The Broad Chare, Newcastle

The Broad Chare is a recently opened pub situated in the Quayside area of Newcastle. It has a modern, smart interior, nice looking menu and a great range of bottled beers. A good reminder that Newcastle still has plenty of great pubs and that I don't get myself there nearly enough.

So to start I went for the very straightforward Wylam Bitter. I have enjoyed Wylam beers many times in the past. From memory Silver Ghost was brilliant on form, Locomotion No1 and Bohemia are good takes on tradtional lagers and the likes of Rocket, Angel and Admiral Collingwood were also well-crafted session beers. So the new beer Writer's Block, brewed exclusively for the pub got my attention this time.

Sadly, the cask version was not available

Despite the slightly pale golden hazy appearance the aroma is fantastically up-front and fragrant with distinct lychee and citrus fruit notes. Apparently this beer is dry hopped, check out the video for it here. The palate is light bodied and loaded with more lychee, lime and spice finishing with lingering dry, sharp hop resin like notes. Loads of hop flavour for a low abv beer, the only downsids being it was served a tad over-chilled and a slight catty astringency in the finish spoiled it a little. Other than that, a sound beer. 

Anyhow, after going through a few from from the bottled beer range we headed off to the Bridge Hotel where (by some strange coincidence) we ran into the Daleside brewery brewed Alnwick IPA on cask. Then in the Head of Steam we got hold of some Mordue Geordie Pride, a beer recently manipulated by myself to my own liking.

       Like they say; 'I is gettin high on me own supply'

But soon enough the temptation to finish the night off with some Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout and Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout became too strong so back to the Broad Chare it was. It is an awesome pub that would have been better if more of the hand pulls were active. Really I should have booked a table but there's always next time and given how lively the place was I have a feeling it will be sticking around for some time.