Categories
london pubs

Common sense guide to London pubs

This is a link worth bookmarking — Pubology’s Ewan has given a very thorough rundown of his favourite London pubs of 2009, which we’ll certainly be making use of in the coming year.

Categories
beer reviews Beer styles

Pretty wits all in a row

Our own Belgian style wheat beer

As with koelsch, if you drink one Belgian wheat beer in the middle of a session with other beers, you’d be hard pressed to tell one from another. But, drink them together for comparison, and you can really appreciate the subtle differences.

We took Bailey’s folks to the Dove a while back and, as his Mum is a fan of wheat beers, helped her work through a few from their impressive selection.

Steenbrugge wit was like a drier, more lemony version of Hoegaarden. Next to Steenbrugge, Blanche de Bruxelles seemed to taste of honey, a flavour we’d never noticed before. Florisgaarden was the most interesting of the three, with a pleasing aroma and taste of juniper, which we really liked.  Quite a surprise from the big boys. We’ll be nicking that idea for the next Belgian-style wit we brew at home.

Categories
Blogging and writing

Stonch’s Beer Blog

We decided to start blogging after a particularly exciting trip around Bavaria in 2007. The first thing we did when we got home was checked out what was already there and Stonch’s Beer Blog was top of the search results and a massive inspiration.

It’s always been one of the first blogs we look at each day, although we usually chicken out of joining the sometimes heated debates in the comments threads. We’ve only enjoyed it more in recent months as it gave us a glimpse into a world we didn’t know well — that of the pub landlord — in a way which demystified it and even made it sound like fun.

Now it seems the blog is winding up, we can only say that we’ll miss it and that we hope a Gunmakers blog might follow soon so at least we’ll know what beers to expect when we pop in.

Categories
American beers beer reviews

Overheard at the Rake

“Have you got a nice stout?”
“Well, there’s the Dark Star, but that’s 10.5%. How about Anchor Porter?”

“Have you got anything south American?”
“Er…. Quilmes?”

“We want some sour beers. Have you got anything by Cantillon?”
“Yes, but it’s about £8 a bottle.”
“That’s fine. One bottle, two glasses, please!”

“Why are you having a lager again, mate?”
“Coz I want something cold and refreshing, with bubbles, that doesn’t make me feel like my Dad.”
“Goose Island IPA is cold and refreshing, and your dad wouldn’t like that.”
“Stop trying to make me drink your old man beers.”

“How long would you keep a barley wine for, in the cask?”
“Well, we keep ours for up to six years, but you could definitely keep it longer, if it was filled properly.”
“Oh, I know our filling techniques, and they introduce way too much oxygen.”

“What do you have that’s a normal strength and comes in a normal pint glass?”

Whilst eavesdropping, we also worked our way through a few beers, including Sierra Nevada Unrivaled, a rye beer with a hint of smoke that actually tasted how we’ve always imagined rye beer ought to. It’s a late contender for beer of the year — very complex and utterly delicious, with citrus hops and fruity, nutty, spicy flavours, too.

Doggie Style delivered an American style IPA (heavy body, lots of hops) at only 4.7%. It’s yer actual session beer, that.

Goose island Christmas Ale (7%) was a final treat. It was £9.50 for a large bottle. It was like malty golden syrup with a touch of orange. Nice, but not as nice as something like 1845. We wonder if some complexity got lost on the Atlantic crossing?

Categories
beer reviews

Christmas Beer from Norway

It’s always nice when you hit upon a single word review of a beer: Oreos would do it for Ringnes Jullebok, one of a pair of Norwegian Christmas beers we were given by Knut Albert a few weeks ago when we met him in London.

At the time he described it as the most interesting Christmas beer from the big industrial brewers. Ringnes is the Norwegian arm of Carlsberg, he explained, and told us not to expect too much from the beer.

It looked lovely — transparent, dark, with an off-white head — but didn’t really have enough going on to justify its strength (9%). Boak didn’t like it much at all, having an aversion to overt sugariness in beer, but I enjoyed its smooth, lingering chocolate flavour.

Now we just need to find an opportunity to drink the bottle of Nøgne ø Christmas beer before Twelfth Night. If it’s bad luck to leave up your decorations after then, surely the same must go for drinking Christmas beer?

Bailey