Welcome to the Beer Blog from Beermerchants.com
Looking for what's new in beer, exciting and just plain ol'beer blether - this is the spot! A mixture of beer news, beermerchants.com announcements and what ever takes our fancy out there in the wonderful world of beer. We love to read your comments, get us on Facebook or Twitter and even have a look at Beermerchants.com.
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Sorry I haven’t blogged in nearly month or so, sat here tapping away, bashing by head against various technologies and what runs said techie bits, even when surrounded by beer all day, beer o’clock is still a time that really brings joy!
My normal day is an early start, flicking through Tweets and Emails, many the normal “african prince” with the various levels misapropriated finances, or dubious original erectile disfunction remedy, or if you’re really curious, methods of extending ones manhood. In amongst that lot I get people wanting to sell me beer, lots and lots of people PR’ing for beer brands, and on that note I tend to find that coffee is calling my name and the real news of the day on the World Service.
Some people seem to think my day is entirely tweeting and blogging, and checking the site, or packing boxes. Anything could be further from that. We have a number of people who pick’n'pack, they’re awesome at what they do. Yes, I tweet, blog (on occasion), and I check the site and work on the new parent site. I write all the new descriptions, research new beers (like this one), worry about lots of stuff, maintain relationships with brewers, all under the influence of only infused beverages. No lunch time beers here.
Getting out of the door at 5, ish, I pass a couple of very good Cask Ale forward pubs. One in particular that’s got rid of all macro keg beer! Only sells beer from local Micro’s – and it’s BUSY! I occasionally pop in, lack of mobile phone signals around where I live have their benefits. Living in the back of beyond, I am fortunate to have a selection of pubs that have remained in the ownership of families, over multiple generations, something that’s actually quite common in Belgium, especially my favourite little Bars in Pajottenland; where as here, all to rare.
The social nature of beer drinkers, couple of pints of mild/light pale ales, after work – really hit the spot. 21st Amendment’s Bitter American is of that ilk, a fantastic brew for slowing the day down. The moments throwing a few stangs of Kolsch down ones neck in Koln/Cologne have equally given moments of R&R, in a previous working life.
Whether it’s a kiddy in a sweetshop type thing, I infrequently grab beer from the depot, it’s not that there isn’t an incredible selection or that I don’t want to take them, or anyother spurious reason; it’s just that I love great fresh cask ales, served by people passionate about the serving of the beer as much the origins, range, diversity and everything we beer lovers chunter on about. They taste the best, after a days work. Beer O’Clock is better than any dinner bell or alarm clock I can think of.
Roll on Beer O’Clock!
Traveling so much and the beers that we keep at Beermerchants.com – I could quite easily have a finger pointed at me for no love to our local, or national brews.
Over the last couple of years things have really come along here at Beermerchants.com, I could never have believed that we’d be selling the rare American Craft beer, the number of Gueuze and just the number of great quality British brews that we’ve started bringing together. Over the weekend that I wandered north to hang out with Simon (the Reluctant Scooper) and hunt for Burton IPA, we chewed the fat when it comes to various English Breweries that we love, and I use that word with it’s full meaning.
Simon’s insight into the midland/North scene is something incredible to hear, the number of breweries that are really trying to brew great, experiential brews, with impressive quality. Spending time with Kelly and Stephano from Thornbridge and Mark Tranter of DarkStar, Justin of Moor Brewing, chatting with Dominic from Marble, Jeff from Lovibonds, Alan at Old Chimneys, Eddie from Gadds, they are as passionate at many of the breweries that I have travelled around afar, they are brewing exciting beers, they are having fun! and they are growing… Even the new Steel City Brewing, Pete at the Brew Co for opening up to have this guys is such an incredible opportunity (even that their new beers, 3 of them, are available at Oxford Beer Fest)
I have taken many beers from these breweries to beer events in foreign lands and people have gone nuts for them. Ok, I am sure to many readers of this I am shouting at the converted, but, seriously it’s a great time for beer, both home and abroad. I want to say congratulations, to all.
Showcasing the best of our British ales, Laurence one of the cylinders of the beermerchants.com engine, who’s really getting into these beers… has put together a case for you all, and it’s an amazing deal – here - those beers you receive two of, you’ve got one of them FREE! yes, FREE! Plus you get one of the very very cool Gadds of Ramsgate glasses.
Hops on Radio 4 too! See, beer is getting noise! and the Telegraph this week!
Inspired by the Family Guy episode “Road to Europe” rather than a 1970’s style dream of showing “Johnny Foreigner” how to play the beautiful game, we’ve opened up to ship to Europe.
So, beermerchants.com is shipping european wide. Such is the growth in demand for quality beer our little corner of the websiphere has certainly been getting some love.. Our email inboxes certainly get more and more interest from further and further afield. So, thanks to the Family Guy we’re shipping to Europe. We’ve started with a few countries, taken from where we have had the most interest from, but if you can’t see your destination, please let us know. We’ve sent a few parcels already, one to Greece and a few to nearer European nations, before the roll out. Why? So we had peice of mind that you were going to get your beer in the same state that every UK based customer has come to expect over the last two years… and, we’re pleased to say that it passed the test. So, dear beerlover siting in France, Belgium, Germany, and Norway and Spain, and Italy… you can enjoy the beers that many here have too!
To mark this occasion, we’re offering all you the chance to win a case of beer, shipped anywhere in Europe or the UK, if you can guess the beer and destination of the first European Delivery. (Only open to people 18 and above!) Use the comments box for entries.
Dashing off tonight, the delights of EasyJet, Gatwick, the Italian motorways… I am sure that there will be beer found and consumed. ‘ll try to find Wifi and post some pics here.
Have a couple of barrel aged beer stories to write and post, update the “beerbloggin”” story and look out for some surprises on our newsletter that’s out soon!
Oh, and a fun story about a bottle called 580.
Have a great weekend.
There are two gentlemen… hell, I bet they have never been called that before…
Take two hop loving beer aficionado’s of absolute life long dedication – something like more than 40,000 beers sampled between them the world over, Dave Unpronounceable, and Gazza Prescott have finally put their money where their mouths are and dived into the art of brewing.
Dave a one time brewer, has from memory had an ambition to get back to brewing and Gazza a long time friend and travelling companion on one of their many beer “scooping” trips has jumped in with him to deliver what they say will be some of the hoppiest beers out! I have known these two for a good while, there will some fireworks here… They will be brewing at and under the watchful eye of one of the quietly up and coming breweries in the area, with Pete at the Brew Co. If you call yourself a hop head, a beer geek or the like… I am sure you’lk know of these two and I am sure you’ll be hearing loads about their beers!
Congratulations, great effort, brilliant idea and can’t wait to try them!
You can read more here.
Barrel ageing, barrel aged and barrels seem to be one of the most common words being kicked around by the brain cell in my head. It’s been a week of barrels… I can hear those words, kerthonk, kerthonk, repetitively bouncing like the ball being pitched from McQueens hand in the Great Escape…
Barrel ageing, as this illiterate one wrote about some time back here has held more than some interest to me. The technique of adding either early fermenting wort to a barrel, new or old, or right through to adding near finished beer to barrels previously used to age various spirits or efforts of the vine. The effects are subtle through to dramatic.
This isn’t a new thing, I suppose every beer was “barrel aged” at a time, when wooden casks were the vessel of choice and availablility. But, I am not writing about that…
If you’ve taken the time to read the post that I linked to before, there are a few British Brewers emulating the ideas from across the pond. There are so many Barrel Aged beers coming out it’s hard to keep a track of them all (watch Beermerchants.com around end of September for a surprise) and the idea of taking an already fantastic beer and treating it to some barrel love…
It just got better… it’s got me over a barrel.
Sat in the kitchen, drinking a beer. Not an uncommon occurrence for most of us, but if I were to say that the beer that has prompted this little sesh at the keyboard was homebrew, I am sure you’d be surprised.
Homebrew, yes it’s the domain of beerdy weirdies in their garages, or folk in their kitchens, boiling up cans of goo, adding sugar and more sugar “coz it turns to alcohol“, adding stuff and hoping to get hammered in a couple of weeks? Then the cold, well, warm realisation that the beer that they are sampling, don’t taste like it orta.
Of course that’s homebrew, just like that stuff that your dad, uncle, brother made in the garage that made your mother irrate at the mess that they made. Eventually leading to a box full of Boots the Chemist odds and sods being sectioned to the shed to gather moulds, spores and fungus’s…
Yes, that’s homebrew… just like the brown glass bottles that explode on a warm summers day. BOOM, crash….. oww!
Yes, that’s homebrew…
Or is it? read more…
When I scan through the many pictures on my phone, I was a little shocked as to just how many there were of beer stuff.
My EOS20d had a fall earlier in the year, so I can assume that the phone somewhat tried to fill it’s shoes. You can have a little insight into the stuff that I see, the antics that I get up to (with Angelo in tow), and the great beers that my girlfriend says has spoiled me… hell, she works for a brewery, can I blame her. Certainly, it’s not the beers that I get in for you at Beermerchants.com – if you follow us on twitter, I am sure that you’ve seen a few of these… read more…
Apparently if I were ever to be taken seriously as a writer, it would be a nightmare rather than a dream being brutally honest, mind worse would be seen as some bloke tapping away at a keyboard for the sake of traffic for an online beer store (to which it has little effect in reality), I best declare interest in the subject…
If you’ve been reading this blog for some time, I occasionally more so, prefer to try to write, that is, something more than “whoopieeeee new beer here“. The recent Tripin’ to Burton and Lupilin Love blether were fun to write, sort of. I don’t find writing as easy as the more gifted out there seem to make it look. When I have the chance to spend time in the company of Mark Dredge of the excellent Pencil and Spoon Blog, Mark Edwards or Maeib and one of my favourite people – Simon of the Reluctant Scooper blog – I am always in awe of their talent to bring energy into the subject, argue, present or just plain inspire those that read their work – and I am not shy in reminding them. If you expect something akin to literacy from me, um, sorry. I give up! This is the reason that I do prefer the art of Photography as irritating as I assume it must be to my friends now.
Recently, I really enjoyed the read Hops and Glory by Pete Brown, so much so it inspired some questions and caused a little journey in search, admittedly hoping to be wrong to a question that I already knew the answer to, as much Simon did. You see travelling so much and it might sound a shade clichéd but the journey is as important, perhaps more so than the destination. Beer is important to me, but more over it’s the meeting with fellow beer lovers, the other beer travellers and just enjoying the ride into another perspective on this absolutely stunning beverage. Really, beer is more about the people, the interaction, the banter, the camaraderie and all that goes on… great beer can sometimes get in the way. Yes, there it is, I said it… just get out there and enjoy beer. I love the big esoteric beers, debating the origins of IPA’s and dreaming about monster Danish bourbon barrel aged coffee imperial stouts made with civet cat poo coffee… but, as much the sitting in some cafe in the arse end of nowhere drinking the local lubricant. Be that gueuze, lambic recently or cans of “best drunk ice cold” just hanging with mates…
So, what’s that got to do with Brussels? read more…
