Beer Compurgation

I grew a little bored of tasting sessions and posts for beers after the full voracity of the Advent Calendar saga. However, occasionally some evenings deserve special mention and credit, as do the beers sampled at such times. For this reason, I’ve decided to write up my experience tasting a box of Wild Beer Co’s creations the other evening. Wild Beer Co . were a brewery that created a lot of hype around blogs and the social media long before their beers ever seemed to hit the shelves. Being the miserable cynic that I often am, this made me sceptical, and initially resentful, towards them. I find it shallow and naïve when I see fellow enthusiasts or bloggers hyping up a brewery or brew so much before tasting has even occurred. To me, it is just for those that are easily fooled into marketing schemes and ploys; the sort of humans you would find switching insurance every 3 months because a new species of talking animal told them to in the Coronation Street break. I don’t blame th...

There was a time when I thought beer was subjective, when I believed it was there to be interpreted and commented on from a personal perspective. I used to form my own opinions about beer, pubs and breweries and sometimes I’d even write them in this little blog. Brewdog were no exception; I was happy to praise them when they did right and criticise when I felt they were wrong. Of course I now have seen that I was wrong to do this. You see, it’s not about opinions or personal preferences; it’s about following the crowd, doing what’s cool and avoiding controversy. At present it’s not cool to like Brewdog. Despite the fact that I still really enjoy their beers and bars, people keep telling me why I should hate them. You probably already do, as you are well “in” on what’s hot and what’s not. I wasn’t aware of this, the e-mail never landed in my inbox, but not wanting to fall out of the loop I’ve presented a list of reasons why we should all hate Brewdog so I can fit in with this g...

So far in the year 2013 I’ve only written four posts (the Advent calendar one does not count) and they have mostly been rants or rather disparaging reports of events or bars I’ve visited. I’ve taken a little bit of stick for this, undeserved considering it is the times I feel most passionate about a certain occurrence that I feel the desire to put it into words.   Anyway, since passion also breeds happiness I felt compelled to express my joy at my first visit this weekend to a brand new beer shop in the centre of Manchester. We’ve been lacking a great beer shop in the city centre for so long that the thought has crossed my mind on more than one occasion to just open one myself. Finally, somebody with a little more providence than myself has gone about doing this in the form of the BeerMoth . Seeing as it’s in the heart of the Northern Quarter, the area I frequent the most in the city centre, this couldn’t be more conveniently placed for me. The shop only opened at the beg...

Update: As this page still receives so many views, I feel I should direct you to my second, more favourable post on the subject, after you have read this one.  You should attempt to grow up in Manchester with a Liverpudlian mother and extensive family heralding from the Merseyside city. As sacrilegious as many of my Mancunian friends have found it, Liverpool has long been my favourite city. It has a lot of history and character that Manchester was always lacking in my youth. There were several areas to explore. Everything from the engaging design of the cathedrals to the oddity of the dock area made it a much more fascinating citadel than I was accustomed to. But, in my older years, I have struggled to convince my friends that we should go drinking there, as they hide behind their rather terrace-like prejudices. It is because of this that I have only been around Liverpool’s pubs on a couple of occasions, the main instance being quite a few years back. It included my first v...

There are no rules to drinking beer. You may fancy a tipple at this moment, despite it being just an ordinary day, with nothing spectacular occurring and nobody else present. You might not really be in the mood for anything specific. You might just be satisfied with an orange juice but took to a beer because it was there. And that beer you’ve reached for might be a frozen can of your most tasteless lager that the off license had on offer. It’ll suffice. Or it might be the rarest, double barrel aged, triple hopped, cinnamon infused, overpriced crafted drink that cost £35 from an independent shop in South Devon. The truth is, I don’t know why I would reach for the latter on a regular night. For whatever reason, on a personal preference, when I buy rare or expensive beers, I find myself storing them away until I have special reason to bring them out; a reason that never transpires. However, through the power of social media, I often see people supping the beers I have stockpiled in ...

Perhaps if this had been three years ago I would really have lamented the loss of the National Winter Ales Festival in Manchester . Not only has it long been held in my home city, but it was also my first ever beer festival, signifying a special place in my heart. That first visit was in 2006 and the event was then held in a co–operative building near Victoria station. At the time, my young ale loving mind was rather gobsmacked by the wondrous multi roomed, multi floored experience as barrels and casks of the good stuff stood waiting for me to try at no more than 90p for a generous half pint. Breweries and beer styles I had never heard of were present. It was also where I had my first taste of rauchbier, an encounter I have never regretted. I paid £3 to enter that day as a non CAMRA member. The organisations members that did travel with me on the occasion entered the festival for free (so they say, I’m inclined to believe they paid at least £1.) “They’re not a money making ...

Perhaps I'm too uncool these days to get "it." Perhaps my cynicism is the antidote to irony making my relation to the current trend in Manchester distant. For Manchester, my beloved home city that I have seen grow up and mature so in the past few years, has become the fresher year student of cities. No, I do not mean that it focuses on actual student nightlife, I mean that it is arrogant, sarcastic, rebellious and too cool for cool. It is a city that has found its own freedom and identity for the first time and is using this new found independence to put a proverbial middle finger to the rest of the cities. We are different. We are not compliant. We are irony. My new vision of Manchester has begun to form slowly over the past six months but was confirmed by a recent visit to Gorilla down the Oxford Road end of the city last Saturday night; my first to this bar. Gorilla is owned by the gurus behind Trof for whom I have a fondness for as well as their siblings. I am c...