beer » Kavey Eats

Beef Cheeks Bourguignon: A Hearty Stew

19 Feb 2012 10 Responses »

Feb 192012

Boef Bourgignon aka Boeuf à la Bourguignonne is a classic French dish originating, as its name indicates, from the Burgundy region, as do a number of other dishes incorporating red wine, such as coq au vin and oeufs en Meurette. I’ve been meaning to try the latter ever since our last trip; I’ll try and blog that one soon.

So back to the beef: this hearty stew is characterised by a slow braise of beef in red wine, which renders the meat tender and succulent, and the addition of bacon, pearl onions and button mushrooms. Most recipes use stewing steak and combine beef stock with red wine for the braising liquid.

I decided to use beef cheeks (also known as ox cheeks), as I love the way these break down with slow cooking. I used shallots instead of pearl onions. And I substituted some dark ale for the beef stock, just because. These variations on the traditional version turned out extremely well!

This is a very easy dish, though you’ll need some time at the start, to prep all the ingredients and separately brown the beef pieces, mushrooms and shallots.

The amounts are flexible, to make it easier to do your shopping. These minor variations really won’t make a difference to the final result! Even if you’re cooking for one or two, I recommend making this recipe in the quantities below and freezing the extra portions for another time.

Kavey’s Beef Cheeks Bourguignon

Serves 6

Ingredients
1-1.2 kilos beef cheeks (also known as ox cheeks), trimmed and cut into 2-3 inch pieces
2-3 tablespoons seasoned flour
Vegetable oil for cooking
200 grams bacon in cubes or short strips
200-300 grams button mushrooms, cut in half if large
300-400 grams shallots
2 medium-large onions, diced
1 bottle full-bodied red wine
250 ml dark ale
1 sprig fresh thyme or teaspoon dried
2-3 bay leaves

Method

Dredge each piece of beef in seasoned flour.
In a large lidded casserole dish – big enough for all the meat, onions, mushrooms, wine and liquid – heat a little cooking oil and fry the floured beef pieces until the surfaces are crusty and brown with caramelisation. Do this in batches so the meat doesn’t steam. Set aside the browned beef.
Add more cooking oil if necessary to brown the mushrooms in the same pan, then set aside.
Now do the same for the shallots, and set them aside with the mushrooms.
Again, add more oil to the empty pan, if necessary, and fry the bacon and onions until the onions soften and the bacon takes on a little colour.
To the bacon and onions, add back the beef pieces plus the bay leaves, thyme, red wine and dark ale.
Leave to simmer for 3 hours, with the lid on.
Add the mushrooms and shallots back to the dish and cook for another 30-45 minutes, uncovered, on a gentle simmer. The time depends on the size of your shallots, as you want to ensure they are cooked through and soft. Leaving the lid off will also allow the sauce to reduce a little further.

Serve with buttery mash potatoes, or plain steamed potatoes if you want to be more traditional.

Pete Drinks: Hopdaemon Brewery Tour-At-Home

04 Oct 2011 1 Response »

Oct 042011

Today’s collection comes from Hopdaemon, a small brewery based in Kent. They’ve been on my ‘list’ for some time, but somehow I’d never managed to track them down before. Here we have all three of their beers that appear in bottle form – there are a couple of extras that are only available on tap.

I have to say, looking at the bottles side by side I’d have trouble telling that they were from the same brewery; also the label style somehow manages to re-enforce my assumption, from the ‘Hopdaemon’ name and even the Kiwi founder, that these are going to be big, floral, hoppy beasts and about the last thing expected were some very traditionally styled Kentish ales.

Just goes to show how wrong first impressions can be!

Scrimshander is a copper coloured IPA at 4.5%. It has a fine bubbled lingering head which leads into a nice body with a well controlled fizz, and there’s not much nose to it – just a hint of caramel. On the tongue there’s sweet, fairly light malt, with deep hoppy bitterness that lingers long into the finish. It’s quite a classic Kentish bitter, and I like it, but it’s somehow not what I was expecting.

Green Daemon Helles is a slightly stronger golden beer, at 5.0%. A straw colour, with a similarly lingering head on it. There’s more to smell on this, with some distinct floral grapefruit notes. It has another good dose of bitterness, although less pronounced than with the Scrimshander. A light body, gently sweet on the tongue, and very drinkable with pale fruit flavours throughout – delicious!

Lastly we come to Leviathan, a strong ale at 6.0%. A deep red brown in the glass, with a slightly thinner head than it’s stable mates. On the nose there’s dark fruit, treacly, like dates. Surprisingly for it’s strength and sweetness, it doesn’t have a massively big body but it’s wonderfully sweet, sticky and rich, with some bitterness to the end that balances out that sweetness nicely. It’s a great tasting dark beer, with syrupy dried fruit – very nice.

Overall, it’s a great collection of traditional, very tasty Kentish beer – not what I was expecting, but very nice nonetheless. I shall certainly keep an eye out for their cask-only offerings.

Touring By Twitter: A Visit To Bath

01 Oct 2011 2 Responses »

Oct 012011

When invited by Bath Tourism Plus to spend a day in Bath, taking our advice on what to visit from twitter, Pete and I jumped at the chance. We started asking for suggestions in the run up to our visit and by the day itself, the advice was flowing in at a great rate.

Both twitter friends and complete strangers came to our aid and between them, gave us lots of great ideas on how to spend our day.

The Pump Room Restaurant
The Roman Baths
Minerva Chocolate
Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution
The Star Inn
The Raven
Bath Ales’ The Salamander Pub
Paxton & Whitfield
Sally Lunn’s Buns
Thermae Bath Spa
Other Attractions
Next Time

The Pump Room Restaurant

We started our day with breakfast in the Pump Room restaurant at the Roman Baths. Shown into a vast and elegant room with a trio playing live classical music on the stage.

Starving after an early start, I went for the enormous Beau Nash Brunch (£12.95) which resulted in two enormous and very good eggs benedict, a pot of tea, a small glass of fresh orange juice and then, when I could barely eat another mouthful, toast and jam.

Pete, being far more restrained, opted for the Tompian Treat (£6.25) and enjoyed two hot-buttered crumpets with blackcurrant jam, a pot of coffee and an apple juice.

The food was excellent and seemed reasonably priced, especially given the grandiose setting and live music. However, service, was slow and it proved extremely difficult to attract attention despite the high number of staff working in the dining room.

The Roman Baths

Of course, after our indulgent breakfast, we couldn’t miss a tour of the Roman Baths themselves. Wanting to cram as much into our day as possible, we opted to skip the headset audio tours and do a short sweet walkaround.

Most visitors took advantage of the audio guides, which lead to an oddly quiet crowd meandering slightly myopically around the attraction but the lack of annoyingly voluble and high volume chatter was actually a relief. That said, on our weekday visit in late August, it was frustratingly crowded.

There’s a huge amount of information to please history buffs and if I could go back and spend a few hours there, without the company of the madding crowds, I would love to take it all in properly.

This under floor heating system took me immediately back to (happy days) studying history at school.

This golden head of the goddess Minerva was found in the old temple ruins. We’ll come back to her head later.

Adult entry is £12. £7.80 per child. Or buy a family ticket (for up to two adults and four children) for £34.

Minerva Chocolate

After our visit to the Roman Baths, Pete and I went in different directions. I was invited to a special chocolate workshop with Philippe Wall, chocolatier and founder of Minerva Chocolate.

I confess, I seem to have a bit of a thing for French men at the moment; I can’t help myself. Especially ones that humour me and let me rabbit away in French to them. Yes, yes, Philippe is Belgian but he’s a French-talking Belgian which, as he put it himself, is totally the same thing as a Northern Frenchman anyway!

It didn’t take long for me to fall utterly for Philippe’s charms. I challenge you to find a more jovial, affable chap in all of Bath!

I only just resisted sticking my mouth under the tap of hot, melted chocolate. But was quickly distracted by a cup of rich, delicious hot chocolate.

Philippe gave me and Tim (this year’s Masterchef winner) a short workshop on working with chocolate.

First we tempered some of the melted chocolate and then we made chocolate buttons, dipped whole English black cherries, finished off some pralines and Tim poured a tonne of chocolate into a strange Buddha mould.

Philippe has many custom moulds including some in the shape of Minerva’s head, the Roman goddess for which his shop is named.

I’m hoping to return to Bath and do a full length chocolate workshop with Philippe when I do.

Do visit Minerva Chocolate for a drink and tasty snack (takeaway or eat in), to buy some great chocolates or to attend a workshop with Philippe.

Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution

Initially planning to visit the Herschel Museum of Astronomy but finding it closed until later in the day, Pete turned to twitter and was quickly pointed towards the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution.

He enjoyed a quick tour of ‘Earth + Fire = Vessel’, an exhibition of pottery and artefacts from throughout human history.

Entry was free and the institution has a wide range of exhibitions, talks and events on offer.

The Star Inn

Pete’s next stop was The Star Inn, a small traditional pub which is the brewery tap of Abbey Ales, who describe themselves as Bath’s only brewery. Of course, Bath Ales may disagree! However, Abbey Ales are the only brewery still physically located within Bath itself.

The Raven

Next on Pete’s list was a visit to The Raven for another quick pint. It’s a small, attractive pub serving decent real ale including a few beers brewed especially for them by Blindman’s Brewery. Likewise, they are well known for delicious pies, made for them by Pieminister.

Bath Ales’ The Salamander Pub

Bath Ales’ Moussa, taken later that evening

We’re no strangers to Bath Ales, and have a great twitter friendship with their social media guru so it was great to finally meet Moussa for a Bath Ales lunch at The Salamander, where we also reunited after our solo explorations.

It’s a lovely pub, just the place to stop and rest weary bones, grab a pint or two and indulge in some simple but very tasty food.

In the photos above, is Mark Dredge, one of the UK’s top beer bloggers. He organised our lunch time meet.

The Salamander has a great location and a very warm welcome.

Paxton & Whitfield

I can’t imagine there’s a single reader of Kavey Eats who hasn’t picked up by now that I adore cheese. So it’s no surprise we popped in to Paxton & Whitfield on John Street.

(Sorry for the variable photos, some were taken on my phone).

Martin, the Bath store manager, talked us through a number of cheeses and we tasted a few, my favourite of which was the truffled Brie. Unlike most versions of this that I’ve tried, which have a vague smell but no real truffle flavour – even though you can clearly see a smear of black truffle across the centre – the Paxton & Whitfield version was heady in it’s truffly aroma and then, to my delight, kicked in with a very clear truffle taste. So heady that I was unable to leave without buying a generous slice to take home!

It’s always great to buy cheese from genuine turophiles, like Martin, who can educate you about the cheeses on offer and help you work out the right ones for you.

Sally Lunn’s Buns

Sally Lunn’s is not the only provider of Bath buns in Bath. But it’s probably the best known.

According to the ever handy wikipedia, a traditional Bath bun is “a rich, sweet yeast dough shaped round that has a lump of sugar baked in the bottom and more crushed sugar sprinkled on top after baking. Variations in ingredients include candied fruit peel, currants or larger raisins or sultanas.”

The cafe’s website relates their version of the history of the Bath bun: Sally Lunn was a Huguenot refugee (better known as Solange Luyon) who came to Bath in 1680 via Bristol, after escaping persecution in France. Finding work with a local baker, she introduced the light and delicate bun to the town. The bun quickly became popular and its fame spread far and wide. Apparently, the original and secret recipe is passed on with the deeds to the house and still made there by hand. Strong insistence is made that their true Bath bun differs greatly to the London copycat version which is also called a Bath bun.

On the other hand, I have found reference to the claim that the Bath bun descended from the 18th century Bath cake, devised by one William Oliver, a doctor treating visitors who came to Bath for the famous spa waters.

Whatever the truth of its history, we were determined to sample the famous buns and chose to do so at the most famous purveyor.

The buns are available with a range of toppings including butter and strawberry or blackcurrant jam, cinnamon butter, traditional thick cut orange marmalade, rich raspberry topping, lemon curd, coffee and walnut butter, chocolate butter, ginger butter or brandy butter, most of which are homemade.

The menu also offers a wide range of savoury and sweet snacks including sandwiches, soups, rarebits, pates, a small range of full hot meals and sweet cakes, pies and tarts.

Pete chose half a Sally Lunn Bath bun with homemade lemon curd and I went for the homemade coffee and walnut butter on mine.

When the buns arrived, we were a bit aghast – they looked huge and we’d not long had a generous lunch. But they were much lighter than we expected and we polished them off pretty quickly.

They’re simple buns, and those expecting a truly novel experience or a bun utterly distinct from all they’ve tried before, may be disappointed. But we were glad we stopped here. They may be simple but they’re awfully good and we appreciated the homemade toppings.

We will be hunting down recommended recipes to recreate the Bath bun here in North West London!

As an added attraction, the kitchen museum at the same site shows the actual kitchen used by Sally Lunn back in the 1600s. Entry is 30 pence.

Thermae Bath Spa

Although I am a huge fan of spas, I probably wouldn’t have taken time out of our day in Bath to go to the Thermae Bath Spa had we not been given complimentary 2 hour entry. And that would have been a huge, huge mistake as I truly loved the experience!

Located just a short stroll from the Roman Baths, the Thermae Bath Spa has been built to give modern-day visitors the opportunity to take the famous Bath spa waters in a modern-day setting.

The main building is called the New Royal Spa and comprises a large indoor mineral pool called Minerva, which has a ‘lazy river’ current that moves floating swimmers slowly around the pool, a series of steam rooms, each with differently scented steam and a roof top thermal pool with magical views over neighbouring rooftops and Bath Abbey.

There is also a small separate facility just opposite, which offers a small open-air thermal bath with its own changing facilities. This is known as New Cross and is ideal for small group bookings. Entry for New Cross is not included with entry to the New Royal Spa facilities but we were taken across to have a quick peak before starting our own spa session.

Of course, spa treatments are also available, including regular, hot stone and hydro massages, body wraps, facials and so on.

Image courtesy of LuxeGuru, another bathtwitrip participant

During our visit we enjoyed the Minerva thermal pool, the steam rooms and the roof top thermal bath.

The steam rooms were wonderful but the enormous waterfall shower in the centre of the room was underwhelming and the individual foot baths around the edges of the room were difficult to access, tight and more than half were broken.

It was the roof top pool that stole my heart; bobbing in warm waters and admiring the magical view out over the historical city of Bath is an experience I will not quickly forget.

Images from Thermae Bath Spa website – New Cross, New Royal Spa rooftop thermal bath, Minerva pool and steam rooms

There were only a couple of frustrations: The cleverly designed lockers were operated by electrical keys integrated into unusually poorly designed wrist bracelets which constantly came loose. It was also frustrating that showers and toilets were on a different floor to the changing rooms.

To my surprise, prices for entry are very affordable with New Royal Spa charging £25 for 2 hours, £35 for 4 hours and £55 for a full day providing access to the indoor and outdoor pools and steam rooms as well as a cafe restaurant. Entry to the more limited facilities of New Cross costs just £15 per person for 1.5 hours or £150 for private group hire for the same period, for up to 12 people.

For a really different perspective on Bath, I wholeheartedly recommend the Thermae Bath Spa and will definitely be visiting again next time I am in town.

Other Attractions

We were very pleased to be able to take in the Wild Planet Exhibition by London’s Natural History Museum. Featuring 80 spectacular images from Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, we lingered over the wildlife and landscapes whilst enjoying live classical music and singing from buskers in the open square in front of the Abbey and Roman Baths.

Image from store website

It’s down to will power that we managed to visit the wonderful Kitchen cookshop on Quiet Street without making any purchases, though had the bank balance been healthier, we absolutely would have done. It’s a paradise for cooks and I could easily lose hours inside.

Next Time

Although we packed as much into our day as we could, in the end we had time to visit only a fraction of our twitter recommendations which included favourite cafes, delis, bakeries, restaurants and more. It looks like another trip to Bath is in our future!

We’re also hoping to do a course at the charming Richard Bertinet’s cookery school soon.

If you have your own Bath favourites, please do share them in the comments.

With many thanks to Bath Tourism Plus for their invitation to participate in this hugely enjoyable day.

Pete Drinks: Redemption Brewery Tour-In-A-Brewery!

23 Sep 2011 1 Response »

Sep 232011

After a year of doing my brewery tours at home, it seems about time that I got off the sofa and did a tour of an actual brewery.

Redemption, based in Tottenham, has the dual benefits of being a fantastic brewery and within a few miles of home, so where better to go?!

I first encountered Redemption last year, when I was invited by a friend to join a CAMRA visit to the brewery. I hadn’t really appreciated until then just how much the London brewing scene was exploding, and I leapt at the chance to see what was, at that stage, my closest brewery – a title which has now passed to The Bull in Highgate, until I can persuade Kavey to let me open the Barnet Brewing Company!

I popped back for a second visit more recently, this time with Kavey in tow; partly for a more extended chat, but also as an excuse to sample some more of their excellent beer and take some more pictures.

Located in a small industrial park in the back streets of Tottenham, Redemption is a fairly unassuming establishment from the outside – the first time I visited I wasn’t sure we were in the right place; it didn’t look like any brewery I’d visited before.

Once inside, the wonderful beery, malty, hoppy smell of a brewery hits you, along with the warm welcome that the ever-friendly Andy Moffat, owner and brewer, extends.

Andy is an inspiring character – I imagine he’s not the only man to have dreamed of opening a brewery (or is that just me and him?) but rather than just dreaming he left his city banking job and in 2010, with no commercial brewing experience, founded Redemption. Since then, he’s been brewing wonderful beer as fast as he can sell it.

It’s a small plant – 12 barrel capacity, or “big enough to climb in and clean” with enough fermentation and conditioning tanks to maintain a good range of 4 or 5 beers available at any one time. Sadly that means I probably can’t persuade him to brew the Fellowship Porter year round, but that’s not too big a price to pay as it means there’s 4 or 5 other great beers to enjoy instead.

The backbone of the range is their Pale Ale, a floral hoppy, sweet 3.8% golden ale; and Urban Dusk, a darker, sweeter, altogether ‘bigger’ 4.6% bitter with more malt to it. My personal favourite is probably the Fellowship Porter, deep, dark at 5.1% with wonderful, rich coffee overtones – not only on the nose but also, unusually, carrying over into the taste – but now I’ve said that, I feel bad to have left out Trinity, a much lighter, summer ale at 3.0% which goes down with dangerous ease.

I’m afraid I don’t have any pictures for you; every time I find any of their beers on tap the evening ends up lasting longer than intended and my photographing skills become rapidly … blurry. My tasting notes become even less readable than normal and the drunkenly scribbled “yummm!” notes end up beer stained.

Suffice to say, I am always thrilled to see their beer on tap (despite the impending hangover that usually indicates).

The fantastic news is that Redemption will finally be arriving in bottles next month, which means I’ll soon be able to stop cursing my useless local pubs for not stocking them, and keep an emergency supply of their beer in my cupboard (right next to my other London staples, Kernel’s IPA Citra and Windsor & Eton’s Windsor Knot).

I was lucky enough to get a couple of test bottlings of the Pale Ale and it’s as magnificent in the bottle as it is in the cask – sweet, gentle hoppy bitterness with light fruity floral notes and an impressively ‘cask-like’ carbonation. I also managed to snag one of their collaborations with Kernel, which manages to blend their two styles magnificently – the heavy, somehow ‘oily’ hop punch from Kernel but moderated by Redemption’s easier-drinking style. I’m kicking myself that I didn’t manage to get more of it.

That collaboration highlights one of the things I love about the crop of new London breweries – there’s never a sense of competition between them. It’s more like they’re siblings than competitors; yes they try and outshine each other but they’re always supportive, respectful and often in each other’s breweries cooking up something special and wonderful for those of us lucky enough to get hold of the results.

I’ll leave the last words to Andy; apologies for the occasionally terrible camera work. In my defence, he did pour me a generous glass of Pale Ale before we started and it would have been rude to let it go warm during the interview!

Redemption beer can be found around (especially North) London pubs who are sensible enough to stock them, beer festivals smart enough to order them, and occasionally elsewhere if you’re super lucky. Also bottles from next month – hopefully from at least one of my regular online suppliers. If your local doesn’t stock it, tell them to contact Andy!

Pete Drinks: Meantime Brewery Tour-At-Home

13 Aug 2011 No Responses »

Aug 132011

Meantime are one of those breweries with such an impressive range of beers that it’s hard to do justice to the whole lot in one go. I’ve previously tasted a couple of their offers back when they launched their London Lager; today I’m going through the bottles I’ve picked up recently but this doesn’t represent everything this London brewer has to offer!

So, first up is London Pale Ale, at 4.3%. Golden amber in the glass, with a fairly loose, short lived head and quite a high level of carbonation bubbles. It has a sweet, gently hoppy, green nose and that sweetness remains on tasting. It’s a little over fizzed in the mouth, and I find that same tang that I get from fizzy water – maybe an artifact of the carbonation? The hoppy bitterness is there but I’m not getting the more floral, citrus notes that I’m expecting from the nose. It’s a perfectly drinkable beer, especially on a hot sunny afternoon like today, but it’s unremarkable.

Next we have Meantime Wheat, slightly stronger at 5.0%. A surprisingly similar colour to the London Pale Ale – I’d have expected a wheat beer to be paler – with virtually no head on it. It smells much more like a wheat beer than I’m expecting – that Hoegaarden smell – with toffeeish notes, and you can almost smell the alcohol too. Those toffee, almost treacle hints are in the flavour too along with a sharpness that makes me think of grapefruit juice – it almost makes me wonder if it’s slightly gone off. I’ve got months left on the best before date though, so maybe this is how it’s supposed to taste. I’m not convinced by this one.

I’d like to apologise for the pictures from here on; I honestly hadn’t over-enjoyed my work, I just seem to have changed the settings on my camera and didn’t notice until I came to process them. I was tempted to go and buy more just for the photos, but I have so much beer at the moment that it would probably be a Bad Idea.

London Stout is next, at 4.5%. Pouring deep, dark reddish brown with a fairly generous, open tan head and a roasted malt and chocolate nose. A good, full body in the mouth, creamy or even almost foamy, sweet dark caramel with just enough of a bitter hint to pull that sweetness back. Surprisingly refreshing for such a dark beer and very, very drinkable.

Chocolate, the strongest of this batch at 6.5%, is the second of those distinctive ‘bell shaped’ bottles that Meantime use for some of their beer. Black in the glass, with a thin tan head, and the smell of sweet malt and dark fruits. On tasting, the warmth of the alcohol is apparent, along with sweet molasses – there’s something almost port-like about it. Personally, I didn’t get much of a chocolate hint either from the smell or the taste which is slightly curious. However, that doesn’t mean this wasn’t a great beer!

Finally, the Winter Time Winter Warmer, at 5.4% and possibly the most inappropriate beer to be enjoying on a hot August evening. A dark reddish brown, with a lingering whitish head. Rich, roasted malts, a hint of coffee and caramel and a great bitterness running throughout (I also have ‘chocolate biscuit’ scrawled at the bottom of my notes, although it’s not clear whether that’s a tasting note or the start of a shopping list). It’s not too heavy, and considering how nicely it goes down in the heat of summer I can only imagine how great it would be sat looking out at the snow.

I personally think that Meantime are much stronger when they’re doing their dark porters and stouts; they’re big and bold, dark and sweet but always distinctive. In fact, their London Porter is often the first beer I reach for when I’m cooking something that needs a good dark beer in it (although to be fair that’s partly because it comes in a big bottle and I get to drink the rest while I’m cooking).

One thing I noticed running through a few of the beers was a slightly metallic tang; that ‘fizzy water’ tang I mentioned in the London Pale Ale. I’m not alone either; I’ve seen it mentioned in reviews of various of their beers elsewhere – I wonder if it’s an aspect of the mineral content of their water supply or something?

Pete Drinks: The Great British Beer Festival

04 Aug 2011 5 Responses »

Aug 042011

This week sees the Great British Beer Festival once again hitting Earls Court in London. Being both a beer fan and Londoner, it’s something of an embarrassment that I’ve never managed to attend before, so this year I made the effort and headed down this afternoon (in a cunning attempt to avoid the worst of the crowds…)

I have some thoughts and pictures that I’ll share in a longer post in the next few days, but for those of you yet to go (you have until Saturday to get down there!) here are some of the beery highlights.

Champion Beer of Britain Winners

As often seems to be the case at beer festivals, the overall gold medal winner, Mighty Oak’s Oscar Wilde was sold out. While I’m used to it, I find it a little disappointing – it’s not like the GBBF is a small organisation, and it should have been possible to get enough stock in to last as far as half-way through the festival. It can’t have been a surprise that everyone wanted to try some!

The silver medal went to Marble Chocolate, which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed before.

The bronze overall, along with the gold medal in the Bitter category, went to Salopian’s Shropshire Gold. I have to say, I found this one rather disappointing – it had all the elements there, a little sweetness, some biscuity malt, a fairly generous hop bitterness but it didn’t really balance well for me. It was ok, but no more than that, which makes me wonder just how out of touch with the CAMRA judges I am!

I explored some of the Speciality Beer category winners, with much happier results. The gold medal went to Oakleaf’s I Can’t Believe It’s Not Bitter – a well hopped lager, sweet, creamy textured and oh so tasty.

Silver went to Amber’s Chocolate Orange Stout which had been recommended to me as one to try already and rather disturbingly delivers everything the name promises. It smells of chocolate and orange, and tastes of it too without going overboard. It’s a little odd, but very tasty.

And The Rest…

As well as wanting to explore the various winners, I wanted to take the opportunity to finally try various beers which have been on my ‘to drink’ list for a while. Top of that list was Thornbridge’s Jaipur IPA which is one of those beers that I’m always hearing about and somehow never found on tap. Pale and sweet, with a good punch of fresh hop aroma and a massive hop finish that leaves your tongue literally tingling. Its’ a magnificent beer that richly deserves all the awards it seems to spend it’s time winning – and a perfect way to celebrate International IPA Day.

I also had the chance to finally try some of Brodie’s Beers, one of those young London breweries that had so far eluded me. Their Amarilla was a sensational glass of hops – fresh, sweet, citrusy and simply delicious. And their Superior London Porter was, well, superior – big, bold, chocolate and coffee and a real alcoholic kick at 7.1%. The only negative was that they only have two beers at the festival and I’m even more determined to track down and try their whole range!

A final mention for Redemption’s Fellowship Porter. Despite having gone with the intention of only drinking new beers, I couldn’t resist a glass of this wonderful sweet, coffee filled porter and neither should you.

M&S Wine Direct

01 Aug 2011 4 Responses »

Aug 012011

Some weeks ago we were invited to review M&S Wine Direct.

Rather than having their marketing representative place the order, we suggested that it would be a far better review if we navigated the website ourselves, placed a direct order as a regular customer and assessed the entire process as well as the wine.

A value was agreed (and payment transferred to us directly) and we were left to our own devices to make our choice and order.

We decided to take the opportunity to buy a smaller number of more expensive bottles, hoping for something better than the bottles we most commonly buy for around a tenner.

We chose a case of 6 Classic Claret wines priced at £130.97, working out to £21.83 per bottle.

Delivery went without a hitch and the bottles arrived in good condition.

Wanting more input on our assessments, we shared the bottles with friends and family. Unfortunately, everyone was in agreement.

Five of the six bottles were deemed “alright” but not as good as expected for the price. Independently, the same refrain was repeated – that the feedback would be more positive were the bottles priced between £10 and £12 but that they simply didn’t justify £20+. And one of the six bottles would have been disappointing even at £10.

Based on our experience, we’re not sure we’d rush to order wine from M&S Wine Direct again.

We’re curious now about whether their less expensive wines are a better deal.

Perhaps, if a specific wine we already knew and liked (not just region but vineyard, style and year) were particularly well priced, we’d consider buying from M&S. But the chances of this seem remote.

And possibly if we needed to send a wine gift via the post, we might order it through M&S. However, if we’d been sent this case as a gift, I’d have guessed the value to be half of what we actually paid for it. When we spend money on a gift, we want our budget to go as far as possible and want to coddle our recipient, not underwhelm them!

Have you ordered wine from M&S Wine Direct?

What did you think? Was the wine you received good value at the price you paid?

Do please let us know, in the comments.

Using The Website

From the home page, select an initial category to view such as Mixed Cases or cases/ bottles of Champagne, Red Wine, White Wine, Rosé Wine, Single Bottle Gifts and so on.

Here, Mixed Cases has been selected. Current special offers are listed first, then the rest of the cases are sorted in order of popularity with customers. A dropdown at the top allows you to sort by price or user rating or to show new products first.

Filters don’t work well.

For example, viewing all Mixed Cases (above) shows 3 cases of 12 red bottles. But clicking on the filters at the left to narrow down to red wine and to cases of 12 bottles results in only 2 cases being displayed.

Likewise, viewing all Mixed Cases reveals a case of 6 called Sparkling Celebration. But clicking on the filter for Mixed Sparkling, only two options are listed, and Sparkling Celebration isn’t one of them.

This issue is prevalent throughout the site; more care needs to be taken by M&S to correctly categorise and flag all products loaded to the site.

In the mean time, we’d suggest you plough through all the products within each category rather than relying on the filters at all.

Beers are listed within Wine Direct. Perhaps it’s just us but if we were looking for beers on the Marks & Spencer website, it wouldn’t occur to us to select Wine from the Food & Wine main menu (to bring up Wine Direct) and then search down the left to find beers.

Detailed information and guidance is provided about each product.

Mixed Cases show an image of the collection of bottles together and list them separately in the product details below.

Also provided are individual images of the bottle labels for all bottles in the collection; you can zoom into these sufficiently to read them clearly.

Some products also provide an informational videos such as the Classic Claret case and the Charles Freminet Brut Champagne.

Standard delivery (within 5 days) costs £3.50. We opted to pay £4.95 in order to be able to nominate a specific delivery date.

Delivery is free on orders over £150.

Adding items to our basket was easy.

The check out process necessitated registering an account for the website, but this didn’t take too long and the name and address information fed back through to the relevant delivery fields.

We didn’t have any problem selecting a delivery date. All upcoming Mondays to Saturdays were available.

From there we simply entered credit card information, confirmed the order, were shown an order confirmation page and sent a confirmation email.

Kavey Eats tried M&S Wine Direct courtesy of M&S.

Pete Drinks: Windsor & Eton Brewery Tour-At-Home

25 Jul 2011 No Responses »

Jul 252011

This evening’s beer is from the Windsor & Eton Brewery, another of the ‘new order’ of London breweries. Founded just last year, they have an impressive list of pubs to the south and west of London (and plenty, of course, in Windsor, and Eton) carrying their beer on tap. I’ve had to make do with their bottled offerings, but the beers don’t seem to suffer for that!

Starting with their Windsor Knot, a 4.5% ale specially created for the Royal Wedding, but happily I’m told they’re still brewing it for cask, and are considering further bottlings. It has a thin but fine bubbled head, and a light amber colour. The nose is sweet, with lots of floral hops. In the mouth, there’s an almost champagne-like mouthfeel with buckets of fine bubbles; a great range of flavours coming from the generous hopping, with both bitterness and a delicious, raw green hop, citrus lime tang. There’s sweetness there, but without much in the way of malt. It’s a well balanced, refreshing summer beer – it’s perhaps telling that the last thing in my tasting notes is “too small!” – coming in a 330ml bottle, unlike the 500ml bottles for the rest of the range.

Next up is Knight of the Garter, less strong at 3.8%. A paler, golden syrup colour with another fine but shorter lived head. The nose is floral and hoppy again, but more subtle than the Windsor Knot. A nice body in the mouth, hoppy and slightly sweet. A great example of a golden ale, with lingering hoppy bitterness. It’s not normally my style – I like my beer darker – but it goes down nicely on those hot summer evenings.

For our third beer, we have Guardsman Best Bitter, a traditional best bitter coming in at 4.2%. Another short head, and a copper colour in the glass. A simpler hop nose, without all the citrusy notes of the first two beers, and distinct toasted malt too. Sweeter, with the malt, almost caramel flavours coming through and a more heavy hitting – but still controlled – hop bitterness in evidence. There’s a tang of something else that I can’t quite put my finger on – some sort of spice perhaps? There’s nothing particularly outstanding about this one, but it’s a good, tasty session beer.

And finally, Conqueror Black IPA at 5.0%. Now, Black IPAs are all the rage these days; every brewery seems to be jumping on the bandwagon. I have to admit to being a bit of a grumpy old man about this, but what exactly does the ‘P’ in IPA stand for? Pale, for heavens’ sake! The idea of a black, pale ale is absurd. Surely we can come up with a better name for it than Black IPA?

Ok, rant over. Despite my issues with the name, I’m forced to admit this is a pretty fantastic beer. A thin head, as black in the glass as the name suggests. A rich, dark wood nose that reminds me of the smell of wooden indian furniture! In the mouth, it’s rich, not quite chocolate, with a deep roasted bitterness without being sickly sweet. There are hints of dark dried fruits, a coffee bitterness in the tail and still those woody hints. Delicious, very, very drinkable and my favourite of the bunch.

Overall, it’s a great collection of seriously tasty beer, and it’s a brewery I shall certainly make an effort to track down on tap.

Pete Drinks: Oxfordshire Ales Tour-At-Home

25 Jun 2011 1 Response »

Jun 252011

Continuing my journey through my last box of goodies from AlesByMail, we reach Oxfordshire Ales – a microbrewery based in the wonderfully named village of Marsh Gibbon. They produce a fairly small range of traditional ales, and here we have their entire bottled range.

First up is Triple B, a 3.7% session beer. A deep amber colour, with a fine-bubbled, velvety-looking lingering head. In the glass I can see a huge volume of rising bubble streams; it looks more like a champagne than a real ale!

There’s not much on the nose; a hint of sweet, lightly toasted malt but not he “full well hopped aroma” the bottle suggests. That lingering head feels almost like the froth on a latte in the mouth; those bubbles don’t translate into an unpleasantly excessive fizz. It’s a nice, medium-to-light bodied beer, gentle malt at first and a very subtle hoppy tang towards the end.

It’s hard to say much more about this one; it doesn’t stand out particularly; the flavours are subtle to the point of being obscure. That said, you don’t want a session beer that overwhelms your senses. It’s on the edge of bland, but it’s a good, if unremarkable, ale.

Next is Marshmellow, stronger at 4.7% and a slightly deeper amber than the Triple B. The head has a similar velvet appearance, but is much thinner in the glass. The aroma is much more pronounced, with dark cherry fruit.

It’s another smooth beer in the mouth, a slight sweetness on the front with a hoppy bitter undercurrent, leading through to a more obvious bitter tail and right at the end there’s an aftertaste of .. something dry, green, sharp. Watermelon?

You can tell that it’s a stronger beer; in many ways it tastes and smells stronger than the bottle suggests. An enjoyable bottle.

Finally, Pride of Oxford, a 5.0% pale golden ale. Another lingering, velvety head, with an incredibly floral, sweet lemon nose. That sweetness and those lemon flavours come through on tasting too, along with a lot of floral hoppiness and subtle lingering bitterness.

It’s a very drinkable, golden pale ale. As with the Triple B, there’s nothing that really stands out about it but it’s a perfectly drinkable pint.

Beer & Bangers at Wholefoods

19 Jun 2011 10 Responses »

Jun 192011

Living as we do in the boonies of NW London, Whole Foods in Kensington High Street is quite a trek, so not a regular shopping destination for me. Which is a shame, because it’s an utterly amazing place with all kinds of food and drink temptations. I could spend hours and hours and hours and hours in there!

Pete and I recently made our way to the flagship store (the American chain now has five London stores) for a Beer & Bangers tasting.

The event was to celebrate a new beer bar selling draft beers to take away.

The idea is that you make a one-off purchase of a “growler” and then have it refilled each time you visit, with draft beer from a regularly changing selection.

A growler is a half (US) gallon jug of beer. But the term originated in the late 19th century when fresh beers were carried home in small galvanised pails. It is said that the sound of CO₂ escaping from the lid, as the beer sloshed around in the pail, sounded like a growl.

These days, modern glass growlers are commonly sold at breweries and brewpubs as a means to sell take-out beer. They are generally made of glass and have either a screw-on cap or a hinged porcelain gasket cap, which can provide freshness for a week or more.

Whole Foods have brought growlers to London in 946 ml and 1.89 litre sizes. The empty bottles cost £3.69 and £3.99 respectively and beer prices range from £3.49 upwards depending on the beer you choose and which size of bottle.

Beer buyer Gavin Stevens talked us through the three beers currently on tap.

Prepared Foods Head Chef Gerry Beck had matched each one to a Whole Foods fresh sausage from their extensive range. Hand-made in-store daily, the sausages are made from 100% British meat bought from farms that meet high animal welfare standards. Some of the recipes were provided by the head company, but many were developed in store for the local market.

Our first pairing was London Meantime Lager with a chicken, sage and apple sausage.

Although I don’t usually drink beer, I found the Meantime light and citrusy with no bitterness at all, and a beer I was happy to drink. Gerry agreed and said he also detected a hint of apple, leading to his sausage match. The sausage was mild in flavour, so didn’t overwhelm the beer, but at the same time, packed a lot more flavour than any chicken sausages I’ve tried before. It was also pleasantly moist, which Gerry said came from cooking slowly in the oven.

Our second pairing was Redemption Pale Ale with a pork, cheddar cheese and smoked bacon sausage.

Between all of us we described the beer as very hoppy with a long dry finish, a typically British bitter ale, though not really a session beer as it’s a little too hoppy for that. Gerry explained that the pork in these sausages came from the Midlands, and was full of flavour. He also added that, as there are no nitrates added to the bacon, it remains pink when cooked. I found the sausage very bacon-y in flavour, perhaps a little too much so for my tastes. And when eaten together with the beer, it tasted like frankfurters!

Our third pairing was Brewdog Punk IPA and an Italian-style pork, fennel and garlic sausage.

What an intriguing beer! Double hopped (during the initial boiling process for bitterness and then during fermentation for the aroma), we found this beer citrusy and fruity and refreshing. I was completely bemused that it smelled like mangoes – really, really like mangoes! The sausage was also robustly flavoured with a strong hit of fennel and just the right touch of garlic. This was a superb match, definitely my favourite.

Both these and the pork, cheddar and bacon sausages were really moist and Gerry explained that he’d poached them in beer before grilling them. A great tip!

I also wondered whether this beer might work with Indian food, though that may simply be because of the mental association that came from that surprising mango aroma!

To finish the session, our last pairing was one of the many bottled beers on sale in the store – Stroud Brewery’s Woolsack Porter with a Lincolnshire sausage.

This was a mild stout, not at all bitter. The Lincolnshire was decent, a good example of it’s kind, but this was the weakest match for me as I felt the beer and sausage didn’t complement each other at all.

It’s so odd that I’m the one writing about this evening, with Pete being the beer drinker in our house! We both love sausages, but I reckon he’s keener there, too. But, to my surprise, this beer and bangers matching really caught my imagination and I ended up writing copious notes to record my thoughts about each pairing.

Pete was, as you might imagine, suitably enthusiastic about the new Whole Foods growlers, especially given the inclusion of Redemption beer. Redemption is not available in the bottle, nor in any takeaway format directly from the brewery, so this is the first time it’s been on sale to take home.

If we lived locally, I’m sure we’d make more use of this new service; we think it’s a great idea!

Kavey Eats attended as a guest of Whole Foods.

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Pete Drinks: Redemption Brewery Tour-In-A-Brewery!

Pete Drinks: Meantime Brewery Tour-At-Home

Pete Drinks: The Great British Beer Festival

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Pete Drinks: Windsor & Eton Brewery Tour-At-Home

Pete Drinks: Oxfordshire Ales Tour-At-Home

Beer & Bangers at Wholefoods

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