Weekend Wines

While in London last weekend I treated my Daughter to a slap up meal at Noble Rot in Bloomsbury (Lambs Conduit St) we were kind of celebrating her completion of a Law conversion course that she's been doing over the last 9 months, her last exam was last Thursday so she was ready to let her hair down a bit! 

We had a really nice long chat and catch up (she has a new boyfriend she was keen to tell me about!) We also had some great food and wine too, classic French bistro style dishes and a bottle from the Maconnais region of Burgundy from one of my favourite producers Verget (more on them here) It was a great wine, crisp green fruits, buttery, nutty, smooth and a nice clean finish, it went down a treat with the splendid pork chop that I ordered. This wine was the old vine (vieilles vignes) version of the appellation, and at only a 2X markup was pretty good VFM for a London restaurant, well done Noble Rot!

Interestingly I noticed that Verget seems to be using screw tops on many of their wines these days, makes complete sense, these aren't wines that need to be aged hugely, a few years at the most and are intended to be drunk fresh and young (compared to other Burgundies) and so the screw cap is probably a superior closure. If this example was typical of the final product then I thoroughly approve!

Very Sensible

Had one of these a couple of weekends ago, it's a new beer from Elusive with some crazy new fangled hops from NZ, very tasty I must say and I like the way Elusive targets a lot of their ales these days between 4 and 5% ABV, all very sensible!

King Kernel

As I was in London last weekend I took the opportunity to pop into the Kernel Taproom in Bermondsey. I always enjoy going over there, it's a bit of a walk but well worth it for the choice on offer. I snapped a picture of the menu for that day (Friday), it's unlikely that you'd find more variety at such high quality levels anywhere else in the country, let alone London, even before you start poking around in their awesome bottle stash! I opted for 2/3rd's of the Simcoe Pale Ale and delicious it was, like so many of the Kernel beers totally balanced and with flavour oozing out of every sip, I could have stayed for several more but had a dinner date with my Daughter in town, maybe next time!

London Stories

I was in London this weekend and finding myself at a loose end I went for a little walk around Southwark. I came across this wall mural in Coin Street, it's a nice image of Anthony Bourdain, food writer and broadcaster (now dead) an interesting tribute to the man, not sure why it's where it is though (clearly some Googling required!), not exactly a prominent street..

Weekend Wink

Nice one from Matt in the Telegraph

Dream dinner parties..

Who are your dream dinner party guests? It's a question often asked at, you guessed it, dinner parties! The choices aren't normally restricted so you can choose anyone alive or dead, it's a bit of a cliche but interesting (in good company), it tells you quite a lot about the person answering and what interests them. For example if the people chosen are all sports heros or perhaps if they are authority figures (like HRH) , famous authors or even famous scientists, some people go broad and some go niche, its something that's hard to predict, hence the amusement I suppose. 

Personally I wouldn't choose anyone in the picture above, for me it would be more about the quality of the conversation and/or debate (and a decent plonk of course!) Maybe people like Bertrand Russell and Christopher Hitchens on philosophy, Newton and Maxwell on science, and for historical colour, Marcus Aurelius and Alexander TG, but of course this list changes on a regular basis, usually every time the question is raised! 

One of the best (modern) jokes on this subject that I've seen recently is someone being asked this question in an interview, and his reply was a gem, he said, "Nigel Farage" followed by a pause and then the word "dead", a sign of the time perhaps.

Friday Smirk

The lad's discussing how religions (particularly Islam) are divisive, that they certainly are, they wouldn't have any power over people if they weren't.

Can't argue with new life

I had a nice surprise today, on my daily walk I noticed a couple of fluffy little additions to the life of the pond that I stroll by most days. Two young Moorhens were running around in the grass at the edge of the water being closely monitored by a parent! A sign of new life, hopefully these little critters will do well. I did think that "my pond" was looking rather poorly this year, overgrown and slightly stinky, but I guess I was wrong, at least the Moorhens think so and I can't argue with them!

Chilly welcome

While out walking today I saw my first Swift of the year. These little birds migrate all the way from down in Africa, covering some 6,000 miles each way, an amazing feat of navigation and endurance. I bet the little bird I saw today was wishing he'd stayed in Africa, it feels very chilly here in the UK at the moment as we're in a pocket of arctic air that's sweeping down from the frozen north with gusty winds, rain and thunder, hopefully it'll warm up a bit for the little fella soon!

Forbidden excitement

A box of wine (bottles!) arrived yesterday morning, it's a case of 12 bottles of white wine from France (via a London merchant) and one of my favourite producers in the Maconnais called "Verget". This particular wine, one of many different types and regions that Verget work in, is called "Saint Veran Lieu (Inter)dit", in French the word "Interdit" means forbidden and this wine has that label because it comes from a place (or "Lieu" in French) called Cote Rotie (or "Roasted Slope" in English) in Saint Veran. 

Now Cote Rotie is also the name of a very famous area in the Northern Rhone (not Burgundy) famous for making brooding reds from the Syrah grape rather than floral and mineral whites from Chardonnay, and the producers in Saint Veran aren't allowed to use that name in case there's a mix up between the two regions, hence "forbidden". Anyway, it's a nice little story and the wine is probably one of the best examples from this appellation, mid-priced (around £20 a bottle) but boy is it good, it also disappears from the merchants pretty quickly whenever a batch is released, can't wait to try it! (I will report back)

Bearwood

We found ourselves driving around our locale on Saturday afternoon (after visiting a garden centre) and decided to pop into a brand new craft brewery/taproom on the outskirts of our home town. Called "Bearwood Brewing" it's named after an area to the West of the town called "Bear Wood" where there used to be a big old public school belonging to the Royal Merchant Navy that had lush grounds and even a large lake, but which closed down in 2014, there's a golf course on the site now. 

Anyway, the brewery and taproom is situated (as most of them are) in a light industrial estate on the outskirts of town, surrounded by tattoo establishments, pole dancing schools and car repair shops it felt a little out of place to be having a drink there but hey ho, in for a penny etc.. The venue itself was clean and nicely decked out and the range of taps on offer numerous, most of the beers available were their own but they also had a couple of guest beers and some zero alcohol options. I opted for a hazy pale ale (Accomplices) made with Citra and Nelson, it was well made, balanced and flavoursome but a little light on the body, I think it weighed in at around 5% but perhaps needed a little more umph! Not a bad effort though, I'm sure it takes a while for a brewery to bed-in and for the core range to emerge!

Unfortunately we only had time for a quick half, it would have been nice to stay a bit longer and try one of their tasting flights, another time..

Sunday Sermon

 

Luckily, these days, no one in their right mind would base their entire moral and ethical foundation on a primitive bronze age story book... oh, wait..

V. Citra

Had one of these last night, it's a NEIPA beer from Verdant made with 100% Citra hops called "All of this may be untrue". It's an absolute haze bomb, delightful tropical fruit flavours, dank and a solid bitter (ish) finish, a really nice beer and at 4.9% ABV not too head harming! Unfortunately I only had the one can, sourced from the "fridge of dreams" at Elusive, however I'm aiming to visit Verdant's Penryn taproom at some point this year so who knows, maybe I'll be able to try it on keg fresh from source (that would be awesome!) ...

Friday Smirk

The boys talking about the absurdity of the concept of "facing Mecca" on a planet that's a sphere! I wonder how many human beings in history have stressed about this, I bet it's quite a few, we're such silly sausages sometimes..

Vote

Voted today in our council elections, but TBH it was more a vote against who I didn't want rather than who I did...

Midweek Mirth

I've attended a few interviews like this over the years..

Thirst Quencher

Had a new beer from Elusive over the weekend, it's a pale ale made with NZ hops (Motueka) with added lime juice called "Zesty" (it's well named!). The overall effect is a bit like a lager and lime, pale and crisp with a very prominent citrus backbone. This one would be perfect for warmer weather and BBQs, really easy to drink and only 4.5% ABV a real thirst quencher!

Local Stories

An old photograph (50s?) taken in my home town showing the Tudor house at the end of Broad Street (the old market street), a really interesting building complete with wooden beams, warped floorboards and ceilings that struggle to reach 5ft tall! Amazingly in recent years this was the town's doctors surgery, there were at least a dozen GP's in there practicing medicine from tiny little dark paneled rooms. The upper floor window on the left was one of the waiting rooms, my infant son projectile vomited in there on one visit and I had to scoop it all up with paper towels from the toilet, ah the joys of parenting! These days the old place has been converted into apartments (like a lot of places in town) although we all remember the days when it had the faint whiff of disinfectant and the sounds of red-faced people sitting around in 16th century rooms, sniffing and sneezing..

Monday Walk

We're lucky to live in a town with decent shops, pubs and restaurants and also great rail connections into London and beyond but also we're not too far away from open countryside. We walked a 10k loop today that took us out into woods and fields (see above) where the scene was completely rural, quiet (apart from birdsong) cows in the fields and daisies everywhere, it was lush!

Low ABV crown

Had one of these over the weekend, it's a low alcohol table beer from Beak (Lewes, Sussex) called "Fjords". Now, I haven't had a Beak beer for a couple of years now, it's quite hard to get hold of and you don't see it much in beer fridges around the place. I managed to snag this one from the Elusive taproom in Finchampstead, they had a couple of Beak beers in their beer fridge this weekend, also known as, the "fridge of dreams"! The ale itself was good, smooth, creamy and full of hop flavour, in this case a mix of Citra, Mosaic and Galaxy a classic combo which puts this beer in direct competition with "People Money Space Time" from Verdant. It's a close run thing but for a low ABV table beer I think Verdant still takes the crown, keep trying though Beak!

Runny Hooters

Out on my daily walk yesterday and noticed these Horse Chestnut blossoms, such pretty things, never really noticed them before, apart from their pollen making my hooter run at this time of year!

Friday Smirk

The boys discussing the rather ludicrous rituals that pervade their respective religions, as we atheists often remark to our religious brothers and sisters. All those thousands of other religions are a bit daft, obviously fake and stupid, but yours, yours is the right one, no question.