Roberto Ross is the man behind the bar and you wont find anything he being served he hasn't approved himself, as he has quite a depth of knowledge about the world of beers.
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00:00Roberto's bar, Hal's Owen, and you are the main man Roberto. I am indeed.
00:04Cheers sir, nice to meet you. Cheers, nice to meet you. Lovely little bar here, just give us a
00:09little bit of background Roberto then, so what's your story chat? I moved to
00:14Hal's Owen 21 years ago, which is over half my life. I've been a professional beer
00:21sommelier for a good 15 years now, so I've worked for lots of breweries around
00:26the region, in Belgium and various interesting places. Oh wow, so you know your stuff, it's fair to say.
00:32I drink a lot indeed. I had a bar in Dickwood for a while, but I've lived in Hal's Owen for a long time, so it's always been something I've wanted to do.
00:41And we bring our own slice of interesting beer to Hal's Owen. So if you know your stuff, that means we guarantee that if there's something on the pump there, it's going to be a good one.
00:53Absolutely, I mean we have three hand-pulled cast beers. We normally have up to about 10-11 crafty keg beers as well.
01:04And if you're a cider drinker, we have up to 12 root ciders on at all times. Plus there's a good 40, 45, 50 odd options in the fridge as well.
01:14You've got a lovely little spot here looking out onto the church, haven't you by your big windows there?
01:19It's probably the best view in Hal's Owen that. It's a beautiful church, a thousand years old as we know.
01:25And you know what, I've got to commend you, because what my local pub used to have, and they've binned it, is they used to have some nice comfy settees, a snug, somewhere where you got in.
01:37And if you got the settees, you were like, I'm bedding in for the night.
01:40In craft beer land, it's often become a modern way to fit places out in a very industrial sort of look. I'm a big guy, I like a bit of comfort, but there's nothing wrong with that.
01:53Yeah, yeah. These are fantastic, these Red Chesterfields, and it goes lovely with the maple as well.
02:00So what's the favourite tipple at the minute? What are people coming in and drinking generally?
02:04I've just had an Oktoberfest event, so I've had a couple of beers specially from Germany, genuine Oktoberfest beers.
02:12They've gone down a treat, one ran out yesterday, the other one's going to go today, it's what I'm drinking at the moment.
02:18On lager, if you're a lager drinker, I import Bavick Super Pils from West Flanders, specially for here.
02:26Wow.
02:27You can't get it anywhere else in the country. He's a mate of mine, the guy that works there, I used to work in Belgium, that's how I know him.
02:35And it's one of those things, and I don't want anything to be in the building that isn't quality.
02:41And I've decided that that's what I like, but for my troubles, which means that that's what I have to have.
02:47So, like I say, we have a lager from West Flanders on at all times.
02:51We have Cornet on, which is not far from Antwerp, an 8.5% sort of oak Belgian blonde.
02:58There's Alexander, Rodenbach Alexander and Draught at all times.
03:03This beer takes years to make, nice balsamic, sort of cherry vibes to it.
03:09There's always something interesting, it's ever-changing. There's stuff we always have, and there's stuff that's always changing.
03:15So what about opening times then?
03:17Okay, so Monday and Tuesday, we don't open until three, but the rest of the week we open at noon.
03:25And we run that to the end of the day, as you can imagine.
03:28Do you get a day off?
03:30No.
03:33It's a good job you work somewhere so nice, isn't it?
03:36Look, I'm one of the lucky people whose job is his hobby.
03:42Well, thank you for bringing in something rather special to Hal's Own in the Blackfriars.
03:47I appreciate it.
03:48Cheers, boss. Thank you.
03:49Cheers.