Beer in the Evening

Another busy week for us. The forums are flying along now, with over 1,000 posts in just three weeks - amazing! This week we had 73 votes on the polls, the most we’ve had so far - so word is slowly but surely getting round..

We asked whether you’d like to review beers and breweries as well as pubs. We’ve had a lot of emails asking for both of these so we thought it’d be wise in asking you what you thought. Don’t worry, it’s not something we’re going to do immediately, but more likely introduce in the first quarter of next year. We’ve already got a list of beers (17,470 to be precise) - no idea how upto date and accurate that list is, but we’ll sort that out nearer the time. With regards to reviewing breweries we meant to say not just the overall beers they produce, but perhaps things like the tours they offer / visitor centres, etc. Anyway, onto the those poll results

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I think it’s a yes overall

This week we’re asking whether you think the DrinkAware campaign is a good or bad thing. Don’t get us wrong, we think responsible drinking is the right thing - however, is DrinkAware doing a good thing? Or are you just sick of seeing it on every TV advert, magazine advert - you name it. Do you think we need to be told when we’ve had enough? The BITE team were out on Friday night and at one point FIVE uniformed police visited the venue we were in, walking around checking everyone wasn’t too drunk (we know this because I actually asked them why they were in there) - sorry, but we think that is overstepping the line, do you agree? Leave us a comment and vote..!

ps. There are over 360 pubs within 1.0 mile of the HQ of DrinkAware (nice location boys!)

It was a Friday afternoon, we had unfortunately not been sent any freebies this week to drink trial in the office and blog about so we decided to head on down to our local O’Neills. I have seen the marketing campaigns, tried in vain to contact a Guinness Brand Manager via numerous methods - including their blog (if there is one out there that actually reads this – how about contacting us?) to give us more info / a list of pubs that serve it (to put on BITE), but I still hadn’t tried Guinness Red yet. You’d think we would have been an ideal platform to help promote it considering it wasn’t at every pub! But anyway…

Anyway, onto the drink. It pours like a normal Guinness, including the traditional two second wait before topping off the pint. It has a thick, creamy head like a normal Guinness and it looks (apart from if you hold it upto the light) like a normal Guinness too. It’s not really that red, more reddish. But that is where the comparison ends. Oh wait, it has the same ABV too (4.1%). I was quite surprised actually, it tastes good – BUT – it tastes like something is missing. Have you drank Diet Coke after drinking normal Coke for years and felt it was lacking something? Well, Guinness Red has that same feeling. It doesn’t feel as heavy or ‘thick’ as normal Guinness, but it does still have that distinctive taste and will still give you that distinctive ‘tache too. To be honest, I would drink it again (actually, I first tried it and then immediately before putting the pint down drank it again to double-check it like I had missed something) – I think it’s the ideal ‘pub lunch’ drink. The sort of drink you’d have at lunchtime midweek with colleagues but don’t want to start ‘drinking’ – we’ve all been there, have one pint at lunch and it goes straight to your head because you choose a bloody salad or something with it, well, this is the drink to order! I see Guinness Red as a drink I will order again if I am in a pub that sells it, but I don’t quite see myself travelling to another pub JUST to order it. Sorry Guinness, I am lazy.

Overall, I would give Guinness Red a favourable 8.5/10.

Purchase Location: Bateman Brewery online shop
( www.bateman.co.uk )

It’s that time of year again, no I don’t just mean Christmas, I mean winter warmer ale season.  This year I  am sampling the Bateman Breweries ‘Rosey Nosey’.  English masters of brewing seasonal ales, Batemans winter warmer suggests that it “Compliments any Turkey”… well, with this in my hand I do look a little more handsome I must admit.

Rosey Nosey is a beautiful deep caramel colour, pouring with a good tanned foamy head and some relaxed carbonation.  I’m beginning to understand how to divide the beer taste complexity, and that’s certainly something you’ll need to do with Rosey Nosey.  I’ve heard it described as cherry, malt biscuit tasting as well as rasin and fruity.  I agree, I can sense the cherry taste, thats true, it’s slightly over cast by the bitter hops taste which dominates the first few swigs of this winter warmer, the mixture of the bitter and cherry sweet comes across as almost almond on the palette.   There’s a prevailing taste left in the mouth which is slightly fruity, it’s got the same sharpness as cranberry, this would surely be complimented by a hearty Christmas dinner, but to be honest I find Turkey rather bland and only wish to eat the ugly bird on one day of the year so I will just pour another Rosey Nosey for the time being.

It’s got a rather mild ABV for a winter warmer in my opinion, meaning you could have a few and make it a very Merry Christmas, it’s still strong enough to be just over a recommended session ale, so take it easy after three or four of these.

My rating:  8/10
ABV: 4.9%
For more information visit the Bateman Brewery website.

Thats right, for your chance to win 6x 500ml bottles of Rosey Nosey simply answer three questions and enter our prize draw, it won’t cost you a single penny, this is a BITE team give away, the beer is coming straight out of our supplies. 

This offer ends on Wed 19th December 2007, so hurry, click here to enter the competition.

It’s that time of week again, last week seems to have flown by! Anyway, we asked if we should allow anonymous reviews or not and we were quite surprised at the result. Although we expected the overall verdict to be ‘no’ we didn’t quite expect that only 65% of the votes would be no. Anyway, onto the results:

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Thanks to all 54 of you that voted. I think it is time we removed the anonymous box, because it does cause more trouble than it’s worth and being realistic – your personal details aren’t really for show on the site anyway because of how little information we collect about you. It would also help when we start introducing a few more features (like being able to see who rated what, etc)

Also, yes – we are looking at adding the polls to the main site to get the polls more exposure but it’s a technical thing why we can’t currently more than anything (hoping to have that resolved this week!)

This week we’d like to ask:

Would you like to review beers and/or breweries on the site as well as pubs? Voting is open now! (..and yes, we know you’d like to all the site totally finished and up to date before the above features – but this poll helps in our planning of the new site/changes!)

Purchase location the Bateman Brewery online shop.
( www.bateman.co.uk )

Here it is folks, if ever there was a need for a drum roll, or a clap of thunder under a perfectly black rain cloud English sky, it is now.  I’ve waited two months to write about this beer, Batemans Dark Lord, patiently ushering other beers and ales onto this Blog knowing full well that I was building a foundation with which to rock using Dark Lord, my own personal favourite.

Dark Lord is a commemoration to Sir Thomas Fairfax, who fought alongside Cromwell during the battle of Winceby (Oct 1643) - a true English military hero, courageous and gallant, ‘Black Tom’ as he was known to his men - fought the Royalists with a fanatical zeal. Englands New Model Army under the head strong command of Black Tom had not lost a battle, siege or storm during that first civil war.

As I mentioned with regards to King Alfred’s Bitter, “there is no better monument to an Englishman than to have his memory cast into the soul of a beer.”  Black Toms legacy certainly deserving such a recommendation. 
So, it falls to Batemans, proud English family brewers to bring forth the drink for which he shall be remembered.

Dark Lord pours oil black.  Light almost does not penetrate this liquid except for a slight deep amber shine at the very bottom of the glass.  An impressive head of thick creamy foam, with some fast initial carbonation that then settles as the head recedes.  The aroma is thick and malty, full of citrus hints, almost like lemon, but not quite prominently there if you know what I mean.  The taste is at first licorice followed with a strong roasted malt and bitter sweet sensation on the taste buds, it’s got a wonderfully strong retro-olfaction, as you breathe out the aroma is just as pure if not slightly stronger with the alcohol vapour as it was when first sampling it from the glass.  It’s got a good strong ABV making it a great winter warmer but not a real session beer, two or three of these and you’ll start to feel the darkness so take it easy. 

I’ve found the flavour strength of Dark Lord to be the perfect accompaniment to strong English cheeses, and dare I say instead of steak and ale pie, or beef and Guiness stew, seriously try Dark Lord as a variation.  Sacrilege! I know some of you may think - but it works.

The other day I gave Fursty Ferret a 10/10, caught by surprise I was by the goodness of that cheeky beer, but today is Dark Lords day, this was always going to be a 10/10 for me no questions asked.  Watch out for Dark Lord as it will appear again early next year on this Blog. “To good health!”

My rating 10/10 ( my personal favourite)
ABV 5.0%
Visit the Bateman brewery website for more information www.bateman.co.uk