Durham Redemption

I shall  start off by saying Durham brewery is an epic brewery. And Durham Redemption is an epic beer. It is a 10% Ruby Old Ale, brewed in Dec 2010. It is very ruby coloured, lovely clear (before I put the lovely sediment in) deep red. Smells of deep dark fruity, bit of booze (it was room temp) with an edge of cherry or wine. A big off white head.

Tastes gorgeous, those deep dark fruits again, like berries and raisins. Plus a lovely caramel flavour softened with the hefty alcohol which isn't that noticeable but adds a like warmth.

Actually one of the best beers I have ever had. If you see it, get a bottle. it shall not disappoint.

Bass

Let me tell you a somewhat sad story about one of our nations old favourite. Bass Ale.
Once upon a time there was a grand Empire, on which the sun never set. The troops of this Empire were thirsty and were dying drinking the potent and toxic local arak in India. British men like beer, fact. India is too warm to brew beer back then.

So the old brewery town of Burton on Trent brewers made a new, strong and heavily hopped ale which could withstand the journey to India. Barrel upon barrel was loaded into Indiamen destined for the thirsty troops. Bass was one of the largest brewers doing this. Salt, Alsopp and Hodgins being amongst the other large breweries sending the India Pale Ale to the subcontinent.

Time went on and the power in the world shifted west over the pond (damn Suez), the Empire reduced to a few far flung islands. But what of the beer? Salt and Hodgins are gone, Allsopp, well... http://www.eabl.com/brandsinner.asp?cat=allsops&subcat=brands. Bass? Bass lived on. But later into it's life the brewery was bought out by a large American brewing company. So Bass declined. Into what we have now, a bog standard bitter, bit better than Smiths. Even has electric pumps. So from gracing pubs and Bass signs still able to be spotted, it is now a somewhat apathetic tipple in my opinion. I think they could do with having a one off release using their original recipe.

The Great Sheffield pub crawl

Sheffield and the good old North may be grim, but it is great, and I mean GREAT for beer. Go there by train, as in the station, there is the legendary Sheffield Tap, a restored taproom, lovely building and a superb beer list. 12 on draught and hundreds of bottles, great staff who can help you out in the likely event you've not heard of most of the beers, slightly pricey though.

Get on the tram going to Shalesmoor and at Shalesmoor there is a proper old fashioned pub called The Wellington. Has a few rooms a fab bearded barman, and a friendly doggy. They even make their own beer in the brewery in the back. Really good beer too (Little Ale Cart) last time I was there it was the best stout of the day by far. Then make your way down to Kelham Island, not a far walk. You shall then have a choice of a few fine pubs. Closest is probably The Kelham Island Tavern, which is the only pub to have been voted CAMRA best pub of the year, twice.... In a row. They have plenty of beer, 14 I think, regular Acorn beers on, Gorlovka I believe is a regular. They do food too, I always drink in the beer garden, tis very nice.

Then there is my personal favourite, the Fat Cat. The bar isn't huge but there is plenty of beer on, plenty from Kelham Island brewery which is next door, with Pale Rider on all the time, a smashing brew. Truly fantastic. They sell pork pies made with Kelham beer, best pork pies I have ever had and they do really good food, steak pie is great and just a fiver! The prices in the Fat Cat are rather good, about £2.30 a pint. You could then, depending on the day and time, pop into the nearby Kelham Island Brewery shop, stock up on their beer or others which are local. I think if you carry on that way there is another pub called the Riverside which has another 8 beers on. There are even more pubs along that tram line, think the next is the stop after the one after Shalesmoor. Will write a blog if I visit them!

Sheffield is great for beer, give it a go!

Chimay Grand Reserve

As you may recall, in December I went to Bruges and found a rather large beer shop. In this beer shop there were big bottles of Chimay Grand Reserve. If you aren't familiar with Chimay, it is the most common Trappist beer i.e. made by Belgian monks of the Trappist order (you'd have to make and drink beer to stay sane as a monk). The Grand Reserve is a special version of Chimay Blue (the strongest and my personal favourite, you can get Red at Morrisons though).

You may be able to spy the bottle out in the Bruges post. It was that dark reddy brown which was rather cloudy, but it's meant to be due to the Belgian yeast in the bottle. It tasted like the Blue with all the rich dark fruit and slightly chocolatey flavour with a touch of bitterness, but amplified. Proper good.

Give it a try if you are lucky enough to find any.

Lindesfarne Mead

Maybe not beer, but probably the only alcoholic beverage which predates it. Feeling in a Skyrim mood, I cracked open my bottle of mead which I bought from the House of Trembling Madness. Twas lovely. Very honeyey. but not sickly sweet, very balanced and strong enough to just want one bottle!

Bruges

Went to Bruges before Christmas! Forgot to write about it. Me an Ashley went, there was meant to be another chap coming but the fool didn't check his passport.

We went from Hull from King George dock on a Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company ferry, The Pride of York. We had a four man room twas roomy and had storage beds. There was a booze shop so got whisky but couldn't pick it up till the morning we arrived at Zebrugge. So we had to settle on the overpriced bar on the ship and watched the band, and I didn't win a blasted thing in the casino. It was so bad I was considering.... Lager. That was a long night! Couldn't talk as it was so ruddy loud.

So we arrived in Zebrugge, the first sight that greets us are a row of windmills. The Europeans seem to be obsessed with them, every time I am on the continent they are the first things that greet you. We hopped on a coach and headed towards Bruges. The trip was somewhat unremarkable. But then we arrived at the drop off point, which was totally different from the years before. Eventually a taxi was found, after many simply driving past us to what we later realised was an unsigned taxi rank. Despite it being a Merc, the thing was shaking apart due to the small mountains on the road also known aas cobbles.

We got to Markt square, too early for lunch/Christmas market or alas, beer so I had a cunning plan, to see the closest attraction. Twas the Basilica of the Holy Blood, a church with baby Jesus blood in it.

Then after we found out to see the 'blood' we had to wait for a veneration (not that bothered about it) we went for a very expensive hot chocolate twas nice. We asked the waiter where the best beer shop was, we were in luck, a five minute walk away. It was heaven. The walls were lined with bottles of all sorts of Belgian beer. 60 euros later and:

Not all of that was from that beer shop though. It was then approaching opening time for a bar I heard about on Trip Adviser, callede Staminee De Garre. Fabelled for their beer, De Garre, also legendary for being an arse to find. Luckily I am good at finding things so it was found almost immediately, after going into the obligatory chocolatier, and Bruges gift shop, which sold beer. We were there about 15 minutes before opening time, so we were stood above something which resembled (and smelt) like a medieval open sewer.

So after a while standing about the door opened, and we were greeted by a tiny ground floor, very olde worldy. We sat down and at this point we noticed there was an upstairs which seemed equally tiny, be warned if you want to visit this place, come at opening time, 12:00ish. It fills up within 15 minutes of opening! We then ordered 2 De Garres. We had hit the holy grail of Belgian ale. Very strong, but lovely, 11% Belgian blonde ale perfection. Came with cheese too.

After another 'halve' we had had enough of this potent stuff, but wanted to take some home. We were in luck, they do sell bottles of it... Very big bottles!

So That was De Garre!

We went to the market, purchased Christmas presents, had a lovely cup of mulled wine, then we were peckish. My prior Trip Advisor research paid off again in a big way. We went to a beer restaurant called Cambrinus. My Lord. The beer list was as thick as may arm and they had a three course dinner where everything was made with beer, cheesy croquettes, beef stew and creme brulee, all with a different beer in. Twas properly good. The cripple loos however,  tad treacherous there was an open door to oblivion in it. But anyway, we struggled to decide on a beer so we ordered the one advertised on the placesmats, Hopus an actually bitter Belgian ambery ale, strong again (hard to find anything under 8%) was lovely again!

We found yet another beer shop, you can probably imagine the outcome. We decided to get a bus back to the train station as it is quite obvious which one to get, it says station. The buses are weird, they had two doors. There is a good bar in Bruges train staion, sells Corsendonk and Tempelier amongst others but they had put a night club next to the bar and it was open! This is at 15:00, so we are sat in the bar , which is shaking from the music next door, the club being full of annoyingly trendy 15/16 year old Belgian children drinking cherry lambic!

That was Bruges! We got back to the ship for a lie down and a tot of whisky and had another agonizing night of 'entertainment'. But I won at bingo. It did however, take 4 and a half hours for the ship to dock due to silly fog, and the lock doors at the port fell off their hinges so we used a different dock. Still broken I think! And by the way, God Save the Queen: