Announcing: The Next Beer Swap and Twissup!

Beer Swap and Twissup are back!

First, Beer Swap. The ‘let’s send each other beers we can’t get near us and then use social media to talk about them’ game. The same rules apply as last year and if you blog or use twitter to talk about beer then you can enter (it is probably still GB only until we find cheap ways to ship outside of our little island). Here’s the deal:

• You need to find four local beers (use your discretion on ‘local’ but try and make them small breweries, also, choose good beers).

• No more than two beers from one brewery. Feel free to send homebrew, but only two bottles and then send local beers too. Or you can send homebrew as an extra.

• You will send them to another Beer Swapper and you will be sent four beers from someone else (it won’t be the person you send to).

• You then drink them and tweet and blog about them – send messages to @beerswap and use the #beerswap hashtag.

• The dates: The end date will be the 14th May. You have until the 28th March to join in and then Andy and I will sort out the sending. You will need to post out your beers by April 16th.

• To enter, go here and submit your details on the form (we need you to use the form to collect up all the names and details – your information will be kept secure, of course). We will sort them out and get them ready for the next stage.

Last time we had issues with postage and Collect+ didn’t really do it for us (the dreaded #collectplusfail). This time we need to do something different, so if anyone has any ideas then please let us know. We will advise on the best service when we announce the next steps after the 28th.

Who wants to swap some beer?!

And Twissup... Sheffield will be hard to beat but we’ll give it a damn good go! So, get the 15th May in the diary as we’re going to Burton-upon-Trent! (assuming the National Brewery Centre is all open and up and running). All the details will come soon but it will hopefully involve a brewery, a museum, maybe a maltings and definitely lots of pubs and beer! It’ll be a great follow-up to Sheffield! There's also a facebook group for #Twissup.

Now, there’s just two questions:

1) Beer Swap: Are you in? (If yes, remember to fill in this form!)

2) Burton Twissup: Are you in?

@Sheffield, #twissup was awesome

Well that was fun. The pictures say it all (especially this one, although this is my favourite thanks to the hilarious caption). Take 30 people, a combination of bloggers, brewers and drinkers, mix them up inside three breweries and lots of pubs, soak in beer for up to 12 hours and it’s a good recipe for a cracking day.

Thornbridge and BrewDog lined the bar in the Sheffield Tap at midday (Black Dog is the best looking beer I’ve seen in ages); a pit stop in the Harlequin which broke up the long walk; a Kelham Island brewery tour where everyone was drinking Marble Brew No.14; to the current CAMRA Pub of the Year, the Kelham Island Tavern, for a Thornbridge Samhain; to the Sheffield Brewing Co, another tour, a couple of beers; to The Hillsborough Hotel, to a bar lined with Crown Brewery beers, a Marble, Thornbridge and a Pictish; the most to-the-point-brewery tour ever (that’s the mash tun, thanks); Ring of Fire 2009 being tapped; a tram and a bus to a sandwich eating competition and a pint of something from Abbeydale; back on the bus to the Devonshire Cat and a pub full of drunk people drinking Ruination and heading straight for just that; and onwards still, back to the Sheffield Tap, for more, and more; and then food, the missing ingredient of the night, some chicken things, chips and potatoes cooked in southern fried chicken batter; a taxi; a broken key; a shared bed; too-little sleep; the worst hangover ever experienced; a delicious breakfast that couldn’t be eaten as all focus was on controlling the body functions; and then to Leeds; a round of juice and tea in Wetherspoons; taxi to Avery at Beer Ritz; Rooster’s fantastic American IPA on cask got me back on track; a dizzying selection of bottles; bye to Zak, hi to North Bar, for cask, keg and bottles, for bread and fantastic cheese, for a Raging Bitch; then the best pint of Sam Smith’s OBB I’ve ever had; a quick Old Peculiar; another train; a couple of half pints in the Sheffield Tap; Burger King; a four hour train journey made into a five hour train journey by missing the connection by one minute; finally getting in and realising the text I sent to Lauren to tell her I’d be late didn’t actually send; unpack, sit down, pass out.

Damn it was a good time. I felt like hell all day yesterday but who cares, it was worth it. Sheffield is a seriously good place to drink seriously good beer (and if you go then stay at The Hillsborough Hotel, it’s a great place). Jaipur was my first and last of the weekend and just delicious; the Marble Brew No.14 was fantastic; Crown Pale Ale and Stannington Stout show how good a brewer Stu is and then his Ring of Fire blew me away with its green-chilli fruitiness (that was beer of the day); Ruination IPA was a glass of peaches and apricots that kicked my arse; bottles of Orval and geueze ended one day and left their wrath on the next.

A day spent drinking, talking about beer and enjoying it is always fun. Thank you to everyone who came, it was great to meet you or to see you again – I hope everyone had a brilliant day. Special thanks to Alex from All Beer for sorting us out a lot of extra treats and brewery tours and hurrying us along when we floundered. Now we just need to sort out the next one! So far we’ve had suggestions for Manchester (Tandleman, we’ll need a guide!), Oxford or Cambridge, Norwich, Derby, Newcastle (Jeff Pickthall offered to guide us around there), or even Belgium. Plus there’s GBBF, but that one’s a gimme. Where do you fancy going?!

Thanks to Matt for the photos. Check out the #twissup timeline too, it makes for fun and interesting reading! 

Front Line Beer Blogging

Hillsborough Hotel, Sheffield. Four Crown Brewery beers on. A Marble, Pictish and Thornbridge. More than 25 bloggers, tweeters and brewers. This is beer blogging on the front line.

Sheffield Tweet-Up: The Details

Not much more to add, just one more reminder about this Saturday’s blogger Tweet-Up/Twiss-Up in Sheffield.

The plan is still the same: meet by 12 in the Sheffield Station Tap, have a beer and then hit the ground running (it’s likely that we will be running too, as the day is rammed full with beer, pubs and breweries). Between them, Alex from ALL BEER, Reluctant Scoop and Stu, will sort us out a route around the city, which I think currently includes three breweries and something like 84 pubs. There will be somewhere with the football on so the Leeds fans can watch them lose to Spurs and food will mainly be taken in the form of crisps. I don’t know how we are getting between pubs so expect to walk or some buses/trams (easier said than done in a city centre with a group of 15+). The last stop will be the Hillsborough Hotel (which will be an afternoon stop too, featuring some special beers on tap and a brewery tour) as that’s where some of us are staying. I’ve mentioned that some will be leaving from 8 onwards so we need to be in easy reach of the train station from then on.

In the last post we discussed a Beer Swap. If anyone wants to take part then just bring one bottle of local beer and swap it with someone on the day, then take it home, drink it and blog about it. I’m not sure if anyone is bringing any special bottles with them to open on the day... This is fine, but remember it’ll need to be shared between a lot of people (my current count is 18-21 people!) and some pubs might not like us opening our own stuff in them. As for buying the beers... it’ll be a bit like pub golf, I think, given the numbers, and a round (even at the lowly northern prices) will cost a small fortune, so we’ll just have to buy our own or do rounds in small drinking teams...

Leeds is still on for the Sunday. We’ll be getting there around 11 and making our way over to Beer Ritz (which opens at 12), then back in to the pubs. Everyone is welcome. I think there are 6-7 for Leeds so far, but I’m not certain. I need to leave Leeds about 4, so it won’t be another all-dayer (not for me anyway, but everyone else can!).

The important things: wear your drinking shoes; bring a bag for any bottles you want to buy/swap along the way; a sandwich might be good sustenance until we find somewhere to serve food for us all; and, bring a whistle in case you get lost. We’ve started using the #twissup hashtag in tweets and there is a group which you should join and follow if you are coming. You can DM or email me your mobile number too, just in case we lose anyone or need to call you.

That’s all. I can’t wait, it’s going to be a great weekend! If there are any other bloggers who haven’t said they are coming yet, but who want to, then just say and be there by 12 on the 23rd. See you all there!

Sheffield Tweet-Up: Are you in?

Just a reminder… The beer blogger tweet-up is still on for Saturday 23rd January. Get your tickets booked and sort out your hotels if you want to go. A couple of us are staying at The Hillsborough. If you are travelling up from London then check the best prices from East Midlands trains (you can get £5 fares). The plan is still to meet at 12pm in the Sheffield Station bar (eight Thronbridge on tap... we might never leave!). From there we can work our way around the city – there’s a lot of good pubs to drink in. A few of us will be drinking in Leeds on the Sunday and everyone is also welcome.

If you are definitely coming then let us know. It’s going to be great fun – I’m really looking forward to it now! And if you know Sheffield then a possible route would be quite handy to those of us who don’t.

And how about a small beer swap with whoever comes: everyone brings one local beer and swaps it in person with someone else, then take it home and drink it and blog it later? Everyone up for that? Just one, good, local beer.

See you there!

I got the image from the Brewers Association website.

Announcing: Blogger Tweet Up in Sheffield!

We’ve (Andy from Beer Reviews, Mark from Real Ale Reviews and myself) been discussing a beer tweet and blogger meet up for a while and now we finally have a date and a place: Saturday 23rd January 2010 in Sheffield.

The plan is simple: get to Sheffield train station for 12pm and the first pint will be ready and waiting for you (you just need to order it and pay and the bar staff will hand it over) in the Sheffield Tap (it's the new bar at the station). From here we will wander around visiting The Hillsborough Hotel, The Devonshire Cat and wherever else is considered must-visit.

The idea is that we can all meet up in the ‘real world’ and get to know who the real people are on the other ends of these avatars and blogrolls. Or, in other words, it’s a bloody good excuse to get pissed in Sheffield with other people who love good beer!

The Hillsborough Hotel (see Crownbrewerstu for more details - he's the one that makes their beer) is a good end stop if people want to sleep rather than get the last train back to god-knows-where. If anyone is around on the Sunday then we can go to Manchester or Leeds for a few more beers – I’ll be gunning for North Bar in Leeds, I think, or maybe the Marble Arch...

Everyone is welcome. Are you in?!

I’ll be coming up from London. If you book through East Midlands then tickets are £5 each way to Sheffield. At those prices it’s tempting to pop up every weekend, even if I don’t make it past the Sheffield Tap. One thing which might be important... if the football teams qualify on the next round of the FA Cup and are drawn at home then they will be played the weekend of the 23rd Jan. Could that be a problem or could we drink around it?