James Watt – Desert Island Beers #4

Love ‘em or loathe ‘em, you can’t help but admire the enthusiasm of BrewDog and their ability to make fantastic tasting beers; not to mention their boundary pushing exploits with Toyko*, Tactical Nuclear Penguin, and the controversially named Sink the Bismarck!

The driving force behind BrewDog’s’ anti-establishment attitude is James Watt: entrepreneur, fisherman and head of all things penguin.

This week James gets stranded on our desert island with only a handful of beers and an interesting luxury item to keep him company…

James Watt, BrewDog Head Penguin

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Jeff Evans – Desert Island Beers #3

Jeff Evans InsideBeer.com

Jeff Evans writes about beer and loves it. You can just tell. The author of more editions of Good Beer and Good Bottled Beer guides than I’ve had hot meals, he shares a passion for running and Hook Norton Double Stout, both which I could easily get excited about. And to top his achievements – Beer Writer of the Year 2001, author of new beer book ‘A Beer A Day’ and contributor to numerous off- and on-line publications – Jeff can proudly add ‘World Record Holder of the fastest compiled Desert Island Beers ever’ to his email signature (with a link to the post of course!).

So, remember the rules? 3 beers, 1 meal, a record, a book, a luxury item. And one deserted desert island. To be fair our past two castaways have managed to bend the rules a little bit in their favour (ingenuity is vital for survival!) and once again we’ve succumbed to pressure. This time though their was no beating around the bush as Jeff simply asked for more beer! Read the rest of this entry »

Putting a Smile on the Monkey’s Face

Before Xmas I asked spotted a pump badge (for Daleside Brewery’s Monkey Wrench) which was the spitting image of our own Fletch the Monkey. At the time I asked if anyone had seen pictures of the monkey boy out and about.

Andy Mogg added a couple to the original entry but I have to say that the proprietor of Real Lager Reviews, Mr Jason Smith, has to take the award because he sent me this link to one of our favourite monkey posters. They have one like this on the wall in the ropey Leeds bar Strawberry Fields and it has been the highlight of a few nights out. A bottle of none other than Monkey Wrench is finding it’s way to Jay as I write and the picture below is Fletch receiving a bottle of the same for Xmas…

A Monkey with a Monkey

Pete Brown – Desert Island Beers #2

Picking our first post of the New Year was easy. The ‘Bill Bryson of the beer world’, Pete Brown is one of the UK’s best loved beer writers, his three books Man Walks Into A Pub, Three Sheets To The Wind and the much celebrated Hops & Glory are responsible for much laughing, beer drinking and fits of coughing when we do both at the same time.

Fresh from his coronation as The British Guild of Beer Writers Beer Writer of the Year, 2010 is Pete’s year to enjoy so what better way to nestle up with one of his books and try some of his favourite tipples too.

A quick reminder on the island rules: Pete can pick three beers to take and a meal to eat with the beers, plus a handful of personal effects to keep boredom at arms length: a book to read, a record to listen to and a luxury item. For the pedants amongst you we’re going to assume that the friendly island gods will take care of opening your beer bottle (or cask!) and the playing of your selected music…

Pete Brown reads from Hops & Glory on his book launch tour in 2009

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Zak Avery – Desert Island Beers #1

Welcome to the first ‘episode’ of Desert Island Discs, our regular interview with beer lovers. Our first week starts with a bang, with British Guild of Beer Writers’ Beer Writer of the Year 2008, Mr Zak Avery.

Lots of you will know Zak, and many may have read his beer words, for those who are lucky enough to live in Leeds you might have bought a few bottles of beer from Zak’s shop, Beer Ritz in Far Headingley.

Zak’s shop is probably the most welcoming emporium of beer I know, but what will he make of the hospitality on our Desert Island?

Actually, he made himself right at home, taking advantage of our not very stringent rules!

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Desert Island Beers

A while back we posed the question ‘What would your emergency beers be?’, after a night gazing into the beer cupboard and not being able to choose anything to drink. Usually having a wide selection of beers in the house is great, but there are the days when everything is new, or everything is tired and you just don’t have anything in that shouts drink me.

On the days you something need a fall back, a beer that you always rely on, those tried and tested brews that you never tire of and can always, always rely on to satisfy your thirst.

The responses to the Emergency Beer post planted the little seed of this idea, and got us thinking about ‘What beer would you want if all other beers in the world were destroyed’ and ‘What beer would you want if you were Will Smith in that film where no one else is around?’.

Which led to the obvious question, ‘What beer would you take to a desert island?’.

And that’s exactly the question we’ll be asking you, beer lovers of the world, in our new (hopefully regular) feature: Desert Island Beers.

The concept is simple, just like the Radio 4 show we’ve taken inspiration from, we will be asking guests what beers they would take to a desert island. We’re going to ask each guest to select 3 ales they just could not live without. And as we’re generous island chiefs, we’re going to allow our castaways a couple of extras: a meal to go with the beers, one luxury item and a song or record they’d like to keep their spirits up.

Keep your eyes peeled on the desert island, we have some cracking guests lined up including beer writers, brewers, bloggers, beer lovers and perhaps even the odd B(eer)-list celebrity!

Beer Swap Pt 3

Colonsay 80/-

It has been some time since the prelude to this particular dream was published but I am now finally (and I apologise for the delay) in a position to let you all in on my part of the fantastic experience that has been Beerswap 2009. For those who don’t remember I was sent a selection of refreshing beers from North of the border by Robbie @ I Might Have a Glass of Beer and this is what I thought… Read the rest of this entry »

Beer Swap Pt 2: Oxfordshire to Yorkshire

Beer Swap Pt 2

It went right to the wire but I did manage to drink my beer swap beers just in time to write about them this week. I had two beer swap partners, I was sending to Adam Croft who has written about the two Leeds Brewery bottles I sent him so far, and my sender was a mystery person.

Lovibonds Henley Amber - bitter but refined

My beer swap sender turned out to be a wine blogger, none other than Andrew Barrow aka the Wine Scribbler who is based in South Oxfordshire at the exact opposite end of the county I grew up in.

And judging by the beers, there’s a wealth of brewery action in that area, the four beers coming from parts of shires Oxford, Buckingham and Berk that were close enough to home when I grew up to appear on the local news, but that I’ve never explored before.

First up was Lovibonds Amber Ale, a 3.4% premium pale ale in a 330ml bottle. Read the rest of this entry »

The Beer Blogger Awards 2009!

The Beer Blogger Awards 2009!

The Golden Pints Beer Blog Awards

2009 draws to a close and it’s been a crazy, exciting, all-encompassing year for the Real Ale Reviews team. A whole new world has opened up to us since we started beer blogging and we’re just getting our heads around the endless possibilities that are on the horizon.

Some of the most exciting things have been the collaborations and partnerships forming through the ever-changing face of social media, and by that I mean tweet ups, #beerswap and other projects in the pipeline (which will be starting in less than two weeks!).

As you may have soon on two other blogs this morning, it’s the right time of year to get in the mood for those pesky Top 100 programmes that keep Channel 4’s advertising revenue stream flowing, and without further ado I pass you into the capable hands of Mark Dredge:

As Beer Swap rolls on (there’s no hurry, just drink and be happy), Andy (from Beer Reviews), Mark (Pencil and Spoon) and myself (Mark from Real Ale Reviews) thought we’d announce another joint project: The Beer Blogger Awards 2009… Read the rest of this entry »

Beer Swap beer reviews Pt 1

You might have heard of the guy who I managed to draw for the beer swap: Pencil & Spoon’s own New Media Writer of the Year 2009 Mark Dredge. This was a selection of ales to look forward to; a brief glance at his excellent blog shows his good taste and awareness of beers and I had no doubt he would have developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of the local market over the year or so of working on his blog.

Kent is his part of the country, and is somewhere I have never been, so it was almost guaranteed that most of these beers I would never have come across.

So here is what I received:

- Westerham Brewery’s Little Scotney IPA (4%)
- Harvey’s Star of Eastbourne East India Pale (6.5%)
- Hopdaemon Brewery’s Skrimshander IPA (4.5%)
- Whitstable Brewery’s Raspberry Wheat (5.2%) Read the rest of this entry »