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.