By Steve the Beermeister:
Congratulations again to The Tower for being chosen as CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) South East Sussex Pub of the Year 2019! The Tower is situated on the corner of London Road and Tower Road, Bohemia, Hastings & St Leonards TN37 6NB, and I revisited on Tuesday, during which visit I congratulated Louisa the landlady, and had a few pints, of course!
6 ales, including 2 regulars (Dark Star 4.7% APA and 3.8% Hophead), and a similar number of real ciders, and usually a perry too, are available. I concentrated on the 2 guest ales in the photograph above, Manchester-based Bootleg (website) Cheeky Monkey (4.2%), and I could only ask for it using my standard 'Northern' accent, sadly not appropriate here as it is basically South Yorkshire, sorry peeps in other parts of the North! I've seen Cheeky Monkey described as a dark ale, but to me it appeared more like an old-fashioned best bitter with a nice deep colour, and quite a good bitter too. But I mostly drank yet another an old favourite, Oakham Citra (4.2% - website), regular readers will realise I love the Citra hop, and Peterborough-based Oakham Ales is an excellent brewer too, pale, grapefruit, dry and bitter, quality as ever!
The other 2 guest ales were both darker beers, the Staffordshire-based Titanic (website) Plum Porter (4.9%) is excellent, and North Yorkshire-based Great Heck (website) Voodoo Mild (4.3%) is pretty good too, though I didn't drink either on the day, but have tried them both before!
Full Pints!
The two regular ales are from local brewer Dark Star (website), though now owned by Fuller's of West London, whose brewing business is to be taken over by Japanese group Asahi (blog), so who knows what is going to happen to the Dark Star ales! At the moment, their Hophead (3.8%) is being brewed in London and all other Dark Star beers, including their American Pale Ale (APA - 4.7%) are still being brewed in Sussex; these cost a good value £3.10 and £3.20 a pint at the Tower; the other ales cost £3.20 a pint (Cheeky Monkey and Citra), £3.30 a pint for Voodoo Mild, and £3.50 a pint for the Plum Porter. Also, a you can see in the photograph immediately above, lined oversize glasses are used, so you always get at least a full pint, great value!
No comments:
Post a Comment