Beer Review: Spitfire

It's time for beers. I only have one, it's Spitfire.

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Book Review: News from Gardenia

So I've been pootling about on Google+ for a while now rather than hanging out booking face and I ended up following Robert Llewellyn on there. It turns out that he's involved with a new set up called Unbound, that I've mentioned on here before, and that he had published a book through them some time last year. I liked the cut of the jib of that book and said as much to Anna, quite frequently actually, so that she ended up getting me the book for Christmas. Which was nice.

I, of course, did what I usually do with books that I get as gifts and entered the world of that book, reading it in pretty much every free moment that I had from getting up in a morning to going to bed at night and so finished reading it in about three days. It was a good book.

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Beer Review: Golden Glory

Evening all, I am about to embark on a journey beyond time and space, I've left Crete and entered the Demilitar... I'm quoting Good Morning Vietnam. This is not a good start. I'm actually drinking a beer, so it's review time.

Tonight I am drinking Badger's Golden Glory.

With a name like that I should have guessed that this was a summer beer. I mean, I think the last time I had one of these it was the height of summer and it was long before I started reviewing beers, even in my head, back then I was simply having a different beer every week. Anyway, it was time to try it properly. It claimed to be "curiously peachy" on the bottle and boy, was it ever! On opening there was a definite peach aroma, very strong and easily pllaced. Not unpleasant, but a little unexpected. I half expected the taste to be so fruity that I would be drinking juice rather than beer.

However, it wasn't. At all. I mean, as you sip it the aroma gets in to the mouth and there is a hint of peach as you close your mouth. But it is gone, washed away in an instant, by the actual beer itself. And the beer is rather thin in taste. I mean, it's 4.5% ABV, so not incredibly weak nor particularly strong. It's in that zone that I rather like my beers to be in. But there's, I dunno, not a great deal of depth to it. It's just... thin. There's a zestiness to it, certainly, that builds a little and there is a nice element of fizz to it that allows it to dance quite well without stamping on your toes whilst doing so. But there's no fire in the belly, nothing to grab on to and instead just that smell digging in your ribs as you try desperately to pull this closer to you.

After-taste is interesting, but not a lot else. There's something to it, a sugary quality I suppose, a sweetness and lightness that speaks of a warm day that needs to be tamed or a nice meadow awash with flowers and humming with beers. I guess I was expecting something a little heavier, perhaps more honey, than what I got (though in fairness the bottle does not flag up anything that would have made me think so apart from the 'golden' in the title). It's serviceable and will no doubt serve for me this evening, but it lacked the 'punch' that I suppose I was looking for.

Drink this best in the summer, in the sunshine, on a warm day when you're looking to simply enjoy yourself. Drink it at whatever speed you wish but make sure you are thirsty first because this is actually a thirst quencher. Enjoy the smell, the pungent peach, because that is easily the best quality of this particular beer. It's like Rose wine - unobtrusive and light, the perfect accompaniment to a light lunch of salad and some croutons. Have a good dressing with those rocket leaves, bring in some toasted french loaf and a small amount, the barest hint, of brie.  Then be sure to follow it up with a proper shepherd's pie and some gravy and a big pint of something like 1698.

Though I must confess, the longer you drink it and the closer you get to the end of the pint the nicer the whole thing becomes.  It mellows.  Also, it's 4.5% and I'm a complete lightweight - make of that what you will.

Prog Rock Noodlings

Next up on our journey through things that are vaguely inspiring or beautiful or just rather nice to keep this place from being totally, and boringly, about beer is the, frankly, awesome Forever Autumn from the War of the Worlds double album.

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Beer Review: Saltaire Blonde

It seems as though I have a genuine liking for Pale Ale. In that vein I shall be drinking Saltaire Blonde by the makers of Chocoholic, Saltaire breweries. Because, when I bought the beers they were in an offer so I got two from the same people. No other reason.

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Music - Jean Michel Jarre is a fraud

When I think of beautiful music I think of the sort of thing that would make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end, the sort of music that would make me think of things beyond where I was. It transports me to somewhere, and often somewhen, else.

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Beer Review: 1698

Tonight I have been mostly drinking 1698, a heavily fortified beer from Shepherd Neame brewery, who appear to be fast approaching being the one I drink the most from. Certainly my last sojourn to Black Sheep left me feeling that it was no longer my beer. This one is in a stout little bottle and makes few or no claims for itself.

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Books and books

Now the literary beauty. There is a beauty in novels and in writing in general that I find incomparable. It is not a visual thing, per se, but a thing of the mind. I can no more describe what happens when I read than I can write a shower but I do know that both the shower and the reading are immersive experiences when they are beautiful and are as life affirming as anything else that I know.

If you haven't, read this. Or see the
film, both work.

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