Atkien Landbier Dunkel

One of the issues for the Post Office Vaults in running the beer passport seems to be the issue of guaranteeing supply. On more than one occasion I have been told that a beer isn't in stock, or that it has been replaced by another beer. This seems to be reasonably common with the German beers, and one of the ones I looked to have has been replaced by a landbier Dunkel. I've had this before when trying random beers in Pure Bar but it's not a bad beer and so I was happy to have it again.

The beer is a deep dark colour with a very intense malty flavour, it also gets extra kudos for its chunky stein style glass and pop top on the bottle.

3.5 out of 5

Orval

The start of a half term holiday heralds a chance to really amp up the drinking, and so on a Friday after work it was straight to the post office vaults for an Orval.

Orval is another Trappist beer, brewed by some monks in Belgium. The beer has a very distinctive and lovely skittle shaped bottle and comes in at 6.2%, pretty weak for a Trappist beer. I don't think this is a bad thing as when we are getting up into double figures these beers have a real tendency to kick my ass. The beer itself is very, very nice, it has quite a distinctive flavour and is quite sweet but I really like it.

4.5 out of 5

XX bitter

A bit of a blast from the past as I drunk this one quite a while ago. 

I nipped in to take this one on during a Saturday lunchtime while my other half was out shopping. The pub was unusually busy and I ended up standing at the bar. 

My beer was a Belgian XX bitter. Now tou don't see many things marketing themselves as double X, it seems to be triple X but I guess this beer keeps it's clothes on.

The beer itself is alright but as the name suggets is very bitter. Not always a bad thing but here there is just something that puts me off a little. 

2 out of 5

Asterie

A long, boring and hot day at work deserves  a beer and so I stopped in at the post office vaults on the way home. Today's offering was Asterie a Belgian wheat beer. My first taste mostly revealed that it's fizzy, very very fizzy. I find it to be a little light weight but it does have a pleasing aftertaste, kind of corriander and orange thing going on. Overall a nice refreshing beer that I will mostly remember for being very very fizzy. 

3 out of 5

Franziskaner

So this is kind of the best time of the year to be a teacher, the pressure is a little bit off as the exam classes are on study leave, this gives me more freedom to go for a relaxing beer after work. And that is exactly what I did today. They didn't have my first choice in stock soi settled for a Franzikaner. This is a fairly standard German wheat beer and you see it around. It's very nice though, has a sweet fruity flavour, lots of banana and caramel going on. A lively refreshing cool drink after a day at work. 3.5 out of 5. 

Schneider Weisse Unser Aventinus (Tap 6)

So my trip through the German Weisse beers continues with this offering, the Unser Aventinus. It comes with quite a reputation with Toby the barman declaring it one of his favourites. It doesn't disappoint. It's a dark wheat beer in the doppelbock style and tastes of fruit and malt and is warm and  delicious all the way through drinking. It's a delight. As I finish it the bar man tells me if I enjoyed it I should try the eisbock version of the same beer, a kind of freeze distilled super version. That beer comes in at 12% so will have to wait for a non work night.

4.5 out of 5

Pietra Colomba

I spent my weekend in Oxfordshire playing ridiculous non sports, drinking and getting baned from KFC.  The non sports I took part in were footgolf and Aunt Sally. Both are ridiculous and I was was fully rubbish at both of them.

The beer I am writing about at the moment is a Colomba by Pietra and I had this while waiting for a train to transport me to the exotic world of footgolf. Now I have mentioned that I have been enjoying my wheat beer recently and this seems to be what the French have to offer on that front. Now Beer isn't the first thing I think of when France is mentioned, it's more miserable people who shrug and 'allo 'allo and wine, the French bloody love wine. Having drunk this I can see why the French get through a lot of wine, and coffee they love that aswel, it's incredibly bland. It's completely non offensive but just really lacks anything that I would consider to be flavour. If it was this or some chateauneuf du pape, I'd take the wine. 1.5 out of 5

In addition it's congratulations to my friends Jon and Michelle on the birth of their daughter. I hope this doesn't slow down Jon's own beer challenge of collecting 1000 different beer bottle caps.

Moa Marlborough

One week into a new term and I need nothing more than to go for a beer Friday after work. So it's straight off the train to the post office vaults. I try to order a kolsch by Heller but am told they are proving hard to get hold of so it has been replaced by a Moa methode pilsner all the way from New Zealand. This beer is distinctly ok, nothing special in any way and actually had quite a bitter up front taste that has no place in a pilsner.  The bottle declares two accolades, that it is the beer of Olympians, no wonder New Zealand don't win many golds they are all too pissed, and that it won a gold medal at the Asia beer awards 2011. Clearly 2011 not a marquee year for Asian beer. 

It's completely standard. 1.5 out of 5. 

Schneider Weisse Original (Tap 7)

Now I said in an earlier post that I had been drinking a lot of wheat beer recently and this is my first entry on the blog about wheat beer. Before embarking on my current beer odyssey I was a very occasional wheat beer drinker. It mostly consisted of a pint of Hoegarden if it was on tap, or maybe a glass of Blue Moon with a slice of orange (!?) in it.

I can certainly say that I have enjoyed dipping my toe into the wider variety of wheat beer available out there and it all stated here with a Schnider Weisse Original. As a beer it was light, easy drinking with a nice fruity flavour, I especially got a taste of banana coming through. Overall a very nice easy drinking beer that I could be happy sipping over a long time sat in the sun listening to some oompah music wishing I had the legs to pull off lederhosen. 3.5 out of 5.