Beer in the Evening

Purchase location - My local supermarket (500ml bottled beer)

First brewed at the Gribble Inn at Oving, it has become legend that local ferrets visited the backdoor of the Inn to taste this amazing ale.  I’ve just tried my first Fursty Ferret and like the ferrets of yore I am converted. 
This is the best seasonal cask ale I have yet tried; I can’t reward it enough and have already used my mobile communications device to send various text messages to friends informing them of my discovery.
It’s recommended ’served chilled’ - I have to argue that this is not the correct way to serve Fursty Ferret, at room temperature this ale really is heaven, pouring a deep caramel colour, with some fantastic carbonation that oozes from a third way up the pint to the top meeting a beautiful head of creamy foam.  It looks just as good as it tastes, on first sip I am almost transported to a scene akin to Constables famous ‘The Haywain’ painting, it’s got a marvelous gingery hint full of hops with a waxy malty finish on swallowing, it is so smooth on the palette I’m perplexed as to why it’s not in more pubs up and down the country.

This ale has the perfect balance of flavours for me, a real English countryside ale.  I can’t pin a seasonal recommendation to it as in my mind it would be great in spring, summer, autumn or winter.  Those damn ferrets knew they were onto a good thing, and it’s up to me to continue to spread their knowledge. 

Fursty Ferret is likely to be found in all good supermarkets (if there is such a thing) and is low in price, making it even more ideal.  Transport yourself back to olde England with this wonderful concoction from the Hall and Woodhouse brewery.

My rating: 10/10
ABV 4.4%
Visit the Hall and Woodhouse brewery website, home of Badger Beers, for more information.

Purchase Location: The Swan Inn – Cheltenham

Harrier Lite, if you know you’re out for a good while and you see the Harrier, it’s a great session beer, very refreshing and fruity with a nice low ABV, I wouldn’t call it so much a citrus taste, but it’s got a fresh zesty taste throughout, even down to the hand-warmed dregs, maybe it’s the presence of Saaz hops which I have never come across before? A nice head that lasted for just over half the pint, giving each swig a smooth texture in the mouth, not watery at all. Harrier Lite was apparently discontinued but has been flown back by the Cottleigh brewery due to popular demand. I’m told that Harrier is kind to the hips, for the health concious drinkers out there… But I’m not bothered, the burger in my hand has kindly set karma back in balance.

My rating: 8/10
Hops used: Goldings, Challenger, Cascade, Saaz
ABV 3.5% Visit the Cotleigh Brewery website for more information.

Purchase Location: Wetherspoons “Moon Under Water” – Cheltenham (Part of the Wetherspoons Real Ale Festival.)

Like a  spinning dog, that’s how I felt, Muttley certainly did take revenge on my stomach after three pints of this, perhaps it’s the strong citrus acidic aftertaste that makes this beer feel like you’re drinking a pint of serious home brew.
If strong flavours is your thing, then do seek this one out. It might be an average ABV but it packs a real bite. I got a rather heavy chest and slight sway during this session of Muttleys. I have to say I wasn’t really a big fan, but as there is no such thing as a bad beer (unless it’s been contaminated or over chilled) I thought I would persist with a small session with this one to try and change my mind.

It’s got to be another one for spring/ summer, the citrus is so refreshing it’s going to make an excellent ‘after hard days work’ beer. There is a flowery hoppy background that soothes the taste buds, and an absence of head but a feeling that there is still plenty of carbonation left in the mix.

My rating: 6/10
Hops used: Challenger, Target
ABV 4.8%
Visit the Spinning Dog Brewery website for more information.

Thanks again for all your votes. – 52 total votes this week, still thousands of you missing / not bothering to vote, oh well! This time we asked what is your favourite type of pub?

Your results were:

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Not overly surprising, we didn’t expect the chain pubs to get many votes to be honest but were surprised to see the country came out on top (although only by 4 votes)

This week’s vote feels a bit pointless, we roughly already know your answer to this - but we’d still like to ask anyway before we go ahead and change anything…

Should we allow anonymous reviews on pubs? Voting is open now..

ps. The forums are going well, over 200 posts in the first week – great to see your input everyone, thank you!

Have you ever woken up at 4.30am with a crook neck, shoes still on, sleeping like a tramp on your own sofa surrounded by empty KFC boxes and lettuce?
Or, woken up on the bathroom floor hugging the toilet draped in a towel feeling that you’re tied to a spinning wheel?
We’ve all had those moments, those drunken moments and drunken photos that end up on Facebook - chipping away at your cool, speaking of Facebook, join our BITE group and spread the gospel to all your friends.

Fear not, you can now do all that and more in style, with Sumo Chairs!

I’ve got a Sumo Chair after my partner and I relaxed all night at a sunset beach bar in Turkey on a pair of them, they were the perfect way to spend a chilled out evening watching the sun disappear into the Med.  Back in England we just had to get one, but being 200 miles in land and with the obvious lack of sun in our quaint little country, was it really going to be practicle buying a gargantuan cushion for our two bed mid-terrace house? 

Of course it was, Sumo Chairs are the lightweight durable beanbags of the future here today. “But just how space age can you get with simple beanbag technology?” I hear you ask.

Well, these enormous comfort lumps come with a wipe clean nylon surface, Sumo Chairs are oversize, not like the ‘just big enough for your backside’ fire hazard beanbags of the 1980’s - they’re so last century.
Sumo Chairs command presence in any room, I wonder if sumo wrestlers actually use them? …They are not objects to hand down to your dog as a place to sleep when they go flat, Sumo Chairs don’t go flat.
Ok that’s probably a lie, they will go flat, but it will take years, Sumo Chairs come packed with thousands and thousands of polystyrene balls that are locked away behind the worlds stickiest Velcro strip and the most durable childproof zip we’ve ever seen. In fact you’d have to put some bullet holes in your Sumo Chair in order to see those annoying white balls spill out everywhere, Sumo Chairs are not bullet proof and we do not actually recommend you buy a Sumo Chair just to shoot at.

So, when you come home from a heavy night out, don’t head for the sofa, nay, look for your Sumo Chair, the new mistress of pacification in your home. The moment you hit the Sumo Chair at 6 drunken miles per hour, the Sumo Chair reacts, it’s like it re-programmes its DNA to suit you, it moulds around your exact body shape giving you comfort and support in whatever position you throw at it.

I’ve tried the ‘face first star shape’; Sumo Chair was there in a blink of an eye, maximum head support and a perfect horizontal tilt. Then, ‘collapsing into the fetal position’, sumo chair was there again, I felt like a cat in a pile of clean clothes.
My friend tried the ‘just need somewhere to sit quickly maneuver’ - bang, Sumo Chair saw it coming and reshaped itself into something that I can only describe as reminiscent of the scene in King Kong where Kong picks up the damsel in distress in a very caring way while fighting 3 Tyrannosaurus Rexes’.

In a moment of clarity (whilst sitting in my Sumo Chair), now the smoking ban is enforced in all British pubs, I think Sumo Chairs would make a great addition to a pub lounge area, or a trendy student bar, you can see it now, students up and down the country searching for bars just because they have Sumo Chairs, so they may sit in various positions and discuss each Sumo Chair position, the impact it may have on socialism or other deep political agendas, …as well as taking cool pics to put on Facebook. Awesome, high fives all round!

You know I’d really like to say that Sumo Chairs would make the perfect Christmas presents for your family and friends, but hiding them is a real problem, when a Sumo Chair is delivered to your house, it looks like the postman is asking you to dispose of a body, whilst they are super light in weight, they are extremely big, so I’d suggest you just go out and buy one, or two, or three, right now and just say “I bought you a present”, “Why? Because I love you honey”. Then, when it’s home time on that next pub tour make sure you hit the Sumo Chair and leave the sofa and bathroom floor behind.

Buy yourself a Sumo Chair today and say goodbye to hard unforgiving surfaces.