Weekends Beers Two, Sunday

Well following on from Saturday here are Sundays new beers.

Camerons, Castle Eden Ale from England

4.2% pale amber with a good head, some fruitiness in the aroma, an average bitter beer but not bad. Also it is one that I thought I had done but apparently not, this is one of the first beers I used to drink, when the Castle Eden brewery still existed.

Black Hill, Bottom Busty from England

3.9% black in colour with a good head, it had the aroma and taste of a nice stout although it is a Ruby Ale. Better than the one below.

Allendale, Black Grouse from England

4.0% black in colour with a good head, sweet aroma with a bitter taste.  Not as good as the one above.

Weekends Beers One, Saterday

Well I didn't get out on Friday but I did have a drink Saturday and Sunday. So I will start with Saturdays beers, Sunday will follow on the next blog.

Sharp's, Atlantic from England

 

4.5% gold colour with a thin head, fruity aroma and a very fruity grapefruit taste.

Jennings, Red Breast from England

 

4.5% red in colour with a thin head, not much aroma, not a bad taste but not Christmas.

Marstons, Golden Ginger Beer from England

 

4.0% gold colour with no head, ginger aroma, sweet spicy ginger taste.

Okell's, 1907 from The Isle Of Man

 

6.1% amber colour with a thin head, sweet toffee aroma with a nice hoppy taste.
1907 was the date of the first Isle of Man Tourist Trophy, a motorbike bike race, the best known motorbike bike races in the world. I know because I have been twenty times, from the 70s to the 90s, unfortunately I can no longer afford to get back there.

Beer I had in Stratford

It is called beer I had in Stratford but I didn't have a lot, in fact I only had three new beers in all. Saying that I did drink plenty, its just that the campsite bar only had Boddingtons (not to sure about that but I think it was Boddingtons, sorry to the site it it wasn't).

Oakham, Great Gustav from England

4.8% deep gold colour with a nice head, hop aroma and a very hoppy taste, far to hoppy for me. I come from the days when hops was used for a reason and not to give too much hop taste.

Black and Tan, Colonel's Whiskers from England

4.3% black with a thin head, liquorish aroma and a bitter liquorish taste. Not too bad and a lot better that the previous one.

Hook Norton, Lion from England

 

4.4% pale amber colour with a thin head, malty and hoppy aroma, with a very similar hoppy taste. Not quite as bad as the first one but it was hoppy.

Three of the First Beers

Well looking back at the beginning of the photo quest, back in 2007, it seems to have taken me a few weeks before I did my first British beer tasting. Anyway here are three of the earliest beers I took photos of. Of course just in case you didn't know, these are my first beer photos not my first beers. Saying that, it is only a few years longer than this, that I have been trying new beers in earnest, before this I just drank whatever there was on offer and that was usually northern beers.

Alpirsbacher Klosterbräu, Weizen Hefe Dunkel from Gemany



5.2% dark colour with a very good head, malty and hoppy aroma, malty yeast taste. Drank in Bad Liebenzell in the Black Forest of Germany. Looks like a good pint of draught Camerons Strongarm and although it was slightly watery than the Strongarm, it was quite good.

Grimbergen, Blond from Belgium



6.7%, golden colour with a thin head, sweet aroma and fruity malty taste, a really nice abbey beer. This beer is now one of my favourites and I buy it whenever I see it at a descent price, as are some of the other beers from Grimbergen. See here

InBev, Stella Artois, Belgium



5.2% golden colour with a thin head, slight malt aroma and taste, slightly over carbonated for my taste but refreshing. A present from my brother Mick, I am a beer man through and through but I think Stella Artois has been getting a lot of bad comments lately. For what the English call a lager, its not one of the of the worst, in fact it is one of the better ones, speaking as a beer drinker anyway.

Three from last week

Still slow at this but here are the three new beers I had last weekend.

Wellpark (C&C Group), Tennent's Beer Aged with Whisky Oak from Scotland

 

6.0% gold colour with no head, malt and whisky aroma, tastes strong with a slightly sweet after taste, not as good as I thought it would be. The Innis & Gunn, Original also from Scotland is far superior.

Ilkley, Mary Jane from England

 

3.5% gold colour with a thin head, hop aroma, citrus hop taste, very average, by that I mean it was as average as every other 3.5% bitter in England, although it was more hoppy than usual.

Altenmünster, Brauer Bier Urig Würzig from Germany

 

4.9% pale yellow with a thin head, smells and tastes like a good lager and that was it, just an ordinary lager.

Onward

Do you know that I intend to update this every week but the time flies by, I know it is all part of my stroke but it is all very strange to me, as I do not see how it has affected me at all.

Well what have I got, I still get through as many new beers as I always did but not so much in between them, in other words I do not drink much through the week at all.

So here are just two of the many beers I have tried but not covered here, both are from the same brewery.

Cumberland, Corby Noir from England

 

4.5% very dark brown with a thin head, very malty aroma and a nice stout taste. Not a bad taste although as you probably know I am not that fond of Stout.

Cumberland, Corby Fox from England

 

4.7% brown in colour with a thin head, it had a slightly sweet aroma and taste. Again, another one that is not too bad, so well done to this brewery.

I will try and do this again very soon but if I don't, it is because of the stroke and I will try as soon as I can.  

IOM Beers, well Okell's that is.

I have not been the Isle of Man for over twenty years, although before that I was there every year for the twenty years in a row.  Although I do keep in touch with what is going on now over there during TT Week.

I have very many good memories from the twenty years I had visiting the IOM for TT Week, although the beer is not one of them, so this should be good.  Saying that, the twenty years since my last visit may have made a difference, also my taste in beer may also have changed in all that time.

Okell's, IPA from the Isle of Man

 

4.5% yellow in colour with a very thin head, sweet hoppy aroma and taste but not too bad, a nice IPA. Had this one previously but the label has changed quite recently, as you can see and it's changed its name slightly from Doctor Okell's IPA.

Okell's, Maclir from the Isle of Man

 

4.4% yellow colour with a thin head, not much aroma and the taste was nothing like a Wheat Beer, in fact it was more like an IPA but it was OK.  Saying that if you order a Wheat Beer, that is exactly what you want, not an IPA.

Okell's, Aile from the Isle of Man

 

4.7% black colour with a thin head, it sort of had a tar aroma and taste, not very good at all.

All in all, I am still not sure about Okell's but these did seem to be slightly better than I remember and I did have twenty years of holidays drinking over there.  When I say drinking over there, I really mean that, I drank loads.

Some Good Missed Beer's

As I have not been posting since March I have missed some very good beers, today I will try to catch up with a few of them.

This is harder than I thought it was going to be, not that I haven't had a good beer or that I had too many, its just that I am still finding it hard to remember. I really should write them down as soon as possible and to tell the truth I usually do but some just sneak passed me. This list should be OK, I hope.

Wells, Sticky Toffee Pudding Ale from England.

 

5.0% deep amber with a nice head, toffee aroma, very nice toffee taste. Bit sweet but very nice.

Great Newsome, Winter Warmer from England

 

4.6% peep amber colour with a good head, spicy aroma and a nice Christmas taste. Although I did have this one in April.

Batemans, English B Bock from England

 

6.0% deep red colour with a poor head, sort of a mild aroma, nice deep complex tasting beer. Of course it was rather strong.

Starting Again

(This is sounding repetitive, so I wont, here are some of the beers I have had over the last couple of weeks.)

Well that is what I wrote a few months ago, here I really hope to get started again.

So here are some of the new beers I had last week.

Affligem, Affligem Triple from Belgium

 

9.5% deep gold with a nice head, nice strong beer aroma, yeasty alcohol taste, no a beer for drinking quickly but it was quite nice.

Because I did the one Affligem, I though I would do the rest of those I have had up to now.

Affligem, Affligem Dubbel from Belgium

 

7.0% hazy dark brown colour with a good head, fruity aroma, smooth dry slightly sweet fruity taste, another good one.

Affligem, Affligem Blond from Belgium

 

6.8% abbey blond, gold colour with a good head, hop aroma, although the commercial description says "low on bitterness" I found it to be bitter with a hoppy taste, still very good.

Affligem, Affligem Rouge from Belgium

6.7% red colour with a thin head, red bury aroma, fizzy sweet strawberry / raspberry taste, not bad for a fruit beer but I do not like them, bought it by accident. How do you rate a type of beer you do not like? It was good I suppose and the others liked it.

Well I suppose that will do for a comeback, I promise I will be back very soon indeed and nothing like the time it took before.

Ovedue Trip to Amsterdam

Well, we won a trip to Amsterdam last year but had to put off due to my illness but we did managed to do it eventually though. I would like to thank DFDS for there help and understanding with my problems.

Now I would like to say, that I did not think the trip was worth it, assuming we had paid for it, that is. We only had about four hours in Amsterdam, on the other trip we have done from Hull we seemed to have an awful lot longer. We had done Amsterdam from Newcastle before but I am sure it was run by a diferent company and that we had a lot longer there. If I where to do it again (which I doubt), I would go from the longer drive, from Hull. In fact we have used the Hull crossing on several occasions when going on holiday but never the Newcastle crossing, its a simple mater of money.

Saturday the 22nd of February 2014.

We set off nice and early for the ferry, we though we could do some shopping if we were to early. We were too early and could not be bothered to go shopping, so we went to the pub.  But not before we had a drive along to where the boat left from and took a couple of photos, although not the ferry.

It was very early, about 11:30, but we just went for a drink anyway. Dot went to the bar (I was still not at my best) and eventually we also had our diner as well.   We had to be at the boat for around 15:00 but it still was quite a long time sat in the bar (especially as we had to be up late on the boat drinking as well).

Anyway it was well before three when we made our way to the ferry car park.  We parked up and walked over to the departure lounge, were we had to sit for quit some time before the departure opened.  Even then, we had to wait a wile, before we were allowed though customs and on to the boat.

On the boat we got out berth up at the top and back of the ship but at least we had a window to see out of.   First thing we did was to get out on deck to take some photos, luckily we where at the top.

But I soon got fed up with that, not at all like the old me but not before I got some photos at least and the weather was good at the time.

Back in our cabin we watched a film we had brought with us, before eventually having a walk around the bars. The bars were extremely expensive (well to me they were), just about the only beer on draught was Heineken, so we only had a couple before retiring to our cabin and bed.

Sunday the 23rd of February 2014.

Up early and ready to leave but only after some photos and I took rather a lot on the way in.

I was very surprised by the size of the queues to get off the ship and when we we eventually got towards the front we found it was caused by customs and passport control.  This was a lot longer queue that we have ever been in from a boat, it took absolutely ages.

So by the time we got on the bus it was already 10:30 and it was 11:20 before we got off in Amsterdam. Here we were told to be back between 15:00 and 16:00, not very good at all.

We had been twice before, so we were not wanting to look around too much and after all, we had won this trip. So we made our way away from the centre and walked out towards the Hard Rock Cafe. Not rushing you understand but walked slowly, looking at things along the way. In fact I took too many photos of bridges along the way but there are so many in Amsterdam. As we walked we bought sandwiches for tea on the way back home (there is no way we were going to buy food on board).

The Hard Rock Cafe, was a bit odd though, down stirs was full so we headed up stirs only to find it to be fearly full as well.   Then a lady started to bother us and told us to wait here and she would find us a place, we then noticed a queue outside waiting to come in (we had entered by a diferent door).   We said it didn't mater and went back down stirs and to our luck, two people were just leaving and we got a seat down there.

We had some very good but rather expensive food and drinks before heading off to walk back into the centre, the new Hard Rock Cafe is rather a long way out now.  Saying that, we had decided to just have a walk around, after all, we didn't have much time there and it was quieter out this way.

Dot wanted to go and see Anne Frank,s house, so we made our way back that way, it was quit a walk but it didn't take too long. The fact is though, we didn't have that long and when we got there, there was quite a long queue to get in. So we took a couple of photos and left to walk back towards where the bus went from.

Well by the time we got to the bus, they were already leaving for the boat, so we just got on and headed back.  It was just after 15:00 when we got the bus back to the ship, so we were only in Amsterdam for three and a half hours.  Of course we could have been there for four and a half hours but that still would not have been very long.

Back at the boat, we had to queue to get back on, brilliant.  We went straight back to our room and watched a film and took a few photos as we left Holland.  But that was the last of the trip, the weather was awful and I was feeling sick, not something that has happened to me for a very long time.  So we just stopped in the cabin.

Monday the 24th of February 2014.

With the weather better, we were also feeling much better as well in the morning.  Back at the entrance to the Tyne, we had to wait until another boat came out but we just walked through customs and that made a change.

Back in England, we went shopping in the Royal Quays and I even had my breakfast there but we didn't stay that long.

From there we crossed over the Tyne (well we went under the Tyne vie the tunnel) and headed towards Souther shields. Where we could see the boat, before driving round the front and heading south.

Well the car started acting up, so we just drove home, the end of another trip abroad.

As for the beers we had, well there were no new ones, in Newcastle on the way, we had McEwan's 80/-, on the boat it was Heineken or Newcastle Brown and in Amsterdam, we had Wieckse Witte.