The day I cut up my CAMRA membership...

Today was a day of hard choices. As a consequence most of my favourite beer glasses were relegated to the orange Hammersmith and Fulham recycling sack and my wallet was reverted to its former Australian self. Out with the National Insurance card, various HSBC debit and credit cards and my Fuller's fine ale club and CAMRA card, and in with my Medicare and St George bank cards.
It was fitting then that I disposed of these cards responsibly so weird beards could pass themselves off as me if they found my CAMRA membership. That is why I cut the membership card up into six pieces and disposed of them in five different garbage bins along Shepherds Bush Road. I guess I am still a member until my subscription expires, but it's of no use to me once I get back home.
As this is my last night in the UK, the missus and I ventured out for a last supper at one of London's best gastro pubs - The Havelock Tavern.
As I have mentioned previously this pub has a good selection of beer and decent food. It also happens to have a celebrity landlord in Lawrence Dellaglio. I do find it odd though that he has plastered his name all over the pint glasses..... see the pic below. For those foodies out there I had the steak & chips with bearnaise sauce and token leaves of rocket. I washed it down with a well kept pint of Pride and a tasty pint of Doom Bar. The missus had a goats cheese salad and a lemon lime and bitters. I won as hers was pretty dull, and I had the superior food beverage pairing.

Anyhow this is the final post I will be writing from the UK (unless I get bored in Heathrow Terminal 4 tomorrow). I'm spending the next week in Thailand getting the summer that the UK didn't experience. I may post from there but don't hold your breath. The good news is that I will be back on board after August 3rd. Till then take total care.

Who cares if pubs are closing, I can't reheat my leftovers...

Yes, the beer blog world is on fire today with everyone up in arms about some Pubco statistics showing that 50 odd pubs are closing a week. What do these statistics tell us besides the fact that there are too many pubs? If a business can't make money it will close. Full Stop.....
Nobody complains when an off licence or dodgy Chinese take away closes up, so why the fuss about the pubs that obviously nobody patronises?
Speaking of Chinese takeaway, I made the school boy error of keeping leftovers after throwing away my microwave oven. I had to eat cold special friend rice and cold beef and black bean. I'm doing it tough. Today I disposed of my toaster and kettle. It really is a hard knock life. Later I get to go fly tipping with my TV and unused ironing board.

On a brighter note I did have an excellent pint of Gales HSB this afternoon at the Queens Head on Brook Green. I then drank the last beer in my fridge (Le Chouffe Blonde - too much coriander BTW). I'm feeling a little tipsy now but that will just make the curry taste better for dinner.

It's a good thing I am leaving the UK on Friday. At the current rate of 2500 pub closures a year, there will be nowhere left to get smashed or ogle barmaids tits left in five years time. But I really don't give a shit, I really don't.

Old Tom Parr

On Saturday night I met up with a few friends for some more farewell drinks and a Thai meal at one of my favourite west London pubs - The Old Parrs Head. It's a great little local boozer run by a nice Irish bloke who has employed a succession of young girls with massive tits to lurk behind the bar. (I guess this is probably true all the pubs I frequent).
Anyhow there are fact sheets floating around the pub which gives a bit of a background to whom Old Parr was and how the pub came to be named after him. One common theme came from the mouths of all who read this fact sheet - "It's all lies". To set things straight it makes such bold statements that he died at the age of 152 years and had 22 children. It's easy to see how you could write it off as nonsense.
I have been doing some investigations of my own and I can now reveal that it's true. Wikipedia even substantiates the claims and highlights how Old Parr is listed as a cultural reference in such classics as Dracula and novel by some chap called Dickens. Poor Old Tom Parr was a living legend and is buried at Westminster Abbey along with countless other medieval heroes. Here is the inscription in his gravestone;

THO: PARR OF YE COUNTY OF SALLOP. BORNE
IN AD: 1483. HE LIVED IN YE REIGNES OF TEN
PRINCES VIZ: K.ED.4. K.ED.5.K.RICH.3.
K.HEN.7.K.HEN.8.K.EDW.6.Q.MA.Q.ELIZ
K.JA. & K. CHARLES. AGED 152 YEARES.
& WAS BURYED HERE NOVEMB. 15. 1635.

I'm surprised anyone lived that long back then in the days before proper real keg and cask aspirators. Although vinegar is used to preserve (ok well pickle) things so that may explain his old age. He certainly looks like a weird beard though...

Pub with no beer??

This photo was taken rather early last Friday evening (8.30ish?). I am sure the landlord was happy to be drunk dry but us punters were thirsty and wanted more. The answer? I can't really remember. I think there was some Fuller's 1845 bottles and a few pints of Guinness involved and there must have been Orval as well as I have a few photos of Orval and a wine glass. I vaguely recall enjoying the Orval and being philosophical. It was almost like an Orval epiphany as I have always found it taste of wet dog or horse. I was pretty sauced up by this point in time and hadn't paused to eat anything either. So I must offer my most sincerest apologies to the guy I discussed fishing with (he knows who he is)... I was well out of order. Ponds were meant to be fished from!

Getting Properly Smashed

I just found this photo which I took on a rugby trip 6 or 7 years ago. The picture depicts the spoils of one or two too many beer bongs as your mates rejoice and play songs on a recorder. This is what I call getting properly pissed up, a very rugby trip thing to do. On an interesting note, the poor chap passed out on the ground and covered in vomit holds a masturbation record. Yes the aptly named 'Tugger' rubbed out 22 loads in a 24 hour period. The secret? According to him, "lots of lube and lots of porn".

Beers of the World

Last night I popped into the pub for a couple of beers after work en route to my wife's work leaving drinks. The pub was pretty quiet and Peter the Bike wasn't around to talk shit with so I plonked myself down and read the paper. I retired "The Sun" after the cursory glances at Page 3 and Dear Deidre and picked up a copy of 'Beers of the World'. I hadn't seen this publication around before and gave it a flick through (I never read anything properly anymore - a habit formed after years of dealing with scientific literature) and found it a bit bizarre. The editorial is a mix. There are a few leftist CAMRA type articles by Protzy and his ilk, but there are also some nice historical articles - including one on nitro-keg and the birth of proper real keg (which happened to disregard 50 years of history and start in 1994). One thing that stuck out was the number of female contributors. Melissa Cole has a piece in there and the magazine is edited by Sally Toms (who I have been told is 'fit'). The magazines credibility went further downhill after I parsed the altbier article where of the 7 beers they recommend, only two were German. WTF??

Anyhow after a couple of pints of Altons Pride I headed west to The Bridge House (W2) to meet up with the Missus and her associates. Most of these types were pretty pissed when I got there and had moved onto lemonades. I defied their softness and went for a pint of Landlord which hadn't been cellared properly and was over carbonated. This didn't last long in the sultry weather and was quickly followed by a pint of Kuppers Kolsch. For dinner we moved along to Westbourne Grove to the Dim Sum heaven that is Ping Pong. I chose to wash down my soggy steamed parcels of who knows what with a few bottles of Tiger, which I happen to like.
This morning I am actually feeling pretty good considering the massive amount of piss I drank last night. Today is my last day of employment with my current shop, hence I am taking the piss and blogging when I 'should' be working. In reality today will be spent preparing myself my own work leaving drinks which kick off sometime after five. Bring it on.....

Favourite Session Beer

It probably took me three years to realise, but I have to declare Fullers London Pride as my favourite session ale. This was not an easy thing for me to admit. For too long I chased the elusive beer holy grail in pubs across London just being set back by disappointment after disappointment. While I always had a soft spot for Pride, I nearly always overlooked it at the pumps for some rare microbrewed concoction. It seems that over time I have come full circle and will now take Pride whenever I can get it.

It's consistent and you rarely (if ever) get a bad pint. It's widely available and comes bright and ready to serve within a couple of hours of delivery. It's popular and has a high turnover making it a safer bet. It's a solid balanced offering, nothing extreme but interesting enough to hold it's own. It's strong enough to be flavourful, but light enough to knock pints back all night long. I could go on....
This particular pint was scoffed at The Botanist on Kew Green late on Saturday afternoon. This pub had a bar full of imported continental proper real keg and one beer engine with Pride on. If a pub can only support one pump, then Pride would have to be the only choice. What's your favourite session beer?

This pretty much sums it up

I rarely post twice in the same day. I thought this post was an important one. Why, because this completely illustrates why I fucking despise beer reviews, over the top beer informant blogs, beer know-it-all's and beer geeks in general. The guy reviewing this beer is a fuckhead. He might be a very nice person when he's not reviewing beer. But in this video, he's a fuckhead. Why, because he takes for granted that someone actually gives a shit about his thoughts on Punk IPA. People are lazy. The world is filled with amazing things to eat and drink. Go and test it all out for yourself. Stop relying on someone else to clue you in on the latest and greatest. Another thing, I've drank so much beer, that much of it tastes the same. I'm not going to spend $10 for a bottle of Punk IPA when I can buy a bottle of Racer 5 for under $4!! Yes, I've drank all the explosions of malt and hops, all the quirky fucking Belgians, most, if not all, English cask beers, and most if not all of Germany's lagers. At one time, I traveled a lot. I also drank a lot of imported beer when the vast majority of Americans didn't even know what real beer tasted like. If any yahoo can make a video describing beery taste sensations, like this is what you should really be smelling and tasting, certainly someone can take the fucking piss out of it. I am that someone.

For those who require advice: Pull your head out of your ass. There are people out there that require daily ridicule. Hess being one of them. It doesn't mean you have to hate them, or cause them harm. In Hess' case, you may want to just despise him for his crimes against my person.

Stop the fucking magic tricks and satirize. Here's what I'm talking about in all its glory.

WARNING: I am not liable for medical issues that may transpire from the viewing of this video.

Ealing Beer Festival

Believe it or not, but 80% of the people in the above photo are freaks

As mentioned on Friday afternoon, I took advantage of my CAMRA membership to gain free access to the Ealing Beer Festival. For some time now I have considered this to be the only CAMRA event worth going to but now I am reconsidering this position. We arrived in the afternoon to find that only CAMRA stereotypes were present. That's right, the crowd was mainly middle class older gents with beards and belly's who liked to wear fishing vests. There were a few other people who I would describe as socially eccentric there as well but I won't rip on the mentally disabled. We can learn a lot from all people in society (including the disabled and handicapped)- except real ale freaks. Actually on this point I should note that many of the CAMRA volunteers were amputees. I have nothing further to say on that, just stating my observation.

Anyway enough of the crap lets talk about the beer. From memory I had Thornbridge Jaipur, Fuller's Vintage 2008 (which was infected), Phoenix West Coast IPA, Ascot Alligator Ale, Harviestoun Schiehallion, Thornbridge Blackthorn and a few others (OK it wasn't a particularly long session and I was drinking with some pace. This affects the memory!). I only had the Harviestoun beer to see what the fuss was about. Apparently because it's a cask conditioned lager it's fine for CAMRA consumption. Well basically the beer is nice, but it could be mistaken for a bitter. I don't think there is any particular 'lager' like flavour that jumps out and grabs you. Anyhow this was the last CAMRA event I will ever go to. I'm not particularly sad about the fact either. Somehow the thought of never hearing about the game of table skittles and having to make small talk with the fellow below is rather appealing. Where do these people come from?

To the Extreme

There has been a bit of debate recently surrounding the relative merits of "Extreme" beers. It seems that Tandleman started it here where he has digested popular CAMRA opinion (and claimed it to be his own and not CAMRA's opinion). Anyhow to prove a point, at the Ealing Beer Festival Yesterday there were only a handful of beers over 5%. One of these beers was Fuller's Vintage 2008. I ordered a half only to find it infected (tasting of artificial cherry and band aids/plasters). Despite me pointing out the obvious they continued to sell the beer telling me that I didn't know what I was talking about. Good one CAMRA!
I still drank the infected half. I guess that was pretty extreme..........

The Process of Moving

Moving home is wasting a lot of my time. For example last Friday I had to work from home to wait for boxes to be delivered. Then on Saturday, instead of pissing it up at the American Beer Festival at the White Horse like I had intended, I ended up packing boxes till 2am. Today I am working from home awaiting the lovely shipping company to come and collect the boxes. I don't really like working from home. It's boring and the social graces of my workplace (and the excellent coffee machine) are absent. I admit that I am not exactly engaged in my work while I wait out my notice period, but its still nice to have people to chat to.
Anyhow fingers crossed these boxes will be gone soon and I can clear out of the flat. A trip to the Ealing Beer Festival to exercise my CAMRA membership is in order. I am sure I will make fun of some tickers as well. High on my tick list is Thornbridge Jaiper IPA as well as several other US style beers. This is most likely the last time I am exposed to a significant number of British cask ales for the foreseeable future. I will report back on my findings next week.

Cash for Comment

As most of you know I am a big fan of cash for comment. That is receiving goods for free and saying nice things about them to provide promotion for a company looking to advertise its wares. This results in a win-win situation where I get some freebies and someone gets free advertising. It's shameless I know, but I have no morals anyhow. Earlier in the year I went along to the launch of BrewDog's black lager Zeitgeist and got pretty pissed on BrewDogs dime. Anyhow the time has come to return the favour and promote Zeitgeist once more.

As I'm lazy I will just post James (BrewDog's Head of Stuff) email for you guys to consume.

Our zeitgeist website is now up and running. And I want to help your blog readers so you can help me get our online concept working well.

www.zeitgeistbeer.com

There is a very unusual hook behind the Zeitgeist website. The blog will not be updated by us, but by the customer!
We want to give up ownership of the blog, website and brand to the people who drink the beer.
The idea is to create a whole alternative community online on the zeitgeist site.
People can blog on www.zeitgeistbeer.com about anything: beer, art, film, culture. They can upload movies, pictures and say anything they want. The idea would be that the discussion has an alternative vibe which ties in with the non-conforming message of the beer.
This is a brand controlled by the people not people not a brand which controls them.

It is not our blog. It is not zeitgeist’s blog – it is your blog!

All someone has to do to be able to blog is to buy some beer for our online shop.

The idea of having an open blog, updated by the consumer is a new and radical approach and is going to need a bit of a push to get the awareness going on it. This is where you can help a little!
I have a 70% discount code SHEEP all set up for you to give to your readers on your website so not only do they get some great black lager at an unbelievably price they also get to be one of the first people to update the blog!

Ok, yes you are reading that correctly. If you buy from the www.zeitgeistbeer.com website and use the SHEEP promo code you get 70% off. Now get out there and buy some excellent beer and post your thoughts on the blog. I would if I could guarantee that I would get the beer and drink it all in the next week or so before I get back to Sydney. BTW, I was chatting to a mate in Sydney who claims that Punk IPA is $18 (~£9) a pint back home. WTF - this is highway robbery!

New Toy

I have a new computer. It was time to replace my aging Toshiba Satellite laptop with a new more up to date machine. I have been having a horrible experience with my Windows based work machine recently and wanted something robust and fast. So to cut to the chase I ended up buying a Macbook Pro 13". So far I am very impressed with the machine and I am questioning myself why I didn't make the jump across to the apple sooner. The beauty of the situation is the timing as I can get a VAT refund as I am leaving the UK for longer than 12 months. Couple this with the education discount I received (my UCL staff card is still valid, although I no longer work there) and the free Ipod Touch included with the education promo and it is almost a bargain. It also means that I am cool like Robert Webb or Justin Long.

On the beer front, besides the Fuller's Vintage I had a few pints of Summer Lightning at the Gunmakers last Thursday and I had a few cans of lager over the weekend, and there was also a Fullers ESB somewhere in the mix. On Monday night I went for dinner at the Meat and Wine Co. and had a bottle of Windhoek and some ribs. Life is good, but only because I am going home soon...

Fullers Vintage 1999

It was a monumental task. To pack up and box the contents of the flat ready for shipping back to Australia. After the hard work, I quenched my hard earned thirst in style - with a ten year old bottle of Fuller's Vintage Ale.

The beer was excellent and had a smooth caramel taste with a hint of alcoholic warmth showing through. Perfectly balanced it was like a super version of London Pride. In comparison with the 2008 bottle I had a couple of weeks ago they are two distinctly different beers. The 1999 Vintage is a lot darker and has more roast caramel notes coming through where the 2008 is lighter in colour and doesn't contain the depth of complexity that the older beer had. Both beers are excellent though, its just that the 2008 will not mature into a beer similar to the 1999. Overall the beer is excellent and I was lucky enough to be able to pick up one of the 80000 bottles produced over 10 years ago. In this instance the 2002 expiry date was well and truly passed but the beer stood up to the test of time nicely!

Goodbye London

Luke Jackson has asked me to plug his new song 'Goodbye London'. The Youtube clip is pretty good with detailed animations and the song is catchy. I have only a couple of weeks left in London so I guess the song is aptly titled!
Enjoy.

Want to go into Space?

Last night on TV I watched James May fly to the edge of space in a U2 spyplane and it looked like fun. The lovely staff over at Guinness are running a promotion as part of their 250th anniversary where you can win a trip into space with Virgin Galactic. There are a range of prizes including drinking stout at 70m below sea level in an exclusively designed underwater boozer.

More information can be found at http://newsroom.guinnessexperience.com. The opportunity to go into space is part of a global competition that is running from 1st July until 24th September 2009.

It doesn't hurt to enter the competition, and you never know you may get lucky.

Maltese Style

I have just spent the last 5 days in Malta. As a country Malta has been of strategic military importance to the British Empire for a long time. It's proximity to both Europe and Africa make it a great jumping point for invasions of many countries. Malta is also an underdeveloped shithole with hobbies such as picking up dog shit (as illustrated by the instructional sign in the pic to the left). It is an odd place, but they do have good beer.

The first exposure I had to Maltese beer was not a good one. Surely a beer called Hopleaf Pale Ale is going to be good right? Well no. It was tasteless and dull and I refuse to talk about it further. On the other hand I did find some excellent brews. The most common and widely available beer is Cisk (4.9% abv). This is an excellent continental lager in the pilsner style and actually tastes pretty good from a can and is also available in proper real keg form. It is insanely cheap and can be had for about €1.50 a pint in most establishments or for 65 euro cents a can in supermarkets.

Other noteworthy Maltese beers are Farsons Lacto Milk Stout (3.8% abv) which is a thick treacle like milk stout which is really nice. It doesn't have that thinly veiled roast with chemical aftertaste that other milk stouts seem to have. It's a wonderful beast and is balanced just right - I wish I had picked some up to bring back to the UK! 1565 is another Maltese lager in the style of Cisk, but is brewed to celebrate St Johns victory in the year of it's namesake. This beer is OK, but not as clean and crisp as Cisk. I only ever came across cans of the stuff so it may be rare or just brewed for the public holiday (which happens to be the 28th June, while I was there). You can get most of the usual euroswill suspects there such as Heineken, Carlsberg etc but you can also get German and Czech beers such as Lowenbrau and Budvar insanely cheap at under 50 euro cents a bottle. Anyhow in terms of beer this pretty much sums up my experiences in Malta. I only went there for some guaranteed sun, and upon my return I find out that I missed a heatwave in London and it was actually warmer here! Plenty of good boozing coming up this week though with a session in the Gunmakers locked in tomorrow and The White Horse and Ealing beer fests coming up, I am staring down a boozy weekend. It will certainly make packing interesting!