Hell Fire

Ending the evening with a pale ale after the success of Atlantic Pale Ale on my trip away (see here) and because it stands in perfect contrast to the fact that it is very dark outside. I am nothing if I am not contrary when drinking ales. Also, I would drink some of my stash of stouts but decent stouts are hard to find and they always taste better after storage. My pales and IPAs, on the other hand, tend to go out of date and taste bad after a while. I have been buying too much ale. I may be addicted to buying it rather than drinking it. Damn.

Anyway, tonight I shall be reviewing and enjoying, hopefully, the rather nicely named Hell Fire from Leeds Brewery who have come a long way since I pooh-poohed their initial bottled effort that I picked up in ASDA. Because, yes, I am the only blogger that they brew for. Obviously. Enough, my hubris knows no bounds and I am a busy blogger: would you like to know more?

A Night on the Tiles

Which is actually a bit of a poor title as it wasn't anything like that, I was honoured to have some excellent company to try out some of the nicer and out of the way bars and public houses in the centre of Leeds, thus avoiding the Hen Nights with large phalluses (phallii?) wandering the main areas of the city, as well as starting the night with excellent curry. And then there was the following morning where there were pancakes - it's been about nine years since I had pancakes at any point of the day, let alone cooked for me at breakfast with lemon and sugar on hand.

I digress, this is a beer blog after all, and I'm guessing that people aren't that fussed about what I ate so much as they come to read about the ales imbibed. Ales were imbibed, conquering heroes were spoken to (no, really, both gentlemen that made up my company have conquered areas of the workplace and deservedly so) and good craic, as I believe they say in Ireland, was had. And how could I forget the morning conversation in the kitchen that followed the night out - brilliant as always!

Ahem, yes, onto the ales. Would you like to know more?

Curry Night in Leeds

So, this was a little different to a cultural beer exchange in that there wasn't really an opportunity to share the same beers with people nor compare beers from different locales. However, it was a night to check out multiple craft ales and to have a decent curry for the first time in ages. Say what you like about where I live at the moment, but the curry really isn't what I'm used to.

Reviews of the beers imbibed are necessarily truncated because I forgot to take a pad to record my thoughts and the main purpose of the trip was to share my own home brew with the colleagues that had procured the kit for me in the first place!

Beer Review: Cultural Exchange

It was my grandfather's 80th birthday bash and so my brother and I decided to tool up and have a DVD night. It didn't quite go according to plan but we did bring along some ales that were local to us (well, my grandfather misunderstood and brought some Tetley's in cans). Again, I shan't do full reviews on each of the beers but the guests were, in order of being drunk, Cascade Pale Ale from Saltaire Brewery, Manchester Brown Ale from Joseph Holt, Ilkley Black from Ilkley Brewery and Maple Moon (Joseph Holt again). We had Leeds Best (Leeds Brewery) and Champion 1849 (Joseph Holt again) on hand but these were consumed after the fact and in isolation.

Would you like to know more?

Beer Review: Leeds Best

Tonight's journey through time and space left me with the rather highly priced Leeds Best. It is apparently made with a strain of yeast unique to the second largest financial centre in the UK and brewed there out of a local brewery that grew up and was abandoned by Tetley's.

Would you like to know more?