Koshihikari Echigo Beer

A typical Japanese lager, a bit like Asahi. According to wikipedia, Japanese got their beer with Dutch sailors in 18th or 19th century. Since then they have been brewing these silky lagers. Nothing to be really proud of, but goes well with some fusion noodles!

St Peter's Old-Style Porter

After really not liking them for a couple of years, I have recently fallen in love with porters. Not sure why, maybe because they are 19th century London invention and I love this the era, maybe because all microbreweries in the states are trying hard on them or maybe I just wanted a change from overly hopped IPA's. Either way, this is actually a British recreation of old-style porter. The back says: "This beer is blend of old mature ale and a younger light beer just like true porter should be." Fair enough, always new things to learn. Incidentally I also learned that stout it is really just a short for stout porter - a really strong porter. Dublin, I am coming...

Orval Trappist Ale

I have never drank anything like that. Tasted as if some port was poured into the brew. Very bitter. A truly acquired taste. Hated it to start with and then it slowly became more and more tanglible. "Semi-wild Brettanomyces yeasts give the beer a distinct subtle body and a refreshing tartness as an after effect. It is suitable for genuine connoisseurs and experts." says one website.
I fully agree. I also admit that I am not quite the expert yet...

Marin Brewing: Hoppy Holidaze

The name is just terrible. Infinitely terrible. The beer is actually a flavoured ale, a drink very much popular in the states. All in all it is an ale with plenty of hop (Sterling and Styrian Golding varieties) and spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, orange peel and pure vanilla extract. It is effectively a beer equivalent of mould wine. Stuff to drink on Christmas. Nice, but maybe a bit over the top...

Farmhouse: oasthouse IPA

IPA stands for Indian Pale Ale, a beer designed by British to survive the scorching climate of India so that they could enjoy ale even while there. Americans have created their unique version of it which has nothing to do with India. Oasthouse's IPA is a typical example, a much stronger beer compared to British IPA with much more flavour, lots of hops and stronger colour. And the label design just clicks. A good beer to finish off the weekend!

St Feuillien

Belgians are just one bunch of dirty bastards. Basically, it seems to me that they get some barley and water and let it rot. Out comes this "natural ale", a double fermented mushy drink with strong flavour. (Ok, ok, I know that is more complicated than that). Beautiful, I love it.

Rogue Ales: Morimoto Soba Ale

"It better be good..." I grundged to myself while buying this beer - it was devilishly expensive for a beer imported from Oregon (no, it is not Japanese!). Morimoto is a Japanese surname and soba are, as far as I can tell, Japanese noodles. The blurb on the back says "The delicate flavor of our roasted Soba brings a nutty finish to this light and refreshing ale." The taste is very strange, but good. If you ask me, it reminds me of apples, rather than nuts. Like Hoegaarden mixed with a bit of water and apple juice and some groovy after-taste. All in all a balanced taste, but not sure if I wouldn't get bored of it after a while. Might try it again!

Stone Brewing: Arogant Bastard Ale

"This is an agressive beer. You probably won't like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth." This is the arrogant bastard statement on the back. It carries on with the usual crap about small breweries and large corporations producing shit. This is a common theme in the states - I don't see why beer from large corporations should be bad (take Fullers for example), but in the states this seems to be indeed the case.
It has reached 98th percentile on ratebeer. It is indeed quite good, though I wouldn't rate it above 1845 which managed to reach "only" 95th percentile...

Lagunitas: Kill Ugly Radio

This is my first post from the States. And this is actually the first beer I bought in the States, while still in the hotel. I just bought and drank it again, this time in my own flat and the beer is still excellent. A small edition Frank Zappa themed beer, hoppy, balanced taste. Strong beer at 7.8%. Some serious beer can be had in the States if someone can be bothered to look for it!

Adnams Explorer

This is a very interesting beer. It is heavily hopped with hops from what they call "the New World". And this New World stuff makes a very refreshing beer with some fruity-peach taste to it. It was the last beer I tried in UK and I am updating this post from a cafe in SF. It was a sign of good things to come. :)

Sierra Nevada Summerfest

Shit, shit, shit beer. Watery lager reminiscent of home. Even Maja confirmed this. Regardless of how much I like Slovenia, beer is something we can't do.

Fuller's 1845

In 1995 Fuller's dusted off the recipe of their original beer to mark the 150th anniversary. The resulting beer became an instant classic. Reached 97 percentile on ratebeer. This is an excellent English strong ale, strong earthly flavour, one can just about smell the dirty pubs of industrial era England. This is stuff Dicken's characters are made of. Great beer.

Duvel

This is one serious beer. It has really funny text at the back claiming that the beer you are drinking is exactly like the one they serve in some central square in Brussels. As if I gave a shit about what eurobots are drinking!
Anyway, they must be proper drinkers as Duvel is not for weak. At 8.5 percent one can actually discern alcohol in the taste. Regardless, it is very nice, smooth and bitter at the same time. Even those idiots at ratebeer.com give it 96 percentiles. Lucky bastards, these Eurocrats...

Coors Light

This is a cheap beer that everyone hates. I don't hate it that much. It's got a well designed bottle, a little fancy "rocky mountain icon" that is supposed to turn blue when it is cold enough (although my tempering in freezer didn't make it very blue, but I could just about notice a bluish hue). While not noticable, its taste is not offensive. Better than e.g. San Miguel.

Blandford Fly

There is a silly story attached to this beer as well, something to do with flies and ginger that is supposed to scare them away. Anyway, the bottom line is that this beer has ginger in it and ginger is something that I like a lot! The only problem is that this beer is really a bit too sweet and hence much less refreshing that it could have been. Really not sure what were they trying to do when designing this beer...

Fursty Ferret

When in decades past the idyllic country home of Miss Rose Gribble became a local inn, legend has it that the inquisitive local ferrets frequented the pub's back door on a mission to sample its own reputed brew. In their honour it was named Fursty Ferret.
A hoppy, sweetish ale with a distinctive bitter character, a classical English real ale. Good stuff.

Friedrich Dürrenmatt: Fiziki

Obvezno čtivo za srednješolsko maturo, ki jo med drugi dela tudi moj brat. Čisto sranje.

Gunter Grass: Pločevinasti boben

Kate Land me je pred kratkim opomnila, da moj blog vsebuje skoraj povsem zgolj recenzije piv, čeprav so knjige nekako prominentno v naslovu. Glavni razlog je, da sem zadnje dva meseca žulil Pločevinasti boben Gunterja Grassa, to je 608 strani bobnanja. Težko priznam, ampak na splošno sem ljubitelj dolgih knjig, ker te poskrajo vase tako močno kot te sto-stranske knjige nikoli ne. V osnovi gre za magični realizem, ampak to ni tipična južno-ameriška sorta z družinskim sagami, ki se vlečejo nekaj generacij, temveč življenje Oskarja Mazeratha od rojstva do njegovega tridesetega rojstnega dne. Oskar se pri treh letih odloči, da noče vstopiti v svet odraslega življenja in se zato vrže po stopnicah in od takrat ne raste več, temveč samo še bobna in se dela malo neumnega. Pri 23 (?) letih se odloči, da ima tega dovolj in vrže boben v grob svojega očeta, vstopi v svet odraslih, zraste iz 94cm na 123cm in služi denar z različnimi priložnostnimi deli. Na koncu pristane v bolnišnici za duševno bolne, čeprav pravzaprav ni nor. Vsa ta zgodba naj bi bila nekakša metafora za vse nemško kolobocijo, travmo z nacizmom (sam Gunter Grass je bil član Waffen-SS, kar je priznal šele pred kratkim) ampak najbolj zanimivo pri vsem je, da ni očino točno kako naj bi ta prispodoba delovala. Tako se knjiga utaplja v eni težko oprijemljivi metaforiki, ampak je, ko se enkrat zažene, zelo berljiva, tako kot pač skoraj ves magični realizem. Prevod je odličen (Janko Moder, kdo pa drugi).

Special Flagøl

Ordered "Special Flagøl" in a Danish restaurant. Got a dark, drinkable beer on tap. Can't really tell anything else...

Boddingtons

My everlasting crusade to save money made me travel from Oxford to Paris by bus. It was one of the more idiotic ideas of mine. At 3 am, after boarding a ferry at Dover and after talking to immigrants for 2 hours while waiting for the ferry (which was good fun, actually), I had a half-pint of Boddies. This is a famous cheapo British bitter that I used to drink with Alan in Locomotive, a den full of fighty locals on Mill Road in Cambridge. It immediately brought back memories and is a beer perfect for such occasions, bitter, creamy, dense with no subtleties whatsoever. I never realised quite how much I like it!

Fuller's Summer Ale

There are one billion beers called Summer Ale. This is Fuller's version; had two pints in Royal Oak while discussing who might get the latest physics appointment in Oxford (Joanna Dunkley did!). Light, easy beer perfect for musing over job market...

Ale Fresco

by Greene King. This is a terrible, terrible pun. Beer is not much either...

Abbot Ale

Today I went to the James Street Tavern to watch England vs Brazil. I had a pint of Abbot and you know what: it tasted so bad that I reverted to Fosters Extra Cold after it. Can you imagine? Was I just so drunk, was the beer off (didn't taste like it), or is Abbot, the Greene's King flagship beer, really a bit shit? Need to try again in a more sober state!

Kingfisher

There are two good curry places in Oxford: Star of Asia and Uddins Manzil. Some people will try to convince you about e.g. Aziz and I indeed bought a half year discount in there only to discover that it is not very nice at all. Either way, eating curry in England usually involves drinking either Cobra or Kingfisher. The former is not very good and the latter is not very good either. It is however much better than the former. :) It is really Indian and although supposedly a lager it is very cloudy, one cannot see through (unfiltered?). Tastewise it reminds me a little bit about wheat beers. So, although watery it is still quite refreshing and goes well with hot Indian food. So, remember Kingfisher, not Cobra!

Old Peculier

(When you are in a different country, builders come and disconnect your server. Oh, well...)
First, note that it is not Old Peculiar. Instead, it is Old Peculier. It is a strong beer by Theakston, claims to be legenedary on the bottle. I remember being uber fan of Old Peculiar a few years ago, it was my favourite in the local pub (King Street Run!), when they discontinued Flowers... Anyway, I bought 4 bottles this time and the beer is just not as nice as I rember it. Maybe it is just the difference between bottled and draught beer... Maybe my tastes have just changed.
(BTW - speaking of bottled vs draught: only very recently did I realise that the bottled Guinnes original is actually a different beer to Guinnes draught, not just bottled version of the other. One can also get Guinnes original on tap and Draught Guinnes in a can. There are always new learning opportunities...)

Hop

This Greene King's Hop, formerly known as The beer to dine for. It now has a new name and a different label, but unique bottle style is still there. Greene King is known for its IPA, Abbot ale and to some extend the Old Speckled Hen. The bottle is tall, resembling the wine bottle and as its former name suggests it also tries to compete with wine as a drink to be drank with a dinner. As such it is extremely mild, but very aromatic, mostly due to use of funny hops from Oregon, they call them Tettnang hops. I shared a bottle tonight with Maja and whatever the idiots on the internet say, it is actually an ideal kind of beer to have with Italian or similar food (but no, don't have it with German sausages and sauerkraut, oh no! :) ) Plus, the 750ml bottle is ideal to share between two without either party getting overly drunk (which you inevitably do on a bottle of wine)...

Guinness

I was dreading this moment for a long time. The truth is that I am still pretty much undecided about Guinness, but it is such as big name and I still drink it often enough that I need to include it in my beer blog. So, I used to hate it. But then, on NAM 2003, we went to Dublin, my entire PhD class and I had time of my life crawling between Dublin pubs getting wasted on Guinness. Plus, we visited the Guinness brewery cum museum: it is a place of perfect marketing, same as all Guinness adds, where you go through 5 floors of history and making of Guinness and you can smell hops and touch malt and learn about a small dose of copyrighted yeast that the director keeps in his safe in case the brewery yeast receives a deadly infection and so on and so on and at the end of this journey, one ends up at the top of the building, in the bar with magnificent views over Dublin. And then they serve you a complimentary pint of Guinness and by then there is now way anybody wouldn't be convinced that Guinness is indeed drink of angels... And so I still like it, but not sure whether I appreciate it as a beer of simply because I connect it to NAM 2003... At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter.

Spitfire

On my way to inebriation last Friday I drank Spitfire just after Bishops Fingers and I immediately liked it. A malty, sharp taste that just makes you thirsty and longing for more. Coming from Kent and not too strong at 4.5%. And, it is a beer with a wikipedia page! Huhoh! Named after legendary aircraft that was used in Battle of Britain which was fought in the skies above Kent. Now we need a beer named after a hang-glider, that would be something for me...

Bishops Finger

What can I say? Not bad, a well balanced ale with great name. But no extra points for originality as far as taste in concerned.

Bulmers' cider (on ice)

Ok, it is a cider, not beer, I know. But there is this new cider craze in the UK. Cider used to be drank by lowly winos and teenages, but now they managed to rebrand it into a hip drink. Along with super-chilled beers comes Bulmers on Ice, i.e. you are supposed to sip this with your best friends and not be even a little bit ashamed... So, I couldn't resist and produced some ice and bought (three for the price of two, mind you!) Bulmers. It actually does work, cider is a somewhat refreshing drink and if you make it colder, it is even better. I think it will take some time to get used to, but now I consider it an option. Never underestimate marketing monkeys....

Honey Dew

Honey Dew is another excellent invention by Fuller. I liked it a lot, even though it was given bad reviews on the internet. This style of honey beers is quite new to me and I must admit that I never associated honey with freshness, but there you go: Honey Dew and Waggle dance are both very fine beers. Served in a round glass resembling wine glass only a bit larger.

Waggle Dance

Waggle dance is the figure-eight (or figure infinity) dance of the bee to communicate with its mates. Young's Waggle Dance is, as the name suggest, a honey beer. But it is very refreshing and very sparkling - once you pour it in a glass it bubbles like I have never seen a UK beer doing. Wonderfully delicate it says on the back of the bottle and I concur.

Asahi

I remember Asahi beer primarily from an excellent noodle bar in Cambridge named Dojo. I used to like it at the time and so I bought it again and was pleasantly surprised. Surely, it is a watery lager (kind of stuff hobgoblin would look down onto :) ), but it has a remarkably silky and smooth after taste. Perfect for sunny summer middays with a bowl of Asian food.

Wychwood's Hobgoblin

I've been drinking Hobgoblin for some time now. The beer is ok, very chocolatey, but not quite bitter enough for my taste... What is really good about Hobgoblin is its advertising slogan: "Are you afraid you might taste something, lagerboy?" Beautiful...

Old Hooky

A beer brewed in Oxfordshire. Simple, quite drinkable but nothing special, despite all the rubbish at the back of the bottle.

Fruli Strawberry Beer

I tasted this beer in Cape of Good Hope yesterday. It is quite strong for such kind of product 4.1%. I thought that it is actually a fermented strawberry juice (like strawberry cider or something), but it is actually a normal beer with strawberry juice mixed in or so the internet says. I must stress, that this is not like alcopop at all, it is thick and dense and tastes of real strawberries. In principle I like the fact the the sweet fruitiness of strawberry juice is complemented by beer bitterness. Ultimately, however, it is too heavy and too sweet... Hogaarden with a little bit of lemon does that kind of stuff much better....

Tyskie Gronie

Tyskie Gronie is a Polish lager from Kompania Piwowarska. England is full of Polish people these days and obviously they need something to drink... :) I am not too fond of lagers in general, but this is a good beer. For a change, it actually has some taste, which is very unusual for a lager, and it is not even that bitter. Mild hop aroma, golder colour and thick white head... Ummm....

Artois Bock

Artois, how do we know Artois? Stella, of course, the ultimate club lager everybody used to drink while starring at revealingly clad ladies on Friday night. Now, Artois Bock is like a posh artois: Artois Bock est une biere complexe et intriguante says the French bit on the back of the bottle. A bit further down, in English translation, one can find that this is "a blend of lager and aromatic malts [that] produces a superb fusion of malty flavours which contrasts with the exotic fruit aroma." Sounds interesting? It is, the beer is a funny mixture of lager and real ale, as if you put a grumpy British brewer in charge of stella... Indeed, quite intriguing...

Weissbier Etalon

Pshenychne (pšenične!!) Weissbier etalon is the winner in one particular category of the Tesco beer challenge. Blurb goes as: "Tesco has been proud to support the international brewing industry ... yadi yadi yada ... The 'Best New Imported Beer' award was open to all non-UK brewed beers, and the judges were looking for beer which was distinctive and unusual, having the potential to intrigue and educate [mind you!!] the British drinker, whilst adding interest to the British beer culture. "
Beer itself is from Ukraine, conforms to the Beer purity law of 1516 and is actually a quite ordinary weissbier, nothing truly spectacular....

Morland's original

This is one jolly nice beer from the creators of the famous Old Speckled Hen, which, amongst other things, is the beer drank by Alan's father... Not even British so much, this is just very English drinkable pub beer...
(Drank it with Maja on our pub-lunch day and we go so very full by food from Jude the Obscure that I had hard time focusing on the beer...)

Borislav Pekić: Steklina

Na splošno nisem ravno navdušen nad srbskimi finticami, melos v stilu Ko to tamo pijeva in podobno, zato sem precej s težavo začel brati to knjigo, sploh ker je to debela bukla dolga 540 strani. Ampak, Pekićeva steklina, ki je izšla v Delovi zbirki Vrhunci stoletja je res dobra. V bistvu sem jo prebral že nekaj mesecev nazaj, ampak takrat še nisem beležil prebranega... Hecno pri tej knjigi je, da ni prevedena v angleški jezik (razen nekega debilnega prevoda pisateljeve vnukinje) in je potemtakem sploh ne morem priporočit nejugoslovanu... :) Osnovna zgodba je, da se Heathrow okuži z neko super-steklino, forma horror krimiča, ampak v bistvu je zgodba irelevantna, podobno kot pri večini postmodernistov tistega časa (knjiga je bila napisana v sedemdesetih letih). Kritiki na splošno trobijo o totalitarizmu in podobno ampak jaz sem knjigo povsem drugače izkusil. Gre za bizaren preplet človeških zgodb, čudnih karakterjev, malo verjetnih toda možnih zapletov, cel vrvež modernega letališča in bralec vseskozi ne ve, kaj se bo zgodilo z zgodbo: bo postala znanstvena fantastika, orvelijanska strahota, komedija? Torej bereš in bereš in vseskozi narobe ugibaš in potem te na koncu še poslednjič preseneti z res bizarnim koncem... Močno priporočam.

Discovery

Fuller's Discovery is a rather weak (3.9%) beer. It claims to be Blonde Beer, but it doesn't quite taste blonde to me. Either way, I like weak beers because I can drink them on a Friday afternoon lunch without being afraid of getting drunk - and this beer is good at it with its lemonly, easy going taste; ultimately maybe a bit too tasteless...

Old Tyme

I seem to be drinking more beer than reading recently... ;) Old Tyme is a classical ale that I drank yesterday in Jude the Obscure, together with my former supervisor and Kris. Nice, but nothing special.

Expecting England

Yes, I am positive that was the name of the beer I drank today in Jericho Tavern, although internet does know anything about it. It wasn't bad, a sort of typical english ale you get in small breweries. Might drink it again, but not going to jump over the fence for it...

Six Nations

Drank this beer in the local pub. I think the 6 nations is something to do with rugby, etc., but I really don't know anything about that sport. Either way, the beer itself was too sweet for my taste, like if somebody put too much honey into the brew.

Golden Glory

This is a 4.5% beer from Badger. There are funny floral motifs on the bottle and I remember buying this beer several times and for some reason I always forget about its taste. But it is actually good, somewhat different than your ordinary real ale, as if some juice was mixed into the brew. Indeed, the back of the bottle says that "peach blossom extract" has been added to "enhance the floral blend". Whatever. Very fresh, slightly lemonly, to be served chilled. Ideal for summer afternoons, not very much so on winter nights by the fireplace. Taste profile on the back of the bottle gives it high sweetness and fruitiness.

San Miguel

Shared this one with Maja in Kasbar today. Shitty tasteless lager. I hate cheap beers...

Marco Rossignoli: The complete Pinball Book

I bought 3 book this New Year. One on beer (shit one, more on that on a later post), a Che Guevara bibliography (still waiting to be read) and this jewel about pinballs. It sounds like sad cases' hobby, but pinballs are actually incredibly cool and this book is just a very good introduction to the history and inner workings of pinballs. You can sort of see that he is not a professional writer, the style is a bit shabby every now and then, but the guy is so keen it is just joy to read him. It goes through all the history including flippers, bumpers, scoring devices, mutli platfors, EM-SS transition, pinball art, alternative experiments, etc., etc. It is amazing how much text the guy actually managed to write on the theme without repeating himself much... For example, did you know that flippers didn't exist before fifties and the first time they put them in, they pointed outwards? Or that flippers used to be just 2 inches long? And that you had to manually push ball into the lane using a strange contraption on early pinballs? Warmly recommended.

Cotswold Way

Tesco, my closest and dearest supermarket, a huge chain where 1 in 8 pounds spent in Britain is spent, still manages to come up with a new good beer every now and then. Cotswold Way by Wickwar Brewing is one good beer. If you don't chill it out, you get a perfect real ale at room temperature, kind of stuff you drink at beer festivals and old smelly pubs. Evokes memories of my undergraduate years in King Street parade. I will not go on about malty-chocolaty-hopy crap some beer enthusiasts are so keen on; this is just a jolly drinkable beer for relaxed evenings.
Update: Don't drink this beer cool! Just done that and it tastes much worse!

Kingsdown Special Ale

Ha, new beer in Tesco and no picture on the net. Made by Arkell from Swindon. It says "Strong Brew" on the bottle, but at 4.5% doesn't seem that strong to me, even for a real ale. There is a blurb on the back of the bottle about them being the finest "Victorian Stem Brewery" in the world. What exactly that mean is not clear, although they say something about raw material being fed on the top of the building and casks of ale coming out at the bottom - a bit like conveyor belt. The beer itself is actually quite good, a smooth traditional real ale with lingering taste. Too bad Maja spilled the bottle half-way through.

Virginia Woolf: K Svetilniku

To je moja tretja knjiga od gospe Woolfove, prebral sem še Orlando (pred nekaj meseci) in Valove (pred nekaj leti), oboje v originalu. Valove imam v spominu kot boljše, so pa precej podobni. Orlando je povsem drugačen in malo slabši, četudi še vedno berljiv... Tokrat sem bral v slovenščini v prevodu Rape Šuklje, v bistvu je lepo brati dobre prevode in ta je bil precej soliden (čeprav se je Maja pritoževala obratno).
O Woolfovi se nikakor ne morem izdelati mnenja, nekaj časa se mi zdi ok, nekaj časa povsem jadna. Ima res dober feminističen cinizem, gospa Ramsayeva, ki je tipičen produkt 19 stoletja se ves čas prepričuje, da je zadovoljna, da je zgolj žena tečnega postaranega filozofa in poskuša poročiti še vse ostale v njeni bližini. Tudi tok zavesti ji gre dobro od rok, precej prepričljivo, ampak hkrati nekoliko dolgočasno za bralca - po pravici povedano so debilnosti, ki krožijo ljudem po glavah relativno dolgočasne. Najslabše ji pa gre, kadard začne razpredati o umetnostu, v K Svetilniku obstaja pisateličin alter-ego, slikarka Lily, ki vidi, ki gleda, ki tako vse uvideva in doživlja, da človeka primer srat, čeprav izgleda sicer čisto ok človek.
Tri do štiri.

Budweiser

I tried the Budweiser beer for the first time ever last Saturday. Not that I was particularly keen on it, I just wanted to try this ephemeral omnipresent Yankee beer. And it was exactly as I expected, a watery, slightly bitter lager. A bit like Lasko (one of the two equally crap Slovene beers)...

Harvard Business Review on Entrepreneurship

Ok, couldn't get a more decently sized picture. A good book, not too much bullshit, but general common-sense that might be useful when you try to get rich as I do every now and then. A collage of papers from different authors - every now and then they blatantly contradict themselves; some papers much better than the others. My biggest problem is that all this is pre-internet (my copy is a 99 reprint, but articles date mostly 85-95) and business, marketing and distribution models were considerably different then. Still, who made millions there is likely to be able to make them now. Chapter about commercialising technology is particularly crap, and "How much money does your new venture need?" is also surprisingly useless. Chapters on how to write a successful business plan and the one on milestones are particularly good and so is the quite amusing rant by Arthur Rock, a legendary venture capitalist.

Tangle Foot

According to the bottle, this is a premium traditional ale. There is a short story on the bottle about the head brewer, who invited his staff on the tasting session for his new creation and they all got hammered and head brewer's feet got tangled on the way out and hence the name. They call this idiotic fall "a sudden loss of steering". :)

Quite good, but not quite malty enough for my taste. Still, consistent with "deceptively drinkable" description found on the bottle. Fairly strong at 5%, not much head-ache afterwards.

Brooklyn Lager

I've noticed this beer being sold in Tesco for 1.20 pounds per bottle, rather cheap.

The bottle advertises "..Broklyn Lager is a revival of Brooklyn's pre-Prohibition all malt beers." And indeed the inside is a superb, rudimentary tasting beers evoking what I want to think were smoky bars in foggy 1920 New York with feeble street lighting and old cars...