Paulaner Salvator

When I went to the bar to order this the barman told me the tale of this beer. Apparently it used to be brewed by monks, and they liked drinking it so much that that just got wasted on it all the time and didn't do any of their monk duties. The pope got wind of this and demanded that a sample be sent to him to judge whether this was a good use of the monks time. So they shipped a crate to him across the alps, fortunately for the monks they did it during the summer and it was hot on the journey. By the time the beer had got to the Pope it was well past its best and the Pope declared it was fit for the monks as drinking it was a more of a punishment than anything else. Whether this is true or whether the barman made it up I have no idea, I can't see anything about it on the Paulaner website.

Anyway the beer itself is a dark dobbelbock style beer and I found it to be very nice.Its quite malty and not too overpowering. All in all its certainly worth a try and a nice beer. 4 out of 5.

Aecht Schlenkerla Doppelbock

So here is a list of things that I like that taste of smoke:

Smoked bacon

Smoked mackerel

Smokey bacon flavoured crisps

Something that I have found that I certainly don't like is smoked beer. This brewery, http://www.schlenkerla.de/rauchbier/beschreibunge.html, make smoke flavoured beer. They do it by some German trickery which involves drying the malt using smoke then aging it in smoked oak barrels. The result is certainly smokey. When I first tasted it I wasn't expecting it, I was pretty drunk and my mother had been to the bar so I wasn't sure what I was getting, but the smokey flavour overwhelms everything else and is a real shock. At first I thought "this is amazing" it's different and full of an unusual flavour but still beer. By the time I was half way through I was struggling, by the time I was three quarters of the way through I felt like I was drinking from an ash tray. I'm glad I tried it, I can understand why people love it, it's just too smokey for me. 2 out of 5.

Oud Beersel Framboise

Now this beer was consumed during a weekend when I had some friends, including the elder of my two brothers, visiting to watch England crush Wales in the six nations. My brother went off to the bar and came back with a raspberry flavoured lambic beer. Now he thinks he is being funny as I have stated numerous times my distaste for fruit flavoured beer. Unfortunately for him what I don't like is sweet fruit flavoured beer, when we have a sour lambic style beer like this one the fruit flavour is quite nice and helps to take the edge off the sourness. This one slipped down quite nicely and didn't get the reaction my brother anticipated. 2.5 out of 5.

Mout & Mocca

So I haven't posted for ages, work has been getting on top of me and plus I have recently got engaged. Now being engaged mostly means that my other half does lots of stuff but I also get dragged into the wedding planning.

This all hasn't stopped my drinking and the blog lies a long way behind the actual beer count, I broke through the 100 mark this week. The plan is to try and put up one post a day looking back at the beers I have drunk.

Now this beer from the De Molen brewery, a Dutch brewery, Is a coffee flavoured imperial stout coming in at a hefty 11.6%. I enjoyed this beer in the company of my mother who was up visiting for the weekend. My mother shares a strange connection to the Post Office Vaults, she is a season ticket holder at the mighty Bath rugby club and she has made good friends with the person she sits next to. From a complete fluke the son of my mother's friend, Toby, is now a barman at the POV.

This meant that rather than meet my mother in Baccus, where she likes to wait after getting off the train, she could go to the POV and not feel too strange to be the only wine drinking woman in the place.

Anyway on a Sunday we had been to the excellent Pure Bar and Kitchen for lunch and then made our way to the POV for a few more drinks. I had quite a few, which I will detail later, and ended with this. I hated it. Firstly I don't like stouts, secondly I don't like coffee. This beer basically embodied everything I don't like. It is the first and so far only beer in the lists haven't finished. I can understand why people would like it. It's thick, syrupy, with a very strong flavour. Unfortunately it's the opposite end of the beer spectrum to my taste. 1 out of 5

Maneblusser

I had this beer on a lazy Sunday afternoon. It had been another shopping trip into the city centre of Birmingham with my other half and I managed to sneak off to the Post Office Vaults. On ordering the barman gave me a look and informed me he wasn't sure if they had any in. Apparently a group of lads had been going mental for it last night. I was lucky enough to get the last bottle in the pub.

Maneblusser, apparently means moon extinguisher, and the story goes that in the 1600s in Belgium the red moon was shining through the fog one night and a man leaving a pub saw the light on the local church tower and cried fire. People arrived to put it out, much hilarity ensued and being Belgian they started brewing beer to commemorate it.

The beer itself is distinctly ok, nothing special. I mean it's nice but I wouldn't go out of my to get one. Those fellas the previous evening must have had funny tastes, or a keen interest in 17th century stories. 3 out of 5. 

On count back I realise that this is beer number 50. So it's my half century and I'm 25% of the way through. I've had some good beer, I've had some bad beer, but I have another 150 to go.

Lucifer

I had been dragged into the city centre shopping by my other half but managed to convince her to let me go for a beer. In general my other half is extremely supportive of going for a beer in the afternoon. She does however not share my enjoyment of the drink and normally opts for an orange juice and lemonade. Her loss I suppose.

Today's choice is Lucifer, its made by the same brewery that provided the last 3 beers in the blog and as they have been good I look forward to this one as I pour it into the glass. Its a nice golden colour and a little bit cloudy. Its got that characteristic yeasty smell that I associate with Belgian beers. The flavour is very nice, well balanced and you can certainly feel that 8% alcohol. Overall a very pleasant beer but not one I think I could drink more than about 2 of in a sitting. 3.5 out of 5.

Gouden Carolus Tripel

The third and final beer from this Belgian brewery on the POV list is there tripel. It must be said that its a really nice beer, hoppy but balanced with a nice smell and a slight warmth in the mouth. A really enjoyable beer that makes up for the disapointing hospinjoor. 4 out of 5.