Somebody loves me?

Thank you to Go to Ale who nominated my blog for a Liebster Award?  I have been asked to answer 11 questions and then ask my own nominees with less than 200 followers another 11 questions.  Here goes then.  The 11 questions I was asked, with my answers, are:

1. What brewery makes your favourite beer?
The best beer I ever had was a porter served at the White eagle in Rhosneigr, Wales, but I don't remember who brewed it or what it was called, so best I mention Dorest brewers Hall and Woodhouse whose beers I really rate when tasting a well kept cask ale of theirs in a local pub.

2.  Star Wars or Star Trek?
Ohhh Star Wars by a long shot

3.  Black pens or blue pens? 
Pencils actually and then black pens

4.  Are you a homebrewer? 
Yes I love it and always looking to source free ingredients from field and hedgerow 

5.   How will you cook your turkey on Thanksgiving? 
We don't have Thanksgiving over here, so not something I can answer!

6.  What game have you always wanted to play on the Price Is Right? 
??? Is that on TV??

7.  Do you like sushi? 
Adore it and love to prepare it too

8.  What is your favorite meal to have with your favorite beer?  
Steak (blue) and chips with any strong flavoured ale, probably a porter or stout like Porterhouse Wrasslers XXXX Stout from Ireland

9.  If you could go back in time and visit one person for a day, who would you visit? 
Wow that's hard to answer, it's a toss-up between Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), or Rosa Parks (1913-2005), or Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922)

10.  Say you have a friend who has never had a beer. What beer would you recommend to a new beer drinker?

Something tasty and not too controversial, probably Sierra Nevada Pale Ale easy to drink and very, very delicious

11.  Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck?

Aaaaaghhh .... can't we have dogs instead of mice and ducks?  I'd rather vote for Pluto if I may.

For my own nominees please answer the following and then ask your own 11 questions of your own nominees via a direct message of FB link, remember that new nominees need to have less than 200 followers.

Cheers!

1. Which is your favourite brewery and why?
2. What beer would you recommend for a wedding?
3. IPA or Stout?
4. What is the collective noun for a group of beer drinkers?

5. Do you agree? 

6. Crystal, Challenger or Cascade?

7. Great Wall of China or Hanging Gardens of Babylon?

8. How many beers are in a keg, and is this knowledge important?

9. Why barley or Marmite?

10. When will you stop drinking beer?

11.  Do you believe "There is no Santa"?


http://thesecretdrinker.wordpress.com/

Sunny frosty woodland weekend in the West country

Location: Westward Ho!

Moodmusic: It's real autumn again ..... sun and cold in equal measure

Today's memories and soundbites
Happy weekend looking after a spinney, in the sunshine and frost, hand felling spruce trees and making log piles with my Silky handsaw .... all you need to be a lumberjill, and a great way to work up an honest thirst!  Counted 26 different bird species whilst I worked including a surprising red kite. Cinema trip for a 007 Daniel Craig moment .... brilliant.  Could not have wished for a better trip!

Drinks

As you can see a lovely west country selection on offer in the wood!

1. Arkell's 3B (4%)
Reactions
Emotional: The landlord told me this was a man's beer!! Haha!
Critical:  Apparently originates from a recipe first brewed in 1910.  The flavours are well balanced, good hop and malt, but a bit unexpectedly sweet ... sort of hazelnut caramel sweet .... not quite the combination for me.

2. Wooden Hand Brewery, Cornish Mutiny (4.8%)
Reactions
Emotional: VERY nice .... I really like this .. it has lovely chocolate notes mmmmm
Critical: A rich colour and smooth velvety head, a great deal of body coming with a sort of rum and raisin nose and fruit cake flavours which then break into chocolate fudge cake finish.  I thought it was great.

3. Dartmoor Brewery, Legend (4.4%) 
Reactions
Emotional: Ok ....
Critical: My first thought was ooohh tastes of the local water.  This has a strong water flavour and softness, which I know sounds weird but that's what I think, with some doughy bready yeasty flavours and a crisp finish.  Light and easy to drink.

4. RCH Brewery,  Pitchfork Rebellious Bitter (4.3%)
Reactions
Emotional: Oh ... surprising complexity of flavour
Critical: Bottle conditioned, so opened with care after a bit of a rough ride into the woods! Very well worth pondering this beer.  Winner of many beer awards.  Very hoppy, but no bitter edge, a bit more floral, and a slight hint of fruit, a little zesty.  Earthy ending.

5. Clearwater Brewery, Devon Darter (4.5%)
Reactions
Emotional: Ok ... bog standard maybe?
Critical: Can't quite get the measure of this one.  Great ruby amber colour. Not too strong on flavour. Again I think it tastes like the local water. More malt than hops.  It's the aftertaste which is so interesting ... it lasts as a nutty hoppiness for ages afterwards. Thought I would cross-check with other reviewers ... Elvis Appleford thought this was "refreshing" "sessionable" and "sticky in the throat"!


6. Cotleigh, Buzzard dark ale (4.8%)
Reactions
Emotional: Tastes like a kind of porter ...
Critical: First flavour is chocolate, second is treacle and third is light fruity hops ... that's an interesting combination. Smoky biscuit ending.


The rest found their way home to be enjoyed later ........ watch this space!

Coming threat to US/Global craft beers?

Read this from Mother Jones and wonder .......

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/11/coming-threat-your-craft-brew

Aberystwyth, a different kind of rain and Pen-Lon Ewes Frolic

Location:  Aberystwyth Pier

Moodmusic: The world keeps turning, and life goes on and on, in it's own season

Today's soundbites and memories
Amazing patterns, great sounds and a very special kind of rain! Starlings doing their stuff, takes me right back to my childhood watching the same thing on winters evenings around Templemeads Station.  Weird to think these little, once plentiful birds, are red-listed as 'threatened'.

Drinks

1. Pen-Lon Ewes Frolic (5.2%)
Reactions
Emotional:  Aaaahhhh brilliant after a long and taxing day
Critical: light and easy to drink.  Not overly flavoured, gold, clean and a bit underpowered on the hoppy side.  A bit gassy too. Screams quality though.

and at little earlier at  Plas Y Brenin

2. Bragdy Nant, PYB Bootliquor (3.8%)
Reactions
Emotional: OK, not bad
Critical: Bready, straw'ish, toasted caramel, sweetish malt and some sort of woodiness. Interesting beer.  Not bad at all.  Not too sweet.

3. Bragdy Nant, PYB Dark Winter (5%)
Reactions
Emotional: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh
Critical: This was served sooooooooooo cold it was hard to catch all the flavours, but I warrant that there is some chocolate in the background.  The draught is smooth and velvety without being too heavy.  Very nice dark beer. Not really a porter or a mild though.

Birmingham and Bristol, with bottles of Brewdog, Batemans and 312

Location: Birmingham, Bristol and bottles at Bees place

Moodmusic:  Cities have kind surprises when you know where to walk

Today's memories and soundbites
Tooooooo much city travel and in a car!  Birmingham city center is always frantic of course, but there is a lot of quiet history to take in too.  Victoria Square was redeveloped as a result of the Birmingham Victorian Society protesting against the proposed demolition of the General Post Office building in the late 1970's.  This led to an extended campaign to save and redevelop this part of the city.  The whole area, once a busy traffic junction around the massive neo-classical Town Hall modeled on the Temple of Castor in the Forum Rome, and the Council Buildings built in the form of a Venetian palace from 1874 (after all Birmingham has more canals than Venice!), was redeveloped through the end of the 1980's and reopened by Diana Princess of Wales as a pedestrian heart to the city in 1994. The square is now the point from which all distances are measured within and to the metropolis.  The General Post Office is still there with a modern extension, and a namesake bar The Post Office Vaults .... check them!

After Birmingham, Bristol, and after that bottles in bed!  Time to sleep and bring the journeys to an end.

Drinks

BrewDog, Punk IPA (5.6%)
Reactions
Emotional:
Critical: It's taken me ages to get round to drinking this, goodness only knows why!  It is a great ale, no wonder BrewDog have met with such success.  Grown up flavours, lots of complicated bitterness.  Strong on hops, with some spicy resin and a little bit of cloves in the background.  Tatstes bitter, dry and sharp with a finish that leaves an interesting biscuit flavour and a desire for more!

Goose Island, 312 Urban Wheat Beer (4.2%)
Reactions
Emotional: Very nice - damn surprising!
Critical:  Complexity of flavours which are unexpected.  This is a far less sweet proposition than Hoegaarden or other wiess beers.  This tastes more like a beer than not, and has some complicated bitterness weaving through the drink, with a deeper malt behind the spicy citrus.  Carbonation creates small bubbles which produce a velvety texture. Brewed in Chicago and bottle conditioned.  it tastes

Bateman's, Victory Ale (6%)
Reactions
Emotional: Mmmmmm ..... easy drinking
Critical: This is a great red-amber colour.  Nice medium body not too thick for this kind of strength.  Tastes like a session ale.  Has deep caramel, hint of orange, cereal, hoppy depth.

Wells and Young, Kirin Ichiban, Premium Press (5%)
Reaction
Emotional: Foreign - and worth a go???
Critical: Brewed as a franchise in Britain.  Tastes like a good quality euro-larger.  Not too bad overall.  Clean finish.

Birmingham view

Hope!

"Floozie in the Jacuzzi", aka "The River"

Victoria Square shapes

Aaaah ..... beer ..... and exciting ones in bottles to take away and everything.  Pinfold Street.

Town Hall Birmingham, ridiculously impressive

Taxonomy of beer

This is fun? The myriad types of beer and how they link together. Click for the link to Pop Chart Lab.

Snow on All Hallows and Ale on the Eve

Location: Brecon Beacons misty mountains hop

Moodmusic: "Question number nine, what is the name for a female spirit in Irish mythology, usually seen as an omen of death, and no, before you answer, it’s not the wife!"

Today's memories and soundbites
Well All Hallows eve was a strange day, started as it ended, with me sending a text to the wrong person at 06.30 in the morning and another text to a different wrong person at 23:00.  We only hope it doesn't matter and I'll be forgiven.  But in between times there was some lovely beer in the most unexpected location, and a most unexpected win of the pub quiz for a cash and beer prize.  Talybont on Usk right beside the Monmouth and Brecon canal, goodness, why on earth did this settlement appear here?   The Usk valley it seems was an important farming area during the Medieval period, and a bridge over the river Cearfarnell.  The same valley during Tudor and Stuart times became an important route to the western Welsh ports at one end and a route to the North and through to Holyhead at the other.  The bridge was an important crossing point, until Telford's A5 became the main route on the other side of the river. The arrival of the canal in 1804 was to transport limestone, coal and iron cleaved from the surrounding hills, and Talybont was an important loading point.  All Hallows Day driving through the Welsh mountains was particularly beautiful, strong gold and auburns of autumn and snow in the mountains, driving through snow over the high passes. Wonderful.

Location: The Star Inn

Drinks
1. Brecon Brewery, Busters Broomstick Brew (4.3%)
Reactions
Emotional: Blood red ale ... yumyum!
Critical: Depth of flavour, some good bitterness, lovely medium body, clean finish.  Good session beer.

2. Abbeydale Brewery, Moonshine (4.3%)
Reactions
Emotional: Amazing colour, look at that, stunning
Critical: Fruity and extremely moorish .... this is just far to enjoyable and easy to drink, some lemon and grapefruit, and there might even be a hinto of bubblegum, but it is not sweet or cloying, medium bodies and clean ending

3. Dark Star brewery, Revelation (5.7%)
Reactions
Emotional: Oh ..... surprising
Critical: Also a pale ale, but this is less fruit and exciting and far more full on hops and bitterness.  It does not taste as strong as it is, so could be dangerous.

4. W H Buckleys, Best Bitter
Reactions
Emotional: OK that will do
Critical: Nice traditional bitter, medium bodies, great balance between hops and malt, vague chocolate and vanilla flavours hidden at the back, toasted cereal coming through on finish.

5. Wadworths XB (4.3%)
Reactions
Emotional: Also good enough!
Critical: This tastes like a standard bitter should taste, strong hop flavours and a hearty bitter thickness, some carbonation to lift the ending.

Talybont view

Star Inn

The TWIZY ecofriendly transport by Renault. The village has a car pool scheme.

Canal bridge - looks very Dutch?