Thirsty Thursdays - Pt 1 The Old Red Cow

For a while I've been trying to organise bi/tri weekly drinks with friends on a Thursday night in and around London. As these things inevitably do, it failed at the first hurdle - no one was free and so the weeks rolled by until last night! Where we descended on The Old Red Cow close to Barbican and Smithfields Market.
I hope this will become a regular feature as we attempt to tick off some of London's Finest watering holes.

The Old Red Cow is a traditional pub but with an updated modern twist. Its the sister pub of the Dean Swift  near Tower Bridge and it's attitude is exactly the same; serving 4 Cask Ales and 12 keg beers served from taps set into the wall behind the bar.

During our visit there were offerings from Camden Town, Kernel and the weekly guest brewery Bad Seed amongst several others. There's a vast bottle range on offer too with beers from around globe.

There's not much space in and around the bar but there's a larger bar & dining area upstairs although we didn't venture that far, deciding to take advantage of the balmy March weather we stood outside in the a joining alley. After eventually (and inevitably) succumbing to the cold we moved inside gazing jealously at the plates of burgers being delivered to one of the other tables. As well as great beers The Old Red Cow offers a full menu as well as bar snacks, and I'm dutifully told that their homemade Sausage Roll is something not to be missed.

Soon after we called it a night and headed off into the night, The Old Red Cow is a great little pub and if you work or are ever in the area then I definitely recommend you pop in!


The Old Red Cow
71/72 Long Lane,

Barbican, 

London, 

EC1A 9EJ

Photos taken from http://theoldredcow.com/

Neknominate: An "Open It" Alternative

I thought we could put a twist on this online craze!

We've all got those special beers hidden away in cupboards, that are waiting for the perfect opportunity to crack open, yet we all know that opportunity rarely comes.
So much like the Open It days, why not "nominate" a fellow beer fan to open and review one of their prized beers?!

Much like the original, lets set some ground rules to attempt to keep this flowing:

• Once you've been nominated you should review a beer within 2 weeks
• With each review you can nominate up to 3 people to Open It 
• Reviews should be posted online either as a video or as a blog post

Finally please remember this isn't a contest, there's no need to down your drink, just sit back & enjoy!

Oh and here's mine to start things off.....

So after rummaging through my beer cupboard I ended up opening my bottle of Brew Dog and Lost Abby's Lost Dog 11.5%.  An Imperial Porter brewed using a blend of 7 different malts and aged in Rum Casks for a year, It was the stylish presentation box that caught my eye with this one!

As you can see from the clip above the beer pours black as you'd expect from a porter but there's also a reddish hue to this, possibly from its time in the rum casks. It actually poured very flat and any trace of a head forming disappeared instantly. The nose gives huge fruitcake aroma's with raisin and of course rum!

It tastes very sweet with a thin mouth feel and lack of carbonation, There's a touch of the the alcohol and wood

Overall I wasn't that impressed with this one and its made me realize that not all beers are worth saving despite there exuberant packaging!

All that's left is for me to nominate the next Beer Geeks for this challenge:

So over to you:

• @TFMajor
• @SelhurstSmoz
• @McGregorSam

You have two weeks!