Thursday 25th October, International Hercule Poirot Day, will see the City Arms in Cardiff host a Belgian Beer Festival in honour of the most famous Belgian ever to have held a Bolleke.
The CAMRA Pub of the Year for Cardiff, the City Arms in Quay Street will be holding a cider and perry festival, starting on Wednesday 25th April and continuing throughout the weekend, finishing on Sunday 29th.
There will have 8 different ciders and 4 varieties of perry for customers to choose from alongside their usual range.
These guests will be alongside our resident ciders including Stowford Press, Aspall's, Friel's, Thatcher’s Katy, Thatcher’s Gold, Savanna Premium Dry and Orchard Gold Cider. The new ciders will be limited edition so make sure you get your hands on them whist they're around!
Unusually ciders and a perry from Llanblethian Orchards of Cowbridge will also be available, unusual in that most of this award-winning hand-crafted cider is normally only ever sold at beeer and cider festivals and not in pubs:
Llanblethian Orchards Stoke Red dry single variety cider 5.3%
Llanblethian Orchards Bramley mix 5.3% , a blend of Stoke Red and Bramley apples to produce a medium-sweet cider
Llanblethian Orchards Hendre Huffcap and Blakeney Red Perry 6.8%
On Thursday 26th April, live music will be on in the pub.
Above: An old photo of Buster, taken in Cardiff City Hall during the Great Welsh Beer & Cider Festival in 2008
The best pub in Cardiff, the City Arms, will be holding a 'Meet the Brewer Night' from 7pm on Tuesday 28th February with Justin 'Buster' Grant from the Brecon Brewing Company. Should be a good night, then again every night is a good night in the City Arms. The pub does not smell of fish either.
The premier ale house of Cardiff, the City Arms will be holding a stout and porter festival starting Wednesday November 23rd and finishing on the 30th. A week of these dark and delicious beers from across the UK have been hand-picked by manager Chris and include a few award-winning beers as well:
Purbeck, Studland Bay Wrecked
Blackwater Brewery, Pre-Raphaelite
Thornbridge, SeaForth
Banks and Taylor, SOS
Brentwood, Lumberjack
Brentwood, Spooky Moon
Brentwood, The Dodo
Salopian, Vortex
Salopian, Shropshire Gold Stout and Porter Fest 2011
Brentwood Weald Porter 4.9%
Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby Mild 6%
RCH Old Slug Porter 4.5%
Banks & Taylor Black Dragon Mild 4.3%
Burton Bridge Damson Porter 4.5%
Blindmans ,Icarus 4.5%
Amber Winter Ruby 5%
Neathergate Umbel Magna 5%
Titantic Plum Porter 4.9%
Montys Midnight Stout 4%
Waen Blackberry Stout 3.8%
Waen chilli Plum Porter 6.1%
Bristol Beer Stout 4%
B&T Edwin Taylors Stout 4.5%
Mighty oak Oscar Wild 3.7% Dark
Otley Oxy moron 5.5%
Have previously written about the City Arms here, a pub previously known as the 'Van of Flesh Tavern' due to its proximity to the cattle market and slaughterhouse. This Brains pub now has regular beer festivals, American and German so far this year and offers the most interesting guest beers in the City Centre.
Well done to SA Brain for allowing the City Arms in Cardiff to host an American Beer Festival. The first order of beers had sold out in a few days but reorders were done and the full range was replenished within a few days. Most of the beers were served in brewery branded glasses – a nice touch that added to the festival. With 2 beers on draught and the rest in bottles a good and unusual selection of beers was put on. The festival also gave me a chance to put the beers on Untappd – a social networking site for beer drinkers – with a lot of American beers on it.
I started with a bottle of Goose Island IPA from Chicago – a beer recommended to me by Glynn from the Rake last year. An excellent IPA to start the day off, packed with citrus and hop notes. Very enjoyable, I could have gone for some more of this but in the interests of research I decided to try a few more beers. Probably the best beer brewed by Inbev or whatever they are calling themselves this week - AnInBev, AnBev?
One of my drinking companions had chosen to go for a beer from Flying Dog Brewery of Maryland and the bottle label intrigued me – it featured the unmistakable artwork of Ralph Steadman on it, so I ordered their Raging Bitch – a Belgium IPA, weighing in at a hefty 8.3% ABV. The glass it came in was decorated with the company logo and featured a quote from Hunter S Thompson on it, “Good people drink good beer”. Can't argue with that! And the beer – a hop bomb on the tongue, dangerously drinkable at this strength, straight away I realised this was to become one of my favourite beers. Could have stayed drinking this all night but thought I'd better go for something a bit weaker next.
Onto the Brooklyn Summer Beer – a bit weaker than the others at 5% - one drinking companion thought it was a bit bland but I thought it was a quite a pleasant and refreshing beer that made a change from the hop bombs tasted earlier.
Decided to change coasts and have an Anchor Summer Beer – another light one at only 4.6%. The San Francisco-based Anchor Brewery were one of the first American breweries I tasted about 20 years ago and their beers never fail to impress.
Perusing the beer list, the Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout stood out and not just because it weighed in at 10% - it's been quite a while since I tried an Imperial Russian Stout so that was the next beer to try. Rich, dark and tasty, this is a beer meant for sipping. By now my tastebuds were becoming slightly tired so had to decide on one last beer to go for – went for a bottle of Flying Dog Raging Bitch, my favourite beer of the festival.
All in all this was a good little festival at the City Arms, giving customers a chance to try beers not usually available in Cardiff. With German and Belgium beer festivals being planned for the pub, the City Arms is becoming the best beerhouse in the City.
Popped in again on Monday night (tonight) for another bottle of Flying Dog Raging Bitch.
The beer festival is continuing this week until the beers are sold!
To celebrate American Independence Day, the City Arms in the centre of Cardiff is hosting an American Beer Festival.
The following beers will be available during the festival:
Draught:
Brooklyn Lager (5.2%)
Anchor Steam (4.8%)
Bottled:
Anchor Porter (5.6%)
Dixie Beer (4.5%)
Anchor Summer (4.5%)
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (5.6%)
Black Chocolate Stout (10%)
Brooklyn Summer Ale (4.5%)
Raging Bitch (8.3%)
Snake Dog (7.1%)
312 Urban Wheat (4.2%)
Honkers Ale (4.2%)
Goose Island IPA (5.9%)
On Friday 1st the band Railroad Bill will be playing.
Well done to Brains for showing some initiative by allowing beers from other breweries into their pubs and doing what we hope is the first of many festivals at the pub. Rumours have it that planning for German, Belgium and Welsh Festivals at the City Arms is already well in hand.
The City Arms has become one of my favourite pubs in the Cardiff since the extensive refurbishment and the varied beer range in there. I still drink and eat in the Goat Major - best pub grub in the City with their award-winning pies - but the City Arms is always worth a visit. A bit about the history of the pub can be found here.
The City Arms is one of Cardiff's most famous pubs and has recently been given a refurbishment by Wales' largest real ale brewers, SA Brain.
A building on this site is marked on John Speed's map of 1610, although it is not known if it was an inn or not. Situated opposite the town quay, it would have been a good place for a tavern with the ships coming and going from the River Taff, which was not diverted to its present course until the nineteenth century. On a map of 1851 a beerhouse on this site is marked with the delightfully sounding name, “The Van of Flesh Tavern” and today this forms the right-hand side of the present building.
Above:1851 Cardiff Map with the "Van of Flesh Tavern" marked in red. The orange line shows where the pub called the City Arms later expanded into.
The wording on the map is somewhat indistinct and as a beerhouse it does not appear in the trade directory of the time, as only the more up market public houses and hotels are mentioned. By 1858 the building on this site was called “The Cattle Market Tavern”, as the cattle market was situated across the road from the pub, where the multi-story car park stands today. On another corner, where the former Glamorgan Staff club now stands was the slaughterhouse. Both the cattle market and slaughterhouse moved to the outskirts of Cardiff later in the nineteenth century, leaving the Cattle Market Tavern as the only reminder of the trade that once went on here. In 1905 Cardiff was granted City status and the pub was renamed the City Arms. The present brick-built building was built in the 1880s and in the latter part of the twentieth century expanded into the Labour Club next door.
Above: the City Arms in 1935
Today the City Arms is unmistakable with its cream and black exterior and the Brains dragon proudly displayed at the acme of this three-story building. The leaded glass windows have the old Brains A1 logo in dark blue lozenges set in them and the pub sign features, of course, the Coat of Arms of the City of Cardiff. On the inside the central island bar has three banks of gleaming handpumps, one for each side of the bar, featuring cask beers from SA Brain, including the new IPA as well guest beers from brewers across the country but with an emphasis on Welsh-brewed ales with award-winning brewers such as Breconshire and Otley making appearances.
Above: Handle glasses for the beers off the stillage
There is also a stillage featuring cooled casks being served straight from gravity.
As well as the real ales there are also brass T-bars serving beers from across the world including Budvar Dark from the Czech Republic and Duvel Green from Belgium and a selection of over 20 different bottled beers and ciders. Altogether the new look City Arms offers over 35 different beers and ciders. The lists of beers are chalked up on blackboards behind the bar.
The pub does not do food, apart from crisps and pickled eggs but there are plenty of other places that do in the City Centre. There are plenty of places to sit around the pub and there is even room for a darts board in one corner. The walls are decorated with old photographs, brewery memorabilia and even some Gren cartoons. The City Arms has returned to its roots and become a beerhouse once again.
The City Arms has a website a bit different to the usual Brains corporate pub site here, where you can sign up for their loyalty card to be launched in the new year.
