Chinese food

Going to Jonathan and Lorianne's for tea (we are having Chinese food to calibrated their New Year) and much beer, although we will be avoiding Chinese beer (see below).  I will take six new beers with me and will see if Jon has got any new ones himself.  Well we are as soon as Dot gets home from work.

Reviews of the beer will follow tomorrow, call back then.

We Won

Feeling a bit better, we beat the Welsh 19 - 26, now drinking beer, did try vodka during the game but it made my pulse race.
Probably will not feel good tomorrow.

Not going out

Just cancelled Friday night out for this week, I have come over a bit shaky, so I am going to wrap up warm and stay in for a change.

Shopping

Just done the weekly shop at Tesco and filled the car with diesel (it has come down £0.03, so that's only £5.91/gallon).  No new beers in Tesco, so I just stocked up with cheap cans of Tetley's Original Bitter (not Smooth Flow) for everyday use.
Now I have to rest in preparation for tonight's Six Nations Rugby

Felinfoel, Double Dragon, Wales

4.2% deep amber colour with a thin head, fruity aroma, slightly sweet fruity taste.
Another one tonight, I had this one in for a while, it came in a boxed set from the Co-op and it wasn't a bad beer.

Sainsbury's (Shepard Neame), London Porter, England

5.0% black with a good brown head, roast malt aroma and taste easier to drink than stout . Made for Sainsbury's supermarket by Shepard Neame and it is a very good beer.
One of the beers I bought yesterday in Darlington

Cotleigh, Buzzard, England

4.8% dark brown colour with no head, good old beer aroma (yer, I don't know what that meant either) taste is dark fruits and roast malt, I like it.
It was bottle conditioned so that is probably why it had no head, as I pored it very carefully.
I bought this beer in a garden centre (strange place to buy beer I know) before Christmas and have just got round to drinking it.

Scanning

Decided to scan some old photos, I did scan all of my photos once before but the quality of some was a bit poor.  I have put some on facebook  http://www.flickr.com/photos/ralph-dot/ and am still looking through my albums.
Tonight I have a beer to try while dot is out, you never know I may have two new beers.

What to do

Having a lazy day doing nothing, I still have sixteen new beers to photograph and review but I like to do both jobs at the same time.
I suppose I could pay the balance on the Holiday we booked last week, seven nights in Salou, Spain, in April, it was cheap and it's good to get away for a while.  Tarragona, next to Salou is a big city with world heritage sites and it's only €3.60 return in the train, so two photo opportunities there. 

Saverne, Kasteel Cru, France

5.2% pale yellow colour with a thin head, sweet malt aroma, ordinary French lager taste.
Biere de Luxe it says on the neck, it wasn't, It was like cheap French beer but not at cheap French beer prices.
Not one of the beers I got today in Darlington (not cool enough), this one was given to me by my good friend Dave. 

Darlington and Beer

Darlington centre used to be good for buying different and unusual beers but now it is hard to find any, anywhere.  I eventually found some new beers in Sainsbury's, where we had parked the car.
Fuller's, Jack Frost and Sainsbury's (Shepard Neame) London Porter, reviews on both to follow soon.

Darlington

Off to Darlington to do some walking and shopping, hopefully I will find some new beers. 

My Beer Photos

Here is a link to my beer photo collection

Me and Beer

If you know me or of me, you will know I like beer.

Over the last few years I have been collecting photos of every new beer I have tried.

I now have over 1750 individual beers photographed and have realised that many beers that I assumed I have photos of, I haven't. This blog will be therefore be an account of my quest for new beers to photo and how I enjoyed them (or not).

I do not have the ability to describe all the various tastes, I just know what I like, I don't even concentrate on analysing taste too much anymore, I just think to myself "that's good, I'll have another one of them" or "that's nasty never again" or worst of all "that's bland why bother". If I do ever acquire a better ability, I will add to the descriptions.

A note on "Real Ale", the term means nothing at all to me, beer is beer, good beer is good beer and bad beer is bad, no mater what you call it or how it is made, to me it is all in the taste and not in a perceived category.