December is going to kick off with a bit of a bang for Jolly Good Beer as we help Rhode Island in Cherry Hinton celebrate their first birthday – and also serve up some beers at the Mill Road Winter Fair.
Jolly Good Beer hours at Rhode Island are:
- Thurs: 17:00 – 22.30 (Rhode Island is open from 11am as usual however.)
- Fri: 11:00 – 23:00
- Sat: 11:00 – 23:00
- Sun: 11:00 – 17:00
From Emmanuel Street Rhode Island is a 15 minute taxi ride, 25 minute bus journey on the Citi3 , a 2.8 mile wander on foot – or the best way, is only 16 minutes on your bike!
We only discovered Rhode Island very recently. The idea is to bring a modern American bar/diner style of establishment to Cambridge. Good burgers, steaks, dogs, milkshakes and more. They also have a good bottled beer collection, borrowing from the styles of the American craft beer scene. So you can see where our attraction to the place comes in?
We shall be helping Rhode Island celebrate their 1st year with a pop-up bar/festival over the 1st weekend of December. This kicks off to a soft-start on the evening of Thursday December 4th and runs through until Sunday evening.
The idea is to make this a true celebration of “craft beer”! Everything is from independent microbreweries – and covers keg, cask, and bottle formats. (And if this works then we’ll look to doing it bigger and better in future!)
Bottle Tastings
As well as the festival line-up (see below) we will be holding a couple of special bottle tasting sessions.
Kiwi Invasion! £15 per head – Thursday Dec 4th @ 7.30pm
Ten different beers all the way from New Zealand – reflecting the excellent craft beer scene that has popped up on the other side of the planet. Featuring beers from Renaissance, Tuatara, and the indomitable Yeastie Boys! We’ve tried some of these in the past and were very impressed, others will be as new to us at the tasting as they are to you! It’s all very exciting!
There are 9 beers provided in approx 80ml samples.
- Renaissance
- Black the RIPA – 6.3% – Black Rye India Pale Ale
- MPA – 8.5% – Kiwi (hop) take on a US double IPA
- Perfection – 5.0% – British influenced ale
- Tuatara
- Ardennes – 6.5% – strong Belgian-identified ale
- Porter – 5.0% – what it says on the tin!
- Hefe – 5.8% – Tuatara take on a German hefeweizen
- IPA – 5.0% – An old-world IPA with new-world hops
- Pilsner – 5.0% – simple clean crisp pilsner
- Yeastie Boys
- The Sly Persuader – 6.0% – extra pale blonde ale
- Gunnamata – 6.5% – an Early-Grey tea infused IPA
LIMITED SPACES! Please email: iwantbeer@jollygoodbeer.co.uk or Tweet to @JollyGoodBeer to reserve a ‘head’.
Weird Beard Big Beers! £10 per head – Sunday Dec 7th @ 2.30pm
One of London’s many new breweries – but one that stands out from the crowd (and not just because of their beards). The Weird Beard chaps are only interested in brewing bold beers – even their 3.7% Black Perle packs the body and flavour of something immense. This selection includes 8 of their beers and mostly special 1-off brews with a few crazy twists.
There are 8 beers provided in approx 80ml samples. Explore the Weird Beard!
- Lord Nelson – 6.8% – Nelson Sauvin hopped saison (Ellusive Brew collab)
- Hacienda – 6.9% – Orange zested black saison
- Out of Office – 7.0% – Coffee IPA using HasBean Yirgacheffe
- 5 O’Clock Shadow – 7.0% – American IPA
- Double Perle – 8.6% – Imperial Coffee Milk Stout
- Something Something Darkside – 9.0% – Imperial stout meets imperial IPA
- Holy Hoppin’ Hell – 9.2% – big double IPA hopped to hell with Centennial
- Heaven & Hell – 9.6% – an earlier Holy Hoppin’ Hell batch aged in Heaven Hill whisky barrels
LIMITED SPACES! Please email: iwantbeer@jollygoodbeer.co.uk or Tweet to @JollyGoodBeer to reserve a ‘head’.
Festival Bar – kegs, casks, bottles
Keg
The list is yet to be finalised, but we’re talking 9 or 10 keg lines and up to 4 cask ales on gravity. Over the weekend we’re specifically “featuring” a couple of breweries both at Rhode Island and Mill Rd Winter Fair. These are Five Points Brewing from London and Outstanding Beers from Bury near Manchester.
Here’s our current initial keg list:
- Buxton (Derbyshire)
- Wolfscote – 3.3% – A black sour ale – too crazy? A “full roast, mild, black sour”.
- Five Points (London)
- IPA – 7.1% – A lush IPA flooded with strong flavours of pineapple, mango and passionfruit.
- Moor (Bristol)
- Confidence – 4.6% – The malt character is quite strong, with generous helpings of toffee, which is overlayed with a bitter and citric hop hit.
- Outstanding (Bury)
- Stout – 5.0% – Nitro-stout that kicks that other stout’s a… smooth, jet black, dry and bitter. Balanced roasted barley flavours with a hint of liquorice leave you eager for more.
- Four – 4.0% – An unpasteurised lager with a crisp clean herbal hop flavour and refreshing dry finish. Brewed using Perle & Hersbrucker hops.
- White– 5.0% – A witbier brewed with a continental weisse yeast (think Hoegaarden). Complex aromas and flavours of clove, coriander and vanilla interwoven with earthy undernotes.
- Runaway (Manchester)
- Pale Ale – 4.7% – A light, crisp, dry-bodied, clean-flavoured pale ale.
- Summer Wine (Yorkshire)
- Pacer – 4.1% – “Session IPA” – Vienna Malt adds the poise and sweet mouthfeel to Pacer that is complemented by Cascade, Citra, Chinook & Centennial hops to deliver a rich, tropical fruit aroma that develops into a pleasantly intense forest fruit berry flavour with a very subtle bitterness.
- Yeastie Boys (New Zealand)
- Gunnamatta – 6.5% – Earl Grey tea infused IPA from NZ! A hugely floral India Pale Ale that is “dry-leafed” with a massive load of Earl Grey Blue Flower tea. Loaded with Pacific Jade, Motueka, Pacifica, and Southern Cross hops.
But wait… there’s more! Or there could be. We have a great array of beers from several breweries on hand. Should Cambridge be thirsty we’ll bring other exciting selections into the line-up. It’s up to you 😉
Cask
Cask beer is just as ‘craft-worthy’ as keg and to reflect this we’ll have some local brews from BlackBar and Bexar County Brewery in cask. The cask list currently stands at:
- BlackBar
- Blacklight – 4% – Triple-hopped-blonde.
- Bitter – 3.6% – It would be remiss of us to leave the UK’s core craft beer style out of the lineup! So we’ve chosen an example from our local bike-loving brewery BlackBar.
- Bexar County
- Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte – 3.7% – Dark lactose-sweet milk-stout style beer with added cherries and a big flavour for 3.7%.
- Moor
- S’Hop – 4.1% – a hoppy pale beer full of Kiwi and Aussie hops. Unfined and vegetarian friendly!
As with the keg we’ll have a bit more in reserve. Two casks on stillage ready to be tapped on Friday if needed. This will include a Bexar County Sacred (pumpkin and sweet potato stout!) and Moncada Ruby Rye – both unfined and vegetarian friendly!
Bottle
And bottles too. We will especially be featuring the full range from London brewery Five Points:
- Pale Ale – 4.5% – fresh zesty pale ale hopped with Amarillo, Centennial and Citra
- Railway Porter – 4.8% – rich black porter hopped with East Kent Goldings
- Hook Island Red – 6.0% – hoppy red rye ale hopped with Chinook, Columbus and Simcoe
- IPA – 7.1% – Five Point’s shiny new IPA!
Bottles strictly “while stocks last”, we don’t have a lot.
There may also be a small selection of Weird Beard, NZ beers, and a few others available on the day as well as Rhode Island’s usual excellent bottled beer selection.
See you there?!
This isn’t a huge festival. But it packs in the variety of beer styles and fun. The great thing with the keg setup is that if Cambridge proves thirsty for more I’ve got a whole stock of kegs in my coldstore to sub in. This is one festival where the beer is not going to run out.
See you there! I’ll be behind the bar much of the time myself, as I love serving and talking about great beer (if I talk too much just tell me to shut up, I’m Australian so it’s allowed).