Ivanhoe English Pale Ale
The guy behind the counter looks as decrepit as the shop, and the shop doesn't even look open, it's grape-bordered window dressing might be confused for a long boarded up newsagents. It leans against Ladbrokes on the Dereham Road, just a short walk (and not very scenic walk) from the pot-holed streets of Norwich city centre. Ivanhoe jumps off the shelf, of all the local beers it looks the most promising (though in fairness surprisingly few ...
Spurn Point
Just like Mike Parker, the author of Map Addict, for years I've been mesmerised by the enigmatic Spurn Point, that strangely shaped strip of almost-land that stretches from the tip of the East Riding of Yorkshire and awkwardly attempts to reach back downstream towards the sands of the Humber estuary. Spurn Point (or Spurn Head for many) is a sand bar that has been precariously edging it's way westwards over the last millennium of geological time as the ...
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 ...
Halloween Hobgoblin
It's Halloween! And if your local supermarket or beer shop doesn't have pumpkin beer, then the next best thing to celebrate the might be the Halloween branded bottles of Wychwood Hobgoblin, found retailing for £1 at ASDA. The £1 price tag didn't scare us but the beer did a little. We must have grabbed a dogby bottle because the usual stewed fruit aroma had matured into rotting crab apples (old hops perhaps?) and the familiar fruit cake ...
Ales of the Unexpected
Since the dawn of my drinking days I've been a big fan of the dark side. Stouts, porters, milds or brown ales, I've always enjoyed savouring their brooding malty richness. And as autumn has arrived with a bang, it's fitting that I happened across a couple of unusual and very worthy offerings from Wentworth on my travels last week. This South Yorkshire brewery is one step ahead of the game in the stout ...
Meantime Pilsner
A strong, frothy head, a pale countenance and a ferociously Noble body makes Meantime Pilsner unmistakeably Bavarian. Put simply it's the colour of straw and the embodiment of light, refreshing, authentic lager. It's so pale you might even miss the barely toasted malt in this one. It's pale, delicate fizz, infused with the scent of stalks and greenery, ensures it's fresh and natural in body and soul with a congenital bitterness screaming of the vernacular style. E.g. it's hoppy, ...
Underbelly
Once upon a time Britain was an industrial nation. The population were manual workers, skilled or miners, all contributing towards the rise of the Empire. Nowadays we work at screens, behind partitions, "in services". Those grey, growing gas stores, the vast warehouses, the corrugated factories; they're alien to much of Britain; a spec on the landscape, an irritation to an otherwise green and pleasant land. These gunmetal structures, whilst reduced in their visibililty, still make up the backbone ...
Goose Island India Pale Ale
Hoppy, vibrant, refreshing and tangy to finish, Goose Island is a mighty fine American IPA. The Chicago brewers bottled ales are a staple of many of the best bars in the UK, with both the IPA and Honker's Ale permanent fixtures at our work's regular, The Cross Keys in Leeds. American IPAs differ from their UK counterparts. I don't think it's all down to the fact I enjoy them quite a bit colder than I'd usually ...
Co-operative Harvest Ale
Beers these days are hoppy. Well, I reckon they probably are more hoppy than they used to be. Hoppy hoppy hoppy. Such...an easy word to use. And such a generalisation. I never wrote about beer 20 years ago. I was a young Yorkshire lad acclimatising to life in North Oxfordshire, still a decade or so away from being able to legally drink. But I don't reckon the bitters were as hoppy nor the hops as ...
Ringwood Old Thumper
Admittedly Ringwood Old Thumper has taken a while to grow on me. Approximately 10 bottles to be relatively precise. Perhaps it was the nose that created images of toffee apples doused in vinegar or meths. Or the uncertainty of trying to enjoy the gone-off flavours of rotten veg, crab apples, musty drawers and dirty rags? Yet, Old Thumper kinda grows on you. Unfurled slowly is the, not quite delicate, but protracted sweetness and bitterness of an aged and ...
Plot 16: The Fermenting Room
When beer and art collide: Modern Art Oxford's limited edition green hop beer Down a dark and wet side street between the less historical buildings of the city's shopping district, the white washed walls of Modern Art Oxford are accustomed to the strange and gangly structures of modern sculpture. But to the strange and gangly structures of humulus lupulus they are not. Twisting, reaching, helixing, yearning upwards, the leaf-heavy green bines have designs on the famously spired ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...-
January 11th, 2010Beer Recipes, Beer and Food
Potted Cheese with Toast
Like me, you are probably more familiar with the phrases Potted Beef or Potted Shrimp than Potted Cheese. ‘Potting’ ingredients is a traditional way of stretching ingredients with butter while adding flavours and it can be done with a good cheese in the same way as it can with meat or fish. These days it is a great way of doing something different with your cheeseboard and also linking the beer you’re drinking to the food you’re eating.
Ingredients
350g Yorkshire Blue cheese (Stilton or any other strong, crumbly cheese can be used)
Tags: Beer Recipes, beer with food, Food, Orval, Potted Cheese, Yorkshire Blue
75g unsalted butter (at room temperature and cut into cubes)
½ teaspoon ground mace
3 tablespoons Beer Read the rest of this entry » -
December 17th, 2009Beer and Food
On Sunday a bunch of friends in Leeds are having Christmas dinner. We’ll all be going our separate ways for the festive period so it’s a chance to catch up, eat and drink together, play some board games and enjoying finally admitting that we’re adults with houses now and not students still.
I’m in charge of beer and cheese, after picking some fancy samples at Lincoln Christmas Market earlier this month.
So I’m basically just looking for suggestions, as tomorrow I’m off to Beer Ritz to purchase the beers and on the way back stopping at Leeds Markets for the cheese.
Cheeses I have so far:
White Stilton Strawberries and cream – I’m thinking a strawberry Belgian beer
Yorkshire Black - a local Yorkshire beer?
Maplewood Smoked (just like Applewood smoked really) – a smoky porter or Rauchbier
Lancashire Apple, Raisin and Cinnamon – I’m stumped on this one!
I also have a bottle of aged Orval, but I’m greedily undecided as to whether I’m willing to share this with anyone!
Tags: beer, beer with food, black, cheese, christmas, Food, lancashire, maplewood, smoked, stilton, yorkshire
Cheese selection at Lincoln Christmas Market. The difficult bit will be finding beers to accompany all of these!
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August 16th, 2009Comment
The history of beer and brewing in this country is a rich and fascinating journey which, in these times of binge drinking and anti-social behavoir, is not always fully appreciated and respected.
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.
Tags: Badger, beer with food, Hall and Woodhouse, recipes, Tanglefoot -
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