Rodenbach... in a can… well that’s got to be worth a go right! It’s a name with a reputation that precedes itself, a bit like Thor perhaps. I remember once when the Grand Cru came on tap at my local store, I didn't feel worthy enough to fill a whole rigger with it (and it wasn’t exactly cheap either). But in a can, this king of beers just seems a lot more approachable.Cracking one of these is a bit like serving yourself a slice of beer history. The Rodenbach family started brewing in the early 1800s and quickly became famous for their oak-aged mixed-fermentation sour...

If you like craft beer, then I am guessing you love variety. Most brewers worth their salt are on a perpetual mission to do something new, keep things fresh and hopefully innovate. This has made craft beer one of the more exciting drinks scenes, however, as a result, the outlandish has also now become the norm. You know what I mean, the crazy adjuncts and mash-up beer styles that keep the folk at the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) on their toes. So, I thought today we’d step outside of the new-normal and look at something less cutting edge and...

Life changing drinks come rarely but, when they do, they are a thing to cherish. For example, I'll never forget my first taste of Ardbeg 10 YO, which literally changed my perception of flavour possibilities. Then there was the 40 year old bottle of Bordeaux on my Mum’s fortieth that filled the room with the most amazing aroma and, more recently, albeit over a decade ago, my first sour beer at the Malt House in Wellington whilst having drinks after work.Ah, those were the days, when the anchor of kids and a mortgage had not been dropped and I was...

Keep this to yourselves, but I’ve never been one for massive beers. Maybe it’s my English roots in Real Ale and a misspent youth drinking warm, flat beers in the pubs of London, but my palate likes it light and flowery with delicate hops over a gentle base of malt. So, as soon as I nosed this beer, I thought I had it sussed. You can’t really smell alcohol - but there’s something about ABVs over 7% which seems to stand out on the nose and which is often the precursor to a heavy-handed brew in my opinion. But diving...

We talked in last week’s blog about the notion of the daily beer, an all but forgotten tradition (IMO) going back to the days when an ale was regarded as one of life’s little necessities. If ever there were a style epitomising this, it is without doubt, the Farmhouse Ale; a low abv beer originally produced by Belgian farmers, using the malts and grains they were growing and which was consumed on a daily basis if there was enough grain to allow. I’m into the self-sustainable efficiency of this and the notion too that beer was looked upon differently 150 years ago...