Thursday 21 April 2011
Cooking with Beer: Chicken MaltNuggets and Beer Ketchup
Monday 14 February 2011
To Beer, Happy Valentine’s Day!
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Image from here. |
Sunday 19 December 2010
The Flavours of Beer (on Toast)
Saturday 9 October 2010
My Pub Jukebox
Monday 13 September 2010
Showering in Famous Brewing Water
Tuesday 31 August 2010
Chodovar Beer Baths
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No, my bath wasn't quite like this... |
Sunday 8 August 2010
GBBF Week: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
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Photo by Jonas Smith |
Monday 2 August 2010
GBBF Survival Kit
Tuesday 18 May 2010
Spiteful rumours that I’m not a proper, hardcore beer geek
Friday 2 April 2010
A Good Friday
Wednesday 17 March 2010
St Guinness Day
Wednesday 3 March 2010
How much alcohol...
Friday 9 October 2009
One for the brewers (or the writers, musicians, businessmen, filmmakers)…
Maybe you’d want the commercial success of it, the critical success or just the personal success, knowing that you’ve brewed something which you completely love. I think there must be at least one beer out there which you jealously crave as your own, maybe the one which made you love beer in the first place… And this can extend to home brewers too. Or, which do you wish you could recreate? And why not open it to everyone: which brewery do you wish was yours? Who is making the beer (or doing the business/marketing) which is most closely aligned to the type of thing you want from a brewery? Hell, if there’s books/films/songs you wished you written, then tell me them too. I’m in a spritely and curious mood this morning fueled by waking up early to write.
Wednesday 23 September 2009
Bottle Tops
Here are some of my favourites. And out of interest, does anyone else do this? Or are you a label peeler or bottle collector? Or is just a note and a tick in a book enough?
Sunday 9 August 2009
Sharing Beer
Beer is for sharing. It’s the friendliest thing I know. Beer makes friendships. A love for beer itself is a long-term love affair. You like good beer, I like good beer. An instant bond. An understanding. A desire to share. We meet up for beers; that’s when we see each other. How’s your beer? Try some. Yeah, that’s good. Nothing else is like it. Let’s go to the pub. What you having? If you’re having that one then I’ll go for this. We talk, we laugh, we relax. The best beers I’ve ever had have been shared - they’ve been talked about, they turn into better beers because of it. Wow this is good. I’m not that fussed. I love it. I love it too. The one who wasn’t fussed gets into it. Actually you know what… We bounce words around, hyperbole, lyrical similes, random tastes and smells and memories. We laugh at him, then we get it ourselves, it does smell like that. We can open another bottle, we can order another half; we can drink more beer. Quantity and quality. It’s about being with friends, sharing something important to all of us, having a great time with a few beers. That’s why we drink it.
Thursday 6 August 2009
GBBF Take 1
Next I had a Bridgeport IPA which I found uninteresting, but Pete Brown loved the stuff. Then I went for a Victory HopDevil, having been disappointed with the bottles. The cask was much better and I’m sure I got that tangy smack of Nelson Sauvins with even a hint of chocolate orange. Solid stuff but not spot on. Then I threw caution to the wind plumped for Allagash’s Interlude, a 10.5% beer with Brett and aged in wine barrels. Astonishing stuff. Impy Malting – who I was really excited to finally meet! - loved it. Lemony, brett, boozy and big, spicy, woody and just pretty damn cool, although I found it a challenge to get through, to be honest, but that may have been because it was barely the afternoon and I was eager for more, more, more hops!
Fearing a vicious backlash anytime around three, I dropped down to some weaker beers to attempt to plateau my buzz. I find dark beers with cherries almost irresistible and the Dunham Massey Cherry Chocolate Mild was really interesting and easy drinking. Vanilla chocolate covered cherry drops. I enjoyed this one at the Irish table with Ally, Boak, Laura, Thom and the ever-smiling Beer Nut; a whole bunch of people I’d been wanting to meet. That was a fun table!
Next I went Italian with Montegioco Mummia, a 4.8% sour with a wine character and a smooth, balanced, almost-savoury middle after the tart beginnings. One of the best beers I tried. Keeping on the same lines I went with The Tap’s Beerstand Berlinner Weisse a 3% cloudy, pale beer with a lemon grove nose and a crisp, biscuity flavour. A proper palate cleanser.
We were sitting with Jeff and Jo, a couple of regulars from The Bull (Garrett and Lynne, the landlord and lady were also there), and each beer run returned four third-pints so there was plenty to try. The best was White Shield Czars Imperial Stout which had one of the best noses of the day and a great, thick body of roast malt. Then came another star: Portsmouth’s Milk Coffee Stout which was smooth, sweet, roasty, chocolatey and then flows into a wonderful orangey finish that was just gorgeous. More beers should taste like this!
And next was the star of the day for me: Captain Lawrence’s Captain’s Reserve IPA, a 9%er overflowing with the green grenades and peaches and apricots and a marvelously fresh and bitter finish. If there hadn’t have been 450 other beers to drink I would’ve sat down with quite a few glasses of this. Then another star: a bottle of Dogfish Head’s 90 Minute IPA. I’ve had this before and was disappointed because it totally lacked bitterness but this was totally excellent and lived up to its hype. More US hops next (would you believe?!): Lagunitas IPA which was caramel, piney, pithy hops, pineapple, peach and tropical fruits - yum o’clock.
Finally I grabbed a Galway Hooker right at the end to raise my glass to the then-departed Irish folk. I think my enjoyment of this suffered thanks to a too-hot Cornish pasty scorching my tongue, a fatigued palate and a day on big hops. I did enjoy the beer though and can imagine sinking a few of them on a hot day.
So the beers were good but all of these beers would’ve meant nothing if it hadn’t been for the people I was drinking with. It’s been mentioned here, here, here and here but it’s massively important - it’s the beauty and the soul of these festivals. The joy is in sharing beers and hearing what is good and what can be missed and for all those offering their glass my way and saying those wonderful words: try this!
I either mention everyone or no-one and I’ve decided to go with everyone… here goes (I hope I remembered everyone!). Beer writers on Monday and Tuesday: Zak Avery, Pete Brown and his lovely wife Liz, Jeff Pickthall, Adrian Tierney-Jones, Phil Lowry and Colin from Beermerchants, Melissa Cole, Jeff Bell and Dave who I shared a few fantastic bottles of Harvey’s Imperial Stout with on Monday; also at the BGOWB do was Greg Koch, Steve Williams, Roger Protz (just a handshake and a hello), Jeff Evans and Podge (the Hairy Bikers were also there but I didn’t speak with them). Then at GBBF with Simon who didn’t seem reluctant in his scooping, Barm, Maeib and too-briefly there was Tandleman, along with the other bloggers already mentioned. And then some brewers - Kelly Ryan and Dave from Thornbridge, Justin from Moor Beer, Stu from Crown Brewery (I need to try some of your beers!), Tonie from Hopdaemon (Skrimshander IPA is a local favourite of mine) and Steve from Ramsgate Brewery and Saintsandsinners.
If it wasn’t for the people, for new friends and old ones, then the GBBF would be nothing but a vacuous shell full of casks of beer and solemn faces. Thankfully it was beaming smiles, belly laughs and talking shit in between swigs of some really great beers. If only all beer festivals could be like Trade Day at the GBBF.
Oh, and I bought some bottles home too.
FYI: Adding all those links took for-bloody-ever!! I need a beer after that. And this post is called Take 1 because I'm going back to GBBF for seconds/leftovers on Saturday!
Monday 3 August 2009
Drinking Beer is Like Going to a Theme Park
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That 4% sessionable pale ale that you’ve had so many times already is like the log flume. You know that it’s fun and you know exactly how it goes and that’s why you love it. You can also ride it over and over again without getting sick. Yet there are some times, when everything is just right, that the tame little log flume brings such elemental joy that you never want to get off: it’s a warm day, the sun’s shining, you are with friends. It’s the beer that you know you will enjoy.
Next to the log flume are the tea cups and the ghost train. These are standard fare, often uninspiring but can be surprisingly good fun. These are your best bitters and standard stouts. Some are much better than others. The teacups may be rickety and old or they could be new and loud and bright. The ghost train is dark and it sometimes hits the same unscary notes all the way but others can be mysterious and surprising and addictively good fun.
There are also the things which you alone like. The cheesily good fun amusement arcade, the straight-down drop slide, the whack-the-rat, the 2p slots or the dodgems. This is the beer that you love that no one else seems to get; it’s a guilty pleasure, it’s something simple and fun and all yours. It’s a fruit beer, a Desperados, a Coors Light.
Some fun-lovers might like to warm up using the log flume before hitting the big dipper. The big dipper is the 6% IPA. It has high points and low points, or in beer terms, it has bitter hops and sweet malt. You need both or it’s a crap ride. The sweetness starts off low, and that’s where the ascent is, by the time the bitterness comes in you reach the lip of the fall and you edge closer and closer until it drops and soars and you are flying then you hit the bottom and you drink again and it goes up again but this time not so high and it drops and you drink... There are no loops, it’s a straight-forward up-and-down-and-round but it’s still an adventurous one and bloody good fun (this also works for other 6-7%ers).
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There are also the other extreme rides which are not about any kind of balance but just try to do one thing and do that thing awesomely. It’s the free-falling, stomach-emptying drop. The 0-100 in two seconds. The ride in the dark that you know ends with a monster fall but don’t know when it comes. The 150IBU tongue-splitting IPA or the 22% tooth-rotting, fire-breathing stout. But, and here’s the ultimate downside, you can only ride these high-octane rides a few times before you feel sick. It’s just too intense to ride over and over.
Drinking beer is like going to the theme park and the ultimate beer theme park in the UK is on this week at Earls Court, where I’ll be riding the big ones all Tuesday long (although maybe I’ll heed my own advice and ride the log flume once before jumping on the 9% hop train to Drunktown).
Does this little allusion work? If so, which beers do you think are like which rides?!
I'll be at GBBF on Tuesday for the trade session and then again on the Saturday to finish of the dregs of the UK barrels. There's also a pre-GBBF/21st anniversary do with the British Guild of Beer Writers tonight, which should be good fun. And then The Bull (my favourite pub) has got a Marble showcase on from Thursday. It's going to be a long week... Oh, and I got these images from the Thorpe Park website.