Friends Of Ham, Leeds

You can tell a lot about a culture from their use of language. I remember having a slightly drunken argument with my Spanish cousin about who had a better language. He insisted that Spanish was better because it has a greater vocabulary (it doesn't - English words outnumber Spanish about 2:1). He pointed out that Spanish must be better because it has two words for "olive" (oliva and aceituna). I laughed at him, and pointed out that Spanish doesn't even have a word for toes - in Spanish, toes are los dedos del pie, literally "the fingers of the foot".

Like many drunken arguments, it wasn't resolved on the night, but Rafa's pointing out that the Spanish has a surfeit words relating to food has some merit. He's right about olives, of course, and without bothering to do any research, I'll bet that there are more words for different styles of dried meat in Spanish than any other language. Not only that, they also have words for the accoutrements of food. The device in the picture is a jamonera, basically a stand that holds a leg of jamon steady while it is carved. You don't see many jamoneras in the UK.

Friends of Ham has a jamonera.In fact, it's the one in the picture. It also has great range of really good quality meats and cheeses, Scotch eggs, a great of-the-moment beer list, and a shuffleboard table. I hear they have wine and spirits too, although my beer obsession is such that I genuinely didn't register either.The comestibles all live upstairs, the shuffleboard table is downstairs in the surprisingly large lounge.

The lounge (there's not really another word for it) is really well thought-out, delineated into different areas with different seating, but very open-plan. I'd almost go so far to say as it has a pleasingly gender-neutral feel. It's a bit blokey (a wall of faux book spine wallpaper, scaffoldy shelves) and a bit girlie (cut flowers, candles, nice pillows and cushions - and before you get outraged, yes nice pillows and cushions are a girlie thing). It's great, balanced, a soothing little oasis, made all the better by the surprise of how nice it all is.

In the month that North celebrates its 15th birthday, it's wonderful to see emerge another qualitatively different take on the whole idea of what makes a great bar. Rather than being competition for anyone, Friends of Ham is bringing something unique to the table, adding another option to the Leeds beer scene. Great beer, great eats, great staff, and a great space to do it all in.

Friends of Ham, New Station Street, Leeds.

EBBC 2012 - Live Beer Blogging

I'm live-blogging from the European Beer Bloggers Conferrence - 10 beers in 50 minutes. IT'S GRIPPED, IT'S SORTED, LET'S LIVE BLOG!

Slaters Top Totty - I just mis-typed that as "Top Titty", which given the bunny girl label is pretty appropriate. Clean lemony nose, fresh clean and tart palate, nice and fresh, good. Not sure about the label - they defend it on the basis of it being ribald British humour in the seaside tradition. Sophie Atherton is unsurprisingly outraged, and drives the point home forcefully. But is the beer being overlooked in the furore? That would be a shame, because it's great - clean, zesty, fresh and delightful.

Camden USA Hells - unfiltered lager, lots of American C-hops. Slightly funky nose, might be the cattiness of the hops rather than any faults. Really nice bridge between old- and new-world traditions, clearly a quality, well-made lager with another layer of zesty, spritzy, great. "Brewed to suit the London palate" according to their PR guy - an unashamed pitch at the mid-market, but very good in spite of that - or perhaps because?

Adnams Ghost Ship - absolute classic English ale in the modern style - just what you'd want on a hot summer afternoon, or indeed on a busy speed-blogging event. Pale toffee colour, clean, biscuity with lots of fruity hop character. Very nice, and doesn't stamp its feet for attention. 

Innis & Gunn Scottish Pale Ale - limited release only available in Sweden. Big oaky vanilla nose, with plenty of hops added to try and balance the sweetness out a bit. Oddly for a relatively light beer, it really crashes onto the palate, sweet initially, turning zesty and floral. Tastes of new oak and citrussy hops. Bit of a car crash, but also sort of enjoyable.

Leeds Brewery Hellfire - very pale beer, zesty nose, very fresh, lovely sort of lemon sherbet and lime on the finish. Really nice fresh beer, although not convinced by the claims that "it's designed to be drunk from the bottle". Sam Moss from the brewery says that it's because the beer is meant to be drunk cold, from the bottle - the body gets big as the beer warms up. Nice idea, and seems to be well executed.

Otley Oxymoron Black IPA - Nick Otley says that this was their unashamed stab at having a go at the American craft beer style - "we wanted a piece of it" in his words. Big fruitiness on the nose, combined with smooth chocolate. Big flavours, great hop character and balance, but maybe a bit drying in the finish? Perhaps not helped by lack of condition (they apologised profusely about that)

Brains Dark - announced as Brains Dark Mild, which I guess is true to style.Dark brown, full chocolate aroma, vinous fruitiness. Finish is again vinous, fruity and complex. An essay in complexity and drinkability. Apparently, it's a great match for a Clark's pie, which is "some sort of meat pie" - apparently, nobody has ever had the courage to ask exactly what is in them.

Marble Emelisse Collaboration Earl Grey IPA - shot for a low bitterness in the expectation that there would be some tannic bitterness from the tea. Nose of citrus fruits and bergamot, unusual but enticing. Massive tangerine character on the palate, with more bergamot in the finish. Brilliant, enticing, and the first time I've ever used the phrase "dry teabagging" in conversation with a brewer. Excellent.

Roosters Baby-Faced Assassin - the classic guerilla IPA made for cask - how does it fare? Really well, given that they are following a big bruising bergamot IPA. Clean fruitiness, big mango hit, slightly toasty pale malt, unfolding endlessly on the palate. Tom used the phrase "went balls-out with the recipe", which I guess thematically nicely links back to the dry teabagging of the previous post.

Great Heck Stormin' Norman - "an easy drinking 6.5% session ale" according to the brewer Denzil. A little bit of roast barley in the mix brings out a toasty edge against which the hops brush up nicely. Big and hoppy, sweet tropical fruit brushing up against gently nutty malt. Lovely.

The Beer Academy - How To Judge Beer

We all love beer. You love beer, I love beer, and that's a beautiful thing. Every time we take a mouthful, we evaluate it to some degree, either an idle "mmm, tasty" or an analytic "sulphurous, astringent", to a meaningless "4+2+3+4+3=3.6".

If you blog about beer, and if you read this blog, it's because you're interested in this evaluative process, to a greater or lesser degree. You can now have yourself certified [insert joke here] as Possessor Of Beer Knowledge by The Beer Academy, who are running a series of "How To Be A Beer Judge" courses all over our beer-soaked isle. You can have a look at the schedule here. I'm particularly pleased to see that the Leeds course appears to be nearly full, which means that by the time the European Beer Bloggers Conference hits town in May there will be a sector of the local populace, distinguished no doubt by gowns and mortarboards, who are able to talk about why a beer is either awesome or bogus with reference to appropriate evaluative language. You never know, it might bring you a step closer to that hallowed gig of paid writer.

Playing With The Big Boys

I'm not going to pretend that this post will be any good, but it might have some interesting news.

I'm posting at an unusually late hour because I've just got in from a night out with the Dandy BrewPunks of Fraserburgh. It's been a lot of fun, and has encompassed a whole range of beers - Fernandes Barge [Something] - very tasty low abv blonde ale, and then things heated up. A bottle of BrewDog Avery Brown Dredge - very tasty, just what it should be. Flying Dog Wild Dog - complex and drinkable. Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron - complex, but foghorn-like. Great Divide Double IPA - a little tired, although tasty. Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA - again, tired but tasty.

But the main purpose of their visit was to look at some locations for the next BrewDog bar. It seems that Leeds is next on their radar, with some very targetted visits from James and Martin, along with bar manager Bruce from BrewDog Aberdeen.

Nothing is signed, the shop window is still strictly for browsing, but it seems likely that BrewDog will open a bar in Leeds at some point this year.

Raise your hand if you think that's good news.

*raises hand*

.

Tapas Con Cerveza de Brooklyn

Look, I know this won't come as a surprise, but I love Brooklyn Lager. Everyone loves Brooklyn Lager. It's the fall-back of the beer-lover, a bit like draught Guinness in pubs - you know what I mean, if it's all kegged crap, and maybe one dodgy looking handpump, Guinness is usually a safe bet.

We had a day out today, and went to check out Distrikt in Leeds. It's a bar that serves tapas, rather than a tapas bar. It's underground, moodily lit, and quite cool. I have to say that my hopes weren't that high, until I saw the beer and food menus.

Put simply, they had Brooklyn Lager. This is a mark of sense and taste on any bar menu. It's easy to drink, but has plenty of slightly caramelly malt and floral dry-hop charater to make it interesting. It also goes well with anything, as we were about to demonstrate.

Now, you can argue that I should have gone for a Spanish beer, and they have quite a few of them, all of the golden lager variety. This works well in Seville in the inferno of a mid-afternoon lunch. But it doesn't cut it in Leeds on a cold, wet Friday.

The food was Spanish with a Middle Eastern influence. If I was being kind, I'd say it was a nod to the Moorish ancestry of Andalucia. If I was being unkind, I'd say it was a lot of really tasty looking stuff all thrown together. That's not terribly unkind really, is it?

We ordered five small tapas plates; dukka dukka spiced chicken, merguez with red onion jam and skordalia (garlic mash, FYI), squid stuffed with red pepper and chorizo risotto, aubergine gratin with rocket pesto, and petit Lebanese pizza with lamb, pine nuts and pomegranate. I won't go on, but they were all great, and good value at £3-£4 each.

Through it all, Brooklyn Lager kept it's head. The lemon-pepper rub on the succulent chicken wings, the bite of the red onion jam, the creaminess of the risotto-stuffed squid - the beer coped with them all, enhancing, contrasting, and making the food shine more brilliantly than it might have done without it.

Two tiny criticisms - cold plates for the tapas meanthat bite-sized portions go cold quickly. I could have just eaten faster, I guess. Plus the flatbread for the lamb pizza was a tab lumpen. But these are minor quibbles.

I love Brooklyn Lager, and I love it more with this sort of spicy, toothsome, bite-sized food.