A bit of catch up

Life has been hectic lately and my regular lunchtime posts have become ever more irregular. Luckily, today is ticker Tuesday so I can eliminate my backlog in pretty much one bludgeoning swoop. To keep it interesting I won't go on about my pub binges with Peter and Co. at The Gunmakers, or my adventures at The Parr's Head and The Havelock- they were standard pissup affairs.

Interesting beers;

Thornbridge Halcyon (7.7% abv) - this hop monster IPA uses fresh green hops as opposed to dried stable hops. Judging by the hop haze this beer had, I will assume there were a lot of hops added as well. I won't go into too many details, but Darren over at Blog o'Beer posted some good stuff here.

Dorothy Goodbody's Golden Ale (4.2% abv) - This gem from the Wye Valley Brewery has a strong wheat malt taste which I don't really appreciate. It's an easy quaffing beer though and I have a bottle of the stout at home still to get through which should be more to my taste.

Casablanca Premium Lager Beer (5.0% abv) - The wife and I met up with some friends in Kew and went to a new Moroccan restaurant (Tangine) that has just set up shop. It was a warm day and I had worked through a couple of pints of Staropramen and a summer ale from Hog's Back before getting into this beer. It's your standard malty premium lager affair and probably the tastiest alcoholic beverage to come out of Morocco. The food was pretty good too. I had the lamb shank.

Sam Smith's Pure Brewed Lager (5% abv) - One of the best lagers brewed in the UK. This beer really suits the the warmer weather and went down a treat. I should drink this more when I visit Sam Smith's pubs. I have suffered with and been let down by Old Brewery Bitter for way too long, and I usually opt for Alpine Lager in the lager stakes. Could this be the most under-rated beer in Britain?

Ben Nevis Organic 80/- (4% abv) - A beer I really enjoyed.... malty and full of melanoids with minimal hopping this beer went down a treat. I am not really that big a fan of 80/- beers in general, but like any beer style when you get a good interpretation of the style you get a good beer. Anyhow, it's brewed by Bridge of Allan Brewery somewhere in Scotland.

Well that sums up the most interesting beers from the last week. Instead of the usual Nokia quality photography, I have offered you the reader a nice collage for the first time ever. I also went to Krakow over the bank holiday weekend so I guess I will be ramming the virtues of Polish beer down your neck for the remainder of the week!

I am also running a poll and I would like to solicit your opinions.

Samuel Smith's, The Famous Taddy Porter

A post solely for the tickers out there who liked The Beer Diary circa 2008 before I became preoccupied with shooting darts at CAMRA.

Samuel Smiths Taddy Porter (5.0% abv) is a remarkably drinkable porter and was a suitable night cap last Friday after an evening in The Old Parr's Head. I won't intellectualise too much about the beer as basically I'm not very good at it, but I have embedded a video of some other chap below who seems to know his stuff.

I should point out one thing that really irks me about Smith's bottled beers. The food pairings in the label are usually utter rubbish. The Taddy Porter in particular suggests;

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"Oysters on the half shell, Rockefeller or Cajun style, clams, mussels, crab cocktail, lobster bisque and other shellfish, smoked mackerel pâté, veal with green peppercorns, porterhouse steak and of course chocolate. Serve at 55 degrees in nonik or tumbler"

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Surely these dishes are better paired with an IPA or brown ale than a porter. What are these chaps schmokin?

Anyhow for more info on Samuel Smiths just check out this website.

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The Sun Shined (Briefly)

On Saturday, the Sun made a brief appearance in London and prompted us to escape our flat. We (the Mrs and I) decided that we are going to try and tick off our to-do lists over the next few weeks before - fingers crossed - heading back to Australia.

Anyhow we decided to check out the British Museum and marvelled at the Rosetta Stone, Cleopatra and some old coins before grabbing some lunch at the Cafe in Russell Square. The food was ordinary and the Sun also decided that it had enough and decided to hide behind the clouds again. We gave up and performed a quick lap around the Brunswick centre before heading back to the flat.

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I was pretty quick to get amongst my beer stash and went for BrewDog's definitive Cult Lager.

This beer is described as a statuesque pilsner, but comes across as just another US style IPA which happens to be brewed with a lager yeast. It's not a bad beer, but I was expecting more than this unbalanced offering.

Craving something a little more German, I reached for a bottle of Schlenkerla Weizen. After my positive experience with the Marzen a few weeks ago, the wheat offering was well up on my tick list. Again, I was a little disappointed. It's not a bad beer as such, but it does lack the body and maltiness that makes the Marzen stand out. By this stage a "Come Dine With Me" omnibus was starting which lifted my spirits. I have the formula for this show sussed out now. There is always a house wife, a single guy, a single girl an older singleton (either sex) and the token homosexual guy. I think the producers have their formula perfected as this mix of stereotypes always produces the best bitchiness and drama resulting in compelling television.

After "Come Dine With Me" I decided that I was in an IPA kind of mood. Not that I was feeling bitter (excuse lame pun), but I needed a beer with a little bit more kick in it alcohol wise to survive the comic relief crap that appears in just about every media form at this time of year. Don't get me wrong - I love the concept and I support the charity, but they take it a little bit too far. Really after a day of culture in the British Museum the last thing I need is to see a 7 foot Welshman wearing a shit eating grin, trying to make lame jokes while Z grade celebrities sing and dance and make twats of themselves. Just wear a red nose like everyone else. Anyhow the IPA of choice was Snake Dog IPA from the Flying Dog Brewery. An excellent beer and potentially the best beer I have had yet this year.

Anyhow after the wife went to bed, I stayed up and channel surfed between Lock up with Sly Stallone, Fortress with Christopher Lambert and a show with the interesting title of "Sex: How To Do Everything." The sex show was rather funny and featured people dressed up in Micky Mouse costumes getting it on. Apparently they are called 'Furries' and its a new form of fetishism. I think they are freaks. I don't need a TV programme to tell me how to get busy in the sack. Anyhow, I used this time to sample a bottle of Sam Smith's Imperial Stout. It was an OK beer, but failed to live up to it's reputation. Is it just me or does everyone agree that Sam Smith's beers are pretty ordinary in both bottle and draught form? Anyhow, after the stout I gave up on channel surfing and joined the wife in bed. At least the Sun came out today, but bring on summer.

Extra Stout (Sam Smith's)

While I was out at Richmond I also got into a bit of Sam Smith's Extra Stout (4.5% abv). SS Extra Stout is served from nitro-keg and is very similar to Guinness. I would go as far to say that it is an excellent clone, although it does have marginally more flavour and has a nice coffee tang that modern Guinness tends to lack (although it did ten years ago?). The beer was ok, but in general I despise nitro-kegs. There is something slightly dissatisfying about having a beer with a head the consistancy of shaving cream! Also generally as a rule: Nitro-kegs tend to be cellered alongside the lager collection and as such come from the tap at about 2 degrees! Who wants icy cold stout? Not me...