BrewDog prototypes

Last month, I bought a few cases of the new Brewdog prototype ales. They are trying four beers out for next year's core range. The four beers are Blitz! A 2.8% west coast hoppy beer, tastes like a stronger strength IPA, pleasant and my choice as Brewdog need a core low strength beer. Then there is Prototype 17 which was meant to be an IPA with raspberry, I hear the old version was very raspberry-ey. This version wasn't, it was hoppy as you'd expect from Brewdog, very nice but minimal raspberryness. The one with the best name was Hops Kill Nazis. Red ale but mega hopped, nicely odd, the caramelliness mixed with the pineage. Then there was Scotch Ale, very deep in flavour, oats with dark fruits and a whisky edge.

All in all very good, Blitz gets my vote!

Cask Corner

So then chap and chapettes. Just come back from a trip to Cask Corner in my home town of Doncaster (exotic). The place is great for beer lovers, 10 Hand pulls, 3 real ciders ans one lager (Peromi). The place is great all the furniture is from charity shop and it feels very home-y if you get what I mean. Was there for  a good friend's Birhday. We go all the time there and the Plough are the best pubs in Doncaster I think. There was a band on so unfortunately we couldn't hear a word of what eachother was saying .

Fantastic place if anyone wants to go. Also 25% off cask ale with a CAMRA card, so it tends to be around £2 a pint.

House of Trembling Madness

So, there is a shop in York on Stonegate, the delightful establishment is called the House of Trembling Madness (colloquial for Delerium Tremens). I was in York with my dad as one of his collegues was having a leaving do. After introducing my father and a few of his friends to the wonder which is the York Tap, I met one of my good friends who just so happens to study at the University of York. Also a beer fan. After a couple of halves, one being a surprisingly spicy chilli porter, my father and his friends departed and me and my mate got a taxi with a jolly Irishmen who also enjoyed the odd pint here and there.

We arrived at Stonegate (Shambley) and went down the street, many quaint little shops, including one which just sold swords. We arrived at the shop/bar/restaurant and was greeted by beer walls, so much beer the walls were just shelves of bottles. Bottles from all over the world, some predictable some oddities (oddities tending to be expensive). Before buying a grand amount of booze, we went up for some dinner in their restauranty bit where there was also a fine bar. This building dates back to 1180 and the beams were from Norman ships, the place was magical. There were taxidermied heads that a Victorian chap with a huge moustache probably got from the colonies on the wall. Me and my friend sat in a boothy area surrounded by beams and behind us, was Barry, the boar. The food was great, has goose, duck, venison and cured ham with bread and a forest of salad. All washed down with a beer, lovely jubbly. We were joined by chance by my mate's friend from uni who's mum happens to own Marble Brewery in Manchester. After the feast we went back down to the shop. I bought a boat load of beer from the fantastic selection, Marble beer included. I also discovered that Mikeller beer is insanely expensive, but Delerium Noel is actually reasonable. Hmmm.

So then back to the Tap, we reviewed our purchases, marvelling at the shape of the Viru bottle (which I bought for the bottle not the bog standard lager within) with more beer, faux-loyalty to Marble at this time despite the chap leaving before we finished dinner, had a Draft No5 which is low in alcohol but very hoppy, IPA like. Lovely. Super place.

Greetings

This blog, is about a cripple (me) and beer. More specifically beers I think are noteworthy to share with people. But fear not good people, this will not turn into a 'review' blog so to speak, describing beer like some pretentious ponce would with wine, I will hopefully make sense to someone who wants to know about good beer and can't quite imagine the aroma of a bee farm in the summer rain or some nonsense. That is not all. Whenever I travel (On a gap year at the moment) I invariably tend to have a beer, it lubricates these old cripple joints you see, so I will be a beer writer! Which is often though of as pissed up travel writing, huzzah! Locations will stay within Yorkshire (best place for pubs and beer anyway) mostly but I do go to Bruges in December, lovely Belgian beer! So, beer, great ppubs and locations, what else? What goes better with beer than history? Don't say cheese prospective arse hole who may read this. Beer is one of the oldest alcoholic beverages on our good planet (mead probably being the oldest) it therefore is steeped in a jolly old massive heap of history so a bit of that will be chucked in along the way.

Stay tuned chaps and chapettes.