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!

Old Hobbies

When I was a teenager I used to love fishing but over the years other stuff got in the way, like exams, careers, families, time pressures etc. and I gave it up before reaching my 20s. Today I went course fishing for the first time in many, many years, a mate of mine suggested it a while back and we finally got around to organizing a day out. After a visit to the tackle shop yesterday we headed over to Hurley Lock (Berkshire) and a free section of the Thames to settle in for a day by the river (see picture above!)

After a couple of hours and a couple of missed bites I finally landed a small Thames Roach (see below)

After this we had a couple of very small fish, what looked like a Bleak (possible?) and a feisty little Perch, all in all not a super result but a very satisfying day out and a great refresher trip, can't wait for the next trip now (got one planned to the Cotswolds). 

LSBB - Part 2

Upon arriving at the taproom we received a tote bag and a couple of tasting glasses (as pictured above) It was a small glass that could hold one third of a pint, this was just as well since there were something like 100 different beers on offer from thirty different breweries, both UK and foreign! I've posted a small selection of the brews we tried, there were some complete bangers on offer and you couldn't really even cover a fifth of them!

From top left to bottom right we had,

1. Maniac Brainiac - Finback (USA)
2. Neals Yard Porter - The Kernel (Bermondsey, London)
3. These Hills - Beak (Lewes, Sussex)
4. Nelson! (It's what we like here) - Green Cheek (USA)
5. Candy Green - Rivington (Lancashire)
6. Ready, Set, Go - LHG (Bristol)
7. Bigger Foam - Donzoko (Leith, Scotland)
8. Crickley Hill - DEYA (Cheltenham)
9. Piquette - Burning Sky (Sussex)
10. Big Stupid Hazy - Verdant (Cornwall)
11. Little Summer Beer Bash - Verdant (Cornwall)
12. Turtles all the way down - Duration (Norfolk)

Not a duff one among them!

We had a few more after these but I didn't take pictures, at around 10:30 pm we phoned for a taxi and headed back to the hotel for a good night's sleep!

LSBB - Part 1

I was fortunate enough to have a totally free weekend just past so, on a whim, my Son and I decided to train it down to Falmouth in Cornwall to attend the LSBB (Little Summer Beer Bash) hosted by our favourite brewery Verdant in Penryn. The train isn't too bad for us as we can pick up the Penzance train from Reading and it takes around four and a half hours to get to Falmouth, I booked a hotel for a couple of nights and we arrived on Friday evening weary from the journey but ready for some food and ale! 

To keep things simple we headed up to the Seaview Inn above the town and to Verdant's desi pub which was buzzing with people but luckily we snagged a small table and tucked into a feast of great beers and delicious curry (and accompaniments) belly's full we had a pretty solid nights sleep and awoke early to a lovely sunny day on Saturday (curry and beers see below).

Our beer festival wasn't until the evening so we decided to walk around the South Coastal Path to the next inlet along from Falmouth town (Swanpool Beach)so that we could get some stellar seafood for lunch at the Beach House (previously pictured here) I had a ray-wing burger and my Son had a whole crab (see picture below), totally delicious and washed down with a pint of Lightbulb from Verdant, the perfect lunch!

After lunch we walked back to town and played a couple of frames of snooker (father-son bonding!) before heading back to our digs to freshen up and book a taxi to take us to Penryn and the Verdant taproom for the evening event!

Delusions

Yep, seems about right...

Small World

Another new Elusive beer (seem to be trying a lot of these in the last couple of months) called "Traverse" it's a (mainly) Citra oriented pale ale with a couple of different hop formats included. A tasty brew and in true Elusive style it's fairly malt forward which is nice to see. Anyway, just by chance as I was picking up this can in a local shop the owner of the brewery (Andy Parker) came in to do a delivery, we kind of know each other but only to nod at in the street but we had a great little chat about the price of fish and it turned out that he used to be in the IT industry (like me) we had more in common than I'd imagined, small world!

Friday Smirk

You hear this "objective morality" argument from Theists quite a bit, and it's true, there's no way that any Atheist could show that their morality is objective, most of us prefer to adopt a more materialist position and claim that our morality has evolved (as we've learned things about ourselves) based upon our evolutionary hard wiring as a social species. At least this explanation fits our lived experience and the historical evidence.

The astonishing thing though is that Theists often don't seem to realise that their own position is 100% based upon the claim that their particular God or Gods are in fact true, i.e. in order to be able to provide objectivity. They assert this with no evidence whatsoever! Their argument is based on nothing but wish-thinking and feelings and unfortunately for them, it's feelings all the way down!

Madeira Memories

We took a trip to the Portuguese island of Madeira earlier this year (May), it was a week of great food, spectacular scenery, decent weather and excellent company. In the shot above is a view from our plane coming into land and the structure in the middle of the picture on stilts is the runway! The pilot advised us just before coming around for final approach that this particular airport has the 6th most difficult (and therefore dangerous) landing in the world due to a short runway, the proximity of steep mountains and frequent gusty ocean winds. Apparently pilots can only land here after additional training and certification, cue lot's of nervous laughs in the cabin! Our landing that day was as smooth as you like though, however, I can imagine it gets pretty hairy when the surf is up!

Damn Van Man

Out for my daily constitutional walk the other day and was faced with this slice of inconsiderate BS, the van is completely blocking the pavement and the skip it just delivered is completely blocking any other route around it! The only options were to risk walking in the road (this is an extremely busy road!) or crossing over (tricky as there's a junction right there) and then crossing back further down. Such is life in the busy old South East of England these days, and he didn't even have his hazard's on, which as we all know absolves the driver of any responsibility whatsoever!

Budgie brunch

So, dinner at the Parakeet in Kentish Town the other evening was outstanding, four courses of a wide variety of dishes from small individual tartlets (containing things like hoisin duck and clam and pea) through to braised leeks in a smoked pecorino sauce (a house specialty) lamb with haricot beans and main sharing courses of stuffed guinea fowl and pork collar chops. All cooked over an open fire in something that looked a bit like a pizza oven, deliciously smoky with morish burnt bits (wood fired Jersey Royals to die for!)

I can tell the food was good because I only took one picture (see above) some poached oysters with sea buckthorn granita, a feast for the eyes as well as the belly! Thoroughly recommended venue and fairly reasonable too, I've been to Michelin starred places that weren't half as good and twice the price.

An old friend

I remember back in the late 90s I used to live in Silicon Valley (Palo Alto) and high above the valley floor was a system of hills separating the valley from the ocean that we used to drive up to every now and again, the views were glorious. The climate was also a little cooler up there and ever since the 1880s Italian immigrants were growing grapes among the giant redwoods on the hills above the valley. One such vineyard is called "Ridge" and is famed for a wine called "Monte Bello" a Cabernet Sauvignon based red wine that won 6th place in the famous "Judgement of Paris" tasting in 1976 and first in the 30th anniversary tasting of the same wines, it's a classy drink and hugely expensive these days. 

Fortunately Ridge is big enough to produce several wines at different price points, these include several Zinfandel blends as well as more classic Cabernet based Bordeaux blends, I believe they also have a Chardonnay which I haven't tried yet. Luckily for us we were in London on Saturday and having dinner with the kids at a pub/restaurant called "Parakeet" in Kentish Town and they had a Ridge on their list (pretty unusual for a gastro-pub) I snagged a bottle and it was delicious, it was only their "Estate Cabernet" but even so it's made in the style of the great Monte Bello and was just the job with a massive pork chop cooked over an open fire/BBQ and shared with the table, a great evening.

Mystery Fruit

This tree at the end of our road fruits every year and this year seems to have a vast amount of plum like berries that look enticingly edible (never plucked up the courage to try them!), I only wish I knew what it was?

Muggy (almost) pint

A new Elusive beer last night and in true Andy Parker style it's just as much about the malts as it is about the hops, although the hop is one of my favourite, Citra. Classic flavours, grapefruit, citrus, not too bitter and very well balanced a nice pint (well 400ml) on a very muggy evening!

Friday Smirk

Jesus and Mo pointing out that Blasphemy is a truly victimless crime..

Howzat?

Spent a delightful evening in St Johns Wood (London) yesterday with my Son at Lords watching Surrey beat Middlesex in a T20 match. It was great weather for cricket and the runs were flowing, as were the cold beers! In the end Surrey nicked it by 8 runs, a close match with some spectacular catches and shots but most of all it was nice to spend time with the lad sharing a game we both love.

Philosophical Ale

Had one of these at my mate's house the other day, it's from brewers "Duration" based in Norfolk and called "Turtles all the way down", the reference is from a novel by Terry Pratchett. The book is from his "Discworld" series in which one of the characters offers an answer to the question of how the universe (i.e. Discworld) is structured by saying that the Earth rests on the backs of four great elephants who stand on the back of a giant turtle, when someone asks what the turtle stands on his response is "it's turtles all the way down" thereby humorously introducing the philosophical problem of an infinite regress. 

This idea was not invented by Pratchett but has been used in many guises before going as far back as Locke in the 17th century! Anyway, suffice to say we didn't ponder this philosophical paradox too deeply as the beer was far too gorgeous and there was Chinese food to consume!

Fishy Beer

New murk bomb from Verdant, called "Baby Sharks" it's part of a three or four part "shark themed" set of beers, all with roughly the same hop profiles (a ton of Citra and Galaxy) but done at different strengths ranging from this one at 4.5% up to "The Don" weighing in at 11%! It's a worthy cause as the brewery are donating 2% of all web sales to a Shark research program down in Cornwall.

Monday Mystery

Good point, it's almost like our knowledge of the cycles of the solar system has evolved and improved over the centuries as we've invented technologies to augment and enhance our inbuilt senses, no Gods required..

Public Enemy

If there's one thing on this planet that I would eradicate if I could (or should) then it would be these little buggers. We sat outside for drinks on Friday evening in my mate's garden and even though I doused myself in Deet I was gifted a row of 9 cherry red bites on the back of my neck along the collar line, they are itchy as hell today (in the heat) and to rub salt into the wounds no one else was bitten even once! 

20 year old treats

Last time we visited Bordeaux was in 2005, we did a little guided tour of a few vineyards on the Right bank and in Saint-Émilion as a birthday treat for me. One of the more famous places that we visited was a producer called "Lynch-Bages" a property in Pauillac owned by an old Irish family who have been in France for a couple of centuries. Anyway, they are more famous for their red wines but while there we had lunch in their restaurant and had a bottle of their White, it was delicious, lemony, white flowers, cream and apricots I was so taken with it that, when I got home, I bought a case from a London merchant, I think it cost around £180 for 12 bottles, i.e. £15 a bottle, it felt expensive then but in todays market a total bargain.

I have 6 bottles left and last night we decided to take one to a friends house to accompany a Chinese take-away! As can be seen in the picture above, it's a lovely deep straw/gold colour and has grown in complexity over the 20 odd years in bottle, perfect balance, a delicious drop and a good match for spicy food, a real treat for a warm Friday evening!

Looking at the London wine merchants today a single bottle of this will set you back around £50, inflation is a real kill-joy!

Friday Smirk

 

Jesus and Mo pointing out the obvious as they invariably do. It's a well known fact that the easiest way to turn Christians into Atheists is to make them actually read the Bible, mostly incoherent babble from cover to cover with the odd universal psychological insight and the odd (mostly plagiarized) archetypal story sprinkled around, man eating fish and talking snakes etc.

Ice cold in St. Pete's

 

All this hot weather we seem to be having lately in the UK is reminding me of a little trip we took back in March this year to Florida. It was about the same average temperatures there then as it is here now but I don't remember sweating as much, probably all the air conditioning. The other thing that made 30 degrees seem more bearable was the frequent stops for ice cold beer and bar nibbles (like great Mexican food), my favourite spot of the whole holiday was the Green Bench tap room in St. Petersburg, we went there twice and I tried five or six of their beers, not a duff one among them, excellent brewers!

Proof of Evolution

We were sitting in the garden and this cloud floated by, the more we looked at it the more it resembled some kind of dinosaur (or perhaps Godzilla) with a slightly open mouth in the top left and a long tail bottom right, it even has a couple of little arms! Anyway, I concluded that this is an omen that means evolution is definitely true, take that creationists ;)

Lowlander

When we were staying in town (London) for our wedding anniversary back in June we stayed in a funky boutique hotel in Clerkenwell (see write-up here) Just around the corner from the hotel was a Belgian beer bar called "The Dovetail" it's about half way down Jerusalem Passage. Late one afternoon on the way back from visiting one of the kids we decided to swing by and rest a while, I opted for a half of the Bruges Zot Blonde a 6% malty blond ale that was really nice. The bar has at least a dozen beers on draught and what looked like 100+ in bottles, a decent selection! We only had time for a quick one but I'll certainly be back here to try a few more!

Monday Mirth

Idyllic countryside, yeah.. 

Heavenly Menus

I was in London Wed thru Friday this week visiting the kids and treating them to slap up lunches and pints, had a great time running around attending different events with them. Anyway, I also managed to tick off a venue that's been on my "must visit" list for over a year now. 

The Kernel brewery in Bermondsey moved their much beloved taproom from under the railway arches to a swanky new airconditioned venue just around the corner in Spa Road, and although I've walked past it a couple of times I'd never been in, until now. It's a great new space, lot's more room and an even more impressive tap-list to choose from, I snapped this picture of the offerings available on Wednesday a stunning line up of almost every style of beer you could wish for and being the Kernel you know that they're all going to be excellent. I only had 90 minutes to spare so I opted for three tasting halves, the Citra pale ale, the Brett pale ale and the export India porter, three completely different beers but all bang on the money in terms of style, balance and drinkability. This is a really great place for beer-geeks, thoroughly recommended, I've already made a mental note to return!

Choppers

We were walking past St. Pauls Cathedral in London on Thursday this week and heard a squadron of choppers flying overhead, I managed to snap this picture as they flew over. The machines were very close to one another and circled around a couple of times before flying off, I wonder what this was about, perhaps a practice run for some kind of fly-by?

Friday Smirk

Love this J&M, I once heard a Muslim apologist claim that (his) God must have created us because of the complexity and perfection of the Human eye; the apologist wore spectacles.

Unicorns

We were walking along the A40 (Theobalds Rd.) in London last week and noticed these rather splendid decorations at the base of the spire of this church, obviously the classic "Lion and Unicorn" that you see on the front of UK passports but I'd never seen them in a 3d representation like this before. When I got home and did a bit of googling I found out that this is the Bloomsbury church or St. George's, a delightful little bit of art and architecture!

New Westy

Tried this new Westy from Siren called "Jaggy Snake" (can't imagine what the reference is there??) at the weekend, a classic, clean and modern IPA style, quite punchy at 7%. All the typical flavours are there, citrus, grapefruit, tropical and dank with a bitter finish that lingers prompting another sip, a great beer!