Bar Review - Oaka in Kennington

You may remember my review of the Brewery Tap in Peterborough back in March (see the following link wrongsideofthethames.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/pints-in-peterborough.html).  This is the main retail outlet for Oakham Ales, but thanks to a retweet from South East London CAMRA on twitter I am pleased see that they have now expanded into London.  Incidentally @selcamra is an excellent resource for London real ale drinkers and it saves you having to sign up to lots of different pubs and venues.

Good location - Excellent Food

Oakham have now opened up a new venue called Oaka which is but a stone's throw away from Kennington tube station.

www.oakalondon.com

My apologies to Oaka for the lousy pictures as they really don't do the place justice but I was concentrating more on the beer than my photography skills on the night.  However,  its in a great spot just minutes away from Central London. 

I started off with Citra which is and Oakham regular and one of my all time favourites.  Its a bit extreme for some palates as it just screams hops at you but was the perfect drink on a beautiful summer's day.

Says it all

 They had all the familiar favourites regularly on the bar but I hadn't seen the Bishop's Farewell before.  I was reliably told by the bar staff that this was the beer of choice of the Brewers once they had finished their shift so what's good for the brewers is good enough for me.  After all they must know something, and what could be a better recommendation!

At 4.6% it was slightly stronger than the Citra but much less intense on the hop front.  Unfortunately I think having had the Citra first dampened my taste buds, but it was an extremely pleasant ale that could easily go into the dangerous session beer category.  They must be pretty proud of it as it has won tons of awards (www.oakhamales.com/beers/bishopsfarewell.html)





 The staff were all very friendly and knowledgeable about their product. They tell me that as well as the regular stable of beers you can see in the picture they introduce a few guest beers from their range at the weekend.

Note the Cider Kegs in the background

While they do concentrate on their own selection I did see that the menu had a few bottles from other breweries including the Kernel in nearby Bermondsey.

Like their other places the food menu concentrates on pan Asian flavours.  Its a good choice as the chilli's and herbs compliment the flavours of the beers.  I really liked their Gap Glam menu which had lots of tasty Asian tapas style dishes to graze at. 

With benches outside it was the perfect place to relax and watch the world go by.

And now for something completely different.... Thai Wine

Most of us will be familiar with Thai beers whether that's through our love of Thai food or the fact that the two main ones sponsor premiership football clubs (Chang Beer's sponsorship of Everton and maybe Singha as official beer to Manchester United).  However, I am sure that many of you did not even realise that Thailand does produce its own wine (albeit in limited quantities).

Wine better than my camera skills

The issue with growing wines in the tropics is that while it is fairly hot all year around, it is divided between a dry season and a wet season where its extremely humid and suffers from heavy down pours on an almost daily basis.  This means that the wine growers have to pack all the vine growing into the dry season so that they avoid the wet monsoon season.  I'm not an expert but I understand that only certain grape varieties can do this.

If that was not enough to cope with, daytime temperatures of over 30 degrees and high levels of humidity in the wet season wine production and storage has to be carried out in controlled conditions.  If you go to any decent restaurant or wine store in Thailand you will see all the wine stored in large temperature and humidity controlled cabinets.

Despite all of this, a small number of producers have overcome these hurdles and there is now a small but thriving wine industry.

After blogging about the superb Monsoon beer from Leeds Brewery (see wrongsideofthethames.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/beer-of-week.html) I now bring you a review of Monsoon Wine.

A friend of mine surprised me with a bottle of their 2007 Shiraz from their premium range which sits between their blended and fine wines.

www.monsoonvalleywine.com/en/index.php


It had a screw cap top which is no surprise and shouldn't put anyone off these days.  In fact in those conditions it makes sense as it's likely to better protect the wine than a traditional cork.

The Small Print

We were pleasantly surprised with the wine.  It has a decent "old world" colour to it.  It was just as good on its own as well as with food.  The hints of coffee and spice, typical of a Shiraz were still there while not over powering making it easy on the palate.

The wine is distributed by Red Bull in the UK which is not as odd as it appears if we remember that Red Bull is actually originally a Thai product which was propelled into the worldwide limelight by the Austrian Dietrich Mateschitz.

I'm usually rather sceptical about wines from emerging wine producing countries as it takes some time for the quality to show through as the vines mature and the vineyards experiment with different techniques  (witness the remarkable rise of Argentinian and Chilean wines over the last decade) but this vineyard is well on the way.  So if you get a chance to try a bottle with your green curry or Tom Yung Goong don't turn it down.