Vegetarianism...........

Over the next 40 days I will be taking a challenge that I didn't think would ever happen but it was set-up by my wife so what the hell I figured I could do it and I do love a bit of a challenge. This is going to be eye opening and in my honest opinion quite difficult to come up with meat free recipes and try to not run to the local Greggs and get a pastry to try and subdue my cravings for flesh. So what do I hope to learn over the next five and a half weeks, I hope to work on my flavour combinations and just try new things seeing that I just realized that I actually don't like very many vegetables and might just starve myself over the next 40 days but hey I'm chubby I could just about lose a stone and no one would really notice. Just because I'm giving up meat doesn't mean that I'm going to be giving up beer no matter how many little fish they clear the beer with .

#OPENit........

                                                                       






Now this isn't going to be a traditional blog post there will be no pictures, the pictures of that night only deserve to stay in my drunken stupor of good food and even better beer, but what i will share with you are my thoughts and hope that my words will bring you on the journey that the group of us went through for #openit. When the idea was thrown out on twitter by @rickfurzer about getting together with a group of beer like minded people over some food I was all over it almost confirming my spot automatically. Over the next few week I probably confirmed then rejected then wavered and finally pretty much got told I was going by the man in question so needless to say my journey to the dinner was filled with smooth patches and many bumps along the way. I even had to go see the fine people at the grove to hopefully find some treasures lurking deep in their vast cellar so I could at least so my face to the dinner with some dignity. Finally I was able to locate a couple of bottles of beer that I hoped wouldn't get sneered at and laughed at by the group of vast geeky type people that I was wanted to make a good first impression on so that I could be invited to yet another function. The menu went like this:

1. Potted duck, toasted rye bread, rhubarb and vanilla compote
2. Smoked haddock fritter, tarragon mayonnaise, watercress
3. Crispy pork belly, black pudding, celeriac and mustard salad
4. Chargrilled skirt steak, celeriac puree, shallot and red wine butter, crispy mushroom
5. Chargrilled bananas in rum with toasted marshmallows and white chocolate ice cream
6. Cheese board: Smoked Ribblesdale (goat), Old Yorke (ewe), Wold Blimey (blue), Coverdale (hard), Inglewhite, Blackstick Blue, Stinking Bishop (washed rind)

All washed down with some fantastic stonking like beers first course we had Lambics to match the savoriness of the duck, beers included were a couple of Goose Island and and Upright Brewery beer that I had never heard of brought by Zak Avery.
Second course we popped the corks and tops of a couple of real good saisons that complemented the fritter almost perfectly. Saison and fish go very well together that a friend of mine just proved in his blog @leighgoodstuff with the Summer Wine Lime and Coriander Saison.
Third was a succulent pork course that was paired with  some massive tasting beers that didn't drown the flavour of the pork a big bottle brought by @misterfrosty a Mikkeller Stella 1 stole the show and did not disappoint.
Fourth course was a perfectly cooked piece of skirt steak which seems to be becoming a very popular cut of meat over here which is fantastic because the amount of flavour you can suck up with this cut of meat is surprisingly fantastic, so up came the big bad ass barley wines.
The dessert course was by far the one that surprised me the most because of the beer that was provided, now I have never had the privilege of sampling the Bourbon County Vanilla (shame I know) is was immense dark and absolutely wonderful couldn't have asked for a better beer to go with a recipe my wife makes quite often.
Finally came the cheese boards I am in the minority in the cheese category because and I agree it goes well with beer I just don't like that many cheeses I think I need to open my pallet to different types so I'm not closing the door on the idea of beer and cheese I just don't have the experience to put my words to paper. The highlight of the cheese boards for me were not one but two beers the first being a Firestone Walker 14th anny and the unreleased Kopi Kat brewed by the guys at Summer Wine Brewery, Rick himself and the man with the tache @Danielvane which is going to be released in 2 versions one coming soon and another being launch down south sometime soonish.

The craziness continued with a small walk down to Mr. Foleys and the beer there just got stupid but once again I'm sorry but I'm keeping most of these to myself unless you were following my tweets the night of then you already know but the star of the show was a beer brewed 83 years ago which wasn't great but wasn't bad it was still drinkable and no one got sick.

A big thank you goes to Create restaurant that helped put the menu together and the chef was on top of his game the entire night not one complaint was made when the food got put in front of us.
The guest list included
Rick Furzer- @rickfurzer
Paul Tuffnell- @tuff86
Zak Avery- @zakavery
Dean Pugh- @deanfromfoleys
Mark Fletcher- @fletchthemonkey
Andy Parker- @tabamatu
Jane- @i96jms
Gavin Frost- @misterfrosty
Daniel- @Danielvane
Andy- @SWBAndy
Ben Hodgkinson- @cptcheerful

other joined us at Mr Foleys with their own range of beers Rob @BGRTRob from Hopzine, the man behind the cloth @Ghostdrinker, @tunks86, and the one and only @juffage.


Thanks for making it a very enjoyable time and I hope to do it with all of you again. Until next time guys hope its sooner rather than later.

White Stout???



Broadford Brewery

I think I might be one of the only people to get to try this beer 3 different ways and to be honest they vary on each cask, keg, and bottle. Now the cask and keg were a while ago but I seem to pull from my very drunken memory banks I preferred the cask version to the other. Keg was to cold gave it a huge hop haze and had zero to no flavour, the cask seems to flow a bit better sadly I only had a half of each of these so its hard to pull the exact flavours to really give this beer any kind of tasting notes. Last night there was a huge tasting session over twitter with bottles of White Stout going out to different venues from Stoke on Trent to Newcastle to Hudderfield to Leeds and all the way down to London Town. I sadly missed the event but picked a bottle up from Mr. Foleys and opened it with great haste while enjoying my dinner of chicken wings and a damn fine potato salad. I let it breathe for a bit while taking sips every now and again to remind my tongue of what kind of beer this actually is. Derived from an old English definition of stout meaning basically strong ale and this lives up to the definition that printed on the bottle. Now the big question is does this beer live up to the hype and initially it doesn't the cold doesn't do this beer any favours but after about an hour the beer evolves into a completely different beast all together. A very tasty 7.2 abv beverage that really goes well with Celebrity Juice blaring on in the background and the ramblings of family members om the couch. In reality drink this beer if you want to get lost in your own little world so you can drown out the conversations of a show that's not funny anymore and concentrate on the different amount of flavours that come with this beer moving from cold to cool to warm to room temp so all in all I shall rate the keg 2 out of 5, cask gets 4 out of 5 and bottle gets no rating as it gets better with time and its unfair to rate a beer that gets better out of the bottle.

Golden Pints Awards 2011

 As 2011 comes to end this evening I thought I would wait till the last second and pick my picks for the golden pints award 2011. 2011 was a real eye opener for me when it comes to beer and I enjoyed every step of my journey and looking forward to new things in 2012 and hope that most of you will come on my journey of seeking the best beer the world can offer.


          Best UK Draught (Cask or Keg) Beer

1: Magic Rock Human Cannonball 2: Buxton Brewery Axe Edge 3: Summer Wine 7'c of Rye

     2. Best UK Bottled or Canned Beer
         1: Buxton Brewery Axe Edge
         2: Porterhouse Plain Porter
         3: Magic Rock High Wire

     3. Best Overseas Draught Beer
         1: Stone Brewing Oaked Arrogant Bastard
         2: Great Divide Rumble IPA
         3: Nogne O Saison
    
     4. Best Overseas Bottled or Canned
         1: Duck Rabbit Milk Stout
         2: Brooklyn Sorachi Ace
         3: Schneider Weisse Tap 5

     5. Best Overall Beer
         1: Brooklyn Sorachi Ace
         2: Orval 2 year (Thanks Matt from North Bar for holding one for me.)
         3: Schneider Weisse Tap 5

     6. Best Pumpclip or Label
         1: Left Hand Fade to Black
         2: Roosters Baby Faced Assassin
         3: Magic Rock Curious NZ

     7. Best UK Brewery
         1: Magic Rock Brewery
         2: Buxton Brewery
         3: Kernal Brewery

     8. Best Overseas Brewery
         1: Stone Brewery
         2: Left Hand Brewery
         3: Nogne O
         
    
     9. Pub/Bar of the Year
         1: Grove Inn Huddersfield
         2: North Bar
         3: Mr Foley's Cask Ale House
 

    10. Beer Festival of the Year

          Sadly I only went to one but it was very nice

          1:Headingley Beer Festival

   

    12. Independent Retailer of the Year

          1: BeerRitz

   

    13. Online retailer of the Year

          1: MyBrewerytap.com

          2: Beersofeurope.com

 

    15. Best Beer Blog/ Website

          1: The Good Stuff

          2: BeerSay

          3: Ghostdrinker

 

    16. Best Twitterer

          1: Broadford Brewer

          2: Geekleeds

          3: Briggatebeer

  

    17. Best Online Brewery Presence

          1: Magic Rock

          2: Buxton Brewery

          3:Hardknott

 

    18. Food and beer matching in the Foley's Kitchen

          1: Chili with Black Band Porter

          2: Steak Sandwich with Propaganda

          3: Foley's Burger with Dark Arts

 

    19. In 2012 I'd most like to:

            Expand my beer and food pairing for the British Bloggers Conference and to have the satisfaction of doing a homebrew and working within a brewery to produce beer for the masses. Do a couple more brewery tours and try to get out and try to find the best beer in the country

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

Beer in Food?!?!

Taken from Magic Rock's website.

As of late at Mr Foley's in Leeds I have been experimenting with not only matching beer with food but also cooking my food with beer. Nothing to exciting nothing to revolutionary just simple basic and sometimes interesting flavours come out with my mad scientist like ways in the kitchen. I have been putting different beers in our burgers and doing different things with our batter seemingly every week.

Taken from Kirkstall's Website.

The most popular beers that have graced the burgers at Foley's have been Magic Rock Dark Arts and Kirkstall Black Band Porter two very different beers but two very similar flavours. Dark Arts giving the burger a very distinct flavour of roasted malt and a bit of bittersweet chocolate which compliment the spices that make the mince and very good burger. Now staying with the theme of the burgers at Foley's I played around with the different beers by making different pastes that go directly on the burger while its on the grill. Black Band Porter from Kirkstall made a very interesting development with the the mixture and gives it a very nice flavour and this seems to be a very popular choice as when I make a batch of burgers it seems to sell out rather quickly and leaves me scrambling to make more.

ratebeer.com

Now that the burgers are out of the way seems that I have the small issue of deciding which pales are the best use for the batter I use to fry the lovely haddock in for fish and chips. First place prize as of late that got the best reviews from the customers Ive talked to has to be Rooster's Last Stand which I understand was Sean's send off beer after he left the brewery. The batter packs a bit of a punch which seems a bit weird because usually the flavour of the beer loses itself in the fryer but Last Stand definitely stands the test of the fryer and still has the nice flavour the beer itself has it and leaves the batter that sticks to the fish very crispy and compliments the fish rather well. With this being an ongoing experiment your recommendations are always welcome and I would like hearing from you. Over the next few weeks I am going to try and do different things and post them if they work and deny trying the things that didn't like my failed Diablo Nachos which my boss thought were OK and I thought needed something else. They all cant be winner but what can you gain if you don't try.

Yet another trip to the ye ole Grove Pub in Huddersfield.

I fought with feelings last Saturday about going to hang out with David, Gary, and Ben also known as @boodrums. I tried to get everyone that wasn't on the #twissup journey to come and join in the fun but sadly everyone was either there or had plans doing something else. So I took the painful journey on the train to get what I consider one of the best pubs Ive ever been too. Walked through the crazy lonely tunnel and finally saw my destination and walked through the doors to my first half to which I sat and drank with the gentleman that I was with. Fullers Vintage Ale 2010 which goes down a fantastic treat and makes me wish I knew what the other Vintage Ales taste like but hell Ive only been in England for 18 months so I can look forward to the future.

Next up a beer which I had no idea existed till a couple of weeks ago the Porterhouse Plain Porter which took home best stout in the world even though its a porter colour me confused but I went with it and damn it man if I didn't enjoy it even shared a bit around the table which was faithfully named Beer Tapas by the guys so hell I went with it. After I polished off the end of the bottle I reached for the dreaded bottle list and talked the table into going halves on a couple of bottles. First up was the mighty Brooklyn Brewery Sorachi Ace which is a brilliant Saison that for some reason I thought was a totally different style of beer the first time I had it. We sat we drank and we enjoyed then back to the list we went and we found Nogne O Tiger Tripel shared that and did the exact same thing we shared we enjoyed and started to think it was time to catch our train back to Leeds.

Other beers shared and enjoyed that evening were:
Kernel India Pale Ale Centennial
Rogue Mocha Porter
Schneider Weisse Tap 5
you can read more on what they drank on David's Blog but this is where my night started and almost ended in a horrible accident that almost saw the four of us catching a damned bus back to Leeds. Thanks to my lovely wife she saw through our drunken haze and directed us to Platform 8 and then called me a dumbass and said she was going to bed cant say that I argue the fact that what I was seeing and what was happening were 2 totally different things.

As we were waiting for the bus/train we popped into The KingsHead and saw a beer that I didn't think I would be seeing there a Magic Rock Brewery CuriousNZ which in my opinion was a fantastic easy drinking ale that rivals the original but I would have to do a side by side taste test just to confirm what I was thinking that night. We shared the Tap 5 on the way back to Leeds and then parted ways with Dave and Ben while they enjoyed some much needed food Gary and I decided it would be a fantastic idea to go grab yet another beer at North Bar. As soon as I walked through the door I was greeted by Big Jim with a tiny friend called Little Jim so under his supervision I enjoyed Little Jim a very nice collaboration brew between Matt and Mark at North Bar and the guys at Marble Brewing in Manchester. This was the end of my evening I went home and cleaned some bottles did some dishes ate some food and finally laid my head on my pillow and promptly took my ass to bed.

Hope you enjoyed the journey go take one yourself and remember to invite me.

 

My humble opinion. #7point5

As I walked into my local shop this morning I was instantly faced with a troubling sign. 3 two litres of Strongbow Cider for a measly £6.00. I told myself not to get involved in this debate on the beer tax but after seeing this I just cant keep my mouth or my opinion to myself. I understand this country has a drinking issue but its with the people that are looking to get drunk and not drinking to enjoy the taste, flavour, and different styles of beer. This tax is going to make the brewers not experiment because they feel that they wont be able to put the prices on the cask kegs and bottles that the pubs and specialist beer shops will buy and that is a sad state. Brewing is the backbone of Britain its one of the last things Brits can call there own and the government is going to handicap them and try and say that what they are doing is the reason we have anti social behavior in this country. The truth of the matter is we have anti social behaviour because of lack of respect and lack of common knowledge from one person to the next on what their particular limit is. If you think that the new tax is going to stop people from doing what they were doing with the special brew you have another thing coming, they are now going to buy that bottle of £9.99 vodka or spend 3 for a tenner on bottles of wine. So your putting handcuffs on the backbone and tradition of Britain brewing and that is just wrong. We are already dropping pubs like flies and this tax has the potential to make breweries go the same way. CAMRGB has a e-petition going on at the moment and I have already signed it. I suggest you do the same and try to smack some sense into the people that have passed this ridiculous tax.