I know some of the readership is from the States, so I'd just ask you to take the time to read the below and support this excellent cause - cheers!
Pints for Prostates is offering beer lovers a chance to fight prostate cancer and win a dream trip for two to the largest craft beer event in the United States, the Brewers Association Great American Beer Festival℠. The GABF will be held in Denver from Sept. 16-19, 2010.
The winner and a guest will get a chance to sample beers from an estimated 450 breweries serving more than 2,100 brews at the GABF. They will also receive tickets to one of the top gourmet beer events in the nation: The Denver Rare Beer Tasting II, along with visits to great craft breweries and special access to insider beer events.
The trip includes:
-- Round Trip Airfare for Two to Denver (from anywhere in the continental U.S.)
-- Three Night Hotel Stay at a Convenient Downtown Location (Double Occupancy)
-- Two Tickets for Three Sessions at the Great American Beer Festival (http://www.facebook.com/l/0f0cc;Thurs./Fri./Sat. Nights)
-- Two Tickets to the Denver Rare Beer Tasting II (Friday 1-4 p.m.)
-- Hosted Pub Crawl with Rick Lyke, Beer Writer and Pints for Prostates Founder
-- Special Access to Insider Beer Events to Meet Brewers and Taste Limited Release Beers
-- Gift Cards for Lunch & Dinner at Denver Brewpubs & Beer Bars
The total estimated value of the trip is $2,500. The winner will be selected on Aug. 21, 2010.
Tickets will be available where legal at beer festivals and other events for a $10 donation or three for a $25 donation. If you cannot get to one of our events, you can still enter. Mail a check made out to "Pints for Prostates Inc." for the number of tickets you would like, along with a self-addressed stamped envelope so we can send back your ticket stub(s) to: Pints for Prostates/GABF, 12673 Overlook Mountain Dr., Charlotte, N.C. 28216-6726. You must be at least 21 years old to enter and to take the trip.
All proceeds benefit the Pints for Prostates (http://www.facebook.com/l/0f0cc;www.pintsforprostates.org) campaign, which supports programs to fight prostate cancer and help men and their families battling the disease. More information about the trip is available by email at rick.lyke@gmail.com.
Thank you for your continued support of the Pints for Prostates campaign. Please feel free to invite your Facebook friends to join the group and to post your "My favorite beer is...." message to help spread the word. The more men we reach, the more lives will be saved.
Monday, 22 February 2010
Breconshire Coming to Borough - Woo Hoo!
lovebeer@borough is welcoming Breconshire Brewery’s Buster Grant to its special Sunday beer
tasting sessions, to coincide with its neighbour the Rake’s Welsh beer festival on February 28
Justin ‘Buster’ Grant from Breconshire Brewery will be showcasing his award-winning beer range and talking about the history of brewing in his adopted country, as well as showcasing some of his rare whisky barrel-aged beer Ysbrid y Draig.
The beers on show will be:
· Cribyn – shines like the pale Winter sun and as refreshing as a Spring breeze
· Golden Valley – this former Champion Beer of Wales is the perfectly balanced bitter
· Rambler’s Ruin – the name says it all, this dark amber ale is so drinkable it can catch you out!
· Winter Beacon – a rare flower this beer, a light winter ale that still satisfies those cold month spice cravings
· Night Beacon – a deeply moorish bottle-conditioned stout with a lightly smoked character, a true heart warmer for any time of the year
· Ysbrid y Draig – the release of this whisky-aged limited-edition beer is one of beer writer Melissa Cole’s favourite events of the year, fruity, vinous and sweetness is off-set by the softest of spirit finishes
There are just 30 tickets available in total for just £15 for the two tasting sessions at 1pm and 3.30pm and are available from the Rake bar or by calling 020 7379 9461.
*this post is for my beer tasting business*
Sunday, 21 February 2010
LBC - London's Beer Conversation!
I have just spent a jolly pleasant hour talking & drinking beer with Tom Parker-Bowles on his LBC show and it sounds like he had a good time too.
I like Tom, he's one of life's good guys, and is really passionate about all things food & drink and especially great beer - I hope to be invited on again in the not too distant future.
Anyway, my shameless cry for more work and media profile aside, I do have to say a very public thank you to all the breweries who busted a gut to get beer down for the show in very short order and I'm sorry to some of them who didn't make it on - in my eyes getting through seven beers in an hour long show wasn't a difficult plan.
Sadly, I failed to account for the fact that it wasn't just me & Tom drinking ourselves into a happy state!
So, firstly, the beers that made it on were Breconshire's divine Winter Beacon, Sharp's Chalky's Bite (such a great food beer) and ever-refreshing Thornbridge Kipling.
However, that meant four didn't so, as a small thank you to those breweries who delivered beer & didn't get it on I would like to suggest that if you haven't tried the below beers before, or perhaps haven't revisited them in a while, please do so - I wouldn't have chosen them if they weren't, to my mind, enduring classics:
Moorhouse's Black Cat Mild 3.4% - always punches above its weight; coffee & dark chocolate foundation are caressed by dried sour cherry overtones and a meltingly soft caramel finish, divine!
Fuller's London Porter 5.4% - brewed with more than a passing nod to the Porter recipes of yesteryear after a great deal of research, this is currently RateBeer's favourite Porter and mine too. Rich and chocolately but with just enough astringency from the chocolate malt and Fuggles hops to keep it from being cloying.
Meantime IPA 7.5% - A leviathan of a beer in both its ABV and the way it woke British brewing out of its IPA torpor and, I would hazard, one of the most influential beers of the past decade. Grapefruit, marzipan, pine and caramel are just some of the flavours that vie for your attention - for an orgy of sensory overload throw some blue cheese on chicory and prepare to be utterly blown away.
Harviestoun Ola Dubh 16-year-old 8% - my respect and admiration for this beer (and its brewer Stuart Cail) is well documented but let me say this again; try the Ola Dubh range, try it, try it, try it! But drink it from a brandy balloon with some food first time round, it softens the shock of woody, whisky, burnt, chocolate, coffee, ozone and olorosso flavours coming at you from all sides and heightens the pleasure!
Also, well done to Cherie Spriggs of NieTimber vineyard for picking up the illustrious prize of Champion Worldwide Sparkling Wine at a competition in Italy recently - she was up against the big guns and pulled in the prize for the finest bubbly offering - nice to see.
I like Tom, he's one of life's good guys, and is really passionate about all things food & drink and especially great beer - I hope to be invited on again in the not too distant future.
Anyway, my shameless cry for more work and media profile aside, I do have to say a very public thank you to all the breweries who busted a gut to get beer down for the show in very short order and I'm sorry to some of them who didn't make it on - in my eyes getting through seven beers in an hour long show wasn't a difficult plan.
Sadly, I failed to account for the fact that it wasn't just me & Tom drinking ourselves into a happy state!
So, firstly, the beers that made it on were Breconshire's divine Winter Beacon, Sharp's Chalky's Bite (such a great food beer) and ever-refreshing Thornbridge Kipling.
However, that meant four didn't so, as a small thank you to those breweries who delivered beer & didn't get it on I would like to suggest that if you haven't tried the below beers before, or perhaps haven't revisited them in a while, please do so - I wouldn't have chosen them if they weren't, to my mind, enduring classics:
Moorhouse's Black Cat Mild 3.4% - always punches above its weight; coffee & dark chocolate foundation are caressed by dried sour cherry overtones and a meltingly soft caramel finish, divine!
Fuller's London Porter 5.4% - brewed with more than a passing nod to the Porter recipes of yesteryear after a great deal of research, this is currently RateBeer's favourite Porter and mine too. Rich and chocolately but with just enough astringency from the chocolate malt and Fuggles hops to keep it from being cloying.
Meantime IPA 7.5% - A leviathan of a beer in both its ABV and the way it woke British brewing out of its IPA torpor and, I would hazard, one of the most influential beers of the past decade. Grapefruit, marzipan, pine and caramel are just some of the flavours that vie for your attention - for an orgy of sensory overload throw some blue cheese on chicory and prepare to be utterly blown away.
Harviestoun Ola Dubh 16-year-old 8% - my respect and admiration for this beer (and its brewer Stuart Cail) is well documented but let me say this again; try the Ola Dubh range, try it, try it, try it! But drink it from a brandy balloon with some food first time round, it softens the shock of woody, whisky, burnt, chocolate, coffee, ozone and olorosso flavours coming at you from all sides and heightens the pleasure!
Also, well done to Cherie Spriggs of NieTimber vineyard for picking up the illustrious prize of Champion Worldwide Sparkling Wine at a competition in Italy recently - she was up against the big guns and pulled in the prize for the finest bubbly offering - nice to see.
Saturday, 20 February 2010
Glorious Goose
There are times when you just have to treat yourself and this evening is one of them.
I've had my niece for three days and I have to say she has been an absolute dream - utterly sweet, considerate and darling with a creative side that is deeply endearing.
But after a really long day and a pretty lengthy gig on LBC coming up I just felt like spoiling myself, so I decided to crack open one of my Orval-inspired 2008 Goose Island Matildas and boy, am I feeling treated.
The nose is a cornupcopia of soft citrus, barley sugar, slight obvious alcohol and a little soft creaminess, with an almost ephemeral spicy note one the end and just when you think that the nose is heavenly then you taste it - wow!
The immediate hit is orange marmalade but then the subtleties start creeping in; the first hit is where you find out where that ephemeral spiciness is coming from, and it's a really warming szechuan pepper, then the fresher overtones start to arrive which stop this becoming too cloyingly marmalade sweet.
These little fresh spikes consist of that metallic hit of curly parsley, the smell of thyme being crushed between your fingers and the merest hint of spearmint.
Bring this all together with a grapefruit sherbet sharpness and a final bitter, bitter chocolate end and I have to say that this is one of the most refined, exciting, complex and elegant beers I've had in a very, very long time.
Oh, and did I say beer singular - I'm afraid since I started typing this it's become beers, plural!
If you're interested I'll be on LBC from 4-5pm on Sunday February 21 - online and on air!
But after a really long day and a pretty lengthy gig on LBC coming up I just felt like spoiling myself, so I decided to crack open one of my Orval-inspired 2008 Goose Island Matildas and boy, am I feeling treated.
The nose is a cornupcopia of soft citrus, barley sugar, slight obvious alcohol and a little soft creaminess, with an almost ephemeral spicy note one the end and just when you think that the nose is heavenly then you taste it - wow!
The immediate hit is orange marmalade but then the subtleties start creeping in; the first hit is where you find out where that ephemeral spiciness is coming from, and it's a really warming szechuan pepper, then the fresher overtones start to arrive which stop this becoming too cloyingly marmalade sweet.
These little fresh spikes consist of that metallic hit of curly parsley, the smell of thyme being crushed between your fingers and the merest hint of spearmint.
Bring this all together with a grapefruit sherbet sharpness and a final bitter, bitter chocolate end and I have to say that this is one of the most refined, exciting, complex and elegant beers I've had in a very, very long time.
Oh, and did I say beer singular - I'm afraid since I started typing this it's become beers, plural!
If you're interested I'll be on LBC from 4-5pm on Sunday February 21 - online and on air!
Friday, 19 February 2010
A Smart Idea for the Future
I like this idea of a virtual beer festival from AlesbyMail.com, I think it's cool, I'm sorry I'm a bit late in posting it but it's something to keep an eye on in the future.
Clarification on lovebeer@borough/the Rake
It's been raised that the BrewDog tasting at the Rake is somehow in contravention to my article and I can understand how some confusion has arisen so I'd like to just clarify the situation re: the Rake and lovebeer@borough.
The Rake is not my business and I have nothing to do with the BrewDog tasting and nor will I be attending.
lovebeer@borough is the business I have an interest in and it has nothing to do with this event, despite the event going on in the space that people normally associate with lovebeer@borough, it is merely a room above the Rake where we hold our events.
The Rake bar is owned by Mike Hill & Richard Dinwoodie and run by Glyn Roberts - and whilst we collaborate on lovebeer@borough I have no right to tell them what to do with their business and my opinions are not theirs and vice versa.
Hope this clears these questions up and sorry for any confusion.
The Rake is not my business and I have nothing to do with the BrewDog tasting and nor will I be attending.
lovebeer@borough is the business I have an interest in and it has nothing to do with this event, despite the event going on in the space that people normally associate with lovebeer@borough, it is merely a room above the Rake where we hold our events.
The Rake bar is owned by Mike Hill & Richard Dinwoodie and run by Glyn Roberts - and whilst we collaborate on lovebeer@borough I have no right to tell them what to do with their business and my opinions are not theirs and vice versa.
Hope this clears these questions up and sorry for any confusion.
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Retaliatory Salvo - Sigh!
Well, it would appear that the other side of this super-strong beer debate, Schorschbräu, has now accused BrewDog of cheating - it's nice to see we're all grown-ups in this industry!
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