Iechyd Da
I didn’t grow up in Wales. I grew up in England, Coventry to be precise. I don’t know if all queer teens feel this way about their home towns, but I knew from a young age that I wasn’t comfortable there, I just didn’t fit in. I was regularly reminded that I was different and struggled to find a place in the hellscape that is your teenage social life.
When I moved to Cardiff at eighteen I definitely hoped for some kind of “aha” moment. I wish for the purpose of this piece I could say that had happened, that I moved to Wales and fell head over heels with my new surroundings, but once again I found myself in a hellscape. Just a different kind. I will point out now that this was not Cardiff’s fault, and it certainly wasn’t the fault of Wales. Until I reached an indeterminable point in my early twenties, I just felt lost.
By the age of 20 I was ready to leave the UK entirely. I had started making plans to go to Canada, but then I fell in love. Even on that first date I had a feeling I wouldn’t be leaving Wales any time soon. It has been six and a half years since our first date, and Wales isn’t just my home, it’s where my family are. My wife, my very silly cat, my wonderfully brilliant and eclectic group of friends.
Over the years our lives have become intertwined in amazing food, coffee, wine, beer, cider, music, language and culture. With that in mind, this piece is going to focus on some of my personal favourite makers, bars and bottle shops in South Wales.
Beer Riff Brewery and Taproom
You know when you work behind a bar, and there are those customers who, when they come in, you are energised and excited to see them? Well at the bar I work in, that's what the team is like whenever we see Rhys Pillai walk through the door. Rhys is the co-owner and head brewer at Swansea brewery Beer Riff.
There are a few things I think you need to know about Beer Riff. Aside from the fact that their beer is absolutely fantastic, and their labels are designed by the brilliant Phil Morgan which should be enough to get you drinking their beer in the first place, they are one of the friendliest breweries I have ever come across.
Sometimes when your role in beer is as a bartender, not all beer people are that interested in what you have to say. From the first time the Beer Riff team stepped into our bar, they have always been incredibly kind, engaging and super generous with their knowledge.
This sunshine energy has been replicated within their own venue, which is situated on the Swansea Marina. With the Beer Riff brewery and beer garden on the bottom floor and their taproom overlooking the water on the first floor, it is a light, open and fun space to be in. I sometimes wish their taproom was situated in Cardiff, for purely selfish reasons. I think we’re very lucky to have a brewery like Beer Riff in South Wales.
If you’re looking for other breweries in Wales I would recommend you check out Wilderness, Wild Horse, Polly's Brew Co, Tenby Brewing Co, and Crafty Devil.
Curado Bar
As we hit the year mark of the first lockdown in the UK, I have been thinking a lot recently about what I miss about pre-pandemic life. Of course I miss being able to be out with friends or grab dinner with Sophie, but the thing that I miss the most is being able to take myself to Curado Bar on a Monday afternoon.
Monday for most in hospitality is seen as an industry day. Maybe the bar or restaurant you work in is closed to the public that day, or you just open much later in the afternoon. Often on a Monday you’ll catch others who work in hospitality sitting in Curado, enjoying the offer of half price pintxos. I would sit at the bar, sometimes with a book, enjoying an hour or so to myself, in the presence of other people who understand just how intense the past 3 days have been.
Pintxos for anyone who isn’t sure, are a carefully considered selection of different foods stacked onto a piece of bread, often held in place by a cocktail stick. I love tiny food, Spain definitely knows what's up. I always look at the menu for far longer than necessary even though I pretty much always order the same selection. Alongside it a half pint of Er Boqueron, a smashable Spanish beer made with seawater. Sometimes I’ll have two halves if I’m pushing the boat out.
Hospitality work isn’t as easy as it’s made out to be. It’s long hours, it’s day and night, it’s being on your feet and always trying to make sure that someone else is having a good experience even if you’re on the verge of tears. It’s important that you take these little moments of joy when you can, to just be and treat yourself a little.
Curado also have spaces in Narberth and Aberystwyth under the name UltraComida.
Wright’s
I’ll never forget the first time I went to Wright’s Food Emporium in Llanarthne. Sophie’s coffee shop had been up and running for over a year and I’d not long left the theatre industry, so my interest in the food and drink industry was at its freshest. Never having been there before I was surprised at how quickly I felt at ease. It’s comfortable, warm, friendly.
“Have you guys had a think about wine?” we were asked, before being led through the building, into a dimly lit room at the back. Wall to wall with bottles of wine and a big wooden table right in the centre of it. No, I hadn’t thought about wine. I knew I liked wine, but only red and not much of it. Bottles started being opened, glasses thrust into my hand and suddenly I realised that we were trying the wines. Dumbly nodding along and trying to keep up with the intense conversation that was happening around me.
This is my earliest recollection of trying low intervention wine, and I remember being gobsmacked. Red wine had always kind of just tasted the same to me, but this was like slathering cherry jam on buttered brown toast. Time just stood still. I remember looking at Sophie and she just gave me this look that said “I know”.
We’ve only been able to go back once. After we got married we stayed in the cottage above the restaurant (which I would highly recommend by the way as it’s beautiful). We drank too many bottles of fizzy red and essentially ate our way through their lunch menu. For me, and many others, there is something magical about Wright’s. It’s in the air, the walls, the team, the care and consideration put into every detail that is wrapped in comfort and warmth. I’m not sure if there’s much more you could ask from that.
Wrights also have an online wine store and a wine club subscription service.
Skyborry
The first time I saw cider in a 750ml bottle was in Wrights Wines when they had a shop in Cardiff city centre. I was looking for some wine and I was drawn to a shelf that had all of these eye-catching labels with bright colours and hand written text. I asked the person working at the time and was told that they were not wines and were actually a selection of ciders and perrys, made by Skyborry, a cidery based in Powys.
All of this information was a shock to the senses, like the first time I was presented with a white stout. Not only was I being presented with cider in what I saw as wine bottles, they were made in the very country I was living in and they looked nothing like the cider presented in supermarkets nor did they come in a jerry can. As someone who drank cider throughout university, only to fall out of love with it as it got sweeter and less interesting, this was exciting to me.
Now technically their shed is in Shropshire, England but their orchard is in Powys, Wales. Yes they may straddle the border but we’re going to be taking this win thank you very much Shropshire. Skyborry makes low intervention cider, which for them means they pick by hand, they don’t use fertilizers, the cider is unfiltered and unpasteurised. They also use keeving which is a French and English traditional method to making cider where you slow down fermentation, producing sweeter more full bodied cider without fear of fermentation kicking back in later.
Two years later as I find myself drinking more cider than ever, I am happy to report that Skyborry are still making absolute smashers and last week I tried their Ultralight Beam Perry 2019 which was exactly that. A blend of four perry pears that has a gorgeous blend of wild yeast character, natural fizz, and a medium dry finish. It had the perfect amount of bright juicy fruit flavour and effervescence, giving it the potential for garden drinking as we creep into spring. I’m really looking forward to trying more Skyborry ciders in 2021.
If you’re looking for other Welsh ciders I would also recommend you check out Monnow Valley Cider and Welsh Mountain Cider.
Discount Supermarket
We are incredibly lucky in Cardiff to be blessed with an array of different bottle shops, each ranging in products, brands and energies. I am also lucky enough to be married to someone who owns a bottle shop; last year Sophie and the Hard Lines team developed Good News, which is the beer, wine and cider arm of their venue in Canton. Joio!
I want to talk about Cardiff’s oldest bottle shop: Discount Supermarket - you might also know this space as The Magic Beer Shop. Discount Supermarket has been operating as a grocery store since the early 1900s, but in the late 1990s became a home for a wide variety of craft beer and spirits. Their website states that they now have 650 different beers, spirits and ciders, and I absolutely believe that must be true, if not more. From what is a relatively unassuming shop front outside, inside is a treasure trove of different beers from all over the world.
Discount Supermarket has been an integral part of my journey into beer, it’s where some of my first steps were taken and it is still one of my favourite shops to browse. If you’re Cardiff based please take a little journey over to Whitchurch Road, you won’t regret it.
Bulles
Bulles wine shop took over the old Wright’s Wine space in the Castle Arcade in Cardiff last Winter, and is co-owned by the folk behind MEC Coffee and Tomos Bull, which makes for a delightful team of wine and specialty coffee fanatics. Located directly opposite the MEC spot, it is perfect for your lazy afternoons of a 4pm filter into a 5pm glass of low intervention wine.
Unfortunately for Bulles, they opened their sit in space in the same week that Wales announced the alcohol ban and 6pm curfew on hospitality. I was lucky enough to book their final slot on Friday before the curfew kicked in. I went in with two colleagues, we had an hour and a half and under normal circumstances we probably would have just had the one glass of wine and sauntered home.
We however work in hospitality, and in what had been an incredibly mentally frustrating 5 months for each of us, we were finally sat in another venue. A venue that is owned by folk we hold dear, meaning that for 90 minutes we were not in work, not locked in our houses but in a safe space, surrounded by good wine and two rounds of fresh bread. We drank as many glasses as we possibly could, each on the verge of tears but always laughing, overjoyed to be in each other's company.
It was a beautiful evening, hysteria aside. Bulles are currently closed to sit in of course, but they are operating local deliveries. I cannot wait to go back into Bulles with my pals when we are safely able to. The amazing wine aside, it is operated by really good and kind people. That for me is what matters most.
With the work that I am trying to achieve with Burum Collective, it would be remiss of me to point out that the drinks scene in Cardiff is not perfect. There is a severe lack of diversity across beer, wine and cider which is not representative of the city itself. As an industry and growing community we need to start to look at our output, what is it that we’re saying to the outside world that is causing our work in the drinks industry to continue to be painstakingly white? And male driven?
Last year whilst interviewing some wonderful women from America I was asked “What's the Black beer scene like where you are?”. What would your answer be?
