As seen in CAMRA's Good Beer Guide 2024
Visit Us:
The BitterSuite pub, Lichfield, is located only a minute walk from Lichfield City train station & the Bus Station in the former Bridge Tavern, a warm welcome awaits you:
- Operating as a bar-less pub, table service is offered creating a traditional and unique experience.
- We are a freehouse (which means we can sell what we want, when we want)
- Our pub serves excellent and constantly changing quality real ales and traditional ciders (many of which you will not have tried before).
- The cellar at The BitterSuite pub is kept at a perfect temperature to ensure the real ale & cider is served at its best.
- The real ale at the BitterSuite is served straight from the cask using gravity dispense. See it for yourself through our cellar viewing window!
- We offer specially selected, locally sourced, moreish pub snacks.
- You are welcome to bring and eat your own food at The BitterSuite - there is an excellent chippy across the road from us.
- The BitterSuite pub provides a range of premium wines, prosecco and gins.
- Our pub is a ‘hub’ in the Lichfield community, promoting conversation and friendship.
- At our pub we have excellent knowledge and passion for our real ale and products which we share with our customers.
- No Television, gambling machines or music to allow good conversation over a pint (whilst playing traditional board games if that takes your fancy!).
- Dog Friendly Pub- Dogs are very welcome at The BitterSuite pub and we provide water and treats to keep your companions happy!
- We offer CAMRA members a discount on Real Ale & Cider of 10p per pint.
So what are you waiting for? Come and visit The BitterSuite pub, Lichfield today!
The BitterSuite Guide to "Real Ale"
A Living, Breathing Product That Requires Nurturing to Bring Out Its Special Defining Qualities
Keg which is sold in most chain or larger pubs, is fully processed in the brewery and delivered to pubs in a useable condition. It is connected to a dispense system, forced out using added gas and always looks and tastes the same. You have all tried it I’m sure and for those that like it, it is fine, very homogenous...but fine.
Cask Ale, which is what “Real Ale” really is, requires skill at each stage of its journey, from those of the brewer to develop the recipe and to rack the beer at the correct time, to the storage and transport and then finally the conditioning, by the cellar man, to present it in perfect condition to you the drinker.
“Real ale” is a Complicated Combination of Liquor (Water), Malt, Hops and Yeast
It comes in many grades of colour from palest gold through to inky blackness. It can have malty sweetness, astringent bitterness, caramel, coffee or chocolate flavours and by using hops from other regions of the world, delicious fruity notes and citric hoppy explosions of taste. It should be possible to find a real ale to suit anyone’s personal taste and if you are prepared to try enough, I am sure you can as well.
The Brewing Process
- Malt which is barley that has been processed to improve its sweetness, and maybe roasted to give it some colour and flavour, is added to the liquor in a “Mash Tun”. This is steeped to extract the sugars and becomes what is known as “Wort” which is basically a sugary liquid.
- The Wort is transferred to a Copper where it is boiled for a time, usually 1 to 1 ½ hours. Some hops, which are the flowers of the “Humulus Lupulus” plant, are then added. These deliver the complicated flavours, which most drinkers are familiar with, in varying degrees dependant on the variety used and the country of origin.
- This liquid is transferred to a fermenter where the “Brewers Yeast” is added. This turns the available sugar into alcohol. Brewers jealously guard their yeast supplies and some have been in use for generations.
- Once the beer is ready, which is usually after about 7 days, a number of processes may take place;
- the beer may be late hopped which gives it a more flavoursome back-taste
- the beer may be packed into casks for the initial stage of conditioning
- finings may be added if a clear beer is required, these take any impurities to the bottom of the barrel to produce a clear non-hazy beer.
Finings may be used from various sources such as Irish moss, carrageen or Isinglass which is the desiccated swim bladder from fish. Mainly nowadays Isinglass is from Cod but it used to be from the famous sturgeon that also produces caviar.
- Once delivered to the public house the beer has to be racked and left to settle, vented which allows the beer to breathe and finally tapped ready for service. This process is not an exact science and can be different dependent on atmospheric pressure, temperature and other difficult to control factors. A skilled cellar man though can overcome these and produce the perfect pint every time.
6. Sit back and enjoy!!
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