Friday 6 June 2014

May 2014

So the 2013/14 EIHL Ice Hockey season has finished, what with all it's twists and turns, who knew the Nottingham Panthers would walk away with a trophy??? But alas, the Challenge Cup (or should we say Panthers Cup) is ours! And for a fifth year running!! Play off weekend was a great way to end the season, where the Bunkers Hill became a Celtic stronghold.

But now the season has ended Nicky would like to thank all the fans, both home and away for all the support and donations. Looking forward to the summer, we are sponsoring the Nottingham Phantoms and Nottingham Outlaws, and with a bit of luck your favourite bar manager will be playing alongside too!!

As most Bunkers patrons know we have great live music every Friday, last month's bands were exceptionally great! Supercara (Pictured right) blew us all away with their renditions of chart indie from the 90's and brilliant classic rock/blues. You can catch them at our sister pub The Great Northern in Langley Mill on 21st June. Supporting Supercara on 28th April were the upbeat blues guys The Stolen Wives (Who also play The Great Northern on 7th June), the soulful 'Issaka' and talented 'Callum Hems'.

The first bank holiday of May (Cos there's two y'know!!) kicks off with two floors of live music! The Mark Block Trio are showing us their folk grooves in the bar, while upstairs The Sights will be captivating our love for 60's style rock and roll.  The following day 616 Nottingham and Armageddon Promotions have pieced together possibly the heaviest Hardcore/metal show in Bunkers Hill's history on the May bank holiday weekend with Judgement, Back Down and Dead Inside tearing Nottingham a new one!! You can find out more details about this by joining the Facebook event page. As a definite calming after the storm and to slowly cure that likely Bank Holiday Weekend hangover we have 12 incredible acoustic acts for our Annual May Bank Holiday All-Dayer climaxing with Nottingham's best rock and roll covers and originals band North Road.

Teaming up with Self Made Records Canadian Rock Outfit Sumo Cyco will be gracing our stage on the 9th of May as part of their nationwide tour. This female fronted band will surely knock your socks off. Check them out on Facebook. Pushing forward to Friday 16th May we have a I'm Not From London takeover of the upstairs venue with the big smoke's Whales in Cubicle plus local support from The Wickets, OneGirlOneBoy, Poirot's Boys, and Baybo Squaybo. All completely free entry! Our friends at IKE Productions are announcing very soon their Macmillan Festival line-up, these lads are always on the ball with young local talent and heavy metal titans, they are combining these two skills in monthly events at Bunkers Hill. Firstly being the Exist Immortal/Arcite show on the 17th of May (tickets available from Gigantic's Facebook event page. Finishing off this entertainment packed Month Hot Money are celebrating the launch of their debut single 'Drown', downloadable copies available from their Facebook page from 1st May while physical copies are released at the gig- more information about which can be found on our Facebook event page.

We're really excited about a brand new cider from New Zealand we'll be helping to launch in May. Old Mout Cider (pronounced Old Moot) will replace Kopparberg as our resident flavoured cider and comes in three different flavours. The flavours are Summer Berries, Kiwi & Lime and Passionfruit & Apple. The new and exciting ciders are served in a beautiful branded chalice (best over ice) and come from the Moutere Valley in the Tasman District near Nelson at the top of New Zealand's South Island.

The cider comes with a really interesting and engaging backstory and more can be found out about them by visiting their website. We will still be stocking our more traditional English ciders too, including the Old Rosie style scrumpies, and if you still haven't tried Mortimer's Orchard which we had installed on the bar back in February you should give it a go- you'll wonder why you were drinking Strongbow all those years! Old Mout joins us around mid-May and we're hoping to book the promotional team to come and visit us during one of our Wednesday night quizzes with a trunk full of freebies so watch this space for details.

Last but not least we want to tell you about the big event during May though in the cask ale universe- the annual 2014 Nottingham CAMRA Mild Trail. It is almost six weeks of campaigning, from the last week in April to the first week in June, in order to promote one of the oldest beer styles still drunk in Britain today - and this year they have a magnificent total of pubs for you to visit. The trail will take place from Saturday, 26th April through to Saturday, 7th June 2014.

To support the event, just visit Bunkers Hill to find out what is available; many outlets will be stocking several different Milds throughout the trail and at Bunkers Hill you'll find a permanent choice of at least one mild. Once you have sampled your chosen tipple, fill in the record sheet with the date and the name of the beer sampled. Once you’ve visited six pubs you can enter Nottingham CAMRA's prize draw. Of course you can continue until you have visited all of the pubs on the stroll - what could be simpler? Other Pub People pubs on the trail include The Lion in Basford and The Plough in Radford.

That's all for this month folks.
Nicky ;)