Langham Aegir (500ml bottle, 7.5% ABV) When is a porter not a porter? When it’s a Baltic porter, BY THE BEARD OF ODIN! Back in the mists of history, the countries round the Baltic Sea became rather fond of the strong, dark beers being produced in Britain, so they had a go at making their own. For…

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Support Small Breweries! Jennings, Caledonian, Skinners, The Wild Beer Co. What do all of these breweries have in common? They all closed in 2022. Jennings almost reached its 200th year in business. Caledonian were awarded CAMRA’s Champion Beer of Britain in 2002 for their Deuchars IPA. I’ve enthusiastically reviewed beers by Skinners and Wild Beer…

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Santas Butt

Ridgeway Santa’s Butt (500ml bottle, 6.0% ABV) Ridgeway do Christmas in a big way. While most breweries will content themselves with a single special beer for the season, Ridgeway brew no less than twelve. The label raises many more questions than it answers. Why is the best before date printed across Santa’s mince-pie bolstered buttocks? Is it true…

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Beer in Granada I’ve written about beer in Spain before, but not from Granada in southern Spain, home to flamenco and the Alhambra – a palace and fortress containing some of the world’s most ornate decoration. It would be rude not to visit our local craft beer bar Colagallo (literally: rooster’s tail). It has a long bar…

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Beer in Málaga There are a number of craft beer bars in the centre of Málaga, but in the interest of avoiding the crowds, we’re holidaying a couple of miles away in Pedregalejo. We could make the trip in, but … oh, look – there’s a bar just half a mile down the road from us.…

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Summer Luvin (500ml, 4.2% ABV) Piddle Brewery  And so to a brewery whose name is designed to make you think of urine. You have to hand it to the Piddle Brewery – they’ve got a very brave marketing department. The logo is interesting too – the dot of the ‘i’ comes at the end of a…

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real

Real Ale Train, Alton to Alresford, 24th June 2017 What could be more English than taking a journey on a steam train through the old green and pleasant, while drinking real ale? That’s the proposition of the Real Ale Train (or RAT, as it’s affectionately dubbed). It starts from Alton, and chugs to Alresford and back,…

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  Itchen Valley Fagins (500ml, 4.1% ABV) On the bottle and pump clip it’s Fagins, accompanied by an illustration of an appropriately evil looking crime boss, resting his pint on the head of a hapless orphan. On the web site it’s listed as QED, or Quality English Draft. Is it in the throes of a…

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