Sunday Vacancy

With the introduction of our Sunday opening we are now looking for a new member of staff to join our team. This is a 4 hour shift from 11 - 3 and also extra hours where available for our many events, many of which are on Saturdays. No experience needed but if you have shop or bar experience than that would be a advantage and you must be reliable, a team player and committed to delivering great customer service. please send your CV to bierhuis@live.co.uk or hand in your CV personally.

The Role

Serving customers
Restocking
Cleaning
Handling money
Events
Serving beers
Fast service
Setting up & down


The person

Confidence

Reliable

Product knowledge

Hard working

Flexible

Wakefield Rhubarb Festival 2015

Despite the lower foot fall than normal on Friday and the dreadful weather on Sunday. We had a great time at the rhubarb festival. We sold 14 gallons more draught beer than 2014 luckily we were able to bring more in for the Sunday after running out at Saturday lunchtime. With our huge selection of rhubarb beers we were able to smash last years bottle sales for rhubarb beer. Which despite competition from another beer shop from out of the area is something we were really please about. None rhubarb bottle sales were on a par with last year.

We thank you for you support.

I'd also like to thank Charlie at the Wakefield express for his support towards local beer and local business, Our wonderful staff who manned the stall and shop over the 3 days. Dame Ruby for keeping us laughing. The chef's for using beer supplied from us for the demos.

Beer Festivals

I love a beer festival all those lovely beers to choose from however with the raise of non CAMRA beer festival it is becoming that CAMRA are letting themselves down. Yes I know it's all volunteer work but at the last two major beer festivals. It has become nothing more than a shambles.

Over at Manchester a couple of weeks ago we arrive at opening time to find almost no beer on sale as none has been poured through and checked. It actually took half and hour to find a beer on sale.

Over to Derby for the winter ales festival the creme de la creme of winter beer. We get off to a good start we arrive early and are allowed in early although we couldn't touch the beer till 1pm. Now this is a trade session for brewers, writers, pubs and bottle shops. To sample a few beers and to network and find out who has won champion winter beer of Britain. However it's more like a German invasion at the holiday swimming pool. The place is packed with those rushing to tables complete with a full blown picnic to get comfy for the day. Who what and how do these people come under trade I have no idea  it appears to be a beer ticker session and it's something that should be looked into maybe due to the fact that no ones tickets were checked as we entered.

The next shambles of the day is the announcement of the winners of the day now sat a mere 10 m away from this we heard nothing but a sound system of mumbles. We have the chairman of CAMRA stood next to us. Two points why is he not on stage and why is he doing nothing about the sound system. We found out who won by a press release that was emailed out moments later.

My other bug bare of the day was locating some of the beers one was Yorkshire brewery of Hull they should have been next to Yorkshire Heart. No sign of them so decided they hadn't made the trip. I found them 4 hours later tucked away at the end of the winners bar. What they were doing there I have no idea. The other thing was not knowing was had made the winners bar so trotting up to the main bar to find beers not on only to find out later they are on the winners bar.

Now the main issue of the day is what the hell are people doing messing about with the beers a number of beers had a sign on to say they were waiting to be checked. We saw this in action now I was with a beer writer & two brewers who were shocked to see what took place next. Beer gets poured into a jug, torch comes out and is then checked to see if the beer is cloudy. Two other jugs appear both filled with who knows i'm told it's two types of finings. Beer is then mixed with mystery liquid and then poured back into the barrel. What gives CAMRA the right to mess about and do this with the cask beer. Has the brewer been asked, was the beer unfined to start with. Is the beer a vegan beer?

All this is taking place in view of the public and a number of these people will be new real ale and beer festivals what kind of image is this giving potential new members. Sometimes it does seem to be one step forward and two back with CAMRA and this is coming from an active member.

On the plus side we had some cracking beers of all different styles. I also picked up a couple of bottles before heading to the other side of Derby station to the Brunswick and the find of the http://www.alexandrahotelderby.co.uk/ well worth a visit.

German beer cases to order in

We have a great German beer range. It was even better we have a great supplier of beer who then disapeared and popped up again every now and then. I have now sourced a new supplier at last who can give back the selection we had before plus others.

I've set a price list out so you can see what can be ordered in as cases. We will have quite a few of these on the shelf but not all of them. This list allows you to see the range on offer.

Prices include case discount although there may be additional charge for bottle & crate deposits.

Looking at a once a month delivery maybe less.

all 20 x500ml
Irlbacher Beers
Vollbier Helles 4.8% –
Exzellent 5.6% –
Spezial Dunkel 5.8% -
Hefe Weisse 5.4% –
 Festbier ( Summer Seasonal) 5.6% –
Goaskopfe Marzen 5.6% –
Bibamus 6.6% –

Pils
Bitburger pils 4.8% -
Brinkhoffs No1 pils 5.0% -
Jever pils 4.8% -
Konig pils 4.9% -
Siegel pils 4.8% -
Warsteiner pils 4.8% -


Kolsch
Dom kolsch 4.8% -
Gaffel kolsch 4.8% -
Fruh kolsch 4.8% -
Kuppers kolsch 4.8% -
Reisdorf kolsch 4.8% -
Sion kolsch 4.8% -

Hell
Augustiner Edelstoff 5.6% -
Augustiner Helles 5.2% -
Dortmunder Union Export 5.3% -
Hansa Export 5.0% -
Paulaner Original Hell 4.8% -
Tegernsee Helles 4.8% -
Tegernsee Spezial 5.6% -
Hacker Pschorr Gold 5.5% -
Hacker Munchner Hell 5.0% -

Wheat Beers
Erdinger dunkel 5.3% -
Erdinger hefe weisse 5.3% -
Erdinger Kristal 5.3% -
Erdinger urweisse 4.9% -
Franziskaner dunkel 5.0% -
Franziskaner hefe weisse 5.0% -
Franziskaner Kristal 5.0% -
Maisels Original 5.2% -
Paulaner dunkel 5.3% -
Paulaner hefe weisse 5.5% -
Konig Ludwig hefe weisse 5.5%
Schneider weisse 5.4% -
Hacker Pschorr hefe weisse 5.5% -

Specials
Paulaner Salvator 7.9% - /
Schneider Aventinus 8.2% -
Jever Fun 0% -
Paulaner H/W alc frei 0% -

Frankenheim Alt 4.8% -
Kostritzer 4.8% -
Hacker Kellerbier 5.5% -

Bottle Share

Friday 30th Jan from 8pm

The 1st Bier Huis Bottle Share

Open to anyone free entry.

Brewers - Feel free to come chat about what brews you have planned for 2015 and bring along some sample bottles.

Home Brewers - Bring your bottles and share what you have created.

Beer fans - Feel free to bring and share bottles you might have picked up from far and wide who knows we might all like it and stock it.

Bier Huis fans - Buy you bottles share out and say why you love it or hate it.

Light easy going evening and a great way to see out #tryanuary

Wakefield Retail Awards 2014

Saturday saw the final of the Wakefield Retail Awards 2014. We were in the specialist group along side two other shops of which I had never heard of as until the awards. I thought we had a really good shout at it but it wasn't to be. I knew who was going to win it and sure enough they did.

The idea of the awards is great. There is a huge talent pool of well run shops and services in the Wakefield district although the awards are very city centre centric. More of a boost in the speeches could be given out to the very independent retailers of Horbury, Outwood and Ossett.

The Space home of the Wakefield Beer Festival( CAMRA)  and the Wakefield Festival of Beer (Roundtable) held the event. I've been to the venue many times as part of these festivals but never to a full off sit down event. Myself and the rest of team Bier Huis where looking forward to the night. Which then turned into one where we couldn't wait to leave.

We arrived just after 7 ready for the drinks reception which involved us going to the bar and paying for our own drinks. I would have expected a small glass of something as we arrived. Oh well maybe we get something with the dinner? Nope!

Despite being the home of two beer festivals the choice of beer at the venue is awful so it was a wine night. and yes before anyone asks I have tried to get them to use our cask ale pump hire and barrel package. it was a massive "No thanks!!!!"  That was the actual email reply.

We grabbed our table and made our introductions to the rest of the table. Bit of small talk before the dinner. We knew the menu, the standard venue menu used across the UK.

For starters it was Pate with salad. It had a nice fruity jelly top and the pate was nice if not a little foamy. This is when things started to fall apart on our table. One of the other members of table was Gluten and Dairy free meaning that the choice of starter was a no go. It had been made aware when booking and was known when serving that this fellow had different requirements to the rest of us. So what arrived was a mozzarella cheese salad. Of course this was sent back via the manager of the venue. Pointing out the error of the kitchen team and that a mistake like shouldn't happen. He ended up missing out on starters as there was nothing else.

After waiting ages for the main course to arrive it finally turned up this was Roast Chicken in wine wine and tarragon sauce, Roast Potatoes, Seasonal veg and Yorkshire pudding.

What arrived was Dry chicken breast with chicken OXO with a good chunk of tarragon, Frozen Aunt Bessie style roast potatoes, Carrots & green beans and a tough as cardboard aunt Bessie Yorkshire pudding.

We tucked in unimpressed while on the other side of the table all hell was about to kick off. The lad who is gluten and dairy free plate arrived complete with Yorkshire pudding they did mange not to put the gravy on. Once again the manager was grabbed and the plate sent back again with a word about how on earth a chef could mess this up. A brand new plate arrived and you could see the manager getting more and more wound up.

Then another lad simply got up plate in hand. I could see from across the table that it was undercooked and very pink. Everyone was wondering what was going on "his chicken is not cooked" I told everyone. He arrived back the manager of the venue followed soon after telling them that the chef says it's cooked. He asked for his plate to show everyone it was refused. the shambolic service and catering was discussed and the group were told to leave if they didn't like it. Amazing we are at the retail awards and yet the venue manager was the rudest and unhelpful catering/venue manager I had ever met. This is something that might come from an awful restaurant or some poor untrained staff not one of the major venues in the city. They had to go and see the organisers  to sort the mess out. Of which followed a heated debate with them and the management of the venue.

Most of the food was left it was awful.

Pudding followed Apple Pie and cream this was cold apple pie from costco. Nothing to write home about and again it was left by most of the table.

How much did we pay for this? Well this wasn't even pub grub style Sunday lunch from an awful pub. It was worse. £36 a head. The food must have been £5 worth if that.

Onto the awards at this point we are way behind schedule. Claire Frisby from Look North was the host and she did a great job. To the relief of no doubt all the award winners you didn't have to give a speech. Some very good and well deserved winners along with some fab runners up.

The awards were wound up and a disco followed sadly like a lot of people that's when we up sticks and left. To spend a couple of hours sat out the hop where I sampled some wonderful rat brewery white rat.

I hope it runs next year, I hope it becomes more a district night rather than city centre based and hopefully it will be held some where else.

Northern Monk - Saltaire Smoked Porter

So last night 10th April 14 I headed over to Bradford to the wonderful Sparrow beer cafe. I wish that this place was open when I was a student in Bradford however I would have been even more skint! However it was sad to see a few of my old haunts closed and some seem to have been for a while.

Northern monk who are teaming up and brewing with other breweries across North at the moment before their brewery and tap house in Leeds is open. Travelled over to Saltaire to create their next brew which was launched in cask and keg at the Sparrow.

This one is a 6% Smoked porter I opted for the cask version to try. It no where near tastes like a 6% beer it very drinkable and not too heavy. It is very full flavoured but without the massive hit of smokiness there is a touch in the nose. The taste starts off with heavy notes of liquorice followed by light vanilla flavouring.

I did try later the keg version i'm not sure if this was on key keg or standard keg. I found this too cold and stopped the flavour coming through there was a light gassiness to it as well but the head disappeared quite quickly.

This beer will be with us next Thursday in bottles and should be very popular.