Must be up for it tonight as all my beers are tasting great.Had Brewdog -Jackhammer 7.5 which i have tried in their bars and thought was ok. tonight 8.25.it was a bit like Jaipur with that harsh hoppy taste that lingers.
Must be up for it tonight as all my beers are tasting great.Had Brewdog -Jackhammer 7.5 which i have tried in their bars and thought was ok. tonight 8.25.it was a bit like Jaipur with that harsh hoppy taste that lingers.
Now on Harbour Panda Eyes,a ddh pale.Floral nose,sweetish but well hopped.Tastes it's 5% .7/10
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"Good people drink good beer" Hunter S Thompson
Had two tins of Arbor -coffee choc stout.Dont know what I rated it before but this is good 8/10 Don't get coffee or choc but imo its a fruity stout
Sorry for not joining you guys last night in the Pubs Galore Bar - I was finishing off a book by a Hibs-supporting journalist, about him switching to Hearts for a season: Heartfelt. Quite well written, certainly insightful and atmospheric, and also amusing, once you can overcome the distaste for anyone actually supporting the scum. (I've got no skin in the Catholic/Protestant fight, but for me the thought of going to watch W*tf*rd makes me feel nauseous. And I know that my Blades/Owls friends feel a similar revulsion.)
I was drinking a couple of foreign beers picked up from the Dram Shop last weekend: first up was a gueuze from a brewery called Boon, in Lembeek in Belgium, called Gueuze a l'Ancienne 7.0%, which came in a 375ml bottle with a caged cork. I'll drink a sour beer (on purpose rather than as a result of poor cellarmanship) about three or four times a year, I guess. This one I thought was rather understated, and I've certainly had gueuzes before that have been more impressive.
The second was a Spanish lager which I've had a couple of times before. It comes in an embossed 33cl green bottle from Alhambra brewery in Granada, and is called Reserva 1925 6.4%. It's quite a pleasant lager with a sophisticated palate and a bit of a kick.
I rounded off the evening with the Black Sheep Imperial Russian 8.5%, my ninth such bottle since lockdown started, and it felt especially flavoursome and warming after the slightly disappointing gueuze and what was after all only a lager. I bought eight of these with my first order from Black Sheep (£3.20 for a 33cl bottle, plus delivery charge, so not cheap by any standard), and bought another eight in April. Given that we're not going to be drinking in pubs any time soon, I guess I'd better think about getting some more.
Come On You Hatters!
If restaurants and - more importantly - bars in Italy can reopen, is the Italian government mad or is ours?
I seem to have got into a lockdown routine, half a Rudgate mini-keg on Friday or Saturday followed by the other half Saturday or Sunday, probably topped up with a can or two, the rest of the week, when I bother, will usually be cans from Roosters or bottles / cans from Beerhawk occasionally supplemented by something from the local beer shop. I have some Tiny Rebel and Magic Rock coming up so that will make a nice change.
...and the night before, too.
On Sunday I called in to the Itchy Pig, a micropub about a mile from Sheffield Hatter's Inn. They're open for takeaway for two hours each afternoon except Monday, but this was my first visit in lockdown, prompted by the mention on their Twitter account of Abbeydale Black Mass 6.66%. Described in brewery blurb as a "sultry dark ale", it can drink more like a black IPA, as the hops seem to dominate more in some brews than others, while the promised flavours of licorice and coffee can be elusive. Still, worth a punt, I thought. They also had another Abbeydale beer and one from Pentrich, both described as pale ales. I went for Pentrich Barricades 4.0%, which turned out to be more like grapefruit juice than beer. It ticked all the boxes: cloudy (like grapefruit juice), grapefruit flavour (like grapefruit juice), not much like beer (like grapefruit juice). I persevered, hoping for enlightenment, but this was a one-dimensional beer, from the one-dimensional universe of grapefruit juice. Before starting on the Black Mass I had a glass of Ardmore single malt 40% as a palate cleanser - very nice. And then after that the Black Mass was in one of its black IPA moods, more hops than licorice.
On Monday I paid a visit to a Lidl with a view to trying out a couple of their own beers. (I use Aldi quite a lot for my regular grocery shopping, but not for beer. My nearest Lidls are both much further away and up some pretty decent hills too. But I need the exercise.) I started with a session IPA called Steam Brew 4.9%, which had a can design that was meant to make it look like it came from a hipster microbrewery in the US of A, but which a perusal of the fine print revealed to have originated in Eichbaum brewery in Mannheim. I've had their very ordinary lager when visiting my brother in that city, and while this IPA is a little more interesting than that, it doesn't exactly knock your socks off. (£1.39 for 50cl.)
The Hatherwood Amber Adder is a fairly ordinary dark bitter, which I was surprised to see was rated at 5% abv on the can. As four 50cl cans cost £3.99, this beer would be illegal in Scotland - it's 40p per unit of alcohol. This beer gave me a nostalgic feeling, maybe a reminder of drinking Youngers Scotch on keg before I discovered real ale. Or perhaps drinking Benskins Bitter at my uncle's house when I was in my teens - he used to get a quart bottle of the stuff from the off licence, with a ceramic screw top that had a rubber washer. Don't know when I'll get around to drinking the other three cans...
The other Hatherwood beer was an American IPA, according to the blurb on a can featuring a lurid red octopus in an underwater scene populated by coral, seaweed, skates (and other fish) ...and hop flowers (I kid you not). Twisted Knots 5.5% promised a grapefruit aroma with notes of zesty citrus fruit. Luckily this turned out to be fairly accurate, the grapefruit juice aspects of this beer being largely confined to the aroma and the initial flavour, with other aspects of the beer being revealed subsequently. This was a well made beer, drinking true to type and encouraging me to have another can (for I had bought two of these: 33cl @ 99p each). For those who are interested, hops listed on the can were herkules, columbus, chinook, cascade, citra, centennial and amarillo (amounting to 46 ibu), and there are six malts listed (pale, medium and dark crystal, caramalt, munich and rye pale). Hatherwood Craft Beer Company is apparently a fake name, and the beers are said to be brewed at Shepherd Neame. You can read Beer Nut's views on the full range (I didn't see the others when I was shopping); the only bit of his review of Twisted Knots that agrees with mine is where he says it's balanced. I didn't get any "smoky acridity and a roasted bite" (what is a roasted bite anyway?), and I certainly missed his "luxurious liquorice". Having neglected to close my eyes, I also missed the chance to "pretend it's a black IPA". (He says the beer is not "true to type", but since a black IPA is an American IPA made with dark malts, I'm not sure what his point is.) I'll try the second can tonight, perhaps, this time with my eyes closed.
And I've also got the second pint of the Pentrich Barricades to drink. (Sigh.)
Come On You Hatters!
Great stuff Will, I look forward to the next installment.
"Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer."
-W.C.Fields