July 6th - August 30th // The Duke's Head presents: Duke's Head-Fest

Here's a quick bit of news for you. My friends at The Duke's Head, Highgate have taken it upon themselves to organise an 8-week long beer festival that will feature some of the best breweries in the UK. Duke's Head-Fest will be launched this Thursday at 4pm by Magic Rock Brewing Company founder Richard Burhouse as Magic Rock become the first brewer to take over the taps and pumps for an entire week. Each takeover will feature either meet the brewer event or a special beer release or both. The Duke's Head team has even collaborated on some of these beers themselves, which will be poured exclusively at Duke's Head-Fest. The full lineup for Duke's Head-Fest is as follows and you can catch both Rich, myself and The Duke's Head team at the pub from 4-6pm when we're heading to sister pub The Prince for our sold out beer dinner. See you at the bar.

6th/12th July - Magic Rock (Featuring sold out beer dinner at The Prince)
13th/19th July - Elusive (Exclusive cask beer and Meet The Brewer)
20th/26th July - Burning Sky (Featuring meet the brewer)
27th July/2nd August - Northern Monk (Featuring exclusive collab beer)
3rd/9th August - Marble (Featuring London Beer City event on Weds 9th) 
10th/16th August - Electric Bear (Featuring collab beer and MTB)
17th/23rd August - Fyne Ales (Featuring meet the brewer on Sat 19th)
24th/30th August - Anspach & Hobday (Collab beer, exclusive cask and MTB)

July 19th - An Evening with Brasserie de la Senne

Join Brasserie de la Senne co-founder Yvan de Baets and beer writer Matthew Curtis for a three-course dinner featuring five de la Senne beers at The Prince, Bounds Green. The event takes place on Wednesday the 19th of July and runs from 7pm until late. 

Our love for the beers produced by Belgium’s inimitable Brasserie de la Senne is no secret. In fact at the end of last year we crowned them as our “overseas brewery of the year” in our annual Golden Pint awards. It’s an incredible honour to announce that following our first event with Magic Rock (tickets still available here) that our next will be a paired beer dinner with Brasserie de la Senne.

The brewery’s co-founder Yvan de Baets will be in attendance for a meet the brewer along with a Q&A hosted by Total Ales editor Matthew Curtis. Six de la Senne beers will be pouring from bottle and keg on the evening, with five of them served during a three-course dinner prepared by Keith Burrowes of The BearBQ. 

This dinner will serve as a preview event for the Ales Tales Belgian Craft Beer festival happening at Oval Space, Bethnal Green on the 21st- 22nd July. Tickets for this event are only £25 per person and we must stress that they are very limited, so act soon to avoid disappointment. This is one beer event you do not want to miss. The full menu and beer pairings can be found below. 

With special thanks to Beer Merchants for helping to make this event possible.

Menu

On arrival - Half pint of Taras Boulba (keg)

First Course – Clams with chorizo & salsa verde paired with Bruxellensis (bottle)

Second Course - Cornflake chicken thigh in romesco sauce paired with Schiven IPA (keg – collab with Bagby Beer Co) 

Third course - Lemon posset with raspberry in balsamela paired with Jambe du Bois (keg)

To finish – Third pint of Brusseleir (keg)

(Stouterik will also be on tap on the night but is not included in the ticket price)

Thursday July 6th - Magic Rock Brewing Beer Party & BBQ at The Prince

"Put a little Burhouse in your soul"

This Thursday July 6th join Magic Rock Brewing founder Richard Burhouse and beer writer Matthew Curtis at The Prince, Bounds Green, for a night of great beer and Kansas City BBQ. Burhouse will be subject to a live Q&A covering subjects including, beer, building a brewery, branding and more. Ticket holders will also taste through five different Magic Rock beers while enjoying a feast from brisket wizards Prairie Fire BBQ. 

Ticket includes the following:

FOOD //

On arrival: Jalapeño Poppers (smoked, filled with cream cheese, bacon and topped off with an olive ‘so it doesn’t spurt out everywhere’ as Prairie Fire put it)

Main feed: 16-hour oak smoked brisket with 'slaw, mac & cheese, pit beans with burnt ends, wrapped or wiped up with bread and Prairie Fire's own hot, BBQ and habanero sauces.

*Vegetarian option includes bacon free poppers and brisket replaced by pulled jackfruit. Please let us know any dietary requirements when purchasing tickets.

BEER //

Served by the third

1. Rapture - Red Hop Ale (keg & cask)
2. Bellini Vice – Peach & Raspberry Berliner Weisse (keg)
3. Common Grounds – Triple Coffee Porter (cask)
4. Telepathy – India Pale Ale (keg)
5. Bearded Lady Dessert Edition Coconut – Imperial Stout (keg)

Tickets for the main event are just £25 per person and spaces are very limited! It’ll also be a great chance to check out The Prince, sister pub to The Duke’s Head, Highgate. We’ve run many fun and successful events at The Duke’s Head and this will be our first at The Prince, so we’ll be pulling out all the stops.

Once the main event is over we plan to turn the lights down and the music up and party the night away. We’ll have a full tap takeover of 11 Magic Rock Beers, including 5 on keg and 6 on cask with more treats waiting in the cellar to go on as soon as a line kicks. Grab a ticket and come join us! 

The Prince is easily walkable from both Alexandra Palace Station (National Rail) and Wood Green Station (Piccadilly Line). It's also served by plenty of regular buses. 

FULL BEER LINEUP//

CASK

Simpleton
Inhaler
Rapture
High Wire
Dark Arts
Common Grounds
Ringmaster (in the cellar)

KEG

Rapture (on the taps)
Telepathy (on the taps)
Bellini Vice (on the taps)
Bearded Lady Dessert Ed. Coconut (on the taps)
Salty Kiss Margarita Ed. (Tequila BA) (on the taps)
Inhaler (in the cellar)
High Wire (in the cellar)
Simpleton (in the cellar)

July 1st & 2nd - Craft Beer Cares Charity Beer Festival at Brew Club, Clapton

A brand new beer festival arrives in London this July and all of its profits will be donated to charity. Craft Beer Cares will be taking place on Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd of July at Brew Club in Clapton, East London with proceeds being donated to The Newman Holiday Trust and Mind, The Mental Health Charity.

Beer has been donated to the festival by some of the most exciting breweries in the UK and beyond, including: The Kernel, The Five Points Brewing Co, Pressure Drop, Partizan, Brew By Numbers, Anspach & Hobday, Weird Beard, East London Brewery, Beavertown, One Mile End, Elusive Brewing, Siren Craft Brew, Cloudwater, Northern Monk, Wylam, Founders, Yeastie Boys, Hackney Brewery, Gipsy Hill and Magic Rock. In addition to this the festivals organisers promise that they have a few surprises up their sleeves for those lucky enough to grab a ticket.  

Speaking in anticipation of the event, lead festival organiser Gautam Bhatnagar had the following to say:

“We’ve been inspired by movements such as #CookForSyria and smaller events such as #BoozersWithoutBorders and wanted to play whatever role we could in organising something to help those in need. Our aim for this year’s event is primarily to raise funds for the charities Mind and The Newman Holiday Trust, and to scale up on previous efforts by asking for donations from the wider brewing industry.”

“It’s been a really heart-warming experience seeing the many people involved in the craft beer community and their willingness to donate time, advice, energy, and - of course - the beer!  We’ve had a great response from everyone we’ve asked and that comes as little surprise to many of us given how wonderful the people in the beer industry are.”

Karen Bolton, Community Fundraising Manager for Mind, added: ““We’d like to say a huge thank you to Craft Beer Cares for choosing to support Mind through their first beer festival. Every penny raised will fund Mind’s vital work including the Mind Infoline, our advice services and the campaigning Mind does to secure a better deal for the one in four of us who experience a mental health problem every year.”

Tickets for the event cost just £14.40 (including booking fee) and includes a glass plus 7 beer tokens – with additional tokens available for purchase once inside the venue. The event will take place at Brew Club, Unit 9, 38-40 Upper Clapton Road, London, E5 8BQ

Tickets for the Saturday July 1st evening session can be purchased here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/craft-beer-cares-01-session-1-tickets-34085356218

Tickets for the Sunday July 2nd afternoon session can be purchased here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/craft-beer-cares-01-session-2-tickets-34085425425

For further information please contact Matthew Curtis on matthew@totalales.co.uk or 07876 383409

Follow Craft Beer Cares on Twitter:

 @CraftBeerCares      @brewclubuk      @MindCharity      @TheNewmanTrust

Total Ales & Hop Burns & Black Presents - FUNDAMENTALS LIVE #1: HOPS

Thursday 27th April, 7pm 'til 9pm, Hop Burns & Black, 38 East Dulwich Road, London SE22 9AX. Tickets £15 Per Person and includes 4 generous pours of beer and a tasty morsel matched with one of the beers.

→ CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS ←

Have you ever wanted to learn more about your favourite beer ingredients and how they make your preferred tasty beverage taste so damn good? Well here’s your chance!

Join beer writers Matthew Curtis and Claire M. Bullen at Peckham’s premier beer, record and hot sauce store, Hop Burns & Black on Thursday April 27th for the first installment of Fundamentals Live: Hops. This new series of events is based on Curtis’ new column for the HB&B blog, which aims to explore in detail the fundamental ingredients of beer – from hops and malt to water, yeast and more. 

The first in this series of interactive events will focus on everyone’s favourite beer ingredient: hops. Curtis and Bullen will guide guests on a tutored tasting of four beers, each elegantly showcasing hops from four regions: The UK, Germany, The US and New Zealand. Ticket holders will also get a chance to get hands on with some whole leaf and pelletized hops and learn how they impart bitterness, flavour and aroma to your favourite beers.   

To keep things interesting with each round of beers we’ll introduce a different debate topic. Curtis will aim to prove that British hops are actually brilliant and are capable of producing far more than twiggy brown beer before talking about origins and influence of the original noble hop varieties. Meanwhile, Bullen will wax lyrical about the pungent hops from her native US, before discussing the new world hops of Australia and New Zealand. As Hop Burns & Black’s resident food columnist Bullen will also be providing a small food pairing to demonstrate the way hop flavours can compliment some of your favourite dishes. 

So join us on the 27th of April for what promises to be both an entertaining and educational evening. Tickets are just £15 per person and are available in store at Hop Burns & Black or via Ticketsource by clicking right here. We’ll be announcing the beer list and food pairing right here once they’re confirmed.