We had a very nice New Zealand Syrah from Trinity Hill this evening. Nimble for Syrah and reminiscent of a good Rhone Syrah. It reminds me that generally I suspect we’re probably only getting an unrepresentative sampling of what NZ can do wine-wise in Ontario.
The same might be said of Niagara and the rest of the world. Who, outside of that micro-climate, has sampled the nectar-like Henry of Pelham or Cave Spring?
Curious how you encountered these… do they make it to the southern Hemisphere with any regularity?
In a previous life, Toronto Dominion was a client. So I swigged them at source. Or at Barberian's.
Mr Heavenly often drinks Ghost Ship 0.5, it is a good substitute for the real thing in pubs. Waitrose sell it so he takes it when he’s driving to parties too.
We had a very nice New Zealand Syrah from Trinity Hill this evening. Nimble for Syrah and reminiscent of a good Rhone Syrah. It reminds me that generally I suspect we’re probably only getting an unrepresentative sampling of what NZ can do wine-wise in Ontario.
The same might be said of Niagara and the rest of the world. Who, outside of that micro-climate, has sampled the nectar-like Henry of Pelham or Cave Spring?
Curious how you encountered these… do they make it to the southern Hemisphere with any regularity?
In a previous life, Toronto Dominion was a client. So I swigged them at source. Or at Barberian's.
Glad you got to experience them in situ. Barberians is still around and I haven’t been there for ages but I think the last time I was there, there was a very nice Henry of Pelham Cab Merlot on offer. (For those not acquainted, Barberians is a Toronto steak house that has been around since forever.)
I remember Cave Spring and Henry of Pelham as the original wineries of the benchlands. Back in the day they were almost neck and neck but CS could charge about a dollar more for a theoretically equivalent wine. Now there is a lot more competition but Cave Spring is still the source for Rieslings at all levels whereas Henry of Pelham Cuvée Catherine is the best known Champagne method sparkling in Ontario and its premium versions are very good indeed. (The less premium versions from both CS and HP are also very good - I like to describe them as about 80% of the pleasure of AOC Champagne for about 50% of the price.)
We had a Chilean old vines Carignan with dinner tonight. Good stuff and not expensive. I want to say blueberry pie in a bottle but our wine critic sources talk about black cherries and pomegranate. Dark fruits anyway, and not too much oak.
Mr Heavenly often drinks Ghost Ship 0.5, it is a good substitute for the real thing in pubs. Waitrose sell it so he takes it when he’s driving to parties too.
I've had considerably worse "real" beer than the "low fat" Ghost Ship, and I actually like Guinness 0.0 more than "the real thing" (though Guinness is an outlier in my love of dark beers, I think its pretty bland). I think it was a game changer, especially as Adnam's have allowed free use of the technology to other brewerys, because you can be make a real beer and take the ethanol out without dramatically changing the flavour.
In other news, it seems that C*******g-M******'s have sold not only the old Jennings brewery, but also the rights to the beers, to someone who wants to restart brewing. So hopefully Jennings will reappear in Lakeland pubs. Their beers had a distinct hint of smoke to the flavour, the bitter was dark and flavoursome for its 3.4%, and the strong Sneck Lifter was one of my favourites, especially welcome after a day spent yomping round the hills.
Mr Heavenly often drinks Ghost Ship 0.5, it is a good substitute for the real thing in pubs. Waitrose sell it so he takes it when he’s driving to parties too.
I've had considerably worse "real" beer than the "low fat" Ghost Ship, and I actually like Guinness 0.0 more than "the real thing" (though Guinness is an outlier in my love of dark beers, I think its pretty bland). I think it was a game changer, especially as Adnam's have allowed free use of the technology to other brewerys, because you can be make a real beer and take the ethanol out without dramatically changing the flavour.
In other news, it seems that C*******g-M******'s have sold not only the old Jennings brewery, but also the rights to the beers, to someone who wants to restart brewing. So hopefully Jennings will reappear in Lakeland pubs. Their beers had a distinct hint of smoke to the flavour, the bitter was dark and flavoursome for its 3.4%, and the strong Sneck Lifter was one of my favourites, especially welcome after a day spent yomping round the hills.
Aye, proper beer, getting hard to find in a sea of grapefruity pales these days. God I hate these "modern beers".
In need of a cold cure that actually works, my dear wife asked Auntie Google, and was surprised by a recipe for hot chocolate with chartreuse. It so happens that we've had a bottle of chartreuse around for ages - expensive stuff, but worth a try in the circumstances. And it is good.
The gym next door to my ancient Merc's mechanic (the Merc is ancient - and its owner - not the mechanic) has been repurposed as a craft micro-brewery . A fun space, and yesterday I tried, inter alia, their Trappist. Such a lovely drop that I bought 2L to take home in a growler. Worked out at £4 a pint (see how I save pommie Shipmates from having to convert AUD to GBP, and Litres to Pints? That's a pastoral care background for you). It decanted well into a 500ml glass.
Cthulhu be praised I have found a localish pub which has Theakstons XB as its regular beer. Proper beer with plenty of malt, colour and sensible levels of understated traditional British hop varieties and no fecking grapefruit flavour.
Aye, proper beer, getting hard to find in a sea of grapefruity pales these days. God I hate these "modern beers".
My unholy trinity of citrus flavored hops: Citra, Centennial, Cascade.
All grapefruit rinds all the time. So many pale ales aggressively over-hopped with these and they all taste the same to me. Like chug a lugging a pint of pine-sol.
One I do like is the Amarillo - has actual pineapple notes. Lovely and refreshing when used judiciously in balance with mellow and neutral strains.
Aye, proper beer, getting hard to find in a sea of grapefruity pales these days. God I hate these "modern beers".
My unholy trinity of citrus flavored hops: Citra, Centennial, Cascade.
All grapefruit rinds all the time. So many pale ales aggressively over-hopped with these and they all taste the same to me. Like chug a lugging a pint of pine-sol.
One I do like is the Amarillo - has actual pineapple notes. Lovely and refreshing when used judiciously in balance with mellow and neutral strains.
AFF
I've generally found avoiding anything that mentions any hop starting with a C is a fair guide. The problem I have is that the C-hop monstrosities are pushing the traditional beers - slagged off as "boring brown twiggy beers" off the bar - there's only so much room. And of course a cask only lasts about three days before it starts to spoil so they tend to go for the ones that sell the fastest, which unfortunately at the moment is the C-hop pales.
I've generally found avoiding anything that mentions any hop starting with a C is a fair guide. The problem I have is that the C-hop monstrosities are pushing the traditional beers - slagged off as "boring brown twiggy beers" off the bar - there's only so much room. And of course a cask only lasts about three days before it starts to spoil so they tend to go for the ones that sell the fastest, which unfortunately at the moment is the C-hop pales.
Spare me the indiewire tech-bro with the philistine palate and the inflated brewing vocabulary. Nothing will trump actual flavor and there is no greater pleasure to my palate on a warm day than a well balanced locally brewed IPA.
I've generally found avoiding anything that mentions any hop starting with a C is a fair guide. The problem I have is that the C-hop monstrosities are pushing the traditional beers - slagged off as "boring brown twiggy beers" off the bar - there's only so much room. And of course a cask only lasts about three days before it starts to spoil so they tend to go for the ones that sell the fastest, which unfortunately at the moment is the C-hop pales.
Spare me the indiewire tech-bro with the philistine palate and the inflated brewing vocabulary. Nothing will trump actual flavor and there is no greater pleasure to my palate on a warm day than a well balanced locally brewed IPA.
AFF
IPAs aren't really part of the beer tradition over here - at least not what goes under that name over the Pond.
There is no substitute for a pint of cask premium bitter for me. I've yet to have anything out of a keg that tasted anything like as good. To me kegs are just big cans and that's how their contents taste. Too cold, too fizzy.
IPAs aren't really part of the beer tradition over here - at least not what goes under that name over the Pond.
There is no substitute for a pint of cask premium bitter for me. I've yet to have anything out of a keg that tasted anything like as good. To me kegs are just big cans and that's how their contents taste. Too cold, too fizzy.
15 years ago I used to pull cask conditioned pints on one of Ontario's only 3 hand pumps. Monitored the temperature of the cask below decks to be certain that it was "cellar temperature" NOT "warm". It was a really concerted educational effort at that time, since local tastes ran to sub-zero temperature "Labatt's Blue" and "Molson Canadian".
I was supposed to sell a lot of cask conditioned ale but it's hard to sell something you don't truly appreciate. I sold tons of pints from the microbreweries that I was enthusiastic about. Flying Monkeys Hoptical Illusion - I sold more of that than all the other servers put together. We couldn't keep it on tap for more than a day when I was on the floor.
I could never really get the hang of the cask conditioned ale. But it has a fanatical following, and I get that.
IPAs aren't really part of the beer tradition over here - at least not what goes under that name over the Pond.
There is no substitute for a pint of cask premium bitter for me. I've yet to have anything out of a keg that tasted anything like as good. To me kegs are just big cans and that's how their contents taste. Too cold, too fizzy.
15 years ago I used to pull cask conditioned pints on one of Ontario's only 3 hand pumps. Monitored the temperature of the cask below decks to be certain that it was "cellar temperature" NOT "warm". It was a really concerted educational effort at that time, since local tastes ran to sub-zero temperature "Labatt's Blue" and "Molson Canadian".
I was supposed to sell a lot of cask conditioned ale but it's hard to sell something you don't truly appreciate. I sold tons of pints from the microbreweries that I was enthusiastic about. Flying Monkeys Hoptical Illusion - I sold more of that than all the other servers put together. We couldn't keep it on tap for more than a day when I was on the floor.
I could never really get the hang of the cask conditioned ale. But it has a fanatical following, and I get that.
AFF
It's one of the reasons I'd struggle to emigrate. Almost non-existent beyond these shores. And unfortunately under threat even here. The traditional styles are even more under threat - a lot of cask ale now is pale and hop forward. I don't care much for those. My preference seems to be being squeezed by craft keg on one side and cask ales strongly influenced by it on the other.
It's one of the reasons I'd struggle to emigrate. Almost non-existent beyond these shores. And unfortunately under threat even here. The traditional styles are even more under threat - a lot of cask ale now is pale and hop forward. I don't care much for those. My preference seems to be being squeezed by craft keg on one side and cask ales strongly influenced by it on the other.
I feel for you my friend. I truly do. Since I moved here to Spain I've found plenty of very respectable lagers, but not a single IPA on draught. I love a lager, but bottled IPA leaves something to be desired. PLUS any of the local microbreweries has succumbed to the siren song of the unholy hop trinity, so there's that.
I wish my taste ran more to wine, it would be easier here. But alas I couldn't tell you a cab from a syrah.
On being asked what I would like in a brew pub in Paris (Ontario) I asked what they had that didn't have any trace of citrus about it. "Oh - you don't like hops?" was the answer. It's all they know. We were with nice friends so I didn't storm out yelling and swearing and kicking the furniture. It's a real problem here. It seems that most craft beers have to taste like varieties of fermented grapefruit juice; some possibly having old tea leaves added. The result of this is that I rarely try anything unfamiliar unless by expert recommendation, as life is becoming too short to waste on bad beer.
A Canadian exception to the false IPAs was (possibly still is?) Labatt's IPA, brewed in Ontario, which seemed like the real thing when last I had any, but this was a very long time ago.
IPAs aren't really part of the beer tradition over here - at least not what goes under that name over the Pond.
Proper IPA is a very fine thing - by that I mean something based on the original IPAs brewed for export to India that had to be strong enough to survive the journey and light enough to enjoy drinking in that climate. Unfortunately the “craft breweries” have completely redefined what IPA is. What gets me is when you see a “dark IPA”. An oxymoron surely? How can you have a dark pale ale?
IPAs aren't really part of the beer tradition over here - at least not what goes under that name over the Pond.
Proper IPA is a very fine thing - by that I mean something based on the original IPAs brewed for export to India that had to be strong enough to survive the journey and light enough to enjoy drinking in that climate. Unfortunately the “craft breweries” have completely redefined what IPA is. What gets me is when you see a “dark IPA”. An oxymoron surely? How can you have a dark pale ale?
A propos of Karl's hatred of citrussy IPAs*, Dead Brewer's Society have made a recreation of a Halls Oxford Brewery IPA from circa 1906. I've had it a couple of times and it's really not that hoppy.
*their ubiquity is the most frustrating thing, I don't mind one but when everything on the bar is the same sort of thing... doesn't encourage me to have another.
Yes. A proper IPA is a thing of wonder. Not the North American grapefruity stuff.ni can understand why they went down the hop-bomb route, though given that most US beers had no flavour whatsoever. I can't speak for Canadian ones but people I know who've tried them haven't been impressed with the big brewery offerings.
I don't doubt that there are decent local brews there, though.
Like @KarlLB the dearth of cask-conditioned ale abroad would prevent me emigrating.
We are fortunate round here in that the citrusy stuff hasn't driven old-fashioned cask ale out entirely. Perhaps I'm just fortunate to go into the right pubs. I was down in South Wales earlier this week and had two cracking pints of Bass.
The Bass is good round here too.
It can be bland but this was on form.
I used to enjoy Theakston's XB when I lived in Yorkshire but preferred Black Sheep, Timothy Taylor's Landlord and Tetley when it was on form in certain Leeds pubs.
I do hope Jennings makes a comeback. A very distinctive taste.
I will drink lager abroad. Three Horses in Madagascar was surprisingly good. German pils is drinkable too and I've enjoyed Spanish and Italian lagers when visiting those countries, but that's often about context. Lager goes well with pizza.
I've had dreadful lager in Spain, Italy and Portugal too. I like their wines, mind.
I'd never order a lager in a pub here in the UK but will have a bottle or two with food at home over the summer. But when not driving and given a choice I'd go for a standard hand-pulled cask bitter any day of the week.
A propos of Karl's hatred of citrussy IPAs*, Dead Brewer's Society have made a recreation of a Halls Oxford Brewery IPA from circa 1906. I've had it a couple of times and it's really not that hoppy.
*their ubiquity is the most frustrating thing, I don't mind one but when everything on the bar is the same sort of thing... doesn't encourage me to have another.
This was my main beef with the microbreweries we did business with in the 'teens. If you brew something that overwhelms the senses, then it's easy to stop at one. It was always a challenge to find brewers who could hit that sweet spot where "just one more" would be enough.
Sounds cynical but it's the same principle behind all processed foods - to leave you almost satisfied.
The Hoptical Illusion by Flying Monkeys was a perennial favorite of mine because it was so well balanced but there was a kind of vanilla smash at the end of the mouthful that was elusive enough to keep you chasing it all night if you let it. I sold so much of that stuff, but it was easy.
Around here a growler is 1.9l - half a US gallon - and I regularly take a couple of them over to the taproom at one of the local breweries to be refilled. (Cheaper than cans or bottles).
It’s from the Marche region in Italy which is not a region I know much about but which I’m pretty sure gave us another similar Pecorino last summer.
This is part of the Ontario LCBO’s Women in Wine release for March. I don’t know about actual numbers, but judging from the number and variety of quality producers represented in the feature it looks like women are doing well in winemaking these days.
In other news, the LCBO has removed American wines and spirits from its shelves in retaliation for the new tariff measures. The wine press around here seems to be reluctantly supportive - probably necessary in the circumstances but also likely to have the most direct effect on people who really didn’t ask for any of this.
We used to have a few West Australian Shipmates. Rexory and Dark Knight come to mind, while we are still blessed with @adampater. An independent brewery quite close to Dark Knight's pad in South Fremantle is Running with Thieves. Whose Caramel Stout is to die for.
And Lenten liquids were shut off an hour or so ago, until Sunset next Saturday (Sat to Sun sunset being an allowable feast day). In the meanwhile, this South Australian drop passed our lips.
I'm glad I like a variety of beers of late I've had a couple of generic pale hop soups (preferable to other tap options) an American offering at a wetherspoons which was dark and not excessively hopped and best of all Salcombe brewery devon amber
Our local deli didn't have much in the way of English beers today - I picked up an export India porter from Kernel brewery - so I dipped into their Belgian selection, and found an English Trappist Ale, which I haven't seen before. It's called Tynt Meadow, and is brewed by the monks of Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in Charnwood Forest. According to the label, the beer is named after the meadow where the monks first settled in a cottage in 1835, and which is still part of the monastic enclosure today.
My homebrew is on hold until next Winter or until I can resolve the temperature problem. I hate bottling and have had little success with it so always use a pressure barrel, but there's nowhere I can put it for half the year at least where it doesn't get too warm.
The Lord is good to them what is of an 'umble 'eart. Seeking to undo any good which the gym might have done, I bought a couple of bottles of Barossa Valley Estate GSM (Grenache Shiraz Mourvèdre). En route to the car from the bottle-o, the bag broke. Both bottles crashed to the concrete roadway, but DID'NT BREAK 😇 🍷 I'd better buy a Lotto ticket.
My homebrew is on hold until next Winter or until I can resolve the temperature problem. I hate bottling and have had little success with it so always use a pressure barrel, but there's nowhere I can put it for half the year at least where it doesn't get too warm.
Bottling is no fun. Decent and long cds in the background help
Managed a visit to our favourite pub which always has interesting taps on. I had a Leith Pils (craft brewery Edinburgh) and a Killanny Red ale which turned out to hale from my mother's home county of Monaghan (Ireland).
Mr F had a couple of Devon ciders which were as they oughter be - perfectly bubble-free.
Managed a visit to our favourite pub which always has interesting taps on. I had a Leith Pils (craft brewery Edinburgh) and a Killanny Red ale which turned out to hale from my mother's home county of Monaghan (Ireland).
Mr F had a couple of Devon ciders which were as they oughter be - perfectly bubble-free.
We had a 2023 unoaked Chardonnay from the Ontario producer Flat Rock this evening with dinner. It must have been a warm year as the flavours were bordering on tropical. Saved by a good palate with good acidity.
Managed a visit to our favourite pub which always has interesting taps on. I had a Leith Pils (craft brewery Edinburgh) and a Killanny Red ale which turned out to hale from my mother's home county of Monaghan (Ireland).
Mr F had a couple of Devon ciders which were as they oughter be - perfectly bubble-free.
Would you like to tell us which pub? We'll be in Edinburgh (Newhaven) in a few weeks, and I'm always interested to know what's currently good.
Managed a visit to our favourite pub which always has interesting taps on. I had a Leith Pils (craft brewery Edinburgh) and a Killanny Red ale which turned out to hale from my mother's home county of Monaghan (Ireland).
Mr F had a couple of Devon ciders which were as they oughter be - perfectly bubble-free.
Would you like to tell us which pub? We'll be in Edinburgh (Newhaven) in a few weeks, and I'm always interested to know what's currently good.
Steele Coulson Southside. So a bit of a way from Newhaven, but should you wish to venture that far south, we'd be glad to meet up. Plus there are a range of acceptable restaurants in the vicinity.
Managed a visit to our favourite pub which always has interesting taps on. I had a Leith Pils (craft brewery Edinburgh) and a Killanny Red ale which turned out to hale from my mother's home county of Monaghan (Ireland).
Mr F had a couple of Devon ciders which were as they oughter be - perfectly bubble-free.
Would you like to tell us which pub? We'll be in Edinburgh (Newhaven) in a few weeks, and I'm always interested to know what's currently good.
Steele Coulson Southside. So a bit of a way from Newhaven, but should you wish to venture that far south, we'd be glad to meet up. Plus there are a range of acceptable restaurants in the vicinity.
Thanks - stand by! It looks as if it might be on a route to other friends in Colinton.
Comments
In a previous life, Toronto Dominion was a client. So I swigged them at source. Or at Barberian's.
Glad you got to experience them in situ.
I remember Cave Spring and Henry of Pelham as the original wineries of the benchlands. Back in the day they were almost neck and neck but CS could charge about a dollar more for a theoretically equivalent wine. Now there is a lot more competition but Cave Spring is still the source for Rieslings at all levels whereas Henry of Pelham Cuvée Catherine is the best known Champagne method sparkling in Ontario and its premium versions are very good indeed. (The less premium versions from both CS and HP are also very good - I like to describe them as about 80% of the pleasure of AOC Champagne for about 50% of the price.)
We had a Chilean old vines Carignan with dinner tonight. Good stuff and not expensive. I want to say blueberry pie in a bottle but our wine critic sources talk about black cherries and pomegranate. Dark fruits anyway, and not too much oak.
I've had considerably worse "real" beer than the "low fat" Ghost Ship, and I actually like Guinness 0.0 more than "the real thing" (though Guinness is an outlier in my love of dark beers, I think its pretty bland). I think it was a game changer, especially as Adnam's have allowed free use of the technology to other brewerys, because you can be make a real beer and take the ethanol out without dramatically changing the flavour.
In other news, it seems that C*******g-M******'s have sold not only the old Jennings brewery, but also the rights to the beers, to someone who wants to restart brewing. So hopefully Jennings will reappear in Lakeland pubs. Their beers had a distinct hint of smoke to the flavour, the bitter was dark and flavoursome for its 3.4%, and the strong Sneck Lifter was one of my favourites, especially welcome after a day spent yomping round the hills.
Aye, proper beer, getting hard to find in a sea of grapefruity pales these days. God I hate these "modern beers".
Going there on my birthday for lunch with MrsLB.
My unholy trinity of citrus flavored hops: Citra, Centennial, Cascade.
All grapefruit rinds all the time. So many pale ales aggressively over-hopped with these and they all taste the same to me. Like chug a lugging a pint of pine-sol.
One I do like is the Amarillo - has actual pineapple notes. Lovely and refreshing when used judiciously in balance with mellow and neutral strains.
AFF
I've generally found avoiding anything that mentions any hop starting with a C is a fair guide. The problem I have is that the C-hop monstrosities are pushing the traditional beers - slagged off as "boring brown twiggy beers" off the bar - there's only so much room. And of course a cask only lasts about three days before it starts to spoil so they tend to go for the ones that sell the fastest, which unfortunately at the moment is the C-hop pales.
Spare me the indiewire tech-bro with the philistine palate and the inflated brewing vocabulary. Nothing will trump actual flavor and there is no greater pleasure to my palate on a warm day than a well balanced locally brewed IPA.
AFF
IPAs aren't really part of the beer tradition over here - at least not what goes under that name over the Pond.
There is no substitute for a pint of cask premium bitter for me. I've yet to have anything out of a keg that tasted anything like as good. To me kegs are just big cans and that's how their contents taste. Too cold, too fizzy.
15 years ago I used to pull cask conditioned pints on one of Ontario's only 3 hand pumps. Monitored the temperature of the cask below decks to be certain that it was "cellar temperature" NOT "warm". It was a really concerted educational effort at that time, since local tastes ran to sub-zero temperature "Labatt's Blue" and "Molson Canadian".
I was supposed to sell a lot of cask conditioned ale but it's hard to sell something you don't truly appreciate. I sold tons of pints from the microbreweries that I was enthusiastic about. Flying Monkeys Hoptical Illusion - I sold more of that than all the other servers put together. We couldn't keep it on tap for more than a day when I was on the floor.
I could never really get the hang of the cask conditioned ale. But it has a fanatical following, and I get that.
AFF
It's one of the reasons I'd struggle to emigrate. Almost non-existent beyond these shores. And unfortunately under threat even here. The traditional styles are even more under threat - a lot of cask ale now is pale and hop forward. I don't care much for those. My preference seems to be being squeezed by craft keg on one side and cask ales strongly influenced by it on the other.
I feel for you my friend. I truly do. Since I moved here to Spain I've found plenty of very respectable lagers, but not a single IPA on draught. I love a lager, but bottled IPA leaves something to be desired. PLUS any of the local microbreweries has succumbed to the siren song of the unholy hop trinity, so there's that.
I wish my taste ran more to wine, it would be easier here. But alas I couldn't tell you a cab from a syrah.
AFF
A Canadian exception to the false IPAs was (possibly still is?) Labatt's IPA, brewed in Ontario, which seemed like the real thing when last I had any, but this was a very long time ago.
Proper IPA is a very fine thing - by that I mean something based on the original IPAs brewed for export to India that had to be strong enough to survive the journey and light enough to enjoy drinking in that climate. Unfortunately the “craft breweries” have completely redefined what IPA is. What gets me is when you see a “dark IPA”. An oxymoron surely? How can you have a dark pale ale?
They're making "White Stouts" as well.
Why?
*their ubiquity is the most frustrating thing, I don't mind one but when everything on the bar is the same sort of thing... doesn't encourage me to have another.
I don't doubt that there are decent local brews there, though.
Like @KarlLB the dearth of cask-conditioned ale abroad would prevent me emigrating.
We are fortunate round here in that the citrusy stuff hasn't driven old-fashioned cask ale out entirely. Perhaps I'm just fortunate to go into the right pubs. I was down in South Wales earlier this week and had two cracking pints of Bass.
The Bass is good round here too.
It can be bland but this was on form.
I used to enjoy Theakston's XB when I lived in Yorkshire but preferred Black Sheep, Timothy Taylor's Landlord and Tetley when it was on form in certain Leeds pubs.
I do hope Jennings makes a comeback. A very distinctive taste.
I will drink lager abroad. Three Horses in Madagascar was surprisingly good. German pils is drinkable too and I've enjoyed Spanish and Italian lagers when visiting those countries, but that's often about context. Lager goes well with pizza.
I've had dreadful lager in Spain, Italy and Portugal too. I like their wines, mind.
I'd never order a lager in a pub here in the UK but will have a bottle or two with food at home over the summer. But when not driving and given a choice I'd go for a standard hand-pulled cask bitter any day of the week.
This was my main beef with the microbreweries we did business with in the 'teens. If you brew something that overwhelms the senses, then it's easy to stop at one. It was always a challenge to find brewers who could hit that sweet spot where "just one more" would be enough.
Sounds cynical but it's the same principle behind all processed foods - to leave you almost satisfied.
The Hoptical Illusion by Flying Monkeys was a perennial favorite of mine because it was so well balanced but there was a kind of vanilla smash at the end of the mouthful that was elusive enough to keep you chasing it all night if you let it. I sold so much of that stuff, but it was easy.
AFF
I've had a couple of post-cricket points of Shagweaver, simply because it annoyed the person who'd offered to buy a round...
Superb
https://www.winealign.com/wines/164600-Velenosi-Villa-Angela-Pecorino-2023
It’s from the Marche region in Italy which is not a region I know much about but which I’m pretty sure gave us another similar Pecorino last summer.
This is part of the Ontario LCBO’s Women in Wine release for March. I don’t know about actual numbers, but judging from the number and variety of quality producers represented in the feature it looks like women are doing well in winemaking these days.
In other news, the LCBO has removed American wines and spirits from its shelves in retaliation for the new tariff measures. The wine press around here seems to be reluctantly supportive - probably necessary in the circumstances but also likely to have the most direct effect on people who really didn’t ask for any of this.
I’m not sure I’ve seen any Romanian wines in these parts recently, but will keep an eye out…
Lent now for us so better not post much on this thread.
https://gilvesy.hu/en/pages/shop
My Lenten wine discipline is… not strong… but these won’t be arriving until after Easter.
This filled in the waiting time as I mashed in grain, then boiled wort for an English Mild.
I'm increasingly giving away most of the beer I make - the fun is as much in the making as the drinking.
Heron
Sounds marvellous.
I really should get round to getting a brew on in the next few weeks. Better do a stocktake...
Bottling is no fun. Decent and long cds in the background help
Mr F had a couple of Devon ciders which were as they oughter be - perfectly bubble-free.
Sounds like a marvellous time was had
Would you like to tell us which pub? We'll be in Edinburgh (Newhaven) in a few weeks, and I'm always interested to know what's currently good.
Steele Coulson Southside. So a bit of a way from Newhaven, but should you wish to venture that far south, we'd be glad to meet up. Plus there are a range of acceptable restaurants in the vicinity.
Thanks - stand by! It looks as if it might be on a route to other friends in Colinton.