Somewhere along the way Golden Glory (and Badgers other similar beer Golden Champion) soon became a favourite. It was sweeter with a more palatable taste than most of the beers and was always on form, which made it an easy purchase decision. I’d often pick up a handful of new beers to try and then a risk-free Badger and maybe a St Peters.

Coming back to it now feels a bit full circle. And the good thing is that Golden Glory is still great.

Badger Golden Glory: soft fruit, sweet and bitter

Peaches and melon dominant the nose, you could easily call cherry blossom, kiwis and candy too without fear of sounding pretentious. There’s a bit of an alcohol sting to the first sip, a touch of spice and a bitter finish. Above all this beer is sweet,all floral and fruit overlaid rather than intertwined with a very subtle caramel flavour and a bitter finish.

This is easy to drink from glass or bottle, there’s a zingy kick to it which gives it that little bit more oomph (or umpf?!) over some of it’s competitors on the supermarket shelves. If you like your beer to have aroma and punch then as English ales go you can’t do much worse than this fruity number. Serve slightly chilled for a bit more kick and refreshment on a hot day (you might be waiting a while though!)

Badger Golden Glory, Thwaites Wainwright, Everard's Tiger and Black Sheep - 4 great beers for £5.50

On Sarah’s request I popped in straight off the bus on Tuesday night for some naan bread and as I headed from checkout to door I couldn’t help but be drawn towards the beer and wines section (our Morrison’s is one of those odd divisive ones with a separate alcohol area fenced off from the main supermarket floor).

First off I was impressed with their range and I was overcome with an urge to try old favourites and classic British beers. Thai green chicken curry was on the menu which called for something a little exotic, plus I needed a pick me up after an arduous day at the office: a refreshing and zingy Golden Champion would do just the trick.

Castle Rock's Harvest Ale nestled next two of the beers Alan and I grew up with

Castle Rock Harvest Pale almost leapt off the shelf so that too went in the basket. Two down, might as well take Morrison’s up on the 4 for £5.50 offer, so after my usual beer aisle procrastination a Titanic Stout and JW Lees Brewer’s Dark joined the party.

Morrison’s has had a long term beer offer for a long while now and 4 for £5.50 isn’t too shabby (although you can grab twice as many tins of Carlsberg for 50p less most of the time). These days our local store has 3 large shelves of beers priced at £1.67, all of which are on the offer. These are dominated by Hall & Woodhouse, Marston’s, Wychwood and Greene King. It seems over the last year a few more regional beers are popping up – Castle Rock, White Horse, Hook Norton and JW Lees this week – which I’d like to see more of.

The top two shelves belong to beers outside the offer, priced almost exclusively at £1.85 or £1.99 and include the likes of Fullers ESB and Vintage Ale, Old Crafty Hen and a handful of regional beers that I guess either command a higher price or would represent lower margins as part of the offer.

Unfortunately I picked up the only beer on the offer shelves that was unmarked, the Brewer’s Dark. I shouldn’t complain – it scanned through the till at a wallet-pleasing M&S-rounded £1 – super. Except that I didn’t notice until I read the ill-printed receipt and only realised I’d made no additional savings on my way to the lottery kiosk (of course the cheaper bottle wasn’t part of the offer).

Cue increasingly exasperated conversation with not one, not two but three of the checkout women who eventually managed to work out that I wanted to grab another beer for an extra £0.49 (an Everard’s Tiger at a nice price!) but that I wasn’t going to pass on the opportunity to try the Brewer’s Gold for less a fraction of the price of a half pint in the city centre.

So despite the kerfuffle it was worth popping my head in the beer aisle, 5.99 for 5 bottles in the end and some inspiration for catching up with some of the beers that got me blogging in the first place (but not until the bank balance looks a bit healthier!)

RULE #3: You must drink at least two servings of a beer before you pass judgment on it (Appellation Beer) - as such Ringwood's Old Thumper will be getting a second chance! Plus going to try Moonraker and refamiliarise with some of the London classics

One of the defining characteristics of Badger First Gold is it’s sheer floral fruitiness. Which, at risk of sounding somewhat cliched, makes for a very ‘moreish’ drinking experience.

Equally pleasing is the fact that this golden ale can be regarded as a ‘session’ beer. (It weighs in at a punchy 4.0%.)

Better still, and as one would expect from any session beer worth it’s salt in these BBQ summer months, the taste is undeniably crisp and refreshing. THis makes it a beverage of almost schizophrenic proportions.  A beverage where the idyllic, fragrant English countryside collides head on with the cool, clinical, clean excellence of an authentic German lager.

Apparently this beer was a double gold medal winner at the 2005 brewing industry ‘oscars’ held in Munich – making it a ‘World Champion Beer’

Over recent years the population has generally become more environmentally aware and there has been a reversion to locally, even self, produced goods. Allotments and home brew, 20 years ago the reserve of only my Granddad, are now fashionable amoung younger portions of the population. This has in turn helped the resurgence of real ales for younger generations as well.

A little over 250 years ago in 1751 the artist William Hogarth released a pair of works titled Gin Lane and Beer Street. When viewed in conjunction with each other, the works sought to illustrate the advantages, to both the individual and society as a whole, of drinking British beer rather than imported Gin. Remember this was an age when water in London was unsafe and the brewing process provided some degree of sanitization. In an era when water could kill you, the benefits of drinking fluids that had been processed were obvious.

The link below take you to the British Museum’s page on Beer Street and Gin Lane so you can take a look for yourself if you are not familiar with the works…

British Museum – Gin Lane & Beer Street

So why do I bring this up here? The point I want to make is of course not that we should all be drinking beer rather than water in our day to day lives. Rather I want to highlight the potential of our own, British produced, drinks which could be used when entertaining in favour of foreign imports. I know that we regularly review non British beers and am not for one minute advocating a British only standpoint, this would surely only limit ones experience and I think everything should be tried so that people can find what they enjoy.

What I fear is often forgotten is the diversity of beers, ciders and lagers that are available, and how each these can compliment different circumstances and events. You will often see in my reviews that I state what I am drinking a beer with or the circumstances in which I feel it will be appropriate. I am therefore always on the lookout for recipes and suggestions of which beers are appropriate for certain meals. Is it possible that there will be a time when Real Ales are matched and drunk with meals in the same way as fine wines? I certainly hope so.

It is therefore always a great joy to me when I find an old recipe book with beer based recipes in a second hand bookshop or when I stumble across a datbase such as the one on the Hall and Woodhouse website, giving suggestions for food and recipes to enjoy with their different beers…

Hall and Woodhouse Recipes Database

I hope you enjoy these as much as I intend to.