Beer and Cider to Your Door Update!

By Steve the Beermeister:

I have undergone some more research and appear to have found quite a few extra ways of getting locally brewed ales, plus quality beers, cider & wine, and in some instances food, delivered to your door from pubs AND from local breweries. As I said before, The Jolly Fisherman is offering a delivery service for beers, ciders and perry on Friday afternoons, please go to their website to order: delivery is free of charge in Hastings & St Leonards, and £2 to Bexhill and within 7 miles of Hastings. Last week the draught beers available were a Citra and Eldorado hopped 4.1% Pale brewed by North Brewing, a 4.2% Best bitter from 360 Degrees, and a 5.9% keg IPA from Belgian brewers The Musketeers. Go to their website for this weeks offerings.

In addition, Rod has advised me that Bob from the Albion (website) is also delivering cask ale, for £3 a pint, on Friday afternoon/evening: last week a 3.9% 'American Extra Pale Ale' Phoenix from Bedlam Brewery. Payment is by PayPal and I presume you need to telephone to order (I can see no link on their website or facebook page to place orders), which is 01424 439156.

Further, I have since discovered that the Eel & Bear is providing a local delivery service, Click & Collect (pre-ordered) at 28 Waldegrave Street TN34 1SJ, and nationwide courier deliveries (website). This does not include cask-conditioned ales, but they do have an excellent and wide range of interesting and exceptional craft beers.

In addition locally, around the corner from the Eel & Bear in Queens Road TN34 1RL, at The Imperial, the Brewing Brothers also appear to be offering a takeaway service, and delivery, including their delicious pizzas as well as beer (website).

I have also discovered that a further 3 breweries are advertising delivering to your door, unsurprisingly. bearing in mind I have published the image above, Battle Brewery (website) is one of them. Indeed they offer free local delivery, I would guess they expect a minimum expenditure by their customers (but within 10 miles of the brewery, well within the Hastings area!) and a courier service nationwide (at cost).

Furthermore, Three Legs Brewing Co (website) offer to deliver their own beers, and unique wine and food produce, and 1648 Brewing Co (website) their own beers.

So, very decent beer is still available to the folk of Hastings, cheers!

Hastings Tap Takeover 11-13 October 2019

By Steve the Beermeister:

This weekend, to help kick off Hastings Week (website) with a bang, twelve venues in Hastings, from The Dolphin Inn in the east to The Tower in the west, will be holding 'tap takeovers' by twelve different breweries (Hastings Tap Takeover facebook page). Each venue will be helping to celebrate 'exceptional independent breweries'  from near and far, with great real ales, and crafty keg beers too!

For full details of the venues and breweries involved, either go to the Steve the Beermeister blogspot, or to the Hastings Taptakeover facebook page. 

Queens Road - Moving Up?!?

This is a blog I've been thinking about writing since last year, but new businesses keep appearing, so, along Queens Road, from Waterworks Road to South Terrace, keeps on moving up, and not to forget this wonderful piece of art that arrived as part of the 2018 Coastal Currents Arts Festival (blog). There still are a significant number of hairdressers and grocers, but they only help to underpin the diversity of the road.

Across the road from Illuminations, which must have had the record for the number of years it held its 'closing down' sale, but now appears closed, and was a soup kitchen over a hundred years ago (blog), is the The Imperial, with it's own microbrewery, Brewing Brothers (website). No soup kitchen this, but a decent real ale and crafty keg pub that brews much of the beer it sells, plus it has its own enormous wood-fired pizza oven for customers to enjoy the product of! They also sell ales from other local breweries, eg last time I was there, two guest ales were from East Sussex brewers Three Legs (website) and Brighton brewers Loud Shirt (website), in addition to their own regular and seasonal beers.

Of course, there are other pubs and bars about, eg the reasonably new micropub Twelve Hundred Postcards (blog) which is having a 'tap takeover' this weekend by the excellent Kent brewers Angels & Demons (website) and, around the corner just off St Andrews Square the, a wee bit older, craft beer off-licence and bar Eel & Bear (blog), which today (Saturday 30th March) has a Pop-Up Record Store (facebook page). And notably the Fountain pub is currently undergoing a makeover, so someone else has noticed how other local businesses are going more upmarket!

Twelve Hundred Postcards also lets you bring in your own food, eg from Oregano Leaf (blog), two doors away to the south, from which I recently brought in a pizza, still costing just £5 (over two years later!) if you collect it yourself, very recently when I arrived too late to go home and cook for myself, nice touch! But, of course, there are a whole host of places, offering various ethnic cuisines you can either eat in or collect takeaways from, Far Eastern, Curries, Fish & Chips, not to forget the crackin' Xochipilli Mexican Street Food (facebook page) at number 68 Queens Road!

Then, across the road, is the excellent Queens Deli & Shop (facebook page), quite frankly a prize of a resource locally, and self-proclaimed Hastings Home of Salt Beef. But it's not just hot Salt Beef sandwiches you can buy and eat here, but all manner of freshly prepared sandwiches for you on many different types of bread, and, not so long ago, I bought a piece of the best ewes milk cheese here I've eaten for many years, a mature version of manchego... and it's not just the excellent food available, they also hold events too, eg a Pasta Workshop very recently. Well worth a visit!

There are many specialist shops too, not to mention shops for curios etc, eg Chef's Ware (website), which has a huge selection of kitchen utensils and appliances, knives, and it provides a knife sharpening service too. I can't even walk by it without devouring the window contents every time I pass when it's closed! There are all other types of shop too, eg the 'lifestyle store' White Rhino (website), two doors away to the north from Twelve Hundred Postcards, all very close together indeed!

The road is also blessed with two proper independent bookshops, ie Book-buster (facebook page), and including the more recently opened Printed Matter Bookshop (website), which specializes in social sciences and academic books, in addition to music and nature books, novels, and many more subjects.

But it doesn't stop there, also many different ethnically specialized markets can be visited, greengrocer, tailors, solicitors offices, cafes and restaurants, materials and sewing, formal clothing outfitters, oh yes, and there's an enormous great big Morrisons supermarket with its adjoining petrol station!

Queens Road is certainly well worth a visit!

Pop Up Record Store!

Following its success a month ago (blog), Dead Format is again hosting a Pop-Up Record Store today and tomorrow in the Eel & Bear at 28 Waldegrave Street TN34 1SJ (Eel & Bear facebook page), so, where to go to buy some vinyl. The times of opening are 12-9pm on Friday 14th December and on Saturday 15th. Somewhere well worth visiting, vinyl and beer, what's not to enjoy?!?

POP-UP Record Store this weekend

This weekend, Dead Format are hosting a Pop-Up Record Store in the Eel & Bear at 28 Waldegrave Street TN34 1SJ (Eel & Bear facebook), so, where to go if you like vinyl! The times of opening are 12-9pm on Saturday and 12-5pm on Sunday. I have previously written a blog about the Eel & Bear soon after they opened, somewhere well worth visiting, so vinyl and beer, what's not to enjoy?!?

Eel & Bear: New Craft Beer Off-licence & Bar!

Recently opened in Hastings at 28 Waldegrave Street TN34 1SJ  (01424 602055 - facebook page), the Eel & Bear, and a mighty fine find too, and very close by the town centre! So I had to pop in and admire their many varied beers from local breweries (some I'd never heard of before!) and from further afield. Opens, for now, Tuesday-Saturday 12-9pm; Sunday 12-5pm.

So, what is this place? Well, they sell a decent old range of beers as 'off sales' here (bottles and cans, and they can provide the draught craft beers available in containers too), but it is also a bar, with 3 crafty kegs on draught, it is run by a friendly young couple who moved in very recently, and it is well worth the visit, unless you don't like craft beers, of course! It's quite small a small establishment, used to be a newsagents, a bit like a 'micropub' crossed with an off licence, and, well, I enjoyed myself...

I tried 2 of the draught crafty kegs, from Brighton, Cloak & Dagger (website) Komodo Bozo (4.2%), a fruity bitter beer, heavily hopped with Mosaic, very nice, and from Abyss Brewing of Lewes (twitter page), a rather fuller and hazy beer, but similar in taste, their 6.2% Hank Marvin, which I am!

A convivial time was spent here. indeed, and an old friend, Larry, turned up whilst I was there the first time, cheers!