Snapped back in July when my Son and I attended the Little Summer Beer Bash down in Falmouth, Cornwall. We had a great weekend and sampled plenty of lush Verdant beer, this particular example is called "Neal Gets Things Done" and is one of my favourites, loaded to the gunnels with NZ hops and drunk at their town centre venue called "The Seafood Bar" (also great nosh!), the candle is just there to add some atmosphere..
1. Every Minute Matters - Siren-Green Cheek: Number 2 on my 2020 list this was re-brewed in 2025 with a slightly tweaked recipe, still brilliant, still bitter AF but so well balanced a real desert island beer. I couldn't not put this at number one this year, an excellent brew.
2. Two Turbid Doves - Green Bench: Sampled at the Green Bench taproom in St. Pete's Florida back in March, it was quite a warm day and the taproom was a good walk from our hotel, this beer went down a treat! Such great flavours and just the right balance of hop, malts and bitterness, a real treat.
3. Two Worlds Apart - Siren-Beechwood: A new Westy for 2025, a collaboration and a super beer. I do like a good West Coast IPA and this is exactly that. Fruit, dank and bitter with perfect balance, a real banger from my local team.
4. Table Beer Mosaic-Enigma - The Kernel: This beer (in all its forms) has to be in the top 5 session beers in the world, a triumph of flavour without the hangover from the ever brilliant team at Kernel. Sampled at their new taproom in Bermondsey, London.
5. Blue Crab - Other Half Brewing: Chugged at the OHB taproom in New York, this beer is up there with the best US IPA's from Trillium and Treehouse IMO, classic combo of Citra, Simcoe and Mosaic it's old skool and brilliant for it!
6. Pete's Pale Ale - Green Bench: A light pale ale, absolutely perfect for the Florida heat. Sampled at the Green Bench taproom after a long walk it didn't touch the sides!
7. Putty 2025 - Verdant: There has to be a Putty on the list every year, it's about the only thing to look forward to in January in the UK and this year it was singing. More Nelson hops than usual and it was delicious for it, a great beer and a wonderful tradition.
8. Nine Mile Ride - Siren-Elusive: I've had this one on my list before and this year's re-brew was perfectly up to scratch with previous efforts. A classy Westy that celebrates a well known road around these parts, a great beer.
9. Forever Ever - Other Half Brewing: A DDH miracle from Other Half, sampled at their taproom in the Rockefeller Centre in New York City this low ABV crusher was a delight.
10. Fest Helles - Augustina: Sampled at Oktoberfest in Munich (see picture above), in theory "just a lager" but boy this one's a smoothy. As well balanced and clean as you like, a near perfect beer that's designed to be drunk in large quantities at the festival and we were certainly happy to oblige!
Must be time for another Southern Hemisphere trip very soon...
11. Baby Sharks - Verdant: Classic Verdant murk and part of the “Sharks” family, this one is at the low end of the ABV range and probably the best session hazy in the country now.
12. Flor de Truco - Cerveceria LOA: Consumed in Santiago Chile, a local Chilean beer that turned up in cans at a restaurant, a full on hazy NEIPA and absolutely on the money for flavour profile, so good we had to have two cans each!
13. Kasta APA - Kasta Microbrews: A classic American Pale Ale, brewed locally to be hoppy and full of tropical fruits flavour, also had a slug of malt and decent bitterness, perfect for the 30+ degrees at the location (Crete, Greece!) a real tonic after the usual "industrial lagers" that pervade most tourist spots there.
14. Expressions Strata - Siren: I always thought that Strata hops were overrated that is until I tried this little number, the full panoply of flavours, tropical, citrus, dank and peppery, an interesting series and a great beer.
15. Persistence of Time - Siren: Drank this at the Siren 12th birthday party event, it featured Nelson hops (my favs.) and cannabis Terpenes (hey man!), dank AF and fruity, nice.
16. Le Lez - Verdant: Made in conjunction with French brewers Prizm (Montpellier), a blend of NZ and US hops limey and deeply dank, such a saturated flavour, oooh la la!
17. Fruit Car Sight Exhibition - Verdant: A classic that’s appeared a couple of time on my lists, but it's so good. I was lucky enough to snag a couple of cans and had them at home. 100% Citra hops with huge aromas and flavours of Mango, Apricot and citrus, Verdant really are at the top of their game.
18. Neal gets Soundwave - Siren-Verdant: A collaboration between two of my favourite brewers, this brew attempts to merge the flavour profiles of two flagship brews, Neal gets Things Done and Soundwave, the result was pretty good.
19. Grand Caravan - Trillium: Even though I went to America a couple of times this year this was my only Trillium beer (I know, must try harder!) but it was a banger, classic Trillium, balance and flavour punch, I can only dream about them setting up shop over this side of the pond one day.
20. Psych - Verdant: (pictured above) I put this on the list not because it was a favourite beer from a taste point of view but because I reckon it was the best Low/No alcohol beer of the year (by a long chalk!) So good that I snagged 24 cans of it for “dry January” and designated driver situations next year!
Our second bike tour of Buenos Aires took us to the Southern side of the city, it was a slightly longer tour than out first at around 20km as the different districts were more spread out however it was just as interesting. The tour included a lunch stop in La Boca (see above), today this colourful district is a classic tourist trap but back in the late 19th century was a destination for millions of immigrants from Europe and Asia, particularly from the Italian region of Liguria (the place has more pizza than empanadas) The area is so staunchly Italian that it's tried to secede (unsuccessfully) from Argentina on several occasions, in 1882, 1923 and 1986. Being close to the docks it has all the trappings of that kind of place, i.e. cheap housing, sketchy bars, street crime and a primarily working class population, however it's also famous for the Tango and football, two religions here that seem to allow people to escape from their otherwise tough everyday lives. Yes, that's Messi holding the world cup on the balcony of the bar in the photo above, he's everywhere in Argentina and has supplanted Maradona (who came from La Boca) as a figurehead for the culture there.
The next day we awoke to another blue sky day and, after some coffee and pastries and with some sadness, we headed to the airport and too our flight home. We had to fly via Rio again and as the photo below shows the airport dealt with this duel destination conundrum by listing the flight twice, once for Rio and again for Heathrow (never seen that before?)
The official flavour profile of Strata is as follows (from the internet)
"Strata hops are known for their complex, multi-layered profile featuring strong passion fruit, strawberry, and grapefruit notes, often with a unique dank cannabis or chili pepper undertone, making them ideal for bold, modern IPAs, Pale Ales, and NEIPAs where they add tropical fruitiness, citrus zest, and earthy depth, while also boasting good disease resistance and high alpha acids for bitterness."
Sounds great, and in this beer I can attest that most of these flavours came through in abundance, a delicious brew, one to look out for.
We landed back in Buenos Aires late in the afternoon (see above) and we came into the "internal flights" airport which is right in the middle of the city, the view is quite different from the "international airport" which is out in the sticks, a little like landing at London City airport rather than Gatwick. Anyway, a quick 20 minute taxi ride delivered us to our hotel which was in the Recoleta district (the posh part of BA)
Our plan for the four days was to explore the main sights of this (rather large!) city, we had several things lined up including a couple of bike tours, some Tango dancing, an Argentinian BBQ and some serious R&R at our hotel, we checked in, dumped our bags and headed out into the early evening to track down some dinner!
That evening we got dressed up and caught a taxi to the Palermo district and an intimate Tango show. Held in a little room/bar with a piano, the show kicked off at 7pm when the doors were shut and mobile phones switched off (I like events like that!) the dancing was amazing and the musical accompaniment excellent, unlimited wine too so everyone was in good spirits by the end! Photography wasn't allowed during the show itself, however I snapped this one (below) at the end to show how small the venue was, the dancers were the two people on the LHS, the others were pianist, accordion player and singer.
There was a lot of wildlife to see in the area surrounding the falls, we must have seen at least half a dozen different species of lizard but there were also wonderfully colourful birds, reptiles of all kinds, insects and even monkeys, we were told by our guide that there was a programme going on in the park to protect and nurture a group of Jaguar although despite looking hopefully we didn't see any. I snapped this little fella (above) on the Brazilian side but pretty much everywhere you looked you could find something interesting.
On the Argentinian side of the falls the walks were split into lower, middle and upper and the granddaddy of them all "Mirante da Garganta do Diablo" or the "Devils Throat" is accessible via a little tourist train and a 2km walkway. We did all of them and each had a different set of spectacles to see. On the lower trail you were mainly alongside the falls or adjacent to the bottom of them (thankfully not under them!) and mainly in the jungle itself, the main attraction here was the wildlife, so many species of birds, insects and plants too many to count! Anyway see the photo below for one of the more common mammals that we saw, a possum like critter that seemed completely oblivious to our presence..
After the natural spectacle that is Iguazu we could have quite happily ended the holiday there but there was more. The next day we headed back to the airport and jumped on a plane back to the city, a final four day farewell to the continent and a chance to sample the delights of the capital city, Buenos Aires bound we packed our cases once more..
We went to London last weekend and visited the David Bowie exhibition at the V&A (East) Located in Hackney Wick it's essentially a huge warehouse full of cultural and artistic treasures (see above), it felt to me a bit like that last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where the Ark of the Covenant is being stored in some vast US government warehouse, I reckon the holy grail is in there somewhere!
Anyway, the Bowie section was quite small, just one room, but a real treasure trove. It featured a lot of outfits and costumes as well as instruments and song lyrics (hand written) both from him as a solo artist and also when he collaborated with others. I particularly liked the little semi-political notes that he used to write to himself, he was quite forward thinking, especially around things like the emergence of digital technology.
The penultimate stop of our South American tour, Iguazu, famous for having the largest waterfall in the world (by width). Located on the Southern edge of Brazil and the Northern edge of Argentina plus (for good measure) the Eastern edge of Paraguay, Iguazu has long been famed for it's falls (discovered in 1541), at 2700m wide it's more than twice as wide as Niagara with 50% more flow rate than Victoria, a true wonder of natural world.
We arrived in the afternoon after a 90 minute flight from Salta and checked into our hotel on the Argentinian side of the falls, the view from the hotel was stunning, a panorama of part of the falls with a real tropical feel to the place which was quite unspoiled (unlike Niagara) as the whole area was a designated national park. We settled into our accommodation and had an early dinner in readiness for a trip to Brazil the next day.
At 7am our guide picked us up from the hotel and we bused it across the border and into Brazil, unknown to us at the time we discovered that it was a public holiday in Brazil and (thanks to Trump's tariffs) the prices in Paraguay for things like iPhones were 30% cheaper than in Argentina or Brazil, suffice to say the queues to cross between the various countries were huge! Luckily we could skip them being in a tourist vehicle but we were glad that we made an early start! On the Brazilian side of the falls we walked along the 2km tourist trail that lead down to the main cascade, it gave a wonderful overview of the falls, apparently it's the best side to see the falls from a distance but if you want to get in among the water proper, the Argentinian side is better. Anyway, it was spectacular and the raised platforms at the end of the walkway gave a great view of several cascades and as well as getting soaking wet allowed you to get quite close to the action (see below)
We completed our Brazilian expedition around lunchtime and headed back to Argentina where we regrouped over lunch and planned our exploration of the "Argentinian side", see the next part..
In this leg of our grand South American tour we landed in a place called Salta, it's in the North of Argentina near borders with Chile and Bolivia, it's a subtropical highland climate, meaning it's very dry most of the time except in the rainy season (Dec-Mar) when it experiences large thunder storms. The altitude in the city is around 1200 metres and the sun during the day is pretty intense; like Santiago it's kind of in a bowl surrounded by mountains which means the heat of the day lingers well into the evenings.
Our hotel was right in the centre of town and ideally placed for exploring the many old buildings, parks, churches, markets and museums in the city. Our rooms felt very "Spanish" in style in fact the whole city looks very Spanish, not at all like the more "European" style metropolises to the South. We arrived in the early evening and didn't really need food so we took advantage of our "welcome bottle of wine" (a lovely high-altitude Malbec) some cheese and bread then turned in early in readiness for a big trip the following day, we were visiting some high altitude salt flats.
When we got to the flats we all got out and had a wander around, the UV being reflected from the salt was brutal, like snow almost all the radiation bounces off the salt and straight up into your eyes, sunglasses were essential and we couldn't stay there more more than 30 minutes or so without taking refuge in the mini-bus! In the photo above you can see a panorama of the flats and next to it a close up of how the crystals look underfoot, an amazing place, very alien, almost like being on another planet!
On the way back from the flats we stopped off at a little village called "Purmamarca", it was a welcome stop and chance to take a look round the local craft markets nestled between the mud buildings and to grab a hot meal for lunch!
The next day, and back in Salta we decided to explore the city. The first stop was the museum of high altitude archeology, this was one of the highlights of visiting the region. Inside the museum are the "Children of Llullaillaco", Inca children who were sacrificed over 500 years ago atop the Llullaillaco volcano (22,057ft) The children (of high status) were drugged with alcohol and coca (we know this because of analysis of their hair), then taken to the top of the mountain where they were entombed, alive.
The children obviously died, probably of the temperature (it's -20 Celsius up there!) and due to the intense cold and dry atmosphere were perfectly preserved, their bodies were discovered in 1999 by archeologists and bought back down to a lab in Salta where they continue to be preserved in a specially designed de-humidified cold-store. Only one child is on display at any one time and photography is prohibited so here's a stock photo of the child that we saw.
Later in the afternoon we took a cable car up to the top of one of the smaller hills surrounding the city and took a light lunch while gazing down at the incredible view, I snapped a picture (see below) but these "pano" pictures never really do the landscape justice.
So, after a quick flight back over the Andes we landed in Mendoza, Argentina and met up with our driver who took us to our accommodation for the next few days. Mendoza is both a city and a region, it's mainly a desert area (it rains very little there) but has good water supplies due to it's proximity to the high Andes and the snow melt every year, this makes the region very suitable for growing grapes. The largest crop of the region is wine but they also have vast acres turned over to fruit trees, various nuts and vegetables, farming is big business here.
We were staying in a "Wine Lodge" which is essentially a bunch of pre-fabricated buildings nestled among the vines with a central restaurant/admin building that you walk to in the morning for breakfast and in the evening for dinner (think high end holiday camp). In the picture above you can see the view from our bedroom, a small swimming pool (complete with large toads!), some vines and the majestic Andes mountains, it was quite a hypnotic and relaxing place to stay! The restaurant was only a few hundred metres away and had a really cool underground wine cellar with some 20,000 bottles, it was visible through glass panels in the floor of the bar area (see below) but later on in the stay we got the official tour!
First place we visited was Clos de Los Siete, a vast estate made up of several large producers with their own production facilities. The idea here is that each producer has their own separate business but every year they collaborate (best of the best) and produce a single wine. The whole thing was the brain child of a famous French wine consultant called Michel Rolland who made his name in the 80s in Bordeaux around the trend for stronger more fruit forward styles that caught the eye of the powerful US critic Robert Parker at the time. Anyway his vineyard here produces some of the best (IMO) wines of the region, some of which we got to try in probably the most spectacular tasting room I've ever seen!
Anyway, we turned up at the estate mid-morning and picked up our tour guide who gave us the story of the "Siete" (seven in Spanish) families involved in the collaboration. Then we jumped into the van and headed up to the first stop which was a rather grand looking group of buildings on the summit of a hill in front of us. Upon arrival we walked around to the main entrance and was greeted by a rather cute looking little Owl, apparently the Owl family live in a burrow just by the main entrance and are so well established that several of the wines have "Owl themed" names! I snapped a quick picture of the little bird just before we went into the building for our tour (see below)
