Pretty Polly's

I haven't had a Polly's beer for ages, they are quite hard to come by around these here parts, however, I happened to spot one of these in the fridge when visiting the Elusive taproom in Finchampstead on Friday afternoon and snapped it up! Called "Preliminary Flex" it's a pale ale brewed with Simcoe and Citra hops and intended to become one of a "possible" core range for Polly's. It's a nice brew, hazy and dank with a depth of flavour that renders it's 5% ABV quite surprising (feels stronger) Polly's is one of those breweries I find inconsistent, I love their style when they get it right but I've had some that were way off point. Anyway, if Polly's could achieve the consistency that, say, Verdant achieves then I think they'd be world class, then again, who wouldn't!

Soaking

I made the mistake of walking into town yesterday, the heavens opened and even though I had a big umbrella I got completely soaked! Fortunately I ducked into a local pub to escape the deluge and ran into a good mate of mine who had the same idea! We had a nice pint and a chat while the storm passed and when I emerged (and took the picture above) the main body of the rain had moved on, although, the clouds still looked rather menacing!

Ooops

After months of digging up earlier this year to lay new water and sewage pipes, only 3 months after completion, this road near us has developed a "sink hole". I'm tempted to say "pay peanuts, get monkeys" but our council isn't competent enough to even think of peanuts, what a waste of our money, no doubt this will languish for another month before it's sorted out (poorly)!

Kryptonite

Jesus and Mo pointing out that logic is like Kryptonite for true believers, it's so toxic to what they believe that they prefer to glorify the lack of it as a supposed virtue labelled "faith". Which the rest of us just translate to "I believe this stuff because I want to" or "I believe it because it makes me feel warm and fuzzy", usually in spite of the evidence, or lack thereof.

Friday Smirk

Ha ha, at least this is something I don't have to worry about any more (retired)..

Thoughts & Prayers

This just about sums up the zeitgeist in the USA over gun control and school shootings. It's almost like people in that country are willing to sacrifice up to 3000 children every year just so that some basement ridden adolescently minded psychopath is permitted to own lethal semi-automatic weaponry, it's baffling. It seems unlikely that so many people can be so stupid, maybe it's like the children in Gaza, maybe they're all just praying to the wrong god?

SA blues

Had one of these over the bank holiday weekend, it's from South Africa and is quite well known as an upper mid-tier producer. This example was purchased in a BBR sale a year or so ago for around £25 and is a classic Bordeaux blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Really nice wine, perfect with food and exhibiting some nice minty notes along with ample red berry fruit and blueberries, good length too, nothing to complain about other than it's my last bottle!

Climb every Mountain

Had a nice meal in a restaurant called "Mountain" in Soho (London) yesterday lunch time, we were celebrating (belatedly) my daughters birthday with some friends and this is her favourite meal spot. It's not cheap but luckily the two people that my Daughter shares a house with both work at the restaurant and so we kind of got "mates rates" which softened the blow somewhat. 

The wine list is quite eclectic, mostly smaller independent producers and lesser known brands, luckily my Daughter's house-mate is the sommelier there (pictured above) and so he sorted me out with some cracking bottles, both producers I'd never heard of but really good choices. In the picture above is the champagne we had to kick proceeding off with, a real peach of a bottle by the Laherte Brothers, an extra dry example with lovely floral aromas and a crispy citrus and white flower palette, a good start.

To accompany our food we had a white wine from the Macon (Burgundy, France) it was so delicate and balanced, lemony and creamy with a long, long finish, worked wonderfully with the fish dishes we had.

All in all a successful day out, everyone had a good time and enjoyed the food and wine choices, will have to save up our pennies for a rematch!

Come up to my Lab - Part 2

So here's the second beer in the Elusive series of experiments with yeast, this time it's fermented using a Wit yeast. Wit is a style of beer that originates from Belgium and is usually made with wheat rather than barley and is very pale in colour and lightly hazy. This particular yeast delivers notes of banana and clove (sounds awful but actually works) but also has a delightful citrus back note, same colour, weight and ABV as the previous beer in the series but totally different taste profile, a master class in how yeast is such an impactful component in a pale ale.

Come up to my Lab - Part 1

Local brewer Elusive is running with a series of four beers at the moment which are all identical apart from the strain of yeast used to ferment them. I decided to investigate this interesting experiment at the weekend and bought a couple of the cans to try. 

The beer pictured is brewed using a new yeast strain called "Aurora" which is a hybrid Kveik (Norwegian) strain which is happy to ferment at much warmer than usual temperatures. It imparts heavy stone fruit flavours to the beer (think peaches) and seems to sit well with this hazy pale ale style, it's good!

Dying to say it..

Wombling free? (seen over the weekend)

Weekend Wine

We spent this weekend in London visiting with the kids and treating them to some lunch at a restaurant called Kricket in Soho. The restaurant features Indian food and has a delicious lunch "Thali" which is essentially a tray with lots of indentations in it each filled with small but varied dishes, after eating all the dals, breads and curries everyone's tray was wiped clean, very nice indeed!

We decided to stay up on Saturday night and have a "date night", essentially a meal in Mayfair at a place called "Noble Rot". There are three of these restaurants in London and the West End one is probably the largest and busiest. They're known for (mainly) French dishes which are really good but the main draw for me is the encyclopedic wine list, it's so big that they present it on an iPad with a search and sort feature which helps narrow things down a bit! I opted for a red wine from Cornas made by Domain Courbis in the Northern Rhone Valley (I had another wine of theirs back in 2011). It's not an obvious wine to pick from such a well healed list and the Sommelier was delighted that I'd chosen it; he was keen to try it so I poured him a glass so that we could chew the fat over the delights of the Syrah grape and the mountains of licorice and red berries that seemed to emanate from the glass. The wine drank well to the last drop, opening up nicely as the evening wore on, we finished around 10pm and hopped on the tube back to London Bridge where we were staying, a thoroughly nice outing, must make a note to revisit this wine list sometime, there were some absolute corkers on it!

Heat Wave

Recent temperatures across Europe, luckily global warming is a hoax invented by a Paedophile ring who work in a pizza restaurant..

Friday Smirk

Jesus and Mo talking about the cultural norms of some people. I'm firmly of the opinion that cultural evolution simply dictates that some cultures are "better" than others (I realise that's a relative statement, but why wouldn't they be?) and that people usually vote with their feet, i.e. not much illegal immigration into Afghanistan these days..

Another mash-up

Had one of these the other week, it's another mash-up between a classic Siren beer (Soundwave) and another brewery's classic beer. This time it's a beer from Pressure Drop called "Pale Fire", a light pale ale that certainly "lit the fires" back in the day when it first emerged, a tasty tropical ale brewed with classic American hops and sessionable ABV, it's not quite as good as the previous mash-up (see here) but it's still pretty good, delicious in warm weather..

Windrush wines

While away in the Cotswolds this weekend we treated ourselves to a nice Cru Bourgeoise from Chateau Beau-Site in St. Estephe (Bordeaux) I've had this wine a few times over the years and it's usually pretty reliable. Not expensive but very typical of the classic Bordeaux blend of Cabernet and Merlot, delivering up red fruits and blackcurrant with a nice tannic core, went brilliantly with the steak I had for dinner.

Windrush wiles

 

We spent last weekend at a lovely Cotswold retreat with some friends, completely oblivious to the fact that the Christian nutter JD Vance, (US Vice President) would also be visiting the Cotswolds, luckily our paths didn't cross. On the Sunday my mate and I whiled away the day fishing on the Windrush river (a tributary of the Thames) it was idyllic, sunshine, nature and peace and quiet, not much action on the catching fish front though, but it didn't matter, the relaxation vibe was reward enough. The final tally after about four hours in a couple of locations on the river bank was two small trout, a roach and a couple of tiddlers (gudgeon) not too bad for a "wild river" (i.e. one that isn't deliberately stocked with fish) but I reckon there are some bigger and more interesting fish in there just waiting to be caught.

On Monday we went for a long circular walk of about 10km and at the end we happened across Minster Lovell Hall, a 15th century Oxfordshire manor house (see below) Now a ruin but still an impressive structure, amazing the things that are dotted around our countryside.

This part of the Cotswolds is only an hour away from our home and so a quick run down the A40/M40 delivered us back home in the afternoon on Monday, in time for tea, a glorious weekend.

Clarkson ale

We spent the weekend staying in a lovely hotel/spa in the Cotswolds, it was great apart from a complete lack of any craft beer. All of the pubs/hotels in the area we stayed only stocked mass produced industrial beers like Peroni and Guinness (argh!) about the closest thing to a modern IPA was this beer from Jeremy Clarkson's pet brewery "Hawkstone" (which is understandably pretty pervasive in the area) I wasn't impressed though, a fairly bland and uninteresting beer and at 4.8% this is really a pale ale and not an IPA! Luckily it was really hot and the beer was ice cold so it was ok but not something I would buy again.

Family History

The historic "Rose Hotel" in the centre of our town (Wokingham), it's been here in one form or another since the early 17th century and is still going strong as a restaurant/pub. This year we're planning on holding a party in the upstairs room for my Wife's 60th birthday, family history and history meet, if only bricks could talk!

Memory

At the tail end of Summer it's difficult to remember what it's like having to wear 4 layers just to go outside, I remind myself by looking at pictures I took in the depths of Winter! Here's one of the pond at the end of our road totally frozen over illuminated by a really low Sun, only 19 weeks till Christmas...

Friday Smirk

The boys talking about their "God", apparently we have no choice but to love someone we also fear? Isn't that the textbook definition of sadomasochism? 

Trend?

Had one of these at the weekend, it's another mash-up between two beers, this time it's Soundwave from Siren and Pale Fire from Pressure Drop (London), it's another banger! Am I witnessing a new trend here, the "blending" of two breweries top selling beers into a new one with attributes and characteristics of both. It's an interesting development, and would appear to have a lot of legs, there's a lot of great beers out there and the number of permutations is pretty huge, bring it on!

Berry Windy

Storm Floris landed on Monday and although the winds weren't as strong down here in the South as they were in the North we still had a blustery day. The fruit trees around here have responded well to the warm weather we've had this Spring and Summer, most are heavily laden with fruit (more than usual) when this combines with strong wind we get the picture above, slippery! 

Monday Mirth

All this tariff talk is causing much volatility in the markets recently. I can't help thinking that it's just one big scam formulated by the Trump crime family in order to make money by manipulating global stock prices, nothing would surprise me any more..

Uber mash-up

Had one of these on Friday evening, it's a beer called "Neal gets Soundwave" which is essentially a mashup of two famous brews, "Neal Gets Things Done" from Verdant and "Soundwave" from Siren. The beer combines the two hop bills and uses Verdant's in house yeast to conjure up a deliciously dank and fruity IPA that's thick, rich and deep in flavour, a fabulous beer. I must get a few more cans before this goes viral!

Too good to be true..

Always useful giving this helpful guide a look when confronted with grifters trying to convince you that they know something you don't (like who created the universe and what they want you to do), especially when that something comes with benefits that seem too good to be true (hint, they usually are)..

Friday Smirk ++

 

A woman in Brazil died on a bus from a heart attack, when police examined her they found 26 iPhones stuck to her body..

Phoney story, or was she just always stuck to her phone?

Friday Smirk

Jesus and Mo pointing out the do as I say, not as I do nature of many religions, but in fairness, Atheists are generally a humorless bunch, we tend to go for quality rather than quantity!