For the last ten years he has also been involved in providing technical education to the brewing industry, mainly on behalf of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling but also through his own company “The Brilliant Beer Company”. He was one of the founders of the Beer Academy and one of the core lecturers. He is passionate about good beer, and really enjoys passing his knowledge onto people not necessarily connected with the brewing industry.

In addition to all of the above he is also an auditor for Cask Marque, a beer journalist, and was a former technical editor for the Brewers Guardian. He continues to write and has published over 250 technical and educational articles.

Tim believes that brewing and beer should be fun and interesting. In Summer 2011 he organised the Great Baltic Adventure taking 14 different samples of cask Imperial Russian Stout by sailing ship from London to Saint Petersburg and then judging the beers to find the beer which best survived the journey and have it crowned as “ A Beer fit for an Empress”.

His mission in life is to prove that drinking beer is an enjoyable pastime and likes to share his enthusiasm with everyone but says that like all great things, beer has to sampled and enjoyed in moderation.

Tim on his adventure

Stouts set sail!

Imperial Stout list

1664 was a good year...

The Beers

Tim, welcome aboard our desert island. With your experience in sailing beers around the world we fear you may not be here long though! Whilst you are, which five beers will you be enjoying?

1. Frederic Robinson Ltd “Old Tom” (Stockport, UK– 8.5%)
   “This is a classic example of an old ale with rich dark fruit notes a well balanced bitterness and sweetness and full of rich flavor. This is a beer I would enjoy on a chilly evening after the sun had gone down and is typically the style of beer I would drink at home after a long day to relax when I wanted a night cap.
2. Thornbridge Kipling (Bakewell, UK – 5.2%)
   “Thornbridge brewery has developed a exquisite range of cask & bottled beers, most of which would be a delight to drink during my time on a desert island. I chose Kipling because not only does it have the fine malt flavours balanced by a fierce hop bitterness but it comes with the wonderful aromas of New Zealand Nelson Sauvin which gives this beer an extra dimension through its intense fruity aroma of lychee and mango. A refreshing beer to be enjoyed in the shade at midday on the tropical island.”
3. Stärker Aromatic (Malaysia – 5%) brewed by Napex and distributed through the Over Time Pub Chain
   “This is truly one of the first fresh beers to be available in the Tropics. It is sold un filtered and unpasteurized and its only means of microbial stabilization is through a short shelf life (less than 10 days from racking to dispense) and being keep cold (less than 3C) throughout the supply chain. In consequence it delivers a crisp clean flavour augmented with delightful aroma and taste of citrus and coriander, popular in Belgium wheat beers. Served ice cold it refreshes all parts of the body regardless of temperature. Winner of two gold medals in Brew Asia in the last two years.”
4. Kronenbourg 1664 (brewed in the UK by Heineken (and sub contracted to Coors) although the parent brewery in France is owned by Carlsberg (what a contractual mess) – 5%)
   “Ironically I prefer the UK brewed Kronenbourg and it was one of my favourite beers when working for Courage in Reading and is in my opinion the best UK brewed lager. This beer was chosen as a session lager which is easy to drink and is very refreshing when cold. When in good condition is has malt notes and a fresh citrus aroma from Hersbrucker Hallertau and I think more recently Strisselspalt hops which gives it the clean aroma and palate.”
5. Harveys Brewery Sussex Best Bitter (Lewes, UK – 4.0%)
   “When looking for a no nonsense good traditional beer whose pedigree and style has remained unaltered over the decades it would be difficult to find a better example than Sussex bitter. A well balanced session bitter with a sensible alcohol strength with a good robust aroma and bitterness from English hops. This well favoured beer has won many accolades and gold medals but is only available near the brewery and in a few selected London pubs. My concern would be getting fresh supplies to my desert Island!”

And which beer (of those selected) do you regard most highly?

“Probably if I was there a long time and could only sample one beer I would stick with the session lager or ale and in view of the heat probably chose Kronenbourg provided it could be kept and served cold. In my sessions I hope I won’t have to drink alone and that a Man Friday or preferably a Girl Friday would turn up and share the drinks with me.”

The Meal

You can also take one meal to go with your beers, what would it be?

“Because of my interest in beer and food pairing (and ignoring the weather) even tropical islands have winters I would prepare a banquet to support my five desert island beers.

Starting with fish – possibly fish and chips or if I was feeling healthy baked fish I would enjoy it with my Kronenbourg.

To be healthy I would chose a salad maybe with some of the local fruits and some goats cheese and that would be complimented with the fruity and hoppy notes from Kipling.

Coming to the main course we would have beef or even a rich meat pie such as steak & kidney pie all washed down with fresh cask conditioned Sussex Bitter.

I love cheesecake and assume a tangerine topping that will go well with the Stärker Aromatic wheat beer.

To finish and to wash the meal down I would enjoy cheese (strong cheese such as stilton and mature cheddar) with the “Port” of beers – Old Tom.”

(Dan, that’s three meals but we will let you off, seeing they are beer and food matchings!! Just this once)

The Books

You might be waiting a long time on your lonesome on the desert island, so we will automatically allow you a few books to keep your mind busy. You can pick between two beer books and two tomes: ‘The Brewmaster’s Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food’ by Garrett Oliver, or ‘Beer’ by Michael Jackson; plus The Bible, or another appropriate religious or philosophical work

“I have just bought the Oxford Compendium to Beer edited by Garrett Oliver and since I have not had time to read it I hope I can take this along with me to improve my beer education.

Following on from my Great Baltic Adventure I am in the process of writing a book and so I would chose to take Pete Brown’s book about nearly taking IPA all the way from London to India – Hops and Glory – to see if I can pick up any useful writing hints.”

And a non-beery book?

“I should read more as I only read brewing books and rubbish fiction when I am travelling or on holiday. If I had a reasonable amount of time without wanting to completely chill out I think I would like to read Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species as it’s a book that changed the world and to I’d like to follow how a great intellect argued his points in forming his ideas.”

The record

You have a CD/mp3/long player but you can only take one album. Choose wisely!

“I like music particularly from the 1970 & 80’s but don’t listen to it as much as I should. I would therefore choose some compilation such as the “More Than This”, the best of Brian Ferry & Roxy Music or Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits.”

(And that’s two albums!)

The Luxury Item

And finally, what luxury item would help make your stay on the island bearable?

“Other than the obvious of a bottle opener and fridge for the regular beers and a stillage and hard and soft pegs for the cask beer, I think I would chose to take my diving gear so I could swim around and enjoy scuba diving. It may also be useful in helping me collect lunch from the sea.

P.S. Also could I please have some sun cream and insect repellant as well.”

Many thanks to Tim for taking the time and trouble to be a castaway. For more on Tim and The Brilliant Beer Co. check out their website. And we’ll be looking our for the story of the Great Baltic Adventure too! Thanks also to Elena Pakhomova for the picture of Tim.

Have you tried Dan’s favourite beers? Let us know and many thanks to him for taking part and being our castaway for the week. This article syndicated with All Gates Brewery blog as part of our Desert Island Beers series.

And there’s something modern and well designed about the branding, even if it is a bit cosy and predictable and ‘marketing agency’ developed.

Blonde is the playful peer of Brunnette, cheeky takes on pale and amber ales.

Morrissey Fox Blonde

The former is a skinny beer perfumed with uncooked dough, and it’s smooth as silk as it coats upper lips around the bar with a (possibly) Cascadian caress. It’s an pleasant, if slightly banal first date.

Back at home a bottle has the same mellow tangerine tang that firmly plants this in session ale territory. Bitterness is minimal, the body is barely there, lager-like without the fizz – it’s just dry enough to demand the next quenching gulp of citrus scented liquid bread. Is it ever interesting enough to seduce though?

Love or loathe boys playing with their toys, Morrissey and Fox have cooked up a perfectly decent beer with perfectly contemporary branding for perfectly discerning pub goers. It’s all perfectly fine for a Saturday afternoon pint really.

It’s a good few months since we found this in a bottle, and quite a bit longer since on cask. We’ve not seen or heard anything since then, is a Strawberry Blonde on the cards or has this relationship hit the rocks?

Then, Friday night, supermarket near work. Rain seeping from a pitch black sky. Wind billowing huncalife katalog through cable-knitted layers. Puddles underfoot and wiper blades on frenzy-mode.

The shopping list is simple: pizza, beer, home. Supermarket hunca life katalog time is kept to a minimum: in and out. Fast track tills. Self service.

And then, out of the blue, “Do you have any ID?”

A question that a decade ago hunca life my side-burned seventeen year old self dreaded, as I joined my contemporaries on the gauntlet of pubs, bars and clubs that made up an under age Friday night in market town Oxfordshire.

Dodging bouncers was our profession then, at 27 and 11/12s it seems I’ve merely exchanged hunca life burly men for ample checkout assistants.

So back to the lashing rain, water running across my smooth chin (the smoothest it’s been since I paid £5 for a fake college identification which still required begging to work); the smell of wet concrete, frenzied wipers, the 11 mile drive to a more price competitive supermarket, where a dash of common sense prevailed and I left with heavy bags: pizza, beer, cat litter, mushrooms, milk, rosé wine – and other victuals that a trip for just two things inevitably ends up becoming.

And the beers?

Old Empire, Old Peculiar, Old Speckled Hen and Old Thumper. 4 for £5. Just to prove a point.

So to accompany this feast and herald a climax to the Yuletide festivities, I brought a centuries old recipe back to life in the form of wassail.

This winter warmer is a heady concoction of dark ale and spices fortified with a splash of something a little stronger. It’s a bit like mulled wine for real men.

Various versions of this traditional English beverage are described, many based on cider, some on wine, others on ale. Many recipes involve mixing raw eggs with hot beer rendering a rather bizarre form of eggnog, but I fancied something a little more palatable.

Thankfully – and somewhat miraculously – I still had a third of a barrel of home-brewed stout left over from Christmas. The perfect base for my wassail was at hand!

Wassail and toast

First off, I threw a couple of apples into a moderate oven for about half an hour. Once these sweet and shrivelled beauties were cooked and cooling, I carefully warmed a couple of pints of stout on the hob, adding some sugar, ground ginger and nutmeg, a cinnamon stick and glug of port (brandy, sherry, Madeira or whisky would also do).

I whacked a slice of brown bread in the toaster as the resinous mixture heated through, its enticing aromas wafting around the kitchen, and stirred until the sugar had dissolved and spices fully infused.

When all was ready, I popped one of the oozing baked apples into a suitably wide glass and poured over a hearty measure of the fragrant warmed ale. I stacked a couple of chunky wedges of toast atop the glass and voila, welcome to the 16th century!

A lovely, warming combination of sweetness and spice with a tart edge from the bobbing apple certainly made me feel all festive. And the toast ‘sops’ dipped into the mulled ale worked a treat, though strangely they seemed to soak up only the tannic elements of the beer.

Definitely one to try throughout the winter months…or as an accompaniment to lasagne!

Wassail made with homebrewed stout

Unsuspecting wassail guinea pig (my sister!)

And in suitably reflective mood this morning, here’s a little celebration of the year we’ve just waved adieu too.

These are a small bunch of highlights of a 2011 that was action packed, even though it meant blogging was harder than ever. Rather than awards, these are people and places we’d like to buy a drink for, for enhancing beer during 2011.

(For more Golden Pint Awards, search Google…)

Best Draught Beer:

The selection of imperial stouts at the Dial Arch near Woolwich Docks for the launch of the Baltic Adventure was one of the best draught beer experiences: 15 dark, strong baltic porters, cask conditioned and ready for their journey. We didn’t make notes but just dived in, so which ones we enjoyed is lost to memory, but the sensory experience was a real treat. In a similar vein, visiting 57 Thomas St in Manchester, where Lagonda IPA (amongst others)  sat in casks on the bar. But the most poignant draught beer this year occurred as  I sat with a friend drinking a perfectly conditioned pint of Tetley Bitter just days after the doors to the great brewery in Leeds shut. Brewed in the Midlands for a few years now, it pained to drink such well balanced bitter, hints of fruit merged seamlessly with ‘you will have another sip’ bitterness. Simple, wonderful – but mostly ironic.

Best Bottled Beer:

In the depths of the Fullers Brewery in Chiswick, Past Masters Reserve straight from the cellar will never be forgotten. From the shops, both Williams Caesar Augustus and Williams Good Times were perfect post-work refreshers.  But the my favourite bottled beer? BabyFaced Assassin by Tom Fozard. Because it was brewed at home, yet it would easily be in my top ten beers drunk in 2011. I drank it thinking of the members of Gomez inadvertently creating a Mercury Prize winning album in their garage. “Bubble Gum Beers” wouldn’t quite do Tom’s efforts justice.

The famous Fullers Wisteria

Best overseas draught beer:

Jever  is always brilliant on draught,  but didn’t quite alter my perceptions in the way that unfiltered Pilsner Urquell opened my mind to how simple beer beer can be yet deliver such pleasure.  Both are however are pipped to the post by De Garre Tripel, the house beer of the eponymous beer bar in Bruges. It’s a beer almost life affirming in its magical properties: light, warming, strong as hell but mystifyingly drinkable.

Best overseas bottled beer:

Rugbord Rye Ale was a splendid big brown beer to see us through the autumn months, De La Senne’s Taras Boulba helped make a hot day in Brussels just a little more hazy and a little more tasty. If I had to pick one though is would be Zona Cesarini – passionfruit positively bursts from the neck, as does the beer if care isn’t taken when opening. Italian brewing, naybrewing, at its best.

Best overall beer:

Ouch. Really? Ok hows this: “Beer I’ve come back to most often in 2011′. That would be Fullers Bengal Lancer.

Fullers Bengal Lancer

Best pump clip:

It could have been a tie between Magic Rock (fresh beautifully woven design) and Brasserie de la Senne (with all their hidden meanings) but nothing compares to Uinta’s bottle designs for their Crooked Line range. The Double IPA and Porter are two of the most exciting beers I’ve seen and drunk in 2011, and a bottle of porter is ageing day by day in my beer cupboard. Thanks to @GhostDrinker for the pics

Uinta Crooked Line Double IPA

Best UK brewery:

Wow, so many to choose from and so many not sampled. For consistency of beer quality, and given the size of the operation, Kernel.

Best overseas brewery:

So many to choose form, so many ne’er drunk from. If the award is based on tours, De Halve Maan in Bruges wins this year. Based on beer, Mikkeller, for consisting breaking boundaries (though of course that also means breaking wallets).

Pub/bar of the year:

We found wonder at Worship St Whistling Shop, and we found country dining of the highest quality at the Hare & Hounds in the Lakes. Craft in London is  now my favourite place to drink beer in the capital (in the evening). And special thanks, for continuing to be a home from home, to North Bar in Leeds (and for looking after lost notebooks and science books (and Foley’s for hosting great events and helping me cancel lost bank cards!))

But the pub that was most fun to be in this year? That’s the Faltering Fullback in Finsbury Park. It’s an eden of laughter and merriment, even if there’s just the one handpump (London Pride, naturally). A garden of gaiety, three rooms of rowdy celebration, and beautiful barmaids. We’ll wish you never told you about it.

Best festival:

Belgian Beer Weekend in Brussels. Helped hugely by the inexplicably good weather and the beer blessing ceremony beforehand.

Belgian Beer Weekend

Supermarket of Year:

All the major supermarkets have a good beer range. Let’s face it, they do. Beers from around the UK, tick. Beers from the continent, tick. Beers from North America, tick. For the ambitiious there’s Hardcore IPA, Flying Dog. For the traditionalists there’s Shepherd Neame. For bravado there’s Meantime IPA, for the conservative drinker there’s Black Sheep. For the collector there’s Fullers Vintage. Things aren’t so bad, are they?

But… though from a consumer perspective things are interesting, the supermarkets aren’t all good for beer. So no award, but plenty of food for thought.

Independent Retailer of The Year:

The only one I’ve used for beer this year is Beer Ritz, who I may as well set up a monthly direct debit with. But for the personable service, independent advice and reasonable prices, my glass is raised to Morley Home Brew Shop.

meat and beer

Best Beer Book or magazine:

I’ve not read any of the new beer books this year, but if you fancy a damn good page turner, Deborah Cadbury’s Seven Wonders of The Industrial World is a joy to learn from. And for honourable beer and football mentions, Paxman’s The English.

Best Beer Blog or Website:

Because it’s a personal outlet, because here this person writes for themselves alone,  for the ebbs and flows and brilliant use of punctuation, it can only be Called to the Bar. Honourable mentions to Pints & Panels for the illustrations, Three Sheets for the beery instagrams, BeerLens for the amazing pics, and Beer & Life Matching for a concept that rarely tires.

Best Beer Twitter:

No one beats  Simon H Johnson’s scoops for satire and slapstick.

Best Online Brewery Presence:

Black Isle Boy and Summer Wine chaps for tweeting. Website? Hmm, room for improvement required methinks. Why not Marble  for bucking the trend with their entirely “post-modern-broadband” web experience.

Marble Beers

Beer and Food pairing of the year:

Meat and beer at Meat & Liqueur wins out as the best gastronomic pairing of the year, even though the specific beer was largely irrelevant compared to

the beer style (it was Meantime Lager and Old Scratch, which were fine partners to the juice of the burgers). Also sublime was Alice Porter with passionfruit cheesecake at the BGBW dinner, and at home, jerk chicken and ginger beer.

In 2012 I’d most like to:

Well I never get round to doing these things, but I hope things are different this time around! So, in 2012 I pledge to actually write about things in a timely manner (our trips to Bruges (April), Brussels (September), Bratislava (November), Lakes (October), London (May, December) are merely notes in a notebook!). And as always here’s to visiting more pubs, more places and more people. Oh and practising brewing so I can brew a beer for my wedding in 2013!

The made up award:

“Most frustrating moment when I couldn’t have a beer in 2011”

After soon-to-be-Mrs Monkey said ‘Yes’ to my marriage proposal. And then I had to drive us back to the hotel, only 45 minutes away. It was a happy drive, but sweet Cambrinus (or is it Gambrinus?!) did I need a beer!

There are so many other people doing great things for beer, apologies that there isn’t space or time to mention you. For all those who we’ve shared beer with in 2011, whether it was over football, on a visit to London, in Belgium, in Slovakia, in breweries, at festivals, thank you and cheers. Beer, ale, whatever, all the best for 2012!

For a ginger beer Robinson’s Ginger (brewed for M&S) is a dark and syrupy affair, quite different from a can of Barr’s or Old Jamaica. It’s strong with a treacly bitterness, but it’s sprightly too, cutting through the runny honey, the chargrilled corn and complementing the rustic spice of nutmeg.

Everything comes together bringing something different to the dish – the rocket and natural yoghurt cleanses and calms, the rice a fragrant bedrock. The beer simply wraps everything up in a tongue tingling finale.

The beer on its own is quite a ride, but with food it’s elevated to an essential role where it fulfils more than it does individually. The recipe calls for rum (which isn’t a staple of our cupboard, therefore omitted) but perhaps next time a dash of strong ginger beer might be called for in the pan, to ruffle the feathers and add a ginger tang to the fiery kick of the chillies.

Killer jerk chicken with a killer beer combo = lots of finger licking and a sticky glass!

Frederic Robinson's Ginger Beer brewed for M&S

Bone Knawin' Finger Lickin' Ginger Beerin' Good!

Sides of corn, rice & peas, and lime & coriander dressing

The original recipe is from Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals and you can find other examples of the recipe at The Little Welsh and Recipe Rifle

Some beers don’t bother with all that, they say all they have to say on the inside of the bottle. Such is Coalition, a celebration of brewing jointly created by Thornbridge of Derbyshire and Dark Star of Sussex.

£7 – one for each percent of alcohol by volume – means you’ll want to savour every last one of it’s fifty centilitres. Probably won’t be hard though…

Its richness is visible when poured, it settles majestically in an over sized wine glass with a thick, mustard head. Booze cuts through the herbaceous aroma of roots and spices, cloves and fresh tobacco.

Maybe a Belgian chalice should be the glassware of choice – this could be a caliginous callow tripel with it’s raw incense of sugar cane and a potent, plant stalk bitterness.

But there’s little coalition between the fascinating flavours: this bottle is green, premature. Its brothers from the same gyle are in the beer cupboard and will be laid down for another years to develop and mellow in the bottle, because even this rough version shows signs of becoming something very special indeed.

And as ever with every momentous moment there’s an excuse for thoughts to drift to beer (although letting my thoughts drift to football on the day I became an uncle did not go down to well at the time…) and I find myself in a supermarket picking up two bottles of Fullers Vintage to lay down and open this time in one year or ten years, or eighteen or twenty one years. And the next week I’m back, buying another two bottles for another future birthday or anniversary or milestone.

And I find myself clinking glasses in celebration, toasting the future with sparkling wine and wishing it was the bottle of Adnams Celebration Ale that’s still sitting quietly, patiently in it’s elegant silver box for a day like today. But there’s champagne, bucks fizz and cava, all sorts of appropriate alternatives, and my beer ages, lonely and unfulfilled.

And now I’m dreaming up homebrew recipes for my own wedding reception, as well as window shopping diamonds and favours and child saving funds and opening up bank accounts for this person’s coming of age, that persons stag do, this persons honeymoon fund.

But I’m not complaining. I want beer to be with me to toast all these wonderful things that we’re lucky enough to be part of the celebration for, and I love the chase of finding the perfect beer for the occasion . I’m already looking forward to the moment I bring out the hidden beer stash and present it to someone special with words like “This beer is older than you, but only just”.

And so back to venue hunting and bridesmaid dresses and external catering and mortgage paperwork and thinking about the future… and to help me out along the way, of course, is a beer in my hand.

A normal one.

“There’s rain in the air” someone shrills in typical British fashion, and the next hunk of wood gets chucked into the wood burner in typical British defiance.

It’s a week after the clocks changed, and standing in the garden it’s the first night of the year that stirs thoughts of winter beer.

Nights like this conjure all sorts of comforts, marshmallows and mittens, fireworks and fairgrounds, bonfires and Bovril. We’re on the cusp of the year, a blend of autumn and winter, darkness and bright lights, cold bodies and hot remedies.

So what is the quintessential winter comfort beer?

Creamy milk stouts or deep smoky porters? A beery cup of tea in the form of dark mild?

Autumn ambers, chestnut bitters? Spicy Christmas beers stronger than Nana’s Snowball Surprise, or decadent, thick chocolate stouts sweeter than a year’s worth of Quality Street.

Or for sustenance there’s dark ?erný pilsners, roasted best bitters, coffee bean ales, strong Baltic porters, extra nutty specials or filling oat stouts.

Or perhaps the perfect winter beer is simply the beer that gives the most joy, that warms you without you ever noticing, and the one that you can afford to keep well stocked in case of unexpected snow days.

As the winds pick up in the garden, and the flames turn to embers, we swig back our mulled wine, our Corona’s and limes, our celebratory sparkling fizz, and let our booze jackets wrap a soothing arm around us.

Here’s to winter, and the home comforts of whatever our favourite winter warmers may be.

Me enjoying winter beers

A little winter fire

Wouldn't be a winter garden party without sparklers

Sparkler Fight!

It should have been me and my friend Tom sat there, dissecting Leeds United’s yo-yoing fortunes, laughing at the Howson Is Now blog and deliberating the creaminess of the Orval cheese whilst sat on the classroom chairs and the well leaned on tables.

But it’s my brother partnering this trip due to Tom’s tight schedule as a relatively new father, North being one place us siblings have a record of sharing together, along with a sense of adventure and an intuition for getting pissed. And brother Fletch is not going listen to me rabbit on about the brettanomyces qualities of the difference between yeast-in and yeast-out, or how the bitterness of this anti-quintessential Belgium beer cuts through the cheese (which it does) …

And so I’m drinking one of my favourite beers with a cheese I’d actually craved (made by the brewers) and I’m chatting about Leeds United’s yo-yoing fortunes, laughing at the Howson Is Now blog, and… generally forgetting about the beer and cheese North’s manager had so kindly put to one side for me because I couldn’t make Orval Day earlier in the month.

That North Bar had enough bottles of aged Orval to reserve some is very kind. That they could even get some of this coveted cheese let alone put some aside for me speaks of their customer service ethos. That I scribbled a hasty one liner on my smartphone as my only tasting note is just plain disrespectful to their efforts.

But here’s the thing. Sat in the dimly lit confines of North, veiled in conviviality and that twilight between sober and drunkenness, the yellow light of North illuminates a certain truth about beer.

So the two-year aged Orval tastes good, and is probably worth waiting to experience. So the cheese is rare and barely seen outside of Belgium. And not to mention the bread – so luxuriously soft and cleansing – which is to die for. So what? Is beer not meaningless if not enjoyed in a place that’s bright with conversation, buoyed with gesticulations, rich in the patchwork diversity of people, and splashed with beers of colours Yates or Lloyds or Scream could never imagine.

If an evening spent extolling the virtues of Ken Bates leadership of Leeds United could be improved in anyway, it’s surely by the creamy monastic cheese paired with the musty, peppery Orval and all its always-changing quirks of character. Does it matter that I thought the end of the bottle shared the same earthiness of the bottom of a well made mojito?

No, because it was a good night out with great beer. We saw the hygge, we tried aged Orval, we put the world to rights, and we liked it.

Cheese, beer, chat. Football optional.