Grand Architecture

As I mentioned in the previous post, we spent a nice weekend in Brighton with some friends. Since we haven't had a proper holiday for ages I splashed out a bit and we stayed in the Grand Brighton Hotel (famous for the IRA bombing back in 1984) on the front. It was lush. Built in 1864 it's a lovely old building with lots of Victorian features (like ornate cast Iron railings and ceiling supports etc.) but renovated to have all mod-cons too. In the photo above you can see the central staircase leading up to the rooms, v. impressive. Our room was nice with a splendid view of the beach and the pier(s) and the weather held up it's end of the bargain, wall to wall sunshine. 

On Saturday during the day the boys in the gang headed over to the Beak brewery in Lewes on the train to pay a visit to their tap room. We wiled away a couple of hours sampling their splendid range of craft ales and also had some street food to keep us going. It's quite a walk out of the town but well worth the visit, the beer quality is amazing! I've waxed lyrical on Beak beers several times before in this blog, they're definitely one of the up and coming firms of the last year or two.

Here you can see Beak's modest brewery, fermenters on the left hand side and a mash tun, kettle and hot liquor tank (HLT) on the back wall, simple enough but boy do they make good use of them. The tap room is nestled beneath the chalk cliffs on the outskirts of the town. Famous for being the site of the worst avalanche disaster in the UK, back in 1836 a build up of snow on the same cliffs collapsed onto a row of cottages below killing eight people, there's even a pub there now called the "Snowdrop Inn" to commemorate the disaster.

On the way back to Brighton we stopped for a refresher in the Evening Star pub by the station, what a wonderful selection of craft beers! I opted for an ice-cold Keller Pils (lager) from Bristol firm Lost and Grounded, just the job after walking in the scorching sun for an hour or so, they even had the proper branded glasses to serve it in, you don't see that too often, shame we couldn't stay for more than one as it was a really nice pub, anyway we had to push on and get ready for dinner, another time perhaps.

Lost and Grounded glassware at the Evening Star pub in Brighton, in the words of the Terminator, I'll be back!