Looks like it might be my round
Spent the weekend down at the in-laws' in Bridgnorth, Shropshire. I was hoping to nip into Tanner's, the town's quality wine emporium, as they usually have a good selection of local bottled beers, but alas (and probably, all-too predictably) they were closed when I was in town on the Sunday afternoon and yes, they did have a couple of interesting-looking ones, right there in the window (memo to self: plan a trip into town on a Saturday next time.)
Luckily though, we'd stopped off at a small branch of Wine Rack on the way through the back end of Wolverhampton, and there I looked along the shelves and found four new beers to try:
- Highgate Old Ale
- River Cottage Stinger (an organic nettle-flavoured beer - intriguing!)
- Davenport Original Bitter
- Marston's Firestoker
And Jo and I did spend a very pleasant Friday evening in the King's Head, in the company of her brother and his girlfriend. And with the Bridgnorth Brewery quite literally in the back yard, there was really no excuse not to sample a couple of their beers - tasting notes to follow when I clear my existing backlog.
Then, when I was doing the weekly shop in Sainsbury's this evening, I discovered that their August beer promotion has started. Although three of the fifteen selected ales weren't on the shelves quite yet one of which, it turns out, is Highgate Old Ale and one (Sharp's Honey Spice Wheat Beer) I passed on for dietary-issues reasons. But I did manage to grab no fewer than eleven that were all-new to me:
- Arundel Prize Fighter
- Greene King Sun Dance
- High & Mighty Beer of the Gods (you just can tell from the name that it's an American brewery)
- St Peter's Amarillo Ale (which looks like a scrumpy cider in the bottle)
- Robinson's Ginger Tom (at 6% not as evil as its regular 8.5% sibling, but I'll bet it has a kick)
- Bath Ales Barnstormer (which has the ghost-rabbit from the Watership Down cartoon on the label, for some reason)
- Williams Bros Harvest Sun
- Williams Bros Good Times
- Doctor Okell's IPA
- Harden's Golden Glow
- Hampshire Brewery Arthur Pendragon S.A
From DM's list it looks like I'm missing the Red Rat Crazy Day Dog Stout (I have got to get me some of that) and the Copper Dragon 1816, both of which I'll be back for on Wednesday. Add those to the Meantime IPA and Meantime London Porter I picked up the other week (plus the bottle of Skull Splitter still lurking in the cupboard) and it looks like I'll have a busy couple of weekends coming up in the near future.
Related posts:
I hope they're bringing most of those over here, for that inevitable visit I'll have to make this week.
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If they don't appear near you, let me know if there are any you'd particularly like to check out and I'll see if I can bring a couple of them over with me next week :)
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It's Crazy Dog Stout, not Crazy Day. The dog on the label ate a load of grist and made him self very ill, and so the beer was named. It was originally called ******* **** **** dog but we toned it down a bit for Sainsbury's.
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Hi Kevin -
Damn, sorry about that. Corrected it for you now. You might want to drop DM a note and let him know as well, I copied the name from his site...
And I'm definitely looking forward to getting my hands on a couple of bottles - Hopefully it'll be on the shelves when I get back to Sainsbury's this evening... :)
DT
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Damn, didn't get back to Sainsbury's this evening after all. Have to hop they've got some left at the weekend...
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I bought some today, framed the receipt, and then packed the beer straight back in a box to go out with the next consignment. Bad news when you can't afford to drink your own beer! It really is made in a garden shed you know.
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Darn, so I suppose scrounging a couple of "review" bottles of the stuff is out of the question, then? ;)
Kidding - I'll be straight down Sainsbury's after work this evening. I have to be - we need bananas...
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If you live near Bury St Edmunds pop in and "review" as much as you can.
We don't do bananas though.
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Cheers Kevin, that's a great offer, but alas, whilst I do live in Bury it's the one just North of Manchester, not St Edmunds. And Ed is in Belfast, so popping in might be tricky for either of us...
But the good news is I got to Sainsbury's and they had put out the Crazy Dog, so I've got a bottle settling in the beer cupboard as we speak... er, type... :)
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Popped in yesterday and got all those on the list bar the the Crazy Dog, plus a couple of the other ones in your cupboard pic, Darren. Have you got Theakston's Lightfoot or Gale's Summer Breeze hiding in there?
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Funnily enough, I just posted Tasting Notes for Summer Breeze mate and I sampled the Lightfoot a couple of weeks ago as well - haven't quite had time to write that one up, yet. I seem to remember it had a bit more going for it than SB, though.
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