Beer Compurgation

People are suffering serious health problems, the NHS is being overrun, there’s an increase in those turning to drink for solitude in these monetarily worrying times and so the government is proposing their usual elucidation to the majority of issues: increase prices on everything . This isn’t a tax. Oh no. The government could not have made that clearer. But where a tax hike would cause outcry and outrage, surely a sweetly worded limitation would be seen as the ideal solution to a serious problem amongst the public. But once again, the enthusiasts, the self-controlled and the happy are forgotten and punished. I don’t want to challenge the legalities of such a proposal or the hypocrisy, but I want to look at affects or, as David Cameron would like me to say, the benefits of this plan. It seems there are two types of people who the government and doctors believe will profit from the minimum pricing scheme; alcoholics and binge drinkers. Of course, they will have spoken to ...

I love Christmas. I really do. A lot of people despise me for it. I own six Christmas jumpers/cardigans. I don’t tire of the music. I have all the films. I have strict protocol around the subject. I will walk out of a shop if they dare play any song before the 1 st December. But from the 1 st onwards, my iPod only plays festive tunes, I wear nothing but clothing with reindeers on it, my diet becomes minced pies and the ginger infused coffee specials from coffee shops that feature fewer beans and less drink for a higher price. I also, shamelessly, love Christmas beers; lazy brewers just making the exact same beer they’ve made all year but shoving some cinnamon and cloves into the boil to create something that imbeciles like me hail as a seasonal triumph. I had a thought the other day. A thought so good that it was obvious immediately that somebody else thought of it long before the internet was a conceivable organism. A quick search on a popular search engine confirmed my sus...

I suppose my purpose when blogging was that I had a few opinions about certain areas of my “hobby” that I wanted to address, whist also getting to share my own tastes and experiences. Sometimes I’ll find something that angers me, sometimes something that is worth debating. Occasionally, when sat at home bored, I’ll theme my evening with a few bottles of similar style or brewery to entertain myself more than anything. This weekend this was never my intention. I found myself, unusually, with little to do socially so I cracked out a few bottles I fancied at random with no intention of sharing the experience on these pages. However, after experienced a huge contrast in quality in two beers, I couldn’t resist writing something down. It started on Friday when, after a dreadful working week came to an end and a few warm-up beers, I turned to my Nøgne ØSunturnbrew , a beer I had been keeping for a while. I’ve only tried the beer once, at Indy Man Beer Con, and hailed it my favourite ...

Have a Beer for breakfast: one of those “live a little” phrases sometimes bandied about by optimistic Americans preaching about how can all find further carefree enjoyment in our lives, (Yes I am thinking Colin Farrell in Scrubs right about now.) I suppose this is a light-hearted concept, although a little close to being a novelty, which makes for a selling point. Can you make a beer perfect for breakfast? I don’t want to be overly pejorative about a simple idea, but having seen the dark side of alcohol, it doesn’t sit comfortably with me personally. Nevertheless, let’s approach this blog as a light-hearted experiment. I have both the Mikkeller Beer Geek and Beer Hop Breakfast beers stashed away and it seems right to compare them together.   I’ve chosen an evening when I am functioning off two hours sleep, have a slight hangover and have been fending off a prolonged migraine for the majority of the day. I couldn’t feel like I’ve just woken for breakfast or want a cup of...

Last week I told of how in the Friday I went to Indy Man Beer Con and loved every second. In nine years of beer festival involvement it was easily the best I’d ever attended. What I didn’t mention was that on the following day I got up, hangover intact, to go to Huddersfield Oktoberfest Beer Festival, an annual event that, for various reasons, I’d never attended. I wasn’t there to compare and contrast, knowing this would be a different form of festival, but I was excited nonetheless. I was attending with, amongst others, my Uncle who became the somewhat controversial focus of a post regarding a certain organisation last month. So how was it? Answer: a crushing return to reality. I’ll focus on the positives first. This was a well organised, well thought out festival. The venue was practical and roomy. The beer selection was nicely varied, retained a local feel (but in the Yorkshire area that still provides great variety,) and was appropriately extensive. The keg/bottled be...

I think the last few articles I’ve written regarding beer festivals have always mentioned how bored I’ve become of some of the annual ones;   in the same old routine, same locations, same problem with keeping enough decent beer for the people who could only make it at the weekend to try. So, like so many others I’ve seen discussing it online, I was pretty darn excited when I heard about the Independent Manchester Beer Convention . It just so happened to fall in beautifully with a week off work I’d booked much longer ago and so I decided to head for the Friday afternoon Lite session just to be one of the first through the door. Any reservations I was having about the event when the adverts first arrived (too many people were selling it to me as a celebration of “craft”) were dismissed once the location was announced as the Victoria Baths . Being born and bred in the Manchester region, I’ll admit the building was not one I knew much about but others did and, after speaki...

I’m probably not the first person to do such a post but it was something I thought about the other day whilst drinking, and mentally criticising, a beer from Flying Dog brewery. It struck me of how much I was praising a beer that was, when I stripped everything back, a bit of a disappointment. Yet I was nothing but complimentary about it. I love Flying Dog and hadn’t been disappointed with any style they’d done up to that point. They are, in point of fact, one of my favourite breweries. I suppose everyone has their favourite breweries. Mine would include the likes of Abbeydale , (because they were the first brewery I fell in love with) Millstone , (because they are my local but also make consistently great beers) Red Willow , (because I’ve never had a bad beer by them, cask or in bottles, and Ageless remains my favourite beer of this year) Flying Dog , (still my favourite Americans) and De Molen . I tend to never be disappointed by any of these and am always excited to try somet...