12 passion fruit[s] in 5 litres of liquid doesn't sound all that much. Should have dropped a bottle of Passoa in. Probably wouldn't have even boosted the ABV too much by the sounds of it.
The Northern Monks are treating me well. The Brewdog one was just fine. Still got my Norse Stars to come though.
Saw a box of four Faith In Custard (Northern Monk x LeiMai LeMaow, apparently) in Tesco for £6, which I'm hoping is even a fraction as nice as that Don't Mess With Yorkshire rhubarb and custard one they did.
I'm a twit
How was the Faith in Custard @Baz ? Local Tesco has it but only in four packs so I've dithered over trying it.
I just had Brew York / Siren "Coffee." A "maple mocha iced latte stout." It was fucking delicious.
Just as good as the previous one that Morrisons were offering, only far cheaper. So good I went back and bought another box of four. Probably not really your kind of thing though, really.
I think @niko_cee had the Don’t Mess With Yorkshire one so maybe ask for his assessment, cos they’re basically the same only this one seems to have more sediment at the bottom.
I'm a twit
Nope, never got hold of that although wanted to. Never made it to our Morrisons I don't think. Might keep an eye out for this new one.
Lost in Mango goes to about an 8/10 on a hot day when you're gasping for a beer. Found its niche.
My latest Neipa is the third best one I’ve ever had
I have begun the proceedings on Polly's "Wither", an oat porter. I could go a little more sweetness but it's rather decent.
I've sat on my balcony most of the afternoon drinking home made Old Fashioneds. If I'm to become an alcoholic, I think this is the way I'd like to go about it.
What sort of views does your balcony command, Jimmy? Vital information for me to calibrate my jealousy because that sounds like an excellent way to spend the afternoon.
I've gone onto a 10% Belgian dark thingy. Tastes fucking strong. Very nice though.
It looks over a park. Not much of a park, but the tall trees behind it don't half form some tasty silhouettes in the evening at this time of year, especially when you're seeing three of each one.
When it gets dark the kids arrive with their ghetto blasters, their gossip about the below parts of girls, and their obvious regret that they were born white, something that will wear off with rapidity once they have to start applying for jobs.
Last edited by Jimmy Floyd; 15-04-2022 at 07:18 PM.
Went out with family today which meant a couple of new pubs in the area. They can pour Guinness over here, which is a plus. Nice, as opposed to tolerable.
Just got a rather large delivery from Siren that I'm very much looking forward to drinking. I've had a couple of orders from them before and always thought they were excellent (apart from a Mavkva stout that was around 12-14% and I could barely finish it). I ordered a mystery case and an IPA one and ended up with:
4 * Enter Simcoe - Hazy IPA (330ml)
2 * Soundwave - IPA (330 ml)
2 * Lumina - Session IPA (330 ml)
2 * Jiggery Pokery - Red IPA
1 * Twists - West Coast IPA
1 * Futurist - Gluten Free Session IPA
1 * Ten Dollar Shake - Nitro Fruit Smoothie IPA
1 * Sold My Soul For Azacca - Azacca Four Ways IPA
1 * Suspended In Azacca - Hazy Pale Ale
1 * Old Street Brewery - Hazy Pale Ale
1 * White Tips - White Session IPA
1 * Pompelmocello - Nitro Juicy Grapefruit Sour IPA
1 * Silver Strand - California IPA
1 * Piha Pils - NZ Pilsner
1 * Origin Story - Imperial Stout
1 * Surface Waves - California Pale Ale
1 * Press to Zest - Lemon and Coffee Gose
1 * Storyboard - American Brown Ale with Cedar
1 * Castilian Lemon & Honey Cheesecake - Juicy Sour IPA
Most of them I've never had before (tried the Lumina, Soundwave, Origin Story and Silver Strand before), should hopefully be good!
Fuck me, how much has that set you back?
I might order some Mavka on payday if they've still got it. Sounds right up my street.
It was only £70, which I thought was pretty reasonable - free shipping and 2 free cans of the Enter Simcoe (with a code Siren had sent in an email).
The mystery case has 10 cans in it for £30 which could be great value depending on what you actually get in the box.
Probably worth it anyway. You might not get stuff you love but Siren don't do bad beers.
Got a white chocolate and raspberry milkshake IPA thing from Black Sheep to kick things off today. Hoping for it to be good as I really like their pineapple one.
Maybe a Hazelnut/Cacao Broken Dream to follow although I'm off for a 'wine flight' with a fancy meal tonight so perhaps not advisable.
Colour a bit off putting. Almost the appearance of a fruit beer. You could sell it as being very dark amber I guess. Taste is interesting. A lot more sourness than I expected, but with the smooth/sweet finish you get from the milkshake. Overall I think it's a bit too jolly rancher for me, but not terrible. I wouldn't say no to another if offered one in the future.
Way Out West - a pretty meh Brewdog/Buxton collab West Coast IPA, although I'm not sure I've ever really had a west coaster that I've really rated. It's ok. Well, it's better than that probably but whatever.
Onto the darks. I didn't have the siren yesterday so I have that and a magic rock dark arts or somesuch. Probably go at them in reverse order.
It's not as good as the Hard Pour but I did like that one.
I'm not drinking too much as I drank my bodyweight in Estrella at a wedding yesterday but I have those Brewdog Lost Lager fruit variants as they were on offer in the shop, a big Leffe Brune and some Northern Monk Norse Star 3 to choose from.
Picked up something called Neapolitan by Northern Monk, which is billed as an ice cream pale ale. It's really not tickling my fancy though. Annoyed I bought 3 cans of it.
And because I'm a glutton for punishment I also picked up a Brewdog one - Silk Road. A mango and lychee hazy IPA. We'll see how it fares later.
I'm a twit
I find [I assume] the cacao in that Broken Dream to be quite smokey/gave the drink quite a bitter/burnt taste which I'm not sure I was a massive fan of.
Dark Arts was decent, although neither anywhere near the hard pour nitro.
Also saw a comment that Beavertown Neck Oil is the Fosters of the craft beer/IPA world and can’t stop thinking about it. I bloody love Neck Oil so feel personally attacked.
I'm a twit
Sounds quite a neckbeardy comment.
Neck Oil is pretty inoffensive. Bit harsh to get the Fosters tag.
Neck Oil is better than a lot of beers of the same style that I’ve tried. Put the exact same beer in a can that’s a bit more ‘exclusive’ and these people would call it a good beer too.
Neck Oil is far better than being the Fosters of the craft beer world because Neck Oil is something you might actually want to drink.
The most generic is something like Laguinitas which purports to be craft but is made by some megacorp. Neck Oil is a very drinkable pint
Had an 'IPA' in Paris that to me seemed more of a rebadged Belgian style beer. There was actually an interesting looking beer place near where I was staying (Bercy) but family life precluded attendance.
First up for the night is 'Cherry Cole Cubes' by Vault City and it does actually taste a bit like Cola Cubes so fair play to them.
Sounds like a bit of me, as Scott Mills would say.
I'm a twit
I've got another Vault City for later (or a VC collab maybe, I've already forgotten) which reckons it's banana split flavoured. Well up for that but I've got a takeaway ordered so next will just be some IPA from Overtone.
All The Leaves Are Brown by Tempest remains absolutely tremendous.
Such is the sad state of affairs here [with supermarket offering] I might have to consider brewing my own beer. There are no on island purveyors of anything half decent with any reliability. Reached a head today when I ended up getting two 4 packs of Budweiser [King of Beers varietal] as they basically came free with some burgers, and that was preferable to paying 7 quid for 4 rinkydink session IPAs.
I’m drinking a couple of beers I got in a club swap here and on one hand I am happier with my own now, but on the other I didn’t buy more because I had these.
I'm not really asking for the earth, and yes, Brewdog etc are available, it's just a lot of the more interesting stuff seems to have been rowed back [not much Northern Monk stuff anymore, Buxton largely gone, no White Hag etc] in favour of 4 varieties of Camden, 2 types of Meantime and the other main stream crafties.
One of the local suppliers used to do crates of And Union which was decent, but they seem to have stopped that.
It's mainly the lack of darks which gets me, particularly after a rogue Broken Dream Nitro turned up in Waitrose a month or so ago.
White Hag is probably a Brexit thing as I've noticed huge go of exports lately from our brewers to Italy and France as they can't do UK.
Dark should be easy enough to get though (unless you want marshmallow cinnamon daffodil stout or somehing), is there not even any Guinness or Beamish? They're not great (the latter is much better), but easily better than subjecting yourself to Budweiser.
Last edited by Giggles; 01-05-2022 at 05:10 PM.
I think it was more that the supermarket that got it in here got burned pretty badly by it - they bought about 40 tonnes of those Puca sours and just couldn't shift them. Seems to have put pay to them stocking Buxton as well, which is a shame.
It's just a massive pain in the arse/not worth the bother to export alcohol here as we have our own duty regime [which basically precludes ordering online].
For the second bank holiday weekend in succession, I've not clocked it's Sunday until it's too late and now only have the Iraqi corner shop selection available, so I can sympathise.
Fuck, any sour is a one-off on the very odd occasion. Even someone that likes beer will just buy mostly lagers when the weather is hot. Madness stocking a pile of them.
1 can!
And that's the other thing. All the brewgooder and toast and whatever else* stuff NEVER runs out of stock. It's always fully packed out, whereas better/different things seem to fly off the shelves, Lumina's rarely more than a few cans, anything by Tony Rebel [I'm leaving that in] that ends up on offer instantly goes, so people are obviously buying stuff and whilst it probably isn't as simple as GET MORE STOCK just GET MORE STOCK!
The Wild Beer line always seems to be near complete.
Just clocked that these Buds are 300ml jobs.
Cheeky fuckers.
I suppose it's better than the 250s, although at least they are very obviously miniature.
Overall a poor choice, even at 25p a bottle.
So, after that less than transcendent experience with the king of beers I've gone back to the drawing board. Picked up a few Hawkshead Session Hazies (I seem to recall their mosaic being decent), Badger Ales were on offer so got a Cranborne Poacher (Ruby Ale) and some sort of fruity ferret which I assume is a fruitier version of the fursty ferret. Then I saw it. The broken dream nitro was back and on offer no less, so, being a total bastard I cleared the shelf. Stocked for a while.