This was a lovely ale from my first batch from Beer 52. I really enjoyed it. Never heard of this brewery before, but I might need to check them out now.
Another good ale from Beer 52
Tag: Beer
I like beer. Real beer. Ale, that’s real ale ok. I like lots of different kinds of ale and beer.
Not bad for an average lager
I had this in an Italian restaurant in Edinburgh. It wasn’t bad at all.
Not your normal beer …
I’m not normally a lager drinker, but I made an exception for this beer as I don’t think I’ve ever tasted a rum finished beer. It was an interesting flavour actually. Not unpleasant at all. You could tell that there was something different. I’m not sure if I could taste the rum in it, or if it was just that I knew there was rum in it so I tasted that automatically. Either way, it wasn’t a bad beer at all.
I’m not sure I’d try it again, but if I was faced with it and little else I’d go back to it. It’s worth a try if you get the opportunity.
First World Problems IPA
This was a nice beer. A very nice beer, full of flavour and even though it was a 6.2% it went down very well indeed. The artwork was pretty cool too. Here are a couple of pictures.
Trying out Beer 52
So I found out about this company from the GBBF programme, and I decided to try them out. I got an offer for the first box at half price, and it seemed like a good point to try this out.
So the first box arrived and had an eclectic selection of beers. I was also pleased to see this little extra in there …
Which was nice. I thought that the first beer I’d try out would be this one …
Because I thought that the name was excellent. However, when I poured it out of the bottle, this is what I got …
Which isn’t what I was really looking for, and wasn’t really a great start as far as I was concerned. I contacted Beers 52 about it, but didn’t really get the answer I was looking for sadly.
So far, the other beers I’ve tried from the box have been pretty good, but this one, the first one, was a disappointment as far I was concerned, and not the result I was after.
Well this looks like it might be fun
I haven’t actually been to one the Wetherspoon’s beer festivals in years, so perhaps I should give it a go and see what it’s like these days. It might be fun. It will be cheap!
GBBF 2015
After a break since 2012 I went back to the GBBF. It’s still in Olympia, but as the weather was somewhat overcast it didn’t get too hot in there during the day. But it was a good festival. I’m so glad I went this year. There were some cracking ales there and some very nice food too.
A couple of ales that stood out for me were:
This was quite a light ale, very fruity and citrus flavoured. I really enjoyed it, although I know it isn’t to everyone’s tastes.
Also …
I liked this mild for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was a nice mild, and I don’t tend to drink mild much these days. It had a lovely burnt flavour that wasn’t too overpowering at all. Secondly, I liked the name, which reminded me of The Boards of Canada, The Campfire Headphase, and thirdly, I really liked the design. So I think I may need to locate some of these in the not too distant future.
This year was also unique as I actually managed to get my glass home with me! The last few times I’d been to the GBBF I’d not bothered as normally I’d either mislay it on the way home, or it would get broken. This year it lasted all the way home!
Rail Ale 2015
It’s been a couple of years since I was on the Rail Ale train. It’s a lovely evening on the bluebell railway in Sussex and well worth trying out if you’ve never been. The format is simple. Steam train + Real Ale + Sausage and Mash supper + Jazz band. Easy.
The atmosphere is lovely, especially if you have a really nice sunny evening to enjoy as well. The crowd is all there to have a good time and enjoy the beers, of which there were many, and all good in terms of those I managed to sample.
It isn’t the cheapest evening out, but as an occasional outing it’s well worth the money, and of course, as the Bluebell railway is a charity I don’t begrudge them the cash.
My favourite ale of the evening was called “Piston Broke”, which seemed apt in some ways for a pleasant evening of beer and music.
A great night out all in all.
Oxted Beer Festival 2015
A nice festival and bigger than last year, or so it seemed. At least it must have been a bit bigger as they actually ran out of beer at the Oxted festival on the Saturday night. I’m not sure that I’ve ever been to a beer festival where that’s happened before.
It was a good event. Music wasn’t bad, food had some interesting choices too. But if anyone offers you a sausage role called a ‘ring burner’, just say no. Take my advice.
A few days on the rail rover …
A couple of old friends and I decided to take a train holiday of sorts. In fact, to refer to it as just a train holiday does no justice to the vast amount of planning that actually went into this trip. It didn’t entirely work out for us in that we didn’t get all the journeys done that we thought we might, but it was good fun all the same.
We had rail rovers that covered a huge area in the North East of England.
These made it possible for us to travel all over the place just with these. It was amazing as I didn’t even know that these things existed before this trip.
Our trip had three bases over three nights. These were, Carlisle, on our first night, Settle, on the second, and Blackpool on the third night. I hadn’t been to any of these, so it was going to be interesting no matter what. Although of course, some places are more interesting than others, if you know what I mean.
The first stage to Carlisle was very pleasant indeed. We started our trip with G&T’s and moved on to a few pints of a very pleasant ale. Off the train and on to Windemere for another couple of beers!
Day two saw us on the historic Carlisle to Settle line, although we had a few false starts on the way. We stopped off just after the Ribblehead viaduct in Ribblehead station, which was very pleasant indeed. Settle is a little market town and we stayed the night there in a lovely B&B.
From Settle we went out to Hellifield station and managed to catch sight of the Fellsman steam train going through.
The station itself was lovely and retained some original features, although not all. Here are some of the details …
From their we got another historical line. This time the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, which is the line that was used in the film “The Railway Children”. In fact, we went through the station that was used. Oakworth station.
It was a lovely line. Very picturesque and pleasant, and it would have been even better if it hadn’t been tipping down with rain. But never mind. It was a very pleasant trip all the same. One of the reasons it was so pleasant was …
Our final stop on Wednesday was Blackpool, and we arrived just before this lovely sunset.
We didn’t really get enough time to do much in Blackpool, we visited one or two pubs but that was about it before we had to leave in the morning to get on with the final day of our trip. However, before we left I grabbed a picture of this great old bus.
Our last day had a couple of notable highlights to it. The first was Lancaster, which we visited twice in one day. The first time finding a nice little bar just near the station with an excellent pint from the Settle brewery called “Light”, and also sampling Fiddler’s crisps.
Very nice too actually. The second highlight was visiting Carnforth station where scenes from “Brief Encounter” were filmed. There’s a heritage centre there and a lovely 1940’s style tea room as well.
So we ended up back at Lancaster for a pint in the Robert Gillow before the train back to London.
And a very good pint it was too. So to end I thought I’d include the last photo from the trip which was taken at the Doric Arch pub at Euston, it sort of sums up everything I think.
Cheers!
I am Ashley Elsdon 