26th March 2012

My sources for buying the beers from the book are running out, so I've decided to slow the blog down a bit. From now on I will only drink two beers per week. Starting with...

Old Hooky (England)

My first observation is that the name sounds too much like "old hooker", which might put some people off drinking it. I soldiered on though, and I'm happy that I did. Even my girlfriend didn't mind this beer, and usually when she tastes my beer she makes a face like she'd just sucked a lemon, then she swears a lot, so it's a pretty good appraisal from her. This is a good old English beer and a nice way to get a party started.

Baffo d'Oro (Italy)

Kindly given to me by my friend Lorenzo, and brought all the way from Italia. I was worried when looking at the bottle that the beer looked a little pale, so I thought it would be rather weak tasting. Thankfully I was wrong. It had a slightly bitter taste, which I really like in beer, it always makes me want to eat some cheese and drink some more. So, thank you very much Lorenzo. And by the way, I'm not just writing nice things because there's a man on the label who might put a horse's head in my bed.

19th March 2012

A new batch of beers for you this week. And not one of them was horrible. Hurray!

Aventinus Weizen-Eisbock (Germany)

Despite the horrific smell that assaulted my nose when I opened the bottle, this actually tasted pretty good. I think the best way to describe it is to say that it tastes very German. It's also pretty strong, so you might want to eat a sandwich before you tackle this.

O'Hara's Irish Stout (Ireland)

So Saturday was St. Patrick's day, and to honour that I thought I should try a beer from the land of potatoes. Guinness would have been the obvious choice, and to be honest, in a blindfold test I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference. It's Irish stout, so it tastes like a cup of black coffee that you made and then forgot about for a few hours.

Liberty Ale (USA)

San Francisco is home to many hippies and homosexuals, and it's also home to what is quickly becoming my favourite brewery in the world. Anchor Brewery make some of the finest beer I've had during my quest so far, and this is another great example. I strongly recommend any of their range.

12th March 2012

A German, A Belgian and a Scot walk in to bar...

König Ludwig Dunkel (Germany)

It's not often that you can recommend a dark beer as a hangover cure, but I risked it anyway. And I'm glad I did, this was so smooth and easy to drink that I started to feel better. Delicious beer, long live the King.

Innis & Gunn Oak Aged Beer (Scotland)

I didn't expect this to taste like wood, but it did. It tasted like liquid furniture. Not so nice. Next time I will stick with the Innis & Gunn Rum Cask beer, which isn't in the book, but is very excellent.

N'Ice Chouffe (Belgium)

This is the Chouffe brewery's Christmas beer (I know what you're thinking: "Dude, get a calendar") The truth is that this bottle has been sitting in my cupboard for a few weeks and I've been too scared to drink it. It's a huge bottle of 10% beer, so it could be a more effective memory eraser than that weird pen in Men In Black. After drinking this I didn't feel very Christmassy, but I did feel a little a little bit drunk and very happy that I finally found the courage to drink it. Good beer.

5th March 2012

Last weekend I had a couple of parties to attend, which meant that I had to avoid the strong stuff as I didn't want to get completely trolleyed.

Samson Budweiser Bier Premium (Czech Republic)

I'm not 100% sure I drank the right stuff, I tried Googling the name of the beer to see what the bottle looks like, and it showed me this, even though it was named slightly differently. I don't even care, to be frank, this Czech pilsner is amazing. That was the last bottle in the shop, so it must be quite popular, and I can see why.

Róisin (Scotland)

The words on the bottle tell me that this is flavoured with taysberries. I don't know what a taysberry is, but apparently they're foul tasting buggers. The only good thing about this beer is that I might have gotten some vitamin C out of it, but to be honest, I'd rather have scurvy.

Red Stripe (Jamaica)

With the sun shining, and the thermometer outside showing just the right side of freezing, I felt a little bit summery. And when you're in a summer mood there is no better beer to drink than this. I've heard rumours that Usain Bolt used to train by running to the pub to get more of this.