Tiny Rebel Pen & Wig it!

Tiny Rebel secure bar space at Newport pub


The best real ale pub in Newport, the Pen & Wig on Stow Hill, now features a handpump permanently devoted to real ale from the City's up and coming brewery, Tiny Rebel.

Although as the photo above shows a few more than one of their popular beers may appear on the bar from time to time! The Tiny Rebel beer will join regular beers such as Bass and Kite Gorslas as well as guest ales from around the UK on the bar at this City-Centre pub.

According to Richard Jackson, landlord of the Pen & Wig, “The beers from Tiny Rebel Brewery have proved popular with our customers when we've had them as guests and during our beer festival so having their beers permanently on the bar is a good way for us to support our local brewery”.

This is the first permanent outlet for Tiny Rebel Brewery in their home City and expect to see Fubar, Urban IPA, Hank and their other beers featuring on the bar soon.

The Pen & Wig also serves a range of ciders and perries, served straight from the fridge, with Gwynt Y Ddraig Black Dragon and Two Trees Perry on alongside Palmers Upland Cider at the moment.

Pen and Swig Beer Festival

Newport's best pub will be holding another one of their beer festivals this week, the Pen & Wig on Stow Hill will become the Pen & Swig as award-winning beers from across Wales are served straight from the barrels at the pub. The Festival kicks off at midday on Friday 30 March and continues throughout the weekend with a special 'Meet the brewer' session on Friday at 3pm with Ian from the Kite Brewery.

The beer festival will also see the launch on draught of the new Crystal wheat beer from Untapped and the launch of an aged porter from Brecon Brewing.

Beer list, subject to availability etc:
Purple Moose:

Cwrw Eryri/Snowdonia Ale, 3.6% - A delightfully refreshing pale ale brewed with Pale and Crystal malt with a delicate combination of Pioneer, Styrian Goldings and Lubelski hops.

Cwrw Madog 3.7% - A delicious dark ale with a deep malt flavour from roasted barley and a fruity bitterness from Bramling Cross hops.


Cwrw Easter Ale 4.2% -This is an easy drinking golden session bitter with a fruity hop finish.



Ochr Tywyll y Mws/Dark Side of the Moose 4.6% -A delicious dark ale with a deep malt flavour from roasted barley and a fruity bitterness from Bramling Cross hops.


Kingstone Brewery:


Tewdrics Tipple 3.8% -This smooth, honey-coloured ale celebrates the audacity of Tewdric (also known asTewdrig), a onetime King of Gwent and self-imposed hermit. The combination of Fuggles and Northern Brewer Hops with blended pale and crystal malted barley produces an ale with a dry bitter character and tangy core

Challenger 4% - Challenger is fruity, almost scented, with a hint of spice and it produces a fine backbone of bitterness to any ale. To create this quenching brew we mix barley and wheat malts and add generous amounts of Wye Challenger hops for both the bittering and flavouring. Challenger is a smooth and richly hoppy well-balanced ale with a malted nose and toffee undertones.

No 1 Premium Stout 4.4% - Warm aromas of the roasted, flaked and pale malted barley underpin the smooth richness of this stout, balanced by the pairing of Challenger and Target hops for a bitter finish.


Classic Bitter 4.5% - award-winning Classic Bitter - a balanced, disctinctively hoppy, dry ale with a floral nose and smooth well-balanced finish. Classic is brewed with pale and crystal malted barley, bittered with a quartet of hops - Northern Brewer, Cascade, Willamette (a Fuggles hybrid) and Brambling Cross.


Humpty's Fuddle IPA 5.8% - dangerously smooth at 5.8% ABV, is a warming, oaky-smoky tipple. Humpty has a slightly sweet floral nose, a balanced level of malt supporting the hops and finally a subtle but slightly citrusy finish.


Untapped Brewery:


UPA 4.5% - Designed to be an Indian Pale Ale style, the light straw colour of this beer belies its full and citrus fruit driven flavours. Distinctly hoppy, with wonderful aromas from Styrian Goldings hops, the finish is perfectly balanced and satisfying.


Eclipse 4.4% - High colour crystal malt gives this beer a darkly red hue and rich roasted flavours. Brewed with Northdown hops for both bitterness and aroma, which gives a clean counterpoint to the power of the malt and a balanced fruity finish.


Ember 5.2% - Three kinds of roasted malt produce the fabulously rich, dark colour and strong textures of this beer. First Gold hops give a tang of zesty fruit, whilst Cascade hops give a sweetly nutty aroma. Hugely flavourful and mouth filling, this ticks all the boxes for lovers of strong, old style ale.


Crystal 5% - An Untapped take on a classic beer. Traditionally strong, our wheat beer is triple filtered before bottling for a clean finish. Full to bursting with all the distinct flavours of this style, with a delicate hop texture and rich mouthfeel.


Brecon Brewing:


Bronze 3.9% - A light bronze pale ale. Full bodied, with plenty of hop flavours – Cara and Oat malts provide the foretaste, with Cluster and Northdown hops providing the refreshing bitterness

Gold 4.2% - Deep golden ale brewed with Progress and Pioneer hops for a soft yet well defined bitterness, which balances the blend of malts


Bright Beacons 4.5% - A straw coloured best bitter, packed with a multitude of hops for full, satisfying drinking experience.


Wandering Beacon 5% - This is a dark chestnut hued strong best bitter – full bodied and well balanced.


Profit Porter 5.6% - Aged Porter brewed last November


Tiny Rebel Brewery:


Fubar 4.4% - A straw-coloured beer brewed with both American and German hops.


Urban IPA 5.5% - Golden-brown in colour and brewed with an intercomntinental blend of hops.

Pen & Wig
22-24 Stow Hill
Newport
NP20 1JD
 The Pen & Wig is situated in the centre of NewportGoogle Map:

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Top beer at an excellent price

The Pen & Wig in Newport is becoming my favourite pub at the moment, as well as a beer festival at the end of March (more details later!), the pub has recently installed Gorslas from the Kite Brewery and sells it a very reasonable £2/pint during the day and £2.15/pint after 7pm. Not a bad price considering its a City Centre pub.
Other beers on the bar are Bass with guests today Caledonian Over the Bar, Bakehouse Cupcake, Warwickshire Duck Soup with Troggi Seidr and Perry also.

Boxing Barman aims for Welsh Championship

A barman at Newport's best pub, the Pen & Wig on Stow Hill will be fighting on Saturday for the Welsh senior middleweight championship boxing title in Aberdare.
Leon Goodman, a 20 year old student at UWIC, has previously won 5 Welsh championships at youth level and 3 British national championships, also at youth/schoolboy level, and has been boxing for 10 years.
Leon will be moving from pulling pints to pulling punches at the fight on Saturday and says,
"Boxing takes a lot of dedication and commitment and pulling pints in the Pen & Wig is good exercise for my arms. When I win on Saturday I hope to go professional afterwards, in the meantime I will be pulling the pints of Welsh real ale in the Pen & Wig".

Last chance to try Newport's Vintage Cider

The Pen & Wig, Stow Hill, Newport, has secured the last of the 2010 Vintage of St Cecilia Cyder, made by local cidermaker Phil Palmer of Bassaleg.

The St Cecilia apple is a rare Welsh eating apple propagated in the early 1900s by John Basham & Sons, fruit growers of Bassaleg, a surburb of Newport. It has been blended with a small amount of bittersweets to give it some body. Cecilia was the name of Bashams' wife and is the patron St of music. Legend has it that the apple is best picked on St Cecilias day - Nov 22.

ABV 6.5%

The next time this rare cider will be available will be in May 2012.

Newport beerex at the Pen & Wig

To celebrate Newport Food Festival, the Pen & Wig is holding a beer festival over the 28th-29th October.
Beers on sale:

Wye Valley Goodbody’s Stout(4.7%)

Wye Valley Country Ale (6.0%)

Brecon Busters Broomstick Brew (4.7%)

Hexhamshire Devil’s Elbow (3.6%)

Hexhamshire Shire Bitter (3.8%)

Hexhamshire Blackhall Stout (4.0%)

Hexhamshire Devil’s Water (4.1%)

Hexhamshire Whapweasel (4.8%)

Hexhamshire Old Humbug (5.5%)

Bulmastiff Son of a Bitch (6.0%)

Bulmastiff Special Reserve (6.5%)

Untapped Ember (5.2%)

Untapped Eclipse (4.4%)

Untapped UPA (4.5%)

Hereford Owd Bull (3.9%)

Hereford Celtic Gold (4.5%)

Hereford Mutley’s Revenge (4.8%)

Hereford Best Bitter (4.2%)

Isle of Purbeck Studland Bay Wrecked (4.5%)

Cotswold Spring Gloucestershire’s Glory (4.1%)

Ciders as well!

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Jacko is back!

Legendary Newport publican Richard Jackson has returned to being the behind the bar for the first time in 12 years, having taken on the free-of-tie lease of the Pen & Wig, Stow Hill. Richard previously ran the Red Lion further up on Stow Hill where he won many awards, including Gwent CAMRA Pub of the Year. He first took over the lease of that pub under Marr Taverns and quickly established a name for the pub with the quality of the real ale. The Red Lion was later bought by Ushers Brewery of Trowbridge, Ushers would not have other brewers beers in their pubs but the ever enterprising Richard realised his customers preferred more interesting, hand-crafted beers than those high-gravity and rather bland beers produced by that brewery which has since been moved to North Korea to produce beers that go well with spaniels.

The answer was the so-called 'Ann Frank Cellar' – basically you went down the stairs to the cellar and instead of turning left into the beer or lager parts of the cellar, you turned right into what looked like a storeroom for old pub furniture and moved some of it out of the way, slid back a board to reveal a secret door, undid the padlock on the door and stepped into a small room, slightly bigger than a wardrobe and stillaged with a beery Narnia world from independent brewers beers from the likes of Bullmastiff and Freeminer. A line led from this cellar to the main beer python and up onto the main bar and the handpumps on there. Naturally no pumpclips could be used on the bar, so customers were told by the bar staff what the 'Special' was for the day. Of course this pub went onto win awards from CAMRA, much to the bemusement of Ushers brewery who could not understand why one of their pubs had won so many awardswhilst the rest of their estate was pretty piss poor to say the least, with the other exception being the Old Swan in Abercarn.

Before the Red Lion, Richard did a brief stint managing the Pen & Wig and before that ran the Tavistock in Cardiff a Brains pub at which he won the 'Manager of the Year Award'.

Richard Jackson first came to the attention of real ale drinkers in Newport by running the famous Orange Tree in Pill, a once legendary boozer, now sadly demolished and housing built in its place. In the Orange Tree, Richard sourced beers from across the UK and customers would travel miles to drink a decent and different pint there.

Above:The Pen & Wig

But let us return to the Pen & Wig, Richard has already brought in the changes since taking over a little over a week ago. Already the pub is noticeably cleaner with the beer flies that have plagued the pub for years being eradicated together with the smokers of exotic tobaccos who used to hang around the back door, stinking the place out with skunk. Since taking over only 10 days ago, already 14 people have been banned from the pub! No doubt they have crawled back to Chaverspoons who will no doubt be happy to serve them!

The Beer Range

Well the Pen & Wig has 5 handpumps but Richard is being sensible and is slowly building up the trade rather than put 5 different ones on all at once. Flowers IPA, brewed under license by SA Brian is sold at the very competitive price of £2.05/pint and alongside that is Bass, Newport used to have a good following for Bass with legendary beer holes such as Conti's, the Lord Raglan and the Tudor Bar of the Queen's Hotel all famed Bass drinking holes and all now converted into retail premises. Yes I include the Queens, now a Chaverspoons as a 'retail premises'. The guest beer at the moment is Cribyn from Breconshire Brewery and will be followed by beers from the current Champion Brewers of Wales Rhymney Brewery and past winners Otley Brewery. Expect all 5 handpumps to be in use shortly and Mein Host wants to put in a draught cider as well.

The Polish Lager Tyskie is available in bottles alongside Tsingtao and Staropramen. “A celebration of the cultural diversity of of the City of Newport”, according to Richard Jackson. The cultural diversity even applies to the music, with an umpah band booked for the 23^rd July.

Pub Food

Traditional pub grub such as faggots n' peas and doorstep sandwiches are served lunchtimes, whilst at night, in a first for Newport, a traditional Thai menu is served with specialities such as Choo Chee Goong (King Prawns in red curry paste and coconut milk) and Kai Gaeng Kus Suppoarad (Chicken Curry with Pineapple). And yes, before you ask, Otley Thai-Bo is on order as a guest beer.

Pub History

The Pen & Wig only became a pub in 1995, before that it was a restaurant called The Georgian. The building has had a number of previous uses including as the registry office and a wedding gown shop, a useful combination. There has been a building on this site since at least 1610 as one is clearly marked on the John Speed map of 1610. Situated just outside of the medieval Westgate, there has probably been a building on this site for over 600 years, whether or not it was pub or not is another story!

The pub still has a Shove Ha'penny table and a team as well! 

Pen & Wig

22-24 Stow Hill

Newport

NP20 1JD

Open all day

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Celt Experience Dark

Popped into the Pen & Wig in Newport for a quick pint, it was a nice surprise to see a beer from the Celt Experience Brewery in Caerphilly on the bar alongside the usual Brains SA, Flowers IPA and Bass.
It is the first time I have tried this beer and it does not dissapoint, a black with dark red hues and poured with a tight white head, yes the pub does use swan neck handpumps but there is no problem with this particular beer. A rich dark aroma of treacle and coffee leads to a smooth bittersweet taste and complex aftertaste with some liquorice tones. Chewy, roasted flavours in the finish as well. A surprisingly complex beer but highly enjoyable.
Off to the bar for another I think!

Newmans Daliad Da

Popped into the Pen and Wig, Stow Hill, Newport for a lunchtime pint and found this beer from Newmans/Celt Experience on the bar. A tawny coloured session bitter with a dry finish, this tastes strongly of crystal malt, not unpleasant but hardly spectacular. A good session ale at only 4.2% ABV, the name translates as "Good Catch". Not bad for a lunchtime pint in the City Centre for only £2.20 and the food is quite good in here as well!

Shove Ha'penny

On the way home tonight popped into the Pen & Wig in Newport and witnessed a shove ha'penny match between a couple of pubs. Newport can still manage a Shove Ha'penny league and it is played in quite a few pubs and clubs in the area.

Health Challenge Newport - fail

Popped into the Pen & Wig in Newport for a lunchtime pint and discovered this new beermat for "Health Challenge Newport". This is a scheme run by Newport City Council who have decided to spend our council tax on propaganda to advertise their leisure centres as revenue has been falling at council run centres as customers go to Ballyntines and other such "lifestyle altering places". Should local councils be spending our money to compete with the private sector? Probably not but Brew Wales did his own "Going for Gold" with a golden pint of Celt Experiance Red Castle Cream. A hoppy and malty aroma leads to a smooth biscuity flavour and bitter aftertaste. Chewy, bitter finish that lingers in the mouth for a while. Not a bad beer, not spectacular but a drinkable pint. That's my "Going for Gold" for today!

Another new Otley beer

Popped into the Pen & Wig, the only freehouse in Newport, this lunchtime and luckily discovered an Otley beer on, the 4.3% O-Mai. Another golden coloured hoppy ale from the Ponty boys this light refreshing ale is perfect for the summer.

New Newmans Beer

Enjoyable pint of Newmans Spring Cottage Biscuit, 4.2% ABV, in the Pen & Wig, Newport. Good to see our local brewers supported, the Newmans Brewery is also known as Celt Experiance and is brewed in Caerphilly. Anyway, back to the beer, Spring Cottage Biscuit is a pale amber ale with plenty of hops and fruit in the aroma, a bitter taste and a firm bitter aftertaste. Makes you want another pint! Excellent!

Brains and Felinfoel

It's not often that both Brains and Felinfoel are seen on a bar together but today in the Pen & Wig, Newport is one of those occasions. Felinfoel Double Dragon describes itself as the "National Ale of Wales" and is the oldest brewery in Wales. Nice 3d pumpclip, although the Brains pumpclip is at least 20 years old! Still the Double Dragon is very good today, a 4.2%, sweet, malty ale with a fruity finish. Time for another methinks.

St David's Day Beers

Popped into the Pen & Wig in Newport and had the choice of 2 St David Day beers from either Wye Valley Brewery or Brains, both very good but the one in Welsh, Cwrw Dewi Sant, brewed in England was the best. Well done Wye Valley!

Pen & Wig, Newport

Yes I do like this pub but we are not spoilt for choice in the superpub ghetto that is Newport city centre. Brains Bread of Heaven was the guest beer today and I think SA Brain may have tweaked the recipe a bit this year as this 4% beer is more bitter than I remember it from last year. There are even hops in the nose which is almost unheard of for a beer from Wales' largest proper brewery. NB the factory in Magor is not regarded as a 'brewery', it is an industrial complex that uses waste water from trains using the Severn Tunnel to produce various products that call themselves beer such as Steal a tortoise and the 'the Cream of Manchester'. Think another pint of Brains is called for.