The spirit of £10 for a litre of Baileys.
Went bad in the end as the head essentially turned into a sludge biscuit.
The spirit of £10 for a litre of Baileys.
Went bad in the end as the head essentially turned into a sludge biscuit.
Its or yours?
Today’s advent offering is surprisingly only 7.7% but it’s a chocolate peanut butter banana milkshake stout and I cannot wait.
The other days was a ‘hard smoothie’ and I’m glad it wasn’t just me kicking off in the instagram comments.
I'm a twit
30% off Lidl's 'deluxe' wines until Christmas Eve with their app, making them insane value. £5 for a decent Barossa Shiraz is about half of what you'd pay as an absolute minimum anywhere else.
Got a bottle of Glenlivet for my birthday so I've broke into that. It's alright. I'd usually take Aberlour at this time of year but the cherry overtones of that tends to pack a punch. This is a lot more civilised, although I feel that way about most whiskeys you can grab off a supermarket shelf.
Turns out flavoured gin is pretty good. Rhubarb and ginger was decent but blueberry was the one.
With lemonade.
I'm a twit
The Tanqueray Rangpur lime gin is great.
Tried a fig & cacao bourbon last night. Genuinely rancid.
Wife needed a small amount of fino sherry for some vegetarian abomination so as a toast to Withnail/Uncle Monty I'm tucking into the remainder. Not bad. Not sure it's really the season for it, aren't you meant to drink fino on the streets of Seville where it's always about a billion degrees? Pedro Jiminez XO more of the festive choice, I would guess. Still, not a bad aperitif.
Well I’ve 10 Neck Oil, 4 Hazy Jane and a 10.5% stout to get through before attempting Dry January.
I'm a twit
I got a few cans as presents this year but I bought none and just made a Landlord clone back in October for this week.
Got some Northern Monk DDH IPAs, think it's called Ride Like Fire of something and it's very good. Few festive porters off them too which have been decent.
Just found out Dark Star have closed their Sussex [Partridge Green] brewery. Sad times. Had no idea they had been bought by Fullers and then Asahi.
Firebird it is then.
I bought a Theakston's Old Peculier earlier because I like to retry some of the stuff I deemed to be The Good Shit when I was first getting into good beer. Haven't had it yet but was interested to note on the bottle that they now have the line "The original craft brewery."
That's clearly a bit of an affectation to shift where they sit in the mind of the punter from "bottles bought by smelly old men" to "oooooh CRAFT."
This page has some interesting stuff: https://www.theakstons.co.uk/pages/our-story
I suspect them now being owned by Shepherd Neame dents their craft credentials a bit (whatever 'craft' really means) but was interested to note they have in-house coopers to make barrels for them. Would also be interested to know if they hired a bloke to pretend to be a cooper for the picture in that section of the page or if they're all hunky and ripped.
Ringwood went through the same thing when they rebranded Old Thumper et al with trendy modern craft packaging.
And that's just what everyone under the age of 30 now looks like, having eschewed a life of fun for one of the gym and massive amounts of synthetic protein.
I've clocked Hepworth Brewery nearby which sounds oldie worldie but apparently isn't. Dorking Brewery too, which should really be called Capel Brewery but I guess that sounds less Surrey which seems to be a selling point for them. Jimmy will have to elucidate on what 100% Surrey entails.
Last edited by niko_cee; 02-01-2024 at 07:59 PM.
To be fair the label for Old Peculiar looks much as I remember it, just with that one line. And they're still in bottles, where I imagine a lot of these breweries who could probably afford to swap from a bottling line to a canning line if they wanted just don't want to alienate the aforementioned smelly old dude market.
Loads here going back to bottles now because the greens are taxing cans at the end of this month. I find the quality far more consistent with bottles, and some beer just belongs in them.
Beer shop man was telling me about a Vault City [?] Irn Bru Sour which apparently is highly sought after in these parts. I've never got on with sours, but it piqued my interest as I'm a longtime Irn Bru appreciator, and it sounded like something you may have encountered @Ian . Recommended?
I haven't had that one but I've certainly never had a bad Vault City and in my experience if they're going for a [specific flavour] sour they tend to hit the mark. And while they fucking love making sours they tend to have a nice mix of ones which'll turn your face inside out and ones that just have a bit of a tang to them. If you're a big Irn Bru likerer then I'd say definitely give it a bash if you can, especially if you've never tried a Vault City before.
I want one
I'm a twit
I ended up going with a Burning Sky DIPA called Media Blitz, something from Abyss called Soft Hair and something from a Liverpool brewery, I think Azvec maybe, called Alice Rings.
My local beer shop has a bunch of Vault City in it today. Didn't see Irn Bru but they did have some Skittles-themed sours. I picked up the blackcurrant one.
Also got some other random stuff - currently having an "Even sharks need water" by Verdant Brewing from Cornwall. How this guy in a small Dutch town gets hold of this shit, I do not know
Verdant do some good stuff.
Booze importation like water off a duck's back for the Dutch, one would imagine.
btw - does anyone here use Untappd? I'm alagemo on there, feel free to add me. It's essentially this thread in app form...
I only don't use Untappd because I'd already done too many ratings on Ratebeer before I learned of it.
I was too late to it and it never let you add ones you've already had when you sign up so never bothered.
Just Raoul and Baz then.
That can't be right, surely? What'd be the difference between rating something for the first time and rating something you've had before?Originally Posted by Giggles
I recall it being brought up here before.
This stuff is mega.
It seems to want a more live timeline and nothing else. There's always been big calls to add a history but they've never budged.
I'm still on the landlord clone from Christmas and have a properly done German Pils lined up for whenever it's gone.
I am intrigued by the idea of brewing your own stuff. I have a few friends who have done it and whilst I have nowhere near the capacity to do it at the moment, I definitely plan to tap you up for a complete guide in the future, just to put you on notice.
I might be missing a point here (given I am entirely ignorant of Untappd other than liking the places which put up menus when you're in there) but if you added a thing just now you'd tried before it'd still show up in your ratings wouldn't it? Is the issue that if you worked through adding them all that it'd show them as you having drunk them all within a day or whatever?
I mean the only person I'm friends with on Ratebeer and that's only so that if I'm buying him stuff for a birthday or whatever it's easier to check if he's had it (or it was before RB changed how that stuff works to make it even easier) so it's not a social thing for me, it's purely for me to check if I've had and forgotten something before.
Burning Sky are a brewery I don't but probably should include among my favourites. I've never had anything from them that'd make it into my all time faves but they also never miss in my experience.
It’s took a fair while but I’ve finally got very good at it now, easily as nice as anything I’d buy. I’ve spent a fair whack over the years on equipment and upgrades and I always would love to go back and start again knowing the same as now.
Yep, added. Gutted it didn’t exist/I didn’t have it when I was 20.
I’m doing dry Jan til 20th though so expect radio silence for a bit.
Last edited by Baz; 05-01-2024 at 07:34 PM.
I'm a twit
I've dabbled in a very limited way but I'm fundamentally quite lazy.
Also I think my tastes are more wanker-y than yours which would probably involve more faff if I was trying to replicate that in good home brew.
“Smirnoff Ice 8/10 - Not as good as a Cherry VK.”
Just had an email from Trembling Madness making mention of all sorts of Vault City Iron Brew offerings.
Those must be brand new in today because they didn't have them when I ordered yesterday.
Popped into the beer shop on the way home and they had three of these. Iron Brew, Fiery Ginger and Iron Brew Float. Got the first two, might get the third next week if they have it in still.
You'll have to report how they were. Local beer shop didn't have any in so I picked up a couple of Beak DIPAs [Friends and Intervals]. I know it's good to support small businesses but it is a bit galling to be paying over what even the brewery sells it for themselves for these things, and quite a bit more than the likes of Trembling Madness, even though they don't stock those two at the moment.
Another slightly galling thing is I've just clocked that Beak do a monthly subscription box which seems decent value [£45 for 12 beers plus a few perks]. Now, on their website a £50 order gets you free delivery, so the £45 monthly box comes with a nice £5.99 delivery charge, which pisses me off to the point of going from considering it [their beer is good] to it being completely out of the question.
The can art is great, though it occurs to me that with just a slight further twist I realise I could have made it look like the hench lad was really enjoying smashing that coo's back doors in.
Arbor Mini Milk, a 4.3%er, is one of the best sessionable stouts I've ever had I reckon. Lovely stuff. And comes in one of their lovely big pint cans too.
Will keep an eye out for it.
Still hard to beat Broken Dream now it seems to be a feature of ASDA's 4 for 3 deal.
Also got some North Brewing Songbird in that which, like it's fellow offeree, Buxton's Phoenix, is a really solid supermarket choice.
The Beak DIPAs were good, but I really don't think you can justify the cost of them.
Wanky beer has never been about justifying the cost.
I'm a twit
To me it is part of the equation, as I'd rather have 4 beers than 1 if at all possible.
1 can wanky independent shop DIPA
or
4 cans Phoenix/Songbird/Broken Dream
or
10 cans Doom Bar
Is a legitimate quandry for me.
Thai Thai "spicy trippel" with galangal, coriander and chilli. Top, top stuff.
That's a beer btw not a curry.
I must say, it feels like Dry January so far has done nothing for my physical or mental health. Absolutely cannot wait for a drink on Saturday. Tried to go for one today in work but it didn’t come to fruition. The Dry January app tells me I’ve saved £43 which is complete bollocks considering I’ve leftover Christmas beer in the fridge. The 2984 calories saved is also barely worth writing about.
I'm a twit
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