Pistonhead Kustom Lager has been around for a while, it has been on the shelves of our supermarkets for a couple of years and if I am to be honest I kind of just passed over it not knowing anything about it. Maybe I was partly being snobbish and ignoring it, assuming that because it was on supermarket shelves it wasn’t worth me spending my craft beer geek pennies. This isn’t a positive attitude to have, on the same shelves was bottles of Brewdog Elvis Juice, Sierra Nevada and

Ermmmaaagward I lurrrvvee Sorachi Ace hops!!! This is my first thought whenever I have a beer that is brewed with Sorachi Ace hops, I love it, its characteristics are so different to any other type of hop used in brewing. The Sorachi Ace hop was originally made in Hokkaidō, Japan in the late 1970’s however it wasn’t commercial till 1984 and not really available to USA to be used in Craft Beer till 2006!  So quite the new comer to be honest. It was created by combinging Brewer

“A clever woman once said; “fair is foul and foul is far”. On that note we threw in a young unacknowledged hoppy pislner, gave it a limp, wrinkly flavour and finished if off with an insulting high price that will give you a foul feeling in your mouth. That’s why we name Evil Twin Brewing Low Life the Golddigger of Beers.” This is what the bottle label reads and gives us a good insight into the mindset of Evil Twin Brewing! Evil Twin Brewing Co are owned by one half of the fam

Escape Western Road’s busy streets filled with frantic shoppers by taking the turning up Dean Street, you will see a sign pointing out that up this road you will find beer, motivation to soldier on. Walk part way up one of Brighton’s many killer hills and sandwiched between two rows of terraced houses and you will find yourself standing in front of the bright lights of Brighton Beer Dispensary. Brighton Beer Dispensary is the combined venture of Brighton Bier Co and Late Knig

Let me take you back, back to a time where I had never been to Belgium, the term craft beer wasn’t ringing in the ears of London pubs, before a hipster was even dubbed a hipster, my beer belly was a fraction of the size it was now and a time where although I drank ale it was tough to find the amount of decent selection we have now. I take you back to a time where I had no commitments and a weekly paid job which mostly meant weekends away watching Orient around the country and

So the final beer is here… And I hold my hands up… Due to #12beersofnye plus #twobottlesofdessertwinenye on new years eve I wasn’t in a good place to be enjoying a beer and describing how it was! So the last beer of #12beersofxmas was had on new years day after dinner and shared with my family! #review #beaver #belching #12beersofxmas #brewery #Beer #craftbeer #bottle

I am currently trying to play catch up as the 30th and 31st of December have flown by and I kind of feel like I have fell at the last two hurdles! So the first catch up beer is Brewdog’s Mixtape 8. This was another gift from my best pal (two #12beersofxmas gifts from him makes him a very good friend indeed!), this gift for my birthday back in April. I had never heard of it before it was given to me so I was excited to try. The artwork on the box and bottle is incredible! A re

Being the beer fans that my girlfriend and I am it means when Christmas time or birthday friends and family step into a world of beer they don’t know and try to find new and exciting beers as presents. This year my sister ventured to her local brewery Ridgeway in Oxford  where she tells me the beers are named after different levels of bad elfs and bought us a present! This huge 10.5% is a very bad elfs indeed so bad he is criminal! It pours a perfect golden amber which shines

I seem to be working a day behind at the moment with #12beersofxmas but I will try my best to catch up tonight! This one was actually rather cheekily had half hour before day 9… But it over lapped into day 9 while drinking so it counts! Plus this beer is too big not to have its own post! This isn’t the first time I have had the pleasure of drinking Bible Belt, my first was in Latvia at the previously reviewed ALEhouse in Riga, this was straight from the tap and it was amazing

Originally I wanted to bring everyone a live from the pub #12beersofxmas yesterday but as I was out with friends in Southend this proved almost impossible! Unfortunately Southend is a bit of a good beer wasteland! There were a few moments worthy of a mention, The Old Trout is head and shoulders above the rest for the quality and range of beers and I did have a ok beer in there called Knee Deep but not something I wanted to use for #12beersofxmas. Also I had a bottle of Brentw

Part of a mixed case of Purple Moose beers I got delivered for Christmas this year. This Welsh brewery is quickly becoming a big favourite of mine! They’re selection of beers are consistently brilliant! This beer doesn’t disappoint either, a ruby mahogany brown colour with all those winter warmer Christmas flavours you expect, rasains, clove, sour fruit slight nutty wood flavour. Keep an eye on the blog for a full Purple Moose Brewery blog post coming soon looking at all the

This was actually a present from last year! So it has been aged in the collection for a year, so another year on all the aging it already has had at the brewery and it’s got this beer tasting incredible! It’s big, it’s boozey, it’s rich and warm! Afraid it’s a quick one today as we all know the rush of Christmas is apon us! Merry Christmas everyone! #review #oxford #12beersofxmas #vintage #brewery #old #dairy #Beer #craftbeer #bottle

I seemed to have missed the #12beersofxmas IPA day yesterday!!! There was lots of IPAs popping up on my twitter feed so maybe I am a little late with my one! American Rogue brewery is a top brewery although I have only had a very small handful of their beers I never seem to be disappointed. It was great news this year when Wetherspoons added a bottle of Rogue to their new craft menu. Already familiar with a Christmas beer called Yellow Snow (Mighty Oak Brewing Co) this bottle

I don’t know about you fellow beer fanatics but whenever I have friends who go somewhere on holiday or travel somewhere I sometimes get awesome bottle shaped presents brought back to me. My best pals little brother lives in Vancouver and he went to visit him just before Halloween and on his return he gave me a 750ml big bottle of Steamworks Brewing Co Pumpkin Ale. I never got around to drinking it at Halloween but it’s a special beer so what better time than to include it in

Day 2 of #12beersofxmas and today I am bringing this unique beer to the table… I picked this up in the Wine Factory in Chingford high street a month or so back and when I first bought it I didn’t even notice the little present inside the beer bottle! Thanks to my online beer buddy Kev aka Belgian Beer Geek he warned me that the hop inside the bottle makes this beer a bit of a “gusher” when opened… A hop inside the bottle??? I went and checked the bottle and there it was a sin

So here we go I am joining the gang of beer elves and getting involved with the #12beersofxmas… And if you are going in you got to go in big… And for me this is one of my favourite beers I have ever had! It’s a risky first beer because I have only had this once and it was actually in the browerij De Prael in Amsterdam and it was like love at first taste! But was it the fact I had a few beers previously that day, or the amazing atmosphere in the brewery bar or that holiday bre

When I hear Riga I used to automatically get this image in my head of big groups of stag do’s running wild in the town drinking loads of local lager and burying their heads in Latvian strippers cleavages, the truth is this previous image, for me, was utter rubbish! Firstly and thankfully my day in Riga didn’t include any stag parties secondly Riga is a slick, smart, trendy beautiful looking city. Arguably it has one of the best collections of Art Nouveau style houses in the w

I could make this the shortest blog post I have ever wrote…. “this meal is one of the best meals I have ever had”…. I could leave it there however my meal in Nuetnigenough really does need to be explained! A short five minute walk from Grand Place is Nuetnigenough, a small long narrow restaurant with tables running down each side of the room with two tables outside. There is a high wooden bar at the end where the drinks are prepared and depending on space you can wait there f

Ok so maybe slightly different to my usual look at beer books but this book was born from Belgian beer, plus its hugely entertaining and interesting so any Belgium / Belgian Beer fanatic will enjoy! Bottoms up in Belgium by Alec Le Sueur is a quest to search for things of interest in Belgium so that it can squash it’s unfairly knicknamed boring Belgium. Alec had never been to Belgium before till he met his wife while working in Tibet who happened to be Belgian! He had never b

Mikkeller, possibly the modern beer geeks most highly admired name in the world of beer. I am going to hold my hands up, I slept on Mikkeller for ages and maybe in an act of stubbornness ignored the ‘hipsters’ hype around them! As I learnt the story of Mikkeller the more I started to listen, the classic story of two twins splitting up and starting two different beer brands (Evil Twin/Mikkeller) then growing into this mystic gypsy brewer visiting the world’s  famous breweries