Congratulations to the Dolphin Inn!

Congratulations to The Dolphin Inn, Rock-a-Nore Road, Hastings TN34 3DW, for winning the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) South East Sussex Community Pub of the Year 2019. Well done to Mark and Mo, Laura, Louise and Fraser, and all the bar staff, plus to Clare and her kitchen staff for adding a new dimension since she took on the kitchen. Yet again, this is certainly a well-deserved award, nice one!

CAMRA Pub of the Year 2017

By Steve the Beermeister:

Congratulations must go to Louisa and her colleagues up at The Tower, 251 London Road, for, yet again, winning the local Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) South East Sussex Pub of the Year, and who was presented with her award yesterday evening. In Hastings we are blessed with a great number of public houses and bars that sell good quality real ales, yet Lou's pub has managed to stand out with CAMRA assessors for three years in a row, and her great range of well-conditioned, good value, 6 real ales (most usually from local brewers) and a similar number of ciders and perry support this award. 

I drank at the Tower very recently and the price of ales started at £2.90 for their regular session ale, East Sussex brewer Dark Star's Hophead (3.8%) at £2.90 a pint, to £3.20 a pint for the strongest that day. Also from Dark Star is the other excellent regular ale American Pale Ale (APA 4.7%) at £3.00 a pint. Other ales came from the up and coming local brewers from Brede, the single-hopped Three Legs Columbus Pale Ale (4.9% and thus the strongest at £3.20), Yorkshire brewer Vocation Bread & Butter (3.9%), Welsh brewer VOG Dark Matters (4.4%), and the excellent Peterborough brewer Oakham, whose 4.2% Citra, another single hopped ale, I couldn't resist drinking!

Nice one Lou, cheers, again!

Congratulations to the FILO Brewing Company!

By Steve the Beermeister:

A little birdy told me that Gold, the 4.8% pale 'premium ale' brewed by the FILO Brewing Company (website) has won the South East Sussex Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) 2017 Beer of the Year prize! Nice one, so... 

I had to visit the 'brewery tap' and try a wee drop of the Gold there, That is, at the First In Last Out (FILO), so you may well have seen me drinking in there, or walking up/down the High Street in the old town yesterday afternoon, and, yes, it was very fine indeed, a well balanced pale golden ale, not too bitter, so meeting the needs of many drinkers, cheers!

Congratulations to The Albatross Club!

By Steve the Beermeister.

OK, a 4-5 mile walk along the seafront from Hastings (depending on where you start to walk from), but very warm congratulations to the (RAFA) Albatross Club for being selected the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) NATIONAL Club of the Year 2016, beating more than another 28,000 competitors in the process! Which reminds me, I need to visit there soon and collect my RAFA membership card... 

Nice one, cheers!