and a bonus for the owners of foreign hypermarkets.

At least the chimp could not make such a bad job of being Chancellor as Darling does.