A Brief Natter

No reviews I'm afraid this time, for a number of reasons.
The primary one is that I can't drink at the moment due to having a slight issue with a tooth, and the industrial strength painkillers that I've been given. Seriously people, these things could level livestock.
This leads into the second reason, I've been in pain, and I don't write well when I'm in pain.

Right, that's my whine finished then, onto some exciting news. First, the beer is decanted out of the fermentation tub, and is barrelled  and bottled, should be ready to drink in about two weeks, I've taken lots of pictures, and I'll be sure to upload them in a post.
My rhubarb that I planted a month or so ago is growing well, rhubarb wine in a couple of years then.

Also, this year we've harvested copious quantities of damsons, and have made 2 litres of damson gin. It's currently sat in a demijohn taking on flavour, and in a few weeks, it'll be going into bottles. Yum

Finally, as some people may know, this Friday is Morcambe's first food and wine festival, organised by the Wineyard, see my earlier links for information on their website. This promises to be an exciting event, and at £5 per ticket, it's a steal. I shall be attending, despite the inherent difficulties in getting to England from the Isle of Man, and I hope that lots of people turn up. This is the sort of thing the area needs, local people supporting local shops who buy from, amongst others, local suppliers. If anyone sees me there, assuming that anyone is actually reading this, please come and say hello, and do excuse me if I'm rather tired and emotional; to use a Parliamentary expression.

That's it for now I'm afraid, and all I can say is that I did warn you that I don't write well under these conditions.

A bit of a Bock

So here goes, my first real attempt at beer blogging, or blogging of any kind come to that. First though, in the manner of all great things, I should start with a thank you. This is to a little shop in Bare called The Wineyard and Delli, and its social networker and head tweeter; Ben.
Now I assume that most people reading this, if anyone can work up the urge to read it, already know the shop and the man, if you don't and you have any interest in food or drink, even if that only stretches to eating, then you need to check it out.
Ben tweets as @thewineyard, and all the relevant info; blog, FB, etc is available from there. This place is like an Aladdin's cave for foodies, in fact I don't know how they get it all in, the wine, beer, spirits, food, its literally crammed to the rafters people.
Right, that said, its time to hit the beer!
The one I'm going to talk about today is fro San Francisco, and is Anchor Brewery's Bock.
Here's a picture I borrowed from their website if your interested,

and just in case you fancied a look, here's their website http://www.anchorbrewing.com/beers/bockbeer.htm.

Now according to the blurb on the bottle, a "bock" is a stronger, darker alternative to a brewery's normal product, and having drunk Anchor Steam on the odd occasion, that's certainly true.
On first pouring, you see a dark, almost syrupy beer, with a deep rich set of flavours, malty and a lovely dark caramel scent.
When you taste it, all those lovely dark flavours remain, but the sweetness goes, and the rich dark malty caramel is balanced by a lovely hit of hops. Now this beer's only 5.5%, which is quite light in terms of alcohol compared to a lot of the craft beers I've drunk recently, but it's still no light weight. It delivers big wonderful flavours, and it's just as good drunk when you're sat in the sun, or inside hiding from the rain

All in a spectacular beer, really drinkable, and great big; well balanced flavours.
I gave it 18/20 when I first drank it, and I'd give it that again today.