Real Ale Reviews

Beer Swap Pt 3

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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 »

Tags: Ale, Beerswap, Colonsay 80/-, Crystal Pale Ale, Houston Crystal, I Might Have a Glass of Beer, Isle of Arran, Premium Lager, Sherbert, St Mungo

Beer Swap Pt 2: Oxfordshire to Yorkshire

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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.

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 »

Tags: ales, amber, autumn, Beer Swap, berkshire, blackguard, buckinghamshire, butts, heley, lovibonds, marshmellow, Oxfordshire, rebellion

Beer Swap beer reviews Pt 1

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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 »

Tags: Beer Swap, east india pale ale, harveys, hopdaemon, IPA, kent, scotney, skrimshander, whitstable

The case of the colour changing Hooky Gold

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Andy over at Beerreviews.co.uk just posted the first review of the test #beerswap parcel that we exchanged a little while back. In it I packed four fine Oxfordshire (ish) ales including the fantastic Hooky Gold from Hook Norton Brewery.

I didn’t think anything of the Hooky Gold at the time, even admiring it’s shiny green label.

Until last night, when Alan popped over and we were chatting about the blog. We looked over at the original Hooky bottles that used to make up this our blog header, and noticed something odd – there was no Hooky Gold.

But of course there is! Hooky Gold was always in a red label with gold writing. Now the label is green!

When did this occur? How did we not notice?! We don’t mind Hooky, we like the green label, but when and why was it changed?!?!

Does anybody know?

Tags: Beer Reviews, Beer Swap, Hook Norton, Hook Norton Brewery, Hooky, hooky gold

Breaking News: Beer Swap Parcel Released

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Beer Swap Parcel Safely Delivered After Week Long Custody Battle

After 7 days and approximately 4 and a half hours Mark Fletcher of Morley, West Yorkshire was united with his #beerswap package. A tumultuous week has seen the parcel reprimanded in the custody of Mr Fletcher’s local collect+ agent against its will, and with the 4th December beer swap deadline fast approaching time looked like it was running out for the beers to fulfil their destiny.

The last few days have seen negotiations bear no fruit, with numerous emails and phone calls exchanged between collect+, Mr Fletcher and the local newsagent.

But at just before 17:00 hours WYT (West Yorkshire Time) on Sunday, the frustrating situation was suddenly diffused as after the realisation that there was a really dead simple solution and it just needed a different button pressing on the collect+ terminal (or something like that anyway) to sort the whole debacle out.

Witnesses remarked that the beers seemed in ‘good shape’ despite rumours they’d been kept in ‘warmer than usual conditions’ near the stores EPOS system.

Safely home in the confines of Mr Fletcher’s living room, four Oxfordshire ales are said to be standing proudly surveying their final destination.

Read the rest of this entry »

Beer Swap quarantine!

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Beer Swap update – beers remanded in custody!

Knut Albert recently posted that  some beers he was expecting went missing mid-transit, perhaps as the result of a thirsty beer gnome in Norway’s customs department.

I’ve had my own beer delivery fiasco tonight, whilst trying to collect my #beerswap beers. It seems that the experience of using collect+ to transport our regions finest ales around the UK is providing very different experiences – my first collect+ experience, a trial run for #beerswap, was was a doddle but second time not so lucky – this time the beers I’ve been sent for #beerswap proper have been remanded behind the counter by the newsagent and he is not authorised to relinquish them to my person! Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Beer Swap, collect+