This Is Camden
"I'll explain how the process works as I prepare your order" shouts Ahrash over the buzz of the crowds and the whirrrrr of the industrial food mixers. And donning a thick gauntlet, and dropping plastic safety glasses, he turns to the cannister containing nitrogen oxide and casually turns the latch, releasing a gushing of colder-than-ice-cold steam into the pureed ice cream mixture. This is Camden. This is England. Eating nitro ice cream in the 2010's and drinking ...
Build A Rocket Boys! by Elbow & Robinsons
Elbow are the kings of soaring melancholy, masters of poetic northern introspection. Let Elbow's albums flow over you and you can be mesmerised by their beauty alone. Put in the time to listen, to soak up the poignancy, the humour, the extraordinary manifestations of the ordinary and their albums become life affirming tributes to the everyday. Conversely, it's quite easy to stick an Elbow album on and realise thirty lethargic minutes later that time - and ...
The humble pint
So the pint is done with we're told! Well what would they say in Prague, where refreshing pilsners stand proud in tall half litre glasses, quenching thirsts almost with their looks and frothy gusto alone. Tell the football fans sinking a pint of bitter before the well trodden march to the ground that their beer will be served in flutes or tulips or whisky tumblers. "Like hell" they cry! The ugliness of a nonik pint glass aside (does ...
York Tap
It's a drinking hole essentially, underneath it all. For all the domed skylights and stained glass, people come here to let off steam, to pass the time, to forget the day. To drink. But to say that is to do York Tap a disservice as it stands resplendent next to the revived station complex. Like its Sheffield counterpart it was born in an old resting room, and the 104 year old building suits its new life ...
Meantime Union Vienna Style Lager
Deep in a basement bar not far from Bohemia, the cerny pilsners of the brewery up the road changed my perception of lager. Sweet and rich but surprisingly light, they distributed refreshment and nutrition as if feeding me and five thousand other thirsty drinkers. Meantime Union shares a similar contradiction. Broody and brown, this is is no pale bodied pushover. Lagered it is, and a tad metallic to boot, coupled with a dark caramel composition and ...
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 ...
Killer jerk chicken with killer ginger beer
Jerk chicken isn't just tasty to eat, it's a joy to make. The honey and coriander marinade is messy and sticky, the chicken succulent with a crispy skin - lots of kitchen mess and fun. Juices of bird and salad mean this a meal best served sans cutlery but with plenty of, well, Plenty. 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 ...
House of the Trembling Madness
The goofy moose head gazes down aloofly from his lofty perch below the rafters, and we sit cradling a kriek and a pilsner in a building that has almost a millenniums worth of years on us. House of the Trembling Madness sits above the cobbled shopping street of Stonegate, York. The city walls skirt their circular path near here, the famous minster is but a Viking throw away. Students from the continent order coffee and thirds of ...
North By North Orval
Orval is the sort of beer spoken about with reverence. I like to think the same goes for North Bar. 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 ...
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 ...
Sainsbury's Great British Beer Hunt 2011
Over the last few months the Sainsbury's Great British Beer Hunt has been taking place providing a welcome opportunity to try some different beers from the familiar supermarket shelves. And in October Bad King John from Ridgeside Brewing was crowned winner of a six month national listing in 300 Sainsbury's stores. Bad King John beat beers from around the UK to the throne via four regional heats (120 beers), a three week stint in Sainsbury's stores (16 ...
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 ...
Lakeland IPA
Tuesday night, two bottled bitters sunk and the quenches for thirst and flavour continue to itch away unabated. Cue Lakeland IPA, a beer that for one moment in time justifies the beatification of hops single-handedly. The perfect hiss released as metal hits glass and twists plastic; an aroma eager to reach a nose and knock on the door of the senses. Soft-fleshed fruit says hello - mangoes might not be typical of Cumbria unless visiting a certain kitchenware ...
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 ...-
May 19th, 2009Real AleHook Norton Brewery’s Old Hooky – 4,6%abv
Following on from last night’s review of Hook Norton Brewery I thought it important to get a review of one of their beers up as soon as possible. Old Hooky is the flagship of Hook Norton Brewery around the country being widely available in many supermarkets as well as most good wine/beer merchants. The very bottle I am drinking was sourced in Morley from ASDA and was on their 3 bottles for £4.00 mix and match deal.
As an aside me and the monkey boy, when we first moved to Morley, experimented with buying every bottle of Old Hooky on the shelf in ASDA whenever we went. Within a month we had a range of five different Hook Norton beers available (More than most shops in Oxfordshire) right here in Yorkshire. Unfortunately the levels of consumption required to continue this selection proved unsustainable.
Right – back to the beer. Old Hooky is not the light, paler type of ale that I typically favour but is one of the beers that I drink most often. This is largely because it’s the most widely available offering from my favourite brewery, but also because it’s a bit of an anomaly in that it’s full bodied, darker flavoured and yet not at all heavy.
Hook Norton advertises this as a ‘fruity’ beer and it is, but not in the light citrus way I think of when I hear that phrase. It comes across dark and fruity like my Nan’s Christmas cake, reminding me of treacle rather than golden syrup, yet slips down just as easy as summer or pale ales. I would recommend trying this beer with a nice steak or a beef stew as it has the body to compete with the meat but will not fill you up and leave you embarrassed with half a plateful of leftovers.
I give this beer to a great many friends as a taster from home and it is always well received with many friends asking me to bring other Hooky varieties up for them to try. For this reason, and because of it’s wide availability and low price in ASDA, I have to rate this as one of the best beers available in Britain today.
Tags: 4-5% ABV, ASDA, fruit cake, full bodied, Hook Norton, Hooky, Morley, Oxfordshire
We'll tidy up the artwork but for now you get the idea of what it looks like for when you're in ASDA
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May 5th, 2009Multigrain Beers
Batemans Combined Harvest Multigrain Beer
The label of this beer claims that ‘subtle, smooth bitterness’ makes it ‘a beer with equal appeal to male and female drinkers and also younger drinkers’. I would have to say that I agree with them.
This beer is light and golden as you would expect from a harvest ale but has floral, fruity, almost citrus, flavours and I cannot imagine too many better experiences than sitting out on a warm summer night with good friends and a few bottles of this.
Many of the younger readers of this blog will be used to drinking lagers such as Corona or Sol with a slice of lime as a refreshing drink, this ale is a genuine alternative if you want traditional British refreshment through what I hope will be a scorching summer in 2009.
4,7% ABV
Brewery: Batemans
Brewed with: Malted Oats, Rye, Wheat & Barley
Awards:
Best Speciality Beer ~ Gold Medal Winner at The International Beer & Cider Awards 2002
Best Harvest Pale Ale ~ Style Trophy
Beers of the World Magazine – WBA (World’s Best Beers) Competition 2007
Batemans Combined Harvest
Tags: 4-5% ABV, Bateman's, Lincolnshire, multigrain, summer
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