TheNoiseThatWeMade

The Independent Manchester Beer Convention   (IMBC) will happen for the first time at the beginning of October in celebration of beer, food, beery discussions and beery good times.  After the   Leeds International Beer festival   which happened a few weeks ago, this has much of the same essence (beer - kegged & cask) & a whole lot more in the form of practical demos & talks with head brewers. Interesting to see that both festivals are organised by completely different groups - but both have sprung up as a response to the demand from consumers & brewers to have a platform for quality beer (no matter what it's stored in).  A quick rundown of key pointers taken from their site includes these features over the 2 days: - Over 30 keg lines, hosted by the brewers themselves. - 30 cask lines curated by Port Street Beer House and others. - The Portable Street Beer House presenting craft beers from here there and everywhere. ...

It's been a few months now since I moved to Sheffield and I'm finally dedicating a post in sheer not worthiness to the beer scene in this South Yorkshire city. Now depending who I spoke to about the reasons for my move I'd got into the habit of repeating 2, firstly it has the highest ratio of trees to people of any city in Europe (I like my countryside OK!) and secondly it has over 10 micro breweries , in comparison to a city like Birmingham which had 3 on my last count (I like beer OK!). On one of my very first beery trips round town I visited the Rutland Arms & tasted Blue Bee's Nectar Pale Ale. I'd never heard or seen the brewery before & my curiosity got the hold of me after enjoying the hoppy pale ale. Blue Bee is a fairly recent addition (2010) to Sheffield's swelling micro brewing population and in a good way no doubt. Rich the head brewer (it's a one man band really at the moment, so he covers most jobs) had put his fair stint in at w...

Just wanted to give a shout to this event in the next couple of weeks; places still left to be had......looks really interesting & enjoyable.  Beer & cheese tasting plus a beer sommelier to take you on the journey, ace.  Date:    Friday, 14th September Time:    11.00 – 2.00, Venue:  The Camden Eye, 2 Kentish Town Road, London NW1 9NX http://www.thecamdeneye.co.uk/find-us.php Guest speakers:  Mahdis Neghabian,  named BII Licensee of the Year in May this year. Annabel Smith  to conduct the beer and cheese tasting. Annabel is national training manager with Cask Marque and recently became one of only two women Beer Sommeliers in the country, after passing a rigorous assessment from the Beer Academy . All this – for a modest  £20 entry fee,   including beer and cheese (and more food!), payable on the day.  Places are limited, so book yours now by email to ros@shielporter.com or call 07841 69...

Burton-upon-Trent is a beer town; you can walk along Worthington Way as you head towards the fermenting towers of many of the long standing breweries. However nestling in-between are a group of cider makers, some established, some new but all with one goal to make real cider. All the individuals share a passion for the apple with a home grown love that has continued and developed into an honest living. We all met up in the Coopers Tavern in Burton, Camra Regional West Midlands cider pub of the year (numerous times) and a haven for tubs of the good juice, amongst many a handpull and the Joules regular ales on offer. Wednesday night in the bar room of Coopers Tavern was turning out to be a lively night. Dickie Allen (pictured above 2 from right) ensured we had a good quantity of Scropton Cider to taste, alongside the wealth of cider and perry landlady Mary Bagley has on offer all year round. The idea of gathering Burton’s cider makers together was turning out to be a good one. Cid...

    800 real ales, ciders, perries & foreign beer all in one big room called Olympia, what a treat. It was Friday 10th August & it was my second trip to London in less than 2 weeks, this time for Camra's Great British Beer Festival 2012. For a city I'm always moaning about, I was beginning to eat my own words. GBBF had added a new feature to their website this year, offering members the ability to log in & view the beer/ciders on offer & create their own personal requests lists: https://gbbf.org.uk/beers/create-beer-list After previous visits to big beer festivals such as GBBF & the Winter Ales I've learned having at least a bit of an action plan helps, otherwise you can somehow fall into the 'safe' mode & end up drinking the same beer you drink down your local. Which is good beer, but after spending a train fair down to London or Manchester you want to leave with the...

Looks like  Hogan ’s have extended their product range with the introduction of a Bag-in-Box Cider.  3 varieties which sound very tempting on a hot summer's day -  Hazy Daisy, Picker’s Passion and Panking Pole. All cloudy, still, traditional ciders.  For more information about where you can enjoy Hogan’s award winning products have a ganders at the website  www.hoganscider.co.uk 

Ain't That Peculiar by Oddisee Check out Oddisee's EP of remixes & remakes called Odd Renditions taking on Bon Iver, K-Os, Metronomy, & Marvin Gaye. Featuring notably singer Olivier DaySoul whose appeared on tasty tracks by Eric Lau & with Krystal Klear on Eglo; links below. My kinda soulful hip hop. Eric Lau ft Olivier DaySoul & Guilty Simpson Olivier on Eglo Keeping on the same tip, I thought I'd have a look & see what Kev Brown was up to. His LP 'I do What I do' which came out in 2006 kept me going & hopeful in hip hop after Rawkus faded. With MCs on there such as Kenn Starr and Phonte in addition to singers Wayna and Eric Roberson; Kev's beats enhanced the craftsmanship of the record from beginning to end.  Back in April 2012 Kev released 'Random Joints' a preview of his first new material on in-house label Low Budget Records as a preview for the full release later in the year. It features appearances by many of his l...

It was one of those moments that make you realise how quickly & with little notice 10 years can fly past. I was sitting in Milos, a tiny perfectly formed bar in Leeds looking out at a new bar called Bad Apples remembering the day it was Tribe records & I used to work behind the counter. On the positive side for every wine bar that used to populate the streets of Leeds there is now a selection of notable ale bars & what seems to be a real craft beer scene. Between the mixes of your longer standing bars like North Bar which paved the way for the growing interest in beer in the city, stand some notable new additions such as  Dock Street Market & at least 3 new Leeds Brewery bars - Pin, The White Swan & The Brewery Tap. Leeds Pale Ale, 3.8per cent, from the name checked brewery, provided a thirst quenchingly good start to the night at another quality boozer called The Adelphi just over the bridge heading out towards the old Carlsberg brewery site. Dock Stre...

After attempting to buy Olympic tickets three times and failing I was beginning to think my chances of watching any British cycling was on a par with my credit report; poor.  The only tickets I managed to buy were a walk round the park and if truth be told my credit card wasn't in the position to splurge out on one of those now empty seats witnessed on tv coverage. I'd also heard that a well known beer corp had drinks rights in the stadium so decided to explore the beer on offer outside the park before entry. As my journey began at St Pancras I walked up Euston road to craft beer house The Euston Tap . I'd heard about this place for a while due to it's extensive range of cask ale & craft beer and wanted to go visit the Grade II-listed ex-station stone lodge. With fridges racked high of bottles, easily nearing the 150 mark to each side of the bar & chalkboards describing the 20 kegged & 8 casked beers on offer, choice was over-whelming.  As I ...

Betty Wright - Miami Soul / R&B legend, her new LP is with hip hop heads The Roots The Kyteman Orchestra - Dutch hip hop mega orchestra Trombone Shorty (above) - New Orleans young Funk maestro, true Treme funk spirit Maceo Parker - past, present & future Funk Seun Kuti (right)  - Afrobeat vibrations continuing through the generations Lianne La Havas (left)  - UK soul singer, Jill Scott with a guitar...   D'Angelo (right) - not goin to say too much as I'd waited for 10 years to see this guy & he made the audience wait for another hour before storming the stage with his rock leaning interpretations of his soul classics. Just google the online footage and make you own mind up. Still can't beat his debut LP Brown Sugar for the memories. Gregory Porter - a voice that pulls you in, lyrics that illustrate directly in the mind's eye -' 1960 What?' killin it with uptempo jazz dance licks, he can pu...

After another record store day back in April this year down at Rough Trade London and actually being elbowed out of the way by record hungry vinyl lovers...it made me wonder if vinyl ever really died; like we seem to be told by many a paper and global music label. I know, I know, digital music downloads are the future, so I keep hearing, but to me it's a bit like smelling the cake, but never taking a bite and getting the full flavour. When you check out  Eilon's site called Dust & Grooves you smell the cake, taste it and you get the recipe to make your own when you get home. I nearly had cake kittens reading the Bill Adler feature (head publicist of Def Jam Records in the 80's) and it reminded me of the wonder I felt folding out the inlay from Madlib's Beat Konducta series which shows photographs of his boxed vinly collection and studio space. The reason I'm writing this is so as many people out there support Eilon's photography and interview project...

Turntable Lab always provide the upfront & good choices in their email updates.....I've been a bit slow on reading them recently but glad I've kept them... had to mention this; J Dilla, sorely missed but his beats are still filtering out & making his presence known. 'Let's Pray Together' & 'Possible' are soulful goodies amongst the tracklisting...have a listen & switch off for a few moments....or tune in....whatever you do it's time well spent. http://turntablelab.com/collections/daily-arrivals/products/j-dilla-dillatroit-ep http://mahoganimusic.com/ http://officialjdilla.com/ http://turntablelabradio.tumblr.com/

Reading about a half barrel brewery plant set up in someone's home which produces the likes of a smoked Marzen style, double IPAs and oak conditioned beer sounded like a launch worthy of a Saturday's morning stroll. On the Edge Brewery had put on their very own beer festival at the old junior school off London Road to celebrate their launch and after only an hour of opening, there looked to be numerous people with the same idea as me. With 8 beers available and only pocket change I had to be selective over what to try and stumped for the Citradel at 5.5 per cent first; which was a nice pale tropical hoppy beer using Citra hops. A popular American hop and Oakham brewery do my favourite using this hop for their wonderful Citra. Another I sampled on the day was the smoked Marzen....I think you have to really like malty smoky flavours to dig this, which to be honest isn't really me. I keep trying, the most expensive try to date being the Norwegian brewery Nogne 's 'H...