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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Hare & Hounds, Bowland Bridge
It seems like a wild goose chase, this drive through tiny lanes, sloshy piles of orange and yellow leaves, under a canopy of browning greenery. Both wing mirrors brush through the amber walls of the wild hedges are pinning us to the road like tramlines of a vanishing point. The last weekend of October is an immeasurably beautiful one in the Lake District, and after two full days of trundling around Coniston, Ullswater, Bowness and Kirkstone ...
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 ...
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 ...
Golden Pints 2011
We saw the New Year in with Asti, barley wine and a drop of whisky. And cheese. And board games. And in suitably reflective mood this morning, here's a little celebration of the year we've just waved adieu too. These are a small bunch of highlights of a 2011 that was action packed, even though it meant blogging was harder than ever. Rather than awards, these are people and places we'd like to buy a drink for, ...
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 ...
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas...
...my true love gave to me a delicious homemade lasagne. It really was absolutely scrumptious, but not particularly in-keeping with the season. So to accompany this feast and herald a climax to the Yuletide festivities, I brought a centuries old recipe back to life in the form of wassail. This winter warmer is a heady concoction of dark ale and spices fortified with a splash of something a little stronger. It's a bit like mulled wine for ...
Desert Island Beers #26: Leigh Linley
This week we have a friend coming to stay on our desert island. Welcome Leigh Linley! Born and bred in Leeds, Leigh has been writing about beer and food on his blog, The Good Stuff, since 2005, which makes him one of the longest serving food and beer bloggers in Yorkshire. And he sure knows his stuff. In conjunction with Dough Bistro (and soon also the famous Beer Ritz beer shop in Leeds) Leigh hosts beer and ...
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 ...-
December 17th, 2009Beer and FoodOn 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 14th, 2009Lagers
My first sips of Zeitgeist didn’t blow me away. I had sort of been expecting a revolution. I think a little bit of hype, excellent design and lots that I’d read had built up my expectations, and that I was expecting a Road to Damascus style realisation that pale lager could not quench my thirst and that black lager would suddenly take me a higher level.
Well, the first sips didn’t go down well. I found it flat and uninteresting, completely underwhelming and disappointing.
Zeitgeist Black Lager by BrewDog
But within a couple more sips I realised that I’d drunk half a bottle within about 53 seconds.
Wow, this stuff is drinkable.
And then I noticed its subtle complexities. And they are subtle, but highly enjoyable.
The darkness of the taste is refreshing. I love dark milds and in the right mood I can devour stouts, but they are styles I turn to only when in the right frame of mind. Zeitgeist offers much of the dark coffee that I love in beer (but hate in coffee!), and hints of biscuity, chocolately, nutty joy that dark beers often revel in, whilst being one of the most drinkable beers I’ve ever tasted.
I use drinkable quite a lot when I’m reviewing. It’s very indicative, simple yet effective at conveying the fact that a beer slips down the throat whether light or not.
Zeitgeist is the former, in abundance. They could advertise this stuff next to Malteser’s and even with the weight of the bottle the dark liquid would easy outfloat it’s hollow chocolate counterparts.
At 4.9% Zeitgeist is deceptively, deceptively strong, and from an uninspiring first sip, it is really a very interesting beer.
My first bottle of Zeitgeist developed from an unassuming start to the point where I couldn’t believe it was finished and I ended up craving more. This is a beer that might not tickle your tastebuds like a hop monster, but will go some way to satisfy my darker, thirstier urges that is very, very, easy to drink!
Tags: black, BrewDog, lager, scottish, zeitgeist -
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