Mark-ups

An old wine treat the other evening, this beautiful Beaucastel from the Southern Rhone (France) inky, dense, rich with a wonderful liquorice edge to it. I was fortunate to buy a case of this back in 2003 for roughly £30 a bottle, if you were to order this in a London restaurant it would set you back around £500 (such are the crazy wine mark-ups and inflation these days!)

2024 Round Up (in pictures)

 

January - A cosy evening by the fire in the Fox (Caversham) sampling 2024 Putty from Verdant

February - A chilly walk around Winchester

March - Off to Vietnam and Cambodia for a wonderful touring holiday

April - Surprisingly warm afternoon on the Thames in Richmond

May - A perfect Czech pour (Pilsner) in Prague

June - Scotland for my Son's graduation, the beautiful St. Andrews

July - Staying with friends in the New Forest

August - Some lovely tapas in Sevilla, Spain

September - Back in London helping my kids find flats to rent

October - Visiting friends in Deal, Kent took the train to Canterbury for the day

November - A super-moon in Farringdon, London

December - Treating ourselves to some old Bordeaux, celebrating an exiting year!

Not Expensive

A lovely Haut Medoc last evening (while binge watching the wonderful "Landman" on TV), great acidity and fruit with perfect balance and a little bit of cream on the finish, when Bordeaux does wine well it's hard to beat, and not expensive to boot!

Longer Days

It's turning colder in the UK and we will probably see some negative temperatures later in the week along with a smattering of snow. I'm reminded of the week we spent in Seville, Spain earlier in the year where it was in the 30's (or more) most days, ah well at least the days are getting longer here now..

Caversham Black..

Went out for a couple of pints with an old friend yesterday afternoon and dropped into the Fox and Hounds in Caversham (Reading) We were both pleased to find that they had the marvellous "London Black" on tap and we snapped up two gloriously looking pints of it! A really good pour and tasting bang on the money, apparently (according to the landlord) they have decided to make this beer a permanent fixture rather than Guinness, I heartily approve!

Speed baby, speed..

I see that the Parker probe broke the record for becoming the closest man-made object to our Sun, at around 4 million miles (which doesn't sound close untill you realise that the temperature at that distance still reaches 1000 degrees C) the temperature and radiation burden would have fried most spacecraft, however, the Parker probe had an ace up it's sleeve, speed! At around 400k mph it blistered through the Sun's outer atmosphere and exited before any damage was done. To really understand this speed it's useful to realise that the Parker Probe would travel from London to New York in around 30 seconds, yes faster than a Tory MP cashes a doner cheque! An amazing achievement..

Gift-box

My Son and I watched the latest Alien film last night and polished off a couple of these which were a gift from him to me. Tasty beers from Bristol based "Left Handed Giant" whose taproom we've visited a couple of times now. This one was called "Cats and Frogs" and featured a decent mix of NZ hops wrapped up in a hazy format and bursting with flavour, looking forward to sampling some of the others in the gift-box now!

Simcoe City

Tried one of these last night, made by Elusive and Wild Horse it's an old-style pale ale (darker colour than most) using only Simcoe hops, one of my favourite. It's a good beer, light, fruity with a nice hop saturation and mouthfeel, good work Andy!

Top Beers of 2024 (1-10)

So here we go again, the top 10. It’s been a bit of a year for collaboration beers this year, many great brewers have been working together to create some wonderful "mash-up" beers, four out of the ten are colabs! I seem to have included more Siren beers than usual this year, perhaps my tastes are narrowing or maybe I just haven't cast my net wide enough this year, I must try harder next year!

1. Putty 2024 (Verdant) - An excellent Putty this year, such a totemic beer for Verdant and particularly splendid having on tap from the wonderful Fox and Hounds pub in Caversham. Thick and unctious, delicious flavours of tropical fruits, limes and white wine grapes alongside the classic Verdant yeast funk, hides it's substantial 8% ABV very well long may the tradition continue!

2. Destination (Burning Sky, Elusive, Kernel) - A re-make of the same beer last year but with a slightly tweaked recipe, even better IMO. Classic Westy vibes, grapefruit, fruity with a bold bitterness that keeps you coming back for another sip, wonderful stuff!

3. Guess the Hop A (Siren) - The first in the "Guess the Hop" series from Siren this year, probably the easiest one to guess for me as it had two of my favourit hops in it, Citra and Mosaic. This classic combination resides in many brews but seldom done with such precision, a moreish and flavoursome brew! (I hope it becomes a regular thing!)

4. Living (Elusive, Burnt Mill) - West Coast maestros Burnt Mill teamed up with local brewer Elusive to deliver a stunning West Coast IPA. Everything you'd want from the style, citrus fruits, grapefruit and a mouth puckering bitterness on the finish, Living is a dry and bitter West Coast IPA, with bags of Chinook, Mosaic Incognito, Citra and Centennial hops, brilliant!

5. Lizard (Verdant, Duration) - Brewed with the masters of hop-forward hazy beers using Verdant’s yeast and Nelson Bliss a late harvest version of Nelson Sauvin hops specially processed to enhance sweet tropical flavours. Evolving notes of lychee, citrus, mango, and white wine with great balance.

6. Puttty 2024 (Verdant) - Verdant must have sucked up the worlds supply of Galaxy, Mosaic and Azacca hops like an insatiable black hole and then pummelled them violently into this crazy big relative of their most famous beer. The 10% bigger brother of Putty this was a standout beer for me in 2024!

7. Dark & Perilous Nights (Siren) - An extraordinary collaboration with Florida's J. Wakefield. You get rich aromas of dark sugar and toffee, with a comforting chocolate fudge flavour profile, warming spirit complexity and an uber-slick mouthfeel. It's been on my list before and if they re-brew it again next year I suspect it'll be there again!

8. London Black (Anspach & Hobday) - This lovely Porter was on my list last year, this year it's here again since they release 440ml cans of London Black. I tried one back in the Summer and it was delicious, not quite up the the superlative standard of the brewery tap in Bermondsey but not far off!

9. Expressions, Citra (Siren) - A series of beers made by Siren, each featuring a different hop. This one showcased Citra (one of my favourites) and was delicious, Citra is the superstar of the hop world, widely adored for its citrussy, grapefruit aromas and bold tropical fruit flavours . Hazy, dense and full of flavour this is a worthy platform for this transformative Hop.

10. Leapling (Siren, Verdant) - Siren welcomed Verdant to Finchampstead for a long overdue collaboration making an IPA together a long overdue thing to do. They co-pitched both breweries' house yeast and dreamt up a US meets NZ hop profile in a triple dry-hop! The result gave punchy aromas of lime, guava and gooseberry, with a soft body and minimal bitterness, a top brew for 2024, let's hope they do another one next year!

New Saturday Brew

Had one of these last night, it's from my favourite producers, Verdant. 

Called "Vanity Metrics" it's a delicious pale ale flavoured with Motueka hops from NZ, it's a real lime bomb, so refreshing and with the classic smooth creamy Verdant mouthfeel, a brilliant beer.

Time

I was going through some old photo's the other day and found this blury image. It's from back in the early 80s when I was a student up in London, the chap in the picture was one of my mates back then and we lived in the same block of flats. He was a Welsh lad studying for a degree in Biology and I was doing Chemical Engineering we both liked photography (and a few pints) and spent a glorious Summer in 1982 running around East London snapping random pictures of fairly pointless things! I lost touch with him after we graduated and hadn't thought much about him until he turned up on my TV screen one day several years ago. His name is Iolo Williams and he hosted a Welsh nature show and more recently does Springwatch and that whole wildlife series on the BBC, I always remember him being fanatical about North Wales and nature, funny how the intersection of people, life and time pans out!

Smart Phones

So, today is the shortest day of the year, that time when our ancestors used to have anxiety attacks about whether the Sun would ever return and warm their crops, or not... These days we know better, but to be honest having survived a few dozen generations they should have done as well! Anyway, unlike folk today they didn't have smart phones so how they thrived back then would be a complete mystery to modern Sapiens...

Friday Smirk

J&M pointing out the last resort of many (usually left-leaning) intellectual blagards, the "ad-hom". The only good thing about it is that when you get to the point of being called a racist (or sexist) you've probably won the argument (unless you actually are racist or a sexist etc.)

Other People

 Love this, totally true, no greater impediment to productivity than "other people"...

New Bond Street

My goodness, some of the shops down New Bond Street go to town with their Christmas decorations! In the picture above is the Chanel effort, pretty decent! Others were even more elaborate, the whole street itself has become a tourist destination, thousands of people walk along it (blocking it up!) simply taking pictures, but not buying anything! I suppose it's good for PR, I can't help thinking that it's not much cop for business though! 

The Dior display was even more complicated, see picture below!

Blue Sky Thinking

We've been having some awfully dull weather in the UK this last few weeks and finally the skys cleared just in time for our trip to London last weekend. The clear up allowed me to take this Winter dusk scene looking out across the Thames from Waterloo bridge, love the slight amber light from the setting Sun reflecting off of the buildings, for me this view never gets old!

London Stories

Snapped the other evening while walking back through Westminster to the tube train. Big Ben looking splendid as ever but WTF is the little green thing next to the main tower, I didn't notice it when I took the picture but it looks to me like some kind of weird "Batman" style projection onto the clouds or possibly a strange optical artifact from the streetlights, anyway, makes an otherwise ordinary photo slightly more interesting..!

Top Beers of 2024 (11-20)

 

The first instalment of my top beers of 2024 runs from number 11 through to number 20, some tricky choices this year as the standard of craft beers in the country at the moment is still up there with the best in the world. A mixture of breweries and styles in the list which is good news for the health of the industry, anyway here’s the list.

11. Mucha Mora Mocha (Siren) - Brewed by Siren for their Barista project this year, MMM is an imperial stout weighing in at 9% ABV. Rich, dark, smooth and layered with chocolate and coffee in spades, wonderful viscous mouthfeel too.

12. Death by CCC (Siren) - Part of the Caribbean Chocolate series this year an amped up DbCCC is as good as it was last year, but more so!

13. Monchsbier (Northern Monk) - Picked up fairly randomly at the Siren tapyard this Oktoberfest lager was brewed by Leeds craft superpower Northern Monk. Lovely crisp and dry Pilsner, with a delicious lime vibe, very good indeed.

14. Soundwave Nectaron (Siren) - A classic around these parts, probably one of Siren's most popular beers this one deviated from the normal recipe through the addition of a different hop, Nectaron. I love the original but this one was even better IMO

15. Leffe Negre (Leffe) - Sampled at a Belgian bar in Seville, Spain this little beauty was new to me but tasted like a combination of dry Irish stout and trappist beer, an unlikely but winning combination, great balance and perfect weight.

16. First Light (Baron, Duration) - Nelson Sauvin, Waimea, Mosaic & Citra come together to create a layered symphony of flavour and aromas white wine, gooseberry, passion fruit, exotic citrus & spruce, with a satisfying dankness, excellent stuff from newcommer Baron.

17. Pale Fire (Pressure Drop) - Bog standard house pale ale but a real banger from Pressure Drop, if this is their default beer then I really must try more!

18. Firebreak (Fell Brewery) - Sampled on the way to picking up my Son from university in Scotland, I dropped into Penrith for a night and visited the Fell Brewery tap room. This pale ale with Nelson hops was the standout beer for me, a real gooseberry bomb!

19. Prism (Wiper and True, Siren) - Blends the full, balanced malt flavours of a great pilsner with crisp, satisfying hop bitterness that adds notes of pine needle and citrus. The beer is moreish, smooth, and very rewarding, a great collaboration, long may they continue!

20. Dream Sensations (Heart of Darkness) - A standout beer from our holiday to Vietnam and Cambodia this year. HoD is based in Saigon that was founded in 2016, we visited their tap room in the city and sampled a couple of beers, this IPA was world-class.

London Prices

You always hear people moaning about the price of beer in London (mainly Northerners) but if you're willing to travel a bit then it's perfectly possible to find a bargain. We found ourselves in Primrose Hill, one of the poshest areas of London, this weekend and stopped off with my Son at a pub called "The Albert" where the above sign was posted. Now, four quid for a pint is pretty decent anywhere in the UK currently and in the centre of London surrounded by Porsche's and Range-Rovers it's a positive miracle! Decent boozer too, nice vibe and good food, they even had Siren beer on tap!

Pearly Queen

More food treats this weekend in London as we visited Tom Brown's new restaurant called "The Pearly Queen" on Commercial Street (Aldgate) We'd tried his food previously back in 2018 at his place in Hackney Wick (Cornerstone) which is now closed and liked it very much, the new spot is just as good, the picture above shows my main course which was "Hake Kiev", essentially a roll of Hake (fish) with a garlic and truffle centre on a bed of pureed artichoke, absolutely fabulous!

Birthday Treats

A birthday treat for me back in October this year. The wonderful Casse-Croute in Bermonsey Street, London, the quintissential French bistro experience. Classic food cooked simply but tasty as feck, in the picture above you can see roasted duck, red-cabbage with hazel nuts and fancy mashed potato, fabulous with a hearty Malbec from Cahors!

London Stories

The seven gates (through London wall) into and out of the City of London, all of which were demolished by the 1760s in order to increase traffic flow (what were they thinking!) Anyway most of these are remembered via streets or tube stations, shame the residents of the City back in 1760 didn't think to move them rather than smash them up, still, I'm not sure we'd be smart enough to do it now..

Sausage Heaven

 

We often catch the train up to town (London) from home and to get to the station we have to walk through the town. Quite often we're leaving early in the morning and one of our favourite things to do is to stop off at a local cafe and neck one of their delicious sausage sandwiches! Locally butchered meat and lightly toasted sourdough bread, the perfect start to any journey!

Friday Smirk

 Bollocks indeed

Sureshot

Remembering my trip to Manchester last month and the superb beer trail that we followed around the city centre. In the picture above you can see the Sureshot taproom, under the arches of Piccadilly station. I'd never sampled their beers before but they were really top notch! I had a classic Westy and the other chaps had a couple of dry-stouts, we only stayed for one as we had to move on but I made a mental note to return at some point and try a few more of their brews, maybe next Summer!

Sport-Washing

I see that Saudi Arabia have been awarded the 2034 World Cup, like Qatar, another "sport-washing" exercise that I won't be watching (no not even if England do well).

In the mood

It's getting alarmingly close to Christmas now, only a couple of weeks to go but I can't say I'm really "in the mood" yet. Still, I picked up a few cans of Siren beer at the weekend that will hopefully help the process (see above), it was a tasty little pale ale too, ho ho ho etc...

Departing butchers

Nice to see that one of the world's worst butchers of innocent people, Bashar al-Assad (left) has finally been removed from power and fled his native country of Syria. It's currently a mystery where's he's gone but any country that shelters him from facing a war crimes trial in the Hague is equally culpable of them in my view, no doubt he'll pop up at some point somewhere warm and sandy (or cold and Russian speaking) with a wad of stolen cash. I must admit though that I fear that there are a few more twists and turns left in the Syria story and the new regime may not be a paragon of democracy or secular common sense that we would all like. The other bloke in this picture also ranks pretty high on the list of the world's butchers, we can only hope that he suffers the same fate as al-Assad.

New Westy

A new collaboration between Duration (Norfolk) and Verdant (Cornwall) called "Essentials" this West Coast IPA is lighter than the usual offerings from these guys, weighing in at only 5% it's a perfectly on point Westy. Ample grapefruit and bitterness with a lovely dry finish, very easy to drink and great with food.

Friday Smirk

This would be funny if millions of otherwise intelligent people didn't believe it's actually true..

Climate swaps

What with the series of Atlantic lows moving over the UK this weekend bringing gale force winds, rain and arctic air it made me think back to March this year and our trip to Vietnam and Cambodia where it was blue skys and mostly 30-40 degrees, if only we could swap, just for a day or two! The picture above is the wonderful Angkor Wat temple complex and an example of how the jungle is slowly moving in and reclaiming some of the buildings after a thousand years, an impressive place.

Midweek Mirth

Can't beat a bit of magic..

Meaningless

The technology industry is full of people like this, usually hired by people who don't know the first thing about the technology their companies create and who are supposedly in charge of those technology companies.. (it's more common than you think!) If I've learned anything over the last 30 years in software it is that I'll never again work for a tech company that's run by someone from sales, marketing or finance, but then again I learned this lesson too late, I'm retired now.. (doh!)

Tuesday Titter

 

I loved Dr. Seuss when I was a kid, must have missed these editions tho..

Saturday wine treats

 

We treated ourselves to one of my old Bordeaux bottles on Saturday evening and opened this 1998 Ch Leoville Lascases. It's a wine I bought back in the early 2000's and I remember paying around £400 for a case of 12 bottles, I thought this was expensive at the time (£30 a bottle) but these days you'd struggle to pick up a case of this wine for less than a couple of thousand. Still, the wine was on top form, singing from the glass no signs of any deteriation, inky, red and black fruits with great body and concentration. A top wine from a less than top vintage, still well and truly alive after a quarter century in bottle.

Firsts

I visited my mum for a spot of lunch in Farnham on Friday afternoon and at the same time achieved a couple of firsts! 

First time I'd taken the train rather than drive which was revelatory. I always imagined that the train would be torturous as it involves a change at a little place called "Ash" but in actual fact it was easy, the trains linked up perfectly and the whole journey only took 40 minutes which is quicker than driving (and less stressful!) My second first was visiting the new craft beer bar in the centre of town called the Borough Beer House (picture above) it was a nice space and the beers were excellent, I had a pint of London Black while waiting for my return train it was very well done (see picture below) correct glassware and tasted great, all in all, a successful afternoon in deepest Surrey!