Beer Posts

Neath Ales Brewery Tour-At-Home

I picked up this collection of beers from Neath Ales (now closed) at last year's Abergavenny Food Festival; I always have my eye open for small local breweries at such events that I might otherwise have never encountered and Abergavenny was pleasantly productive. We start with Green Bullet, a 6.0% IPA – named ...

Zebedee Beer Slushy

Having been a co-conspirator in a previous month with our Beer & Nuts Ice Cream, this month I decided to make my very own entry for Kavey's Bloggers Scream For Ice Cream. April's theme is Sorbets, Granitas, Shaved Ice Desserts, Slushies and Spoom! Obviously it had to be something beer-related, because as I've said before ...

Delirium Nocturnum

While I'm more concerned about the beer than the bottle in comes in, it's fair to say that packaging can always have an impact. Poor packaging – be it the graphics or sometimes just the name – can put me off even bothering to try a beer. Put a pink elephant on a stone-look ...

AG3 - Zebedee Spring Ale

For this home brew, I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to make. A spring ale, light, sweet, not too bitter and with some nice gentle hop aroma. The grain recipe wrote itself; mostly pale malt with just a little crystal malt (the only other non-black malt I had in ...

Brewdog Mini Brewery Tour-At-Home

As I've mentioned before, Brewdog have been on my list for a Tour-At-Home for a long time. They're a very polarising brand; brash, aggressive and firmly of the opinion that any publicity is good publicity. It's not an attitude that really does much for me to be honest, and I'd disregard them if it ...

Tripel Karmeliet

Our local Waitrose has recently been rearranging their already rather good beer section. This is broadly a good thing, because they seem to have expanded the range of good beers (Meantime now appear to have half a shelf to themselves!) at the expense of the duller, more mass market offerings. They've also improved their ...

Windsor & Eton Conqueror: Does Strength Matter?

Over the last few months I've been enjoying a wide variety of high strength beers (oh, how I suffer for this blog…) – in general they've varied from very tasty to spectacular, but even in my small sampling there have been some that have fallen a little short. So I found myself wondering how much was ...

Guinness Foreign Extra

Given that it's Saint Patrick's Day this weekend, it seems appropriate to seek out an Irish monster. So when I spotted this in the supermarket, it seemed like a clear sign from the beer gods. Here we have Guinness Foreign Extra. Unlike (I believe) the regular Guinness we get here in the UK, this ...

Chimay Blue

This week I continue my search for a readily available monster beer. While I try to maintain a cupboard full of big, interesting beers to enjoy I'm very aware that I spend an unhealthy amount of time in specialist beer shops and buying too much beer online. Less beer-obsessed people may be more ...

The Kernel IPA 2010 Centennial

This week, I opened a bottle that I'd been looking forward to for quite a while – the last Kernel Brewery beer in the cupboard, and possibly my last for a while. I have always had a soft spot for The Kernel. I love the big flavours they pack in. I love the branding. ...