All Things Beer!

Went to a beer shop in Sheffield yesterday, mainly to get a few Belgian beers for my friend for Christmas. I also picked up 2 more Xmas ales - Redwillow's Cheerless (a Christmas pudding porter) and Revolution's Yorkshire Story (this is more a winter ale rather than a Christmas beer)

Also went to Old No 7 and they had a couple of Acorn's Christmas beers on, Cracker which is like an IPA, and The 11th Noel (as it's the breweries 11th Christmas) this goes up in strength by 0.1% each year and they are now up to 5.7%, it's an absolutely delicious dark beer, one of their best. They only have 1 more barrel in the cellar and I'm hoping they hold it back until Christmas Eve when I'll next be in.

  On Saturday we're going to our friend's to tap a barrel of... I can't remember

I found out what we are having today... 2 barrels!  One of Pyraser Landbier, and a bock from Löwenbräu (not the one owned by Anheuser Busch!)

Bittersweet occasion, though...could be the last time we see our friend Rick, who is dying of an inoperable cancer.

Sam Adams Chocolate Cherry Bock makes me such a happy girl. It has the taste of a chocolate covered cherry without the sickly sweetness, but in beer form. Shame there are only two per Winter variety pack and there are two of us in the house.

Some great casks in the last few days. I love Christmas beers!

Highlights include Atlas Breweries 'Blizzard' and Cairngorm's 'Santa's Sledgehammer'

Also last night I had a very yummy rare beer last night- a red ale called 'Red Heckle' which was specially made for the Black Watch and only available in the Officer's Mess at Ft. George, so I am told. It was a really good Scottish red ale.

I'm in Ireland this week and really hoping I can find some locally brewed beers (not Guinness) as I love to sample the local flavours.   Luckily, there are lots of pubs about 

Good luck PB... Ireland isn't a place that springs immediately to mind when I think of real ale, but... there must be some!

Good luck PB... Ireland isn't a place that springs immediately to mind when I think of real ale, but... there must be some!

Well no luck with casks tonight, but a very nice bottled conditioned Dungarvan Irish Red Ale. Also tried an Eight Degrees Brewing company beer called Howling Gale, which was OK -may be nicer out of the cask instead of the bottle. 
Hopefully more will surface tomorrow -Going out with locals tomorrow who love their beers which always helps! 

Where is Ireland are you Phat?

We went to Galway earlier in the year, there was a great bar there, Oslo Bar, although no cask ale there was plenty of Irish craft beer on keg. Also found some bottled Irish ales.

My brother told us about the incredible selection of import beer at a liquor store I have driven by a bazillion times... okay, maybe hundreds.. over the years and never stopped into. We stopped today and I was hoping for Hobgoblin. No Hobgoblin, but we FINALLY found Trooper, the Iron Maiden beer by Robinsons. They had three bottles, so we got all 3. One each, and one for part of hubby's Christmas. They also had an amazing range of Sam Smith's. A limited selection is getting easier to find, but this place had a huge range, including the Organic Cherry that I dearly love. Hubby picked up a bottle of Double Arrogant Bastard, brewed by Stone Brewing Co in Escondido, CA. I haven't tried it, but I know I don't like Arrogant Bastard Ale, so I doubt I will like it. We dropped $39 for 5 bottles of beer as our gift to us.

Had a wonderful time on our New Year trip to Huddersfield.  Spent Hogmanay in the Rat & Ratchet, where I drank my weight (a lot!) in Ossett Silver King, Broadoak Perry, King Rat, White Rat and a Fernandes spiced saison-style, whose name I can't remember.

New Years Day, after calling in at the King's Head for a Pictish Winter Solstice, we took a trip to Leeds, where we visited the Leeds Brewery Tap (rude staff... I won't go back),  The Hop (Excelsior & Silver King, plus 6.1% Crazy Rat).  We tried another couple of places that were shut, but ended up in the Adelphi, where the manager recognised one of my friends as his old physics lecturer and gave all 14 of us each a free pint of Hopback Winter Lightning.

We went back to the Rat & Ratchet that night for another couple of pints of Silver King and dropping a few quid into their amazing jukebox.

On the 2nd, we were heading back to Glasgow via Manchester, but were a bit shattered, so didn't do the usual Northern Quarter places... just went to Taco Bell in the Arndale Centre (!!!!!!!!!), a really poor pint at Micro Bar in the Market, and then to the Bull's Head across from Piccadilly to wait for our train.  Had a couple of pints of Boondoggle in there, which was lovely.

Some of you are so lucky to be living in such a fab area for great beer!!

Drinking the last of our 3 crates of German festbier tonight, and looking forward to Thursday next week when we will be in Manchester for the beer festival... hopefully seeing Mr & Mrs Robinson, and then Saturday on to Sheffield where we just might meet Mr & Mrs Tykeman!

Hoping to get some good beer, as Glasgow has been a bit of a desert in the last few days.  It's either feast or famine here a lot of the time.

We decided to have one last Sam Adams Winter Variety pack, I just love the Chocolate Cherry Bock and the Old Fezziwig Ale. We also stopped at a liquor store that has a lot of things we can't get in town, while we were in Evansville, and I picked up a Sam Smith's Organic Strawberry. We can get quite a few Sam Smith's beers in town, but if we could get the organic fruit ones, we'd be broke and I'd be in a perpetual stupor. I love these things.

Just back from my CAMRA branch "Not the Christmas party", they do every year mid Jan, good idea to have their part when it's traditionally a quiet time for pubs.
Held in the Yorkshire pub of the year, the Old No. 7 in Barnsley.
Couple of Ossett Brewery beers on that I had, Silver King and Gravity (a very heavily hopped IPA)
Also a lovely Acorn Saphir IPA and a Dark Star Original

Just back from my CAMRA branch "Not the Christmas party", they do every year mid Jan, good idea to have their part when it's traditionally a quiet time for pubs.
Held in the Yorkshire pub of the year, the Old No. 7 in Barnsley.
Couple of Ossett Brewery beers on that I had, Silver King and Gravity (a very heavily hopped IPA)
Also a lovely Acorn Saphir IPA and a Dark Star Original

Sounds great!

Well no luck with casks tonight, but a very nice bottled conditioned Dungarvan Irish Red Ale. Also tried an Eight Degrees Brewing company beer called Howling Gale, which was OK -may be nicer out of the cask instead of the bottle. 
Hopefully more will surface tomorrow -Going out with locals tomorrow who love their beers which always helps! 

I wish I would have seen this! I would have recommended J.Mulligan's in Stoneybatter. It's a great place for microbrews (not just Irish) and an amazing selection of whiskey to try. Also, the food is delicious! Check it out next time you're in Dublin!