This evening's Ale + Night Cap Whiskies + Pub Food

rsv1cox wrote:Hobgoblin - To soon for Halloween

McEwans - Malt vinegar

Old Speckled Hen - Roots in the MG community

First impressions...

Hobgoblin = 5.2% Rich and Red Lubricant

McEwans - 7.3% Dark Nectar

Old Speckled Hen - 5% Smooth and Light

These are not very 'Hoppy'. Tomorrow night I shall feature 'Hoppy' Ales.

From WVA! My daughter went to a collage in Bluefield. She only lasted a year and returned to finish her studies in the UK. Roots in the MG community rings a small bell but I can't remember why!?

https://www.mgcc.co.uk/old-speckled-hen-at-mg90/

Yes that's it. I am a motor head and started my engineering career in  a UK automotive engineering company in 1966.

Keep an eye on the Armstrong Lever Arm shocker! They can fail quite quickly!

rsv1cox wrote:https://www.mgcc.co.uk/old-speckled-hen-at-mg90/

My Dad had an Old Speckled Hen bottle above his workbench for years. I figured it was because it’s a British beer.  I had no idea of the story behind it. Thanks Bob! The Octagon label should have been a dead giveaway.

Bluefield, nice country down there, well south of me.  Yes, love those dampeners.  Your picture could be of my old '74 Yellow Peril MGB except I never painted mine.



Ron your Dad was a true British car guy.

Beer, Ale, Stout, it's all alcohol to me, and much to my dismay alcohol in all it's forms just give me a headache anymore. But I understand there is a booming business in craft beers.

Theakston Pale Ale - 4.5% A great Pale Ale quite 'Hoppy' from one of the great Yorkshire Breweries

Proper Job - 5.0% A proper IPA as it is bottle conditioned and very 'Hoppy' just missing the 6 month Schooner trip to India

Marston EPA - 3.6% A fairly 'Hoppy ' Ale from one of Burton's great breweries

Here in Ireland, during the last few years, there has been a phenomenal growth in Craft Breweries. They brew a few good draught ales so pub visits are much more enjoyable! When I used to visit Eire on business or holiday Guinness was a nice change but, now I live here, I need British Ale. So. Once a month my wife crosses the border to the North and buys me loads 'o Ale.

Back in 1969 I was a 20 year old 3rd year Student Apprentice at Laycock Engineering in Sheffield and, for a few months, worked in Overdrive Development. One of my duties involved test driving cars to check-out overdrive production quality. We had various cars of which was an MGB GT. But my favourite was a VOLVO 242 which had a great engine and gearbox plus superb handling.

The yellow MGB pictured above had Overdrive, the only vintage car I have owned that featured it.  There was a sequence to engage/disengage it.  Loved it, I used to watch the tach change RPM's when used.  Paid $870 for it, sold for much more.  Seriously regret letting it go.

Every lunch for years included a beer.  Mostly Busch Bavarian. Tried many but it was my favorite.  Vintage can, know it well.



Edit add:  BTW PBS airs a special occasionally about Guinness, great company, great product widely respected.

PBS - Public Broadcasting Service. Very liberal in it's programming, but once off it's soapbox airs some remarkable stuff.

Nice line-up you have there.

Are you drinking or collecting?

Surprised that more have not chipped in with their favorite beverage.  

The curious but sober Bob......................

BTW...........not by choice. I have been threating to purchase a six pack, but I know the inevitable...a two aspirin headache that lingers.

I collected beer cans for years. My collection resides in the attic as my wife doesn't find them as attractive as I do. I take them out every now and them to stare at them. I have a whole series of Old Frothingslosh Pale Stale Ale cans with Miss Old Frothingslosh donned in a bikini on the can. She was a rather large woman built like a Volkswagen. It always makes me chuckle looking at those cans.

When we first moved here ten years ago I walked the property between the house and the pond finding many broken beer bottles and cans along with spent shotgun shells and golf balls. I picked up most of them but left two unopened bottles mostly buried horizontally in the ground. I was to lazy to dig them out.

Over the next ten years I would come across them every now and then. Got to be a thing for me just leaving them undisturbed. Enter my son a couple of months ago bringing them to me while I was in the garage. Look what I found. .

Just now, I thought of them and went out to snap a couple of pictures. On the same sim card was this picture of the back yard and pond area with frequent visitors that I took this morning. Illustrates the back yard.

Just for fun, I shook each bottle and got a little foam. Looking for volunteers among the peanut gallery here to sample. Labels long gone and no markings on the bottles.

rsv1cox wrote:Are you drinking or collecting?

Surprised that more have not chipped in with their favorite beverage.  

The curious but sober Bob......................

BTW...........not by choice.  I have been threating to purchase a six pack, but I know the inevitable...a two aspirin headache that lingers.

Well Bob.

Seems you writ too soon as we now have a little more interest! I did not reflect on the qualities of the Ales as, like yourself, I thought that there was no feedback!
So.

Tim Taylor's Landlord - 4.1% From Keighly in West Yorkshire. Bottled it is Nectar and on Draught it is without doubt the 'King of Beers' and also the 'Best Beer in the World' whatever lesser Brewers might say.

Abbot Ale - 5% From Suffolk is a really nice brew and the one to drink in East Anglia,

London Pride - 4.7% One of the few drinkable 'flat' Southern Brews. It has a mix of 3 hop varieties that gives it a distinct flavour.

I am certainly drinking them every evening from 18.00 hrs to 21.00 hrs when we have supper. Because my wife has to bring the English Ales from Enniskillen in the North, I limit myself to just two or three per evening and top off with Dutch Gold Lager which is the cheapest Beer in Eire.
Sorry to hear you have headaches with beer. I only used to have headaches when drinking John Smith's at the Bootmakers in Spinkhill North Derbys. I was born in a small village in North Derbys with 13 pubs and started drinking when just 16 years old.

I store the empties in the machinery/mud room ready to go to recycling.

Life has become too complicated. When I go back down memory lane, beer choices were simple. Budweiser, Miller, Michelob, Schaefer, Genesee , Pabst Blue Ribbon. Rolling Rock, etc. There's sooo many nowadays, I don't know how one chooses. The light beer craze hit and everything changed. I remember my friends dad, he would get a case a week which was delivered to the house in a wooden crate. Those were the days you had the returnables and you put the empty bottles back in for pickup. I guess they figured we have too many landfills that need filling up so lets not do that anymore. I recall one time when the beer delivery man arrived, he drove a old bread like truck with a sliding door. It was winter and when he opened the door we hit him with so many snowballs we knocked him out of the truck. Needless to say, if he caught us, we were going to have a foot up our rear ends.

Make a bottle house out of them Daligh. On our trip out West we stopped at one in Nevada. Could have been this one but there are many.

Bet that house smells good on a hot day .

Mike1484

BTW Folks. My name is Dave. Daligh is my from O'Daligh my Irish ancestor's family/clan name



Thekason's Old Peculiar - 5.6% very Dark and Rich Ale

King Goblin - 6.6% like Hobgoblin but much Darker and Richer.

White Water Hopplehammer - 6% This is new to me Elaine chose it for me to try as it states IPA. It is from Co. Down and purports to be IPA, but is not bottle conditioned. It's dark for a pale ale and the hops taste a little sour. I shall not bother again.

Enough stock for a few weeks. The Heineken is Elaine's tipple and is the real thing from Holland. In the UK and Eire they sell 'Brewed Under Licence' stuff that tastes awful! Quite a lot of European (except German and Czech) and North American beers are brewed under licence and they taste nothing like there real thing. Real Budweiser is imported from The Czech Republic but the US stuff of the same name is licensed. Mind you how can the US brew be beer as it contains rice! I am not sure that the licensed stuff has rice!?



Bob. I would open one of the bottles as they froth.

As to the 'Bottle House'. I don't want to build anything these days as for the last 20 years I have been refurbishing a derelict Coach House which we lived in whilst doing so.

Ken. Budweiser, Miller, Michelob, Pabst Blue Ribbon. etc All of these are sold here but are brewed under licence. All are available on draught. They are all brewed by Guinness in Dublin.

Dave, I hope some day we could meet and I think I would enjoy a Hopple Hammer. What a great name. Ken

Ken Cook wrote:            Dave, I hope some day we could meet and I think I would enjoy a Hopple Hammer. What a great name. Ken

Well Ken.
If you are ever this side of the pond we would be more than happy to look after you and yours.
Dave.

I have run through all of this month's Ales so I thought that I might introduce you to proper Whiskey and Whisky!

Time for Fred to join in with 5 tours to Germany and a few side trips around central Europe including England.....Wife and I both well established connoisseurs-- ah --er alcoholics...or well established experts....what ever you desire.....there is NO American domestic brew or craft brew that even comes close to some of the Local brews of England and Germany or Austria..........Not even Canadian or Australian brews...admittedly very very good....For what it is worth there is a reason why outlets like Spec's have over 150 different beer for sale.....I can NOT stand heavy hops or IPAs...and not really a fan of LITE beers.....BUT I did visit the Budvar (Budweiser) Brewery in the Czeck republic .....not my Favorite, but in same country Gambrinis was a Great beer for my pallet.

Now discuss Wine or Whiskey or Scotch or Brandy.....said the aged alcoholic Fred

soon dear CEF brothers ...like kicking cigarettes to the curb in 2018...I will enter a medical facility and kick my alcoholism habit...in mean time I am indulging as much as I can

so much booze...so little time....some few here can relate

Johnny. I have never seen him without a smile on his face and there is a reason.

He drinks.

He drinks and drives his MG Midget around England visiting pubs and imbibing a brew or two. He started a thread on the MG Experience back in 2015 and the thread revolves around him, his MG, and his favorite brews. It runs 662 pages and counting.

He has posted hundreds of photos, I picked out a few but far from his best, I'm not going through 662 pages to find them.

Just sharing, Johnny would be pleased.











Good luck with your rehab Fred. Your in good company. My oldest daughter has been recovering for the last 22 years.

Castleton in the Dark Peak area of North Derbys.



This village was a regular place to visit in the 1970s. It is quite small but has seven inns/hotels/pubs.
Pie n' Pea suppers were a favourite but none of the hostelries serve it any more. There is a proper Fish n' Chip shop.
We stayed here for a few days in September 2019.



The landlady could not believe that between 6pm and 9pm I would drink a pint of each brew before dinner!



I actually only drink tea with breakfast!



We like hiking and Cave Dale is a nice steep track.






One of my favourite pubs in Sheffield is 'The Museum' on Orchard Square. The ales are usually good and the Fish n' Chips are brilliant.