Beer Review: Benjamin Disraeli Hughenden Ale

Spring has sprung, wind has blown, and there is rain and wetness all across the land. Easter has been and gone, the hour is forward and there is light where there was none previously. Time to stop dwelling in the dark and enter truly the light and taste some ale that is deliberately golden rather than summery. I refer, in this instance, to a brew bought me by my father: Benjamin Disraeli Hughenden Ale which is quite a mouthful, by and bye. This offering is brought to us by Chiltern Brewery and was acquired at the ancestral home of the Prime Minister himself.

And so I must now turn to the business of drinking this ale and then reviewing it for the good of the viewing public. It's a hard job but someone has to do it! Would you like to follow me further into the realms of the beer review?

Beer Review: Hop Bomb

This was my Easter ale, picked up and presented on the day with much fanfare. It was one that I had chosen myself and even given to other people as a gift. It is, of course, Hop Bomb by T. A. Sadler's who have gifted the world the rather wonderful Mud City Stout. I think I have even had a version of this before in 255ml. Now it's widescreen, with special features, at 500ml and 2.5 of your English Units.

However, this is not the review that you may be expecting from that introduction and it certainly isn't the review that I was intending to write. Would you like to know more?

Beer Review: 1914 Ale

With the name of this ale I would have been hard-pressed to ignore it on the shelf. My predilections are very much toward making connections and the centenary of the First World War looms large in my thoughts at the moment. This ale does seem to do a good job of making the whole thing work without too much schmaltz and supports a charity that seems, upon Googling, to do good work with survivors of conflicts that would otherwise be forgotten. So, without further ado, let me introduce the master of tonight's ceremonies in 1914 Ale, brewed by Box Steam Brewery, which is something I've had before methinks.

Be wary of the busy and untidy kitchen, wipe your feet for all that will change matters, and follow me to a better place to sit in the living room and discuss this latest addition to my reviewing journey. Would you like to know more?

Beer Review: Salt's Burton Ale

It's an evening of ale. Just been out to have a swift half in the local and now I'm settling down trying to plan a lesson for Monday with an ale and my dressing gown on because it is cold. Too much information? Too much information. For now apparent reason, I am doing this with an amber ale of bitter variety Salt's Burton Ale from Tower Brewery. This is one that I do keep spotting locally and have been itching to try an ale from, and I finally got round to it because it was a pound on Saturday. I love me a bargain. Hey, stop that, I do get some good ales that aren't randomly on offer but I haven't been writing much lately.

Onward! Would you like to know more?

Beer Review: Snout

A trip down south meant a visit to Hog's Back Brewery again and a reminder that I still had some of their ales I picked up in Summer to drink. Why is that? Well, I specifically sought out a brace of ales that would better suit winter for the drinking in winter. Unseasonably warm days and little in the way of frost meant that I did not partake of them, after all, what's the point in winter ale if it is not winter outside? Okay, no, bad example, I'd drink them anyway, but now we have actual frost and ice of a morning it seems like the right time to be having them.

And tonight's offering is the much anticipated (by me at least) Snout: Dark Winter Stout from that brewery. It was what prompted me to actually have a shelf in the pantry (we have a pantry) for occasional ales that were somewhat special. I have a second bottle of 2013 vintage Imperial Russian Stout (link) up there too, but this and the the other ales I gained over summer for special occasions are also stored there.

It is dark, time to sample the delights of a winter stout! Would you like to know more?

Beer Review: Mud City Stout

Been a long time in coming but, tonight, I am getting round to reviewing one of those ales that rapidly became a staple and has been one of the key reasons I started buying more than a single bottle of some ales. In other words, this is an ale whose consumption allowed me to justify my hoarding mentality. Welcome, then, to the Kulaks' friend: Mud City Stout.

I was first pointed in this direction by other beer bloggers on the Google+ ghost-town of beer communities numbering several tens of thousands strong, so I am indebted to them, and it is of the stable of T. A. Sadler who I rather enjoy of an evening, especially following long weeks working and marking and whatnot.

Would you like to know more? Why wouldn't you like to know more? Seriously, you'd like to know more and thus understand why you, too, would want to buy and consume this ale.

Beer Review: Dizzy's Dark Side

I have seen this around and about and I have been wanting to give it a try for some time now. Well, I finally have the opportunity as I settle down to another hard graft at the chalk-face of History. I am referring, of course, to the sister brew to Robinson's Dizzy Blonde in the form of Dizzy's Dark Side and I don't mind complimenting the artist of the bottle jacket on a clever use of colour on the shoes.

My love of dark ales is, perhaps, rather well-signposted on this here blog, so it is of no surprise to all of my reader that I am choosing to review another type of dark ale. Especially as it has been a constant of my visits to a local supermarket of late, taunting me from the pies section, and so I had to cave eventually.

Would you like to know more of my brush with this rather delectable dark, but also curiously light, ale?