Nick Otley and The Kings Arms, Pentyrch

Dating from the 16^th century, The Kings Arms in Pentyrch is steeped in history. A handsome refurbishment has recently secured its future. The Kings Arms is owned by Brains but, in a significant move, it is to be run by Nick Otley and his team from the Otley Brewing Company.

This weekend marks the pub’s official opening, with a Beer Festival, BBQ and live music. At an event on Friday (15 June), Nick Otley (managing director of Otley; pictured) said, “we wanted to make it into a community pub again, but at the same time bring a bit of modernity and a contemporary feel to it.” The sympathetic renovation has incorporated many original features of the Grade II listed building, including the flagstone floor, fireplace and oak beams. The contemporary feel extends to the food and drink on offer.

The menu showcases Welsh produce, and dishes cooked using beer. Ingredients include Welsh mussels (e.g., sautéed mariniére style with home-made bread), Breconshire lamb (e.g., slow-braised shank in Otley ale, with laverbread and new potatoes), Welsh sirloin steak (from W.J. George Butcher in Talgarth), and Madgett’s Farm free-range chicken (e.g., with chorizo and Otley ale jus). Expect pheasant, locally-produced sausages, duck and other meats to feature seasonally. There is a Goan beef curry and deep-fried Pollock fillet (in Otley ale beer batter) on the current menu; while vegetarian dishes include Ratatouille of Charred Mediterranean vegetables (e.g., with pasta or grilled polenta, and Cardiff-grown tomato compote). Desserts include Welsh gold home-made ice cream. The head chef is Ken Bell.

My selection from the BBQ was the line-caught “Chesil beach” Mackerel (pictured), served with bread, tapenade and selected salads. Own-label chutneys were to hand. The mackerel was large and meaty. The salads were varied, with some flavour surprises (star anise?) and excellent olives, and the home-made bread was light and very good.

Nick Otley led a beer tasting in a marquee in the pub’s garden, as the wind outside played havoc with the adjacent awning. He talked, in particular, about the Otley ales Croeso and Thai-Bo.

Croeso (ABV 4.2%) was described as a really good session beer, refreshing and easy-to-drink, with “a good hop presence and a lot of citrus notes,” by Nick. “You’re going to get grapefruit, some people say lemon, others grass – green grass, cut grass, that sort of thing,” he said. Nick noted that we were drinking a “green beer” that was “fresh-to-cask” (casked 2 weeks previously), so it also had a sulphurous nose (known as “Burton snatch”) that naturally disappears. Nick described Croeso as “having an open palate food-wise,” although it won’t compete with strong food flavours. Croeso (Welsh for “welcome”) has become one of the company’s bestselling main product beers.

Thai-Bo (ABV 4.6%) was first launched as a speciality beer in summer 2001, but its success may result in it becoming available year-round. “It was born out of a conversation I had in London with beer writer Melissa Cole”, said Nick, “it’s a golden ale flavoured with lime peel, lime leaf, lemongrass and galangal – flavours you would normally associate with a Thai green curry.” It’s a combination (with Sorachi Ace hops) that you wouldn’t normally expect to work; but they have done it rather well, with the right amount of understatement. “You have sharpness of lime leaf and lime zest there, giving a clean flavour, the subtlety of galangal, giving a little bit of warmth to the back of the throat, and lemongrass in the aroma”, said Nick. “It is well suited to food, although we are still searching for the perfect food match.” It may not be Thai green curry, according to Nick, as the clash may not be to the benefit of either beer of curry.

Other Otley ales showcased at the Beer Festival include Motley Brew (ABV 7.5%), a seasonal IPA beer named after head brewer Matthew Otley.

Ffion Jones from Brains Brewery led the tasting of two of her company’s beers. The first was the classic Brains SA (ABV 4.2%), which has been brewed in Cardiff for over 50 years. “It’s made from a trio of hops - Challenger, Fuggles and Golding - and has a note of spirit in its aroma that adds a bit of mystique,” said Ffion, “and it goes especially well with chicken dishes.”

The other beer was the first product from the Brains Craft Brewery, which opened less than a month ago on their main brewery site in Cardiff. “The Craft Brewery is a 10-barrel plant for trying out different techniques, flavours and hops,” explained Ffion, “basically to let our brewers loose on experimenting.” All at Sea (ABV 5.2%) is a traditional-style IPA, made with Admiral and Bramling Cross hops. “The hops give it a bit of an appley taste, with spice notes. It’s different from anything Brains has done before”, said Ffion.  I thought this relatively strong beer benefited from the presence of food; that’s a glass of it in the photo, appropriately enough, next to my mackerel. The second release from the Brains Craft Brewery will be Barry Island IPA (ABV 6.0%), created by “Barry boy” Simon Martin using hops from the USA.

Brains Craft Beers will be available at a range of their top cask pubs, including The Albany in Roath, Goat Major and City Arms in Cardiff city centre and, of course, The Kings Arms.

The Otley Brewing Company’s first pub was The Bunch of Grapes in Pontypridd, not far from Cilfynydd (where the brewery was founded in 2005). The Kings Arms is their fourth pub, and the nearest to Cardiff.

The Kings Arms looks set to flourish as a local community pub, and is certain to attract beer lovers from miles around to sample the latest ales from Otley and the Brains Craft Brewery. The collaboration between Brains and Otley here raises the enticing prospect of a future collaboration between artisan brewers from Otley and Brains Craft Brewery. Watch this space!

The Kings Arms

Church Road, Pentyrch, Cardiff CF15 9DF

(029) 20890202

http://www.kingsarmspentyrch.co.uk

Otley Brewing Company

http://www.otleybrewing.co.uk

Brains

http://www.sabrain.com

All food and drink mentioned in this post provided free by The Kings Arms.

An Olympic Diet: Part One

The London 2012 Olympic Games will provide a fantastic showcase for British Sport, while an ambitious arts programme has been attached. However, as a showcase for British food culture it will be a massive lost opportunity. Visitors from around the world will think we are a nation colonized by multinational fast-food outlets and foreign beer. Local food and drink products will be conspicuous by their absence.

This is the first impression that you might get when reading about London 2012. The only branded food and drink products allowed at Olympic events will be those of Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Cadbury and Heineken. Meanwhile, Brand Police working for Locog (The London Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games) have already been very active in keeping it that way. They are clamping down on businesses making unauthorized use of Olympic symbols, and local cafés along the Olympic Torch route offering “Olympic breakfasts”, in a very heavy-handed way (e.g., see link below).

However, in addition to the corporate sponsor’s offerings, Locog will be mounting their own massive catering operation during the games to feed the athletics in the Olympic village, and some of this food will be available to spectators. So, will the simplistic picture painted in the opening paragraph come to pass, or will the organizers work around the ubiquitous branding to present visitors with some real British food culture? I’ll be reporting back from Olympic and Paralympic events in Cardiff and London during the summer to try and answer this question.

The Olympic Torch Relay has been bringing communities together, with locally-made food often to hand. The torch passed through Dinas Powys 7.00-7.10am on the morning of Saturday 26 May. It seemed like the whole village was lining the streets. Afterwards, the local school was serving bacon rolls and Danish pastries, with teas and coffees.

The previous evening, we attended the Olympic Concert in Cardiff (Friday 25 May). I must admit, I ate beforehand with my youngest daughter. We went to Pasta Pot (see link below). I had penne with salmon, prawns, samphire and creamy dill sauce; my daughter had pasta shells with Bolognese sauce topped with olives and sweetcorn (it’s a serious choice for kids, all those pasta shapes, sauces and toppings). We picnicked on the grass in the Druid’s stone circle, before the main area. I dwell on this, of course, because a pot of Pasta Pot is exactly the sort of locally branded product you are not going to get at (or into) an Olympic event. In fact, all food and drink was confiscated; including bottles of Coca Cola.

Inside the event, Coke and Olympic beer sponsor Heineken had the soft and alcoholic drink options sown up, respectively (in tents on opposite sides of the area). However, this was very much a Coke event, with McDonalds not represented. Local catering company First Cafés was therefore given the food gig. There was a greater variety of food available than I thought there would be.

Cardiff-based First Cafés (established 2000) operates mobile food vans under the “Posh Fast Food Company” brand. Several of their vans were at the Olympic Torch concert, including Posh Fish and Chips, Posh Pie and Mash, and Posh Sausages, Burger and Chips. There was also a Festival Pizza van, a Noodle Bar, Paella stall and more besides. The vans were doing good trade, rather than roaring trade; possibly because people (like us) assumed there would not be as much food choice inside.

During the actual Olympics, Locog’s massive catering operation will be run by multinational catering firm Aramark. It will involve over 800 chefs cooking around the clock for the athletes in the Olympic Village. In the main dining hall, which seats 5,000 people, around 65,000 meals a day will be served from four “pods”: Asian, African-Caribbean, Mediterranean and Western, and “Best of British”. Around 1,300 dishes will be on offer. The emphasis will be on getting regional dishes tasting authentic and, especially, on food hygiene (with up to 130 qualified environmental health inspectors on site). In addition to the main dining hall, there will be coffee carts around the village offering breakfasts, sandwiches and salads. One of the only independent caterers in the Olympic Village, Café Môr from Pembrokeshire will be serving seafood in a dedicated Street Food area.

Locog’s caterers will also be offering food to spectators, alongside the corporate giants and acting within their strict stipulations (e.g., fish and chips outlets cannot sell chips on their own). Jan Matthews, head of catering at the games, has said that they wish to create a food festival with some of the atmosphere of London’s Borough Market. Stalls will offer British cheeses, seafood and other products. (Guardian article by Robert Booth used as the main reference for these two paragraphs is linked to below).

In terms of food, the Olympic site will be dominated by Europe’s biggest McDonalds and the products of the corporate sponsors will be everywhere. American-style fast-food will be the main choice. However, the Olympic Games may not be the complete disaster for British food culture that some at first envisaged. I’ll be sampling the food on offer later this summer and will keep you posted!

Pasta Pot:

http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/pastapot-cardiff.html

First Cafés:

http://www.firstcafes.co.uk/

London 2012: Olympic organisers' pettiness risks undermining goodwill. Owen Gibson (Guardian Blog 24 may 2012): http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/london-2012-olympics-blog/2012/may/24/london-2012-organisers-goodwill

London 2012: Why feeing Phelps and Bolt will be an Olympian feat. Robert Booth (The Guardian 25 May 2012): http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/may/25/olympics-feeding-the-athletes?INTCMP=SRCH