1001 beers I must try before I die

[1001beersbeforeidie]

Proper Job Proper Dog

I was home in Scotland for a few days but rather than sample some of Scotland’s beers in the 1001 list I instead had a great IPA from Cornwall.  It wasn’t just me who enjoyed it though, Portia, our Border Collie also got very excited by its appearance...

[1001beersbeforeidie]

New Flat

pIt’s been a while since I’ve added some info on the beers I’ve been getting through.  The main issue has been a house move that has taken up a lot of time.  Thankfully I have managed to get a few beers in.  

Tonight it’s the turn of a Belgian beer called Kwak.  It comes in at 8.4% so I thought I should save it for a day when I have no work the next day (although I do have some wallpaper removal to do).

In the background you can see a wall that was freshly plastered today.  Also of note is price guide for Selco, a warehouse for builders.  Tomorrow I’m planning to visit using my builders cards as a disguise and buy some paint to remove the limited brown colour that currently sits on our wall.

A couple of weeks ago I also tried Tripel Karmeliet.  This was consumed after a hard session of wallpaper removal that had me balancing precariously on a wooden board.  

The 2 beers from Belgium were both great but quite different.  The Tripel was light and sweet whilst the Kwol was darker and hearty.  Both combine there flavour with a Belgium style alcohol % of 8% and over. #tripelkarmeliet#pauwelkwak#1001beersbeforeyoudie#1001beers

[1001beersbeforeidie]

Lewisham Food Market

Lewisham isn’t really a place where people travel to for a night out.  In fact my knowledge of Lewisham extended to the fact that certain buses would terminate at Lewisham Bus Garage.  However this changed a few weekends ago when we decided to check out their newly opened outdoor food market (sort of newly opened, I think it was open last summer also).

Anyway the place was really good fun.  I’d already been to watch my local football team, Dulwich Hamlets, play in the afternoon so after a few beers at the game I was starving.  Luckily this place had an amazing selection of street food.  If i recall I had ribs, nachos, some kind of indian tapas, a hot doughnut and of course a beer.

Luckily the place had a beer that was on the list - the Beavertown Smog Rocket.  I was a bit disappointed when I saw the price of over £5 but as it was on the list I thought why not.  I think my disappointment turned to shock though as I was handed the smallest can of beer I’ve ever laid eyes on and asked to cough up the dough for it.  My shock, which had grown from disappointment now turned to disgust as I actually tried it - a dreaded dark beer.  As previously noted I’m no judge of these treacle like conceptions, i’m sure that people who like this sort of thing must love this one.  However for me it was an expensive experiment went wrong.

The can does come with some nice artwork though which is true of most of the Beavertown selection.

Oh the second picture shows our hot doughnut which I still have warm fuzzy thoughts over.

Apart from the beer I liked the market so much that I tried to take my parents there a couple of weeks after but unfortunately the electricity wasn’t working so we had to stand outside as people milled about inside drinking beer and eating the still warm food.  The guards insisted that we’d get in at some point but we gave up and went to a Bill’s down the road.  Not quite as cool but at least they had paid their electricity ‘Bill’ and could serve us some hot food.

[1001beersbeforeidie]

London Coffee Festival

As always the UK is a cold and desolate place in the winter.  However as April comes around it’s time to start waking up and getting ready for the nicer weather ahead.  With that in mind, it’s the perfect time for the London Coffee Festival to be in town.  I visited this last year and still remember staring at my ceiling at 4am unable to get a wink of sleep due to the rocket fuel they were serving at the festival.

This year we went with a slightly more cunning plan which was to get a bit drunk after the event therefore making sleep a possibility.

Whilst on this night out I managed to tick off one of the beers on the list - Jaipur which is a city in India but also an IPA brewed in Thornbridge.  At 5.9% it’s quite a strong beer however this was nothing compared to the absinthe cocktails that were drunk later.  

The pics below basically highlight how one should drink in Shoreditch - 

Hipster festival - check

Check shirt - check

Beard - check

Overly expensive and complicated cocktails - check

Get all these things right and you’ll generally have a good time.

[1001beersbeforeidie]

Japanese Design

Next beer on the list was a Japanese beer called Hitachino Nest Beer White Ale.  Taste wise, this was very much like Japanese Hoegaarden.  This is the 2nd Japanese beer I’ve had from the list and I think it’s a much more interesting beer versus the first which was Kirin.  It also comes in a brilliantly designed bottle meaning it puts a big tick in the hipster box (although I guess that cans of red stripe at a night club can also tick the hipster box).

The beer was drunk at a Wagamama’s in Finchley Road after we’d watched High-Rise, a movie about a bunch of people living in a multi-story building.  They move in with the promise of having everything they need in this building but things quickly degenerate and by the end everything has become completely messed up.  I think the film was meant to be based in some future time but me being from Dundee, I was already well aware of the horrors that can happen in high-rises and the movie probably didn’t go far enough versus what you used to see in Lochee, home of some of Dundee’s finest multi-story buildings (multi’s would be the correct term).

[1001beersbeforeidie]

German logos

Back in London I tucked into a Franziskaner Hefe-Weise or German Frankenstein beer as you’re allowed to call it in Britain.  This is a really nice beer - quite refreshing.  It also comes in one of those nice glasses that make it look like you have more than a pint although I guess it’s just an optical illusion.  This was drunk whilst getting roundly beaten at the logo game which is a very silly game that I clearly know nothing about.  This was also drunk in a lovely pub around Warwick Avenue just off Regents Canal - I think it was The Bridge House - well worth having a drink in.

[1001beersbeforeidie]

Cornwall

So off to Cornwall for a weekend of walking, dancing and beer drinking.  A lot was packed in - we had Cornwall pasties, Cornwall fudge, Cornwall beaches, Cornwall fish and chips and basically Cornwall everything.  The actual region is like a massive branding exercise where they just stick there name in front of stuff to give it a more local feel.  Of course the beer is another matter.  That obviously is local and is very good.

First up, Sharps Cornish Pilsner.  A great lager which I already knew because they sell it at my local.  However it hadn’t made it onto my official list yet so it was added in its native environment.

After this it became remarkably difficult to find beers on the list.  There was  a lot of good stuff sold but most seemed to be almost too craft to make it onto the official book.  I finally managed to find another the night before we left.  By night before I mean we were on our way home and popped into Tesco for some beers on the way home.  Here is Old Peculiar being drunk on the train home. In all honesty I didn’t much like this although that could have been because I’d been drinking for several days and the joy of drinking was starting to wear off.

[1001beersbeforeidie]

Blue Moon Table Tennis

Blue Moon, a US beer that normally comes with a slice of orange was sampled at Bounce a novelty bar in London where you can play table tennis and eat pizza.  The beer is pretty good - kind of fruity tasting (although I suspect that’s the orange).  This was sampled on the night before a holiday to Cornwall where I had to meet my girlfriend and her work colleague after they’d went for a drink after work.  I think as I arrived it became clear that they’d had more than 1 drink and this led to a rather boozy night that I think involved tequila.  

It made the next days trip to Cornwall a bit more tender but I still embarked on the journey full of hope as my list of beers is rich in local Cornwall brews.

[1001beersbeforeidie]

World Games

A weekend in March was spent sampling some of the worlds most exotic games right here in the city of London.

First up was a night of Mexican wresting at Lucha Britannia in Bethnal Green.  It’s essentially a back-alley warehouse where rather large and often camp men get mostly naked and hurl themselves at one another until exhaustion sets in and one surrenders.  On this night I don’t think I actually managed any of the beers on the list but as I made up for it by drinking lots of generic Stella and it was such a fun night I thought I should add a pic and some details.

After this night out I was suffering from a bit of a hangover but the modern sporting man must deal with this as the next evening I had a game of petanque to play.  Petanque, from what I now think I know, is French bowls.  By bowls though it doesn’t mean the 10 pin sort that is beloved by the young and American or the type of bowling that old men in the UK do.  Instead this involves throwing a metal ball down a gravel track trying to hit a smaller ball.  Sort of like the UK style bowling only without most of the rolling.  

Anyway this took place in a cool French style bar called Baranis which is around Chancery Lane.  Whilst there I also got to try a French Pils called Meteor which I’d not heard of before but was an excellent find.  On my pic below I think it is possible to see that I have attempted to balance out my hangover with some fast drinking to feel normal again with a result that in my head made sense but to everyone else screamed, drunk.

[1001beersbeforeidie]

Small Sunday Session

Sunday drinking is usually one of the most fun and dangerous hobbies one can embark on.  A couple of Sunday’s I enjoyed a nice day out which included several fun elements.  First a bit of football - Arsenal’s season continued to collapse as they went out of the cup to a Watford side that played some excellent stuff.  At this point I had 2 beers from the list.  The first was something called The Kernal.  This small bottle was super strong, super expensive and super dark - 2 of these things I do not like in a lager and on a Sunday, even the 3rd should be avoided.  Anyway these dark beers aren’t my favourites but I think I’m learning to appreciate the flavour somewhat - kind of a cross between treacle (nice) and tar (not so nice).

The 2nd beers was Stiegel, my first Austrian beer from the list which was expertly modelled by the girlfriend.  This was really nice and it’s a shame it’s not sold in more places here.  We had these drinks in The Dean Swift in Bermondsey which has an excellent array of beers and some awesome smelling food.

After we went to the Design Museum in London which had an exhibition on looking at cycling.  This was really good fun and held my attention despite being a couple of beers in.  After our dose of culture it was off to find food.  The Dean Swift unfortunately had sold out of roasts when we returned so we went to a really cool American styled bar called The Draft House.  Here I had a further beer which wasn’t on the list and went a bit mental ordering food - we had macaroni cheese, chips and gravy (which had some funny American/Canadian name), a hot dog and a whole lot of chicken wings.  It sounds like a lot but I credit it with at least keeping me on the straight and narrow and getting me back home so I could function at work the next day.

[1001beersbeforeidie]

Korean Food Japanese Beer

Kirin lager was tasted at a Korean bar called On the Bab in Covent Garden.  I tried a Korean burrito for the first time which is similar to a mexican burrito but not quite as good.  That’s possibly sounds a bit harsh - I did really like it but a good mexican burrito is hard to beat.   Anyway the lager was fine - a sort of standard lager I would say.  The restaurant also sold these really big tubes of lager - around 2 foot high that have little taps on them so you can pour your beer yourself - which potentially defeats the point of drinking out but it still looked cool.  Anyway I was off with the girlfriend to the theatre so I had to avoid this oversized lager offering as my bladder wouldn’t have made it through to the interval without doing myself some serious internal damage.

[1001beersbeforeidie]

London Museum Crime Exhibition

After being unwell for a couple of weeks I finally managed to venture out again. The Friday night started with a dose of education as I wandered round The London Museum looking at a crime exhibition.  It was really good, lots of great stories about hapless crooks and determined bobbies.  There was also some great items that were linked to spies which had been collected by the police over the years.  Hidden chambers in lights, torches that were really guns and a pair of binoculars that had spikes that shot out to kill or blind the wearer.  

Anyway after the dose of learning there was time for a couple of drinks.  I managed to find a pint of Estrella and a Youngs Special London Ale.  The Estrella is ok.  I think it’s really a lager that has to be drunk in the sun to be appreciated.  On a cold March evening it’s really just a lager.  The Young’s Special London Ale was nice and something I’d get again if I see it.

Oh the Youngs was also drunk at a wicked pub in Farringdon called The Fox and Anchor.  This will always be a favourite of mine as they once served me a beer in one of those metal tankards which I thought was the coolest thing ever.

[1001beersbeforeidie]

The Cold

February was a tough month as I got a cold it went beyond traditional man flu.  One of the aspects I quite like about the cold is it does sometimes give you an excuse to have a beer or a whisky and just pass out.  Anyway during my 2 weeks of being unwell I generally stayed in, attempted a jigsaw and generally mixed alcohol with medicine to good effect.

Anyway there is a good selection in this post.  The highlight I reckon was the 2 Scottish beers the Bitter and Twisted which has got a lot of citrus like flavours going on and the Innis & Gunn Oak Aged Beer which almost had a dark rum like flavour going on.  

There is a photo of an Adnams Broadside which I think has actually dropped off the list so isn’t in my book but I thought the photo showed off the sort of medical attention i was giving myself.

Oh and this last one, the Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier was taken with a further attempt at healing myself - I made haggis and chips, which is essentially Scottish morphine.  Both the medicine above the haggis below were purchased by my girlfriend who did a great job of seeing me through a period where I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.

[1001beersbeforeidie]

The Beast

The Exmoor Beast is a dark ale so named, I believe, for the hangover it gives you the next day.  The hangover, like a beast, is aggressive, violent and eats away at you until you feel like a corpse.  I had one pint of this ale in The Hope & Anchor in Islington and paid a massive price for it the next day.  Granted I also had a few other drinks that evening but I know my drink to hangover ratio and some strange new variable had just been added to this formula as the punishment did not fit the crime.

The Exmoor Beast is actually quite a nice drink.  It’s a dark ale which I generally don’t like but as I drunk through my pint I grew to like it.  It’s all coffee and rum tasting I guess.  But it is worth a try although I’d approach with extreme caution.

It was drunk as part of a weekend that included a night out on Friday with a couple of friends.  Those guys departed at around 10:30 as they have kids and a bit of sense.  I stayed out with my gf trying to figure out where we could make a night of it.  I was going for the R&B club across the road (average age: 18) and she wanted to down the road to a cool bar called Slim Jim’s.  We ended having a couple of drinks whilst trying to decide and before we knew it we’d decided that McDonald’s was the best option and we were off ordering an assortment of burger options.

The next day was tough.  We had to visit a friend who had just had a baby.  With my shaking hands from The Beast’s work, I was clearly in no safe state to handle a baby and avoided this task much to the relief of the new parents.  After getting through this I had enough bravery to tick off a final beer from the list as a wind down drink to the weekend.

The beer was Pilsner Urquell, a Czech beer.  I’ve had this beer before in Prague and it’s great.  I’ve had it on tap in London and it’s great.  In bottles over here it’s ok.  Or maybe I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind after the day I’d had.  Anyway it was another one down.  The flowers surrounding the bottle were bought for my girlfriend as she’d just got a new job convincing people to work at a bookmakers.  This replaces her old job of convincing people to work at a pension company so I think she’s got a more fun job to look forward to.  Oh and the weird owl thing came from a phase I went through of buying her owl stuff after watching Twin Peaks.

[1001beersbeforeidie]

House Hunting

This picture was taken after an exciting day where I went house hunting with my gf.  As we don’t live together this is a big move and I obviously have to weigh up the risks that she might all of a sudden ban me from drinking beer.  She seems normal right now but I guess you can never really tell.

Anyway it was a fun day and we saw 4 houses some of which were ok and some were definitely not for us e.g. the one that had slugs.

We finished off the day with a beer in The Chequers which is a really nice bar about half way down the market in Walthamstow.  When I first visited Walthamstow a good few years ago I think this was a bit of a boozer - football, narrow selection of beers, lots of tattoos.  I don’t mean this in a bad way as I quite like a gritty boozer but it’s definitely changed since it got a refurbishment a couple of years ago.

Anyway they now have Brooklyn Lager on tap which is a great beer which you don’t see on tap in many places.  As I’ve started on this list I’ve now had a few US beers and I’ve been pleasantly surprised, all have been great so far. I guess it’s easy to tag the US market as Bud or Miller, which I’m sure isn’t correct and the way Australia can be tagged as Fosters and Fosters, which might actually be correct...

[1001beersbeforeidie]

Jigsaw

After my first night out in a while a recovery was needed.  This involved spending the whole of Sunday building a jigsaw.

This particular jigsaw is part of a brand called Wasgij which is particularly fiendish as it doesn’t give you the actual picture that you’re building but a similar picture.  Anyway it seems a bit complicated but is actually very therapeutic for taking care of hangovers.  I should say that the jigsaw got finished on the Sunday but actually took a whole lot longer to complete.  However over the course of building I got to tick off another 3 beers from the list.

Old Empire IPA which is a good solid IPA followed by Goose Island IPA and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.  The Goose Island and Sierra Nevada were both excellent, perhaps the Sierra Nevada just pipping it.  I found this a bit surprising as I’d always associated Sierra Nevada with those bland beers you have with lime but it’s nothing like this.

I have another 3 of these Wasgij’s in my cupboard so this should create a few more opportunities to have a couple of beers and take my mind off any nasty hangovers that might arise.

[1001beersbeforeidie]

Dry January

The 1001 beers to drink book was given to me as a Christmas present by my girlfriend.  This was an amazingly well thought out gift but unfortunately it was then backed up by convincing me to attempt a dry January.  (Dry January is where fun people who like to drink and behave in a socially decent way are forced to give up booze and jog round a park trying to take their mind off how crap January now is).  Now I was seeing the book not as an amazing gift but instead have been eyeing it up more as an instrument of torture, showing me all the amazing things I could be doing rather than drinking  my sad cup of tea.

Anyway after 2 weeks we decided we’d been dry long enough and it was back on the beer.  To celebrate we had a wicked night out with another couple of friends where I managed to tick off 2 of the beers (later reduced to 1 due to a beer relegation issue).  

First up was Bitburger which is sold in quite a few good lager bars in London.  This lager actually has caused a bit of an issue as I was checking it off against a list on a website called listology which stores the 1001 beers.  However I’ve later found out that Bitburger isn’t in the version of the book I own - I assume it’s had a bad season and been relegated to a lower division to compete with Carling and Fosters.  Anyway I guess it doesn’t count as one of my 1001 list.  Anyway the pint was ok - I like Bitburger generally but the pint wasn’t the best I’ve tried - didn’t look too fizzy and didn’t have much of a head.  The bar I drunk it in was ace though - The Holborn Whippet.  These guys have an amazing set of beers and lagers and a food menu that is basically pizza, burgers or hot dogs, which is really all any menu ever needs.  I’d recommend the pizza or the burger - the hot dog was ok but the lesser of the 3 options.

After that we had a drink in The Queens Head /  Hallowed Belly which is another amazing bar in Holborn although it’s a bit confusing as to what its name actually is.  Anyway this bar has loads of great beers including Punk IPA and Camden Hells on tap which I think is the sign of a good drinking location.  Here I had a bottle of Liberty Ale from the Anchor Brewing Company.  This stuff was excellent - really nice.  It’s 6% so fairly strong but has a great citrus flavour.  

Anyway after this the beer fun was over and we had to go to a wine bar so my list completion was curtailed as I sat down to some nice wine and a rather sad plate of cheese that cost more than my 2 excellent beers combined.