Ivanhoe English Pale Ale
The guy behind the counter looks as decrepit as the shop, and the shop doesn't even look open, it's grape-bordered window dressing might be confused for a long boarded up newsagents. It leans against Ladbrokes on the Dereham Road, just a short walk (and not very scenic walk) from the pot-holed streets of Norwich city centre. Ivanhoe jumps off the shelf, of all the local beers it looks the most promising (though in fairness surprisingly few ...
Spurn Point
Just like Mike Parker, the author of Map Addict, for years I've been mesmerised by the enigmatic Spurn Point, that strangely shaped strip of almost-land that stretches from the tip of the East Riding of Yorkshire and awkwardly attempts to reach back downstream towards the sands of the Humber estuary. Spurn Point (or Spurn Head for many) is a sand bar that has been precariously edging it's way westwards over the last millennium of geological time as the ...
M&S London Porter
Smoky as hell to smell and like a burnt caramel bar to taste, M&S's London Porter is a sweet beer to devour with masses of chocolate or marshmallows over a camp fire. If you don't fancy the great outdoors then no worries, the lingering smoky presence hangs around for a long time in your mouth and may invoke daydreams of sitting under the stars and gazing at the heavens. It's packed with malt variety: you can settle ...
Halloween Hobgoblin
It's Halloween! And if your local supermarket or beer shop doesn't have pumpkin beer, then the next best thing to celebrate the might be the Halloween branded bottles of Wychwood Hobgoblin, found retailing for £1 at ASDA. The £1 price tag didn't scare us but the beer did a little. We must have grabbed a dogby bottle because the usual stewed fruit aroma had matured into rotting crab apples (old hops perhaps?) and the familiar fruit cake ...
Ales of the Unexpected
Since the dawn of my drinking days I've been a big fan of the dark side. Stouts, porters, milds or brown ales, I've always enjoyed savouring their brooding malty richness. And as autumn has arrived with a bang, it's fitting that I happened across a couple of unusual and very worthy offerings from Wentworth on my travels last week. This South Yorkshire brewery is one step ahead of the game in the stout ...
Meantime Pilsner
A strong, frothy head, a pale countenance and a ferociously Noble body makes Meantime Pilsner unmistakeably Bavarian. Put simply it's the colour of straw and the embodiment of light, refreshing, authentic lager. It's so pale you might even miss the barely toasted malt in this one. It's pale, delicate fizz, infused with the scent of stalks and greenery, ensures it's fresh and natural in body and soul with a congenital bitterness screaming of the vernacular style. E.g. it's hoppy, ...
Underbelly
Once upon a time Britain was an industrial nation. The population were manual workers, skilled or miners, all contributing towards the rise of the Empire. Nowadays we work at screens, behind partitions, "in services". Those grey, growing gas stores, the vast warehouses, the corrugated factories; they're alien to much of Britain; a spec on the landscape, an irritation to an otherwise green and pleasant land. These gunmetal structures, whilst reduced in their visibililty, still make up the backbone ...
Goose Island India Pale Ale
Hoppy, vibrant, refreshing and tangy to finish, Goose Island is a mighty fine American IPA. The Chicago brewers bottled ales are a staple of many of the best bars in the UK, with both the IPA and Honker's Ale permanent fixtures at our work's regular, The Cross Keys in Leeds. American IPAs differ from their UK counterparts. I don't think it's all down to the fact I enjoy them quite a bit colder than I'd usually ...
Co-operative Harvest Ale
Beers these days are hoppy. Well, I reckon they probably are more hoppy than they used to be. Hoppy hoppy hoppy. Such...an easy word to use. And such a generalisation. I never wrote about beer 20 years ago. I was a young Yorkshire lad acclimatising to life in North Oxfordshire, still a decade or so away from being able to legally drink. But I don't reckon the bitters were as hoppy nor the hops as ...
Ringwood Old Thumper
Admittedly Ringwood Old Thumper has taken a while to grow on me. Approximately 10 bottles to be relatively precise. Perhaps it was the nose that created images of toffee apples doused in vinegar or meths. Or the uncertainty of trying to enjoy the gone-off flavours of rotten veg, crab apples, musty drawers and dirty rags? Yet, Old Thumper kinda grows on you. Unfurled slowly is the, not quite delicate, but protracted sweetness and bitterness of an aged and ...
Plot 16: The Fermenting Room
When beer and art collide: Modern Art Oxford's limited edition green hop beer Down a dark and wet side street between the less historical buildings of the city's shopping district, the white washed walls of Modern Art Oxford are accustomed to the strange and gangly structures of modern sculpture. But to the strange and gangly structures of humulus lupulus they are not. Twisting, reaching, helixing, yearning upwards, the leaf-heavy green bines have designs on the famously spired ...
Roosters Pumpkin Beer
Roosters Brewery, whose beers are the staple diet of many a Yorkshire pub, marked this Hallowe'en with a pumpkin beer. No ordinary pumpkin beer though, a pumpkin beer served in nothing less than a giant pumpkin. A really, really giant pumpkin. Pumpkin 5 Spice Ale was tapped at North Bar in Leeds, in front of Calendar news and a small selection of excitable beer lovers. Arguably a more delicate task than tapping a cask, the job ...
Moor JJJ IPA
This not, I repeat NOT, an IPA. Punchy, citrus hops? Nil. Alcohol? Deep, stewed and sweet beyond believe. Apple skins & fruit pudding? Yes, yes, YES! None of which gives Moor JJJ IPA much credence as an IPA. But then again this isn't an IPA nor a double IPA. It's only a bleedin' triple IPA(!!!). This couldn't be further from Green King's bland and monotonous flagship brand of ale and is similar in nothing but colour. By their own admission Moor didn't ...
Moorhouse's Pendle Witches Brew
From Pendle Hill you've more chance of seeing Ian Holloway celebrating at Bloomfield Road than coming across any broomsticks or clandestine hurlyburly. And that's on a cloudy day. The sandstone plateau does have a slightly spooky aura about it though. Standing proud from the undulating hillside you can imagine a cackling coven of witches peering over the landscape and plotting the demise of their rivals. Especially if you visit during thunder and lightning... Moorhouse's Pendle Witches Brew is inherently ...-
February 7th, 2010Beer Books
Sierra Nevada Harvest was off so Trashy Blonde formed part of my hangover cure in York yesterday
Friday’s trip to London was a hectic one. I woke up knowing that it would be 13 and a half hours until my return journey commenced, about as depressing a thought as you can have at 6am. I was on a late train home from the capital and after rushing between meetings all day and frantically trying to find wi-fi around Marble Arch in the afternoon, I spent a couple of hours with Glyn from the Rake sampling an eclectic mix of their finest beers and chatting about the busy few months we both have ahead of us. That was the eye of the storm as I then rushed up to Kings Cross for the home bound leg, eventually crawling into Morley just before the new day started.
The morning brought with it a heavy head from staying up with a nightcap to watch Mad Men on iPlayer (not to mention a quick half at Leeds Brewery Tap because I’m incapable of timing transport links with any degree of coordination). It was off to York for the day then with Sarah with the promise of a nice lunch and a slow paced amble around the cobbled streets. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: beer tickers, good beer guide, hangovers, keith floyd, prairie oyster, york -
December 12th, 2009Beer Books
Roger Protz's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Beer from Oxfam in York
There’s a great little Oxfam bookshop that I tend to pop into each Christmas in the hope of some eco-friendly, altruistic and (hopefully) cheap chrimbo presents.
Previous years have resulted in some gems of presents and some great popular science finds for myself. There seems to be a continuous supply of Good Beer Guides stretching back into the nineties and noughties and is one of the only charity shops that doesn’t have a token copy of Bridget Jones on the shelf (I dare you to find a charity shop that doesn’t carry this permanently!).
Today didn’t let me down, coming across not only one but two copies of Roger Protz’s The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Beer. In the end I opted for the pictured copy as it was £3.99 (the Yorkshire side of me made the decision based on the fact the other copy was £4.99!).
I’m actually going back for the other copy on Tuesday as a gift but I had my hands full today and was short of coppers…hopefully it’s still there!
Tags: Beer Books, roger protz, ultimate encyclopedia of beer -
May 5th, 2009Beer Books
View.co.uk are running a competition to win a copy of London’s Best Pubs byPeter Haydon.
http://www.viewleeds.co.uk/prizes/win-a-copy-of-a-new-book-on-londons-best-pubs-details-379.html
Gotta be worth an entry to complement my notebook for my next expedition to the capital!
Tags: beer guide, books, guides, London, peter haydon, Pubs & bars -
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