Duvel's awesome triple hop

Look, I'm sorry. About all the beer-related posts on a wine blog. It's just that I'm driven by interest, and I want to report here whatever I think is worthy of a plug - and tonight's tipple, the Duvel Triple Hop Special Edition beer, is certainly worthy of that.

This is a Belgian beer brewed with three hops: Saaz Saaz, Styrian Golding and Amarillo. It's fantastically complex with myriad flavours: amazing citrus and spice aromatics; rich, honeyed, spicy, sweetly fruity palate; tangy, herbal, hoppy, nicely bitter finish that goes on for ages.

At 9.5% alcohol you don't want to swill pints of this - rather, treat it a bit like a wine. It's food friendly and can go with a wide range of dishes. A first-growth of beers.

RTL update and more beer

I realize it's been a while since I gave you an update on our faithful hound, Rosie The Labradoodle. Of course, all the rulebooks say 'never blog on your pets', but I'm afraid I'm going to, anyway.

RTL has been with us a year. There are moments when we wish we'd never got her, but weighing up all the pros and cons, I think we're just about glad we did. She's like another member of the family.

She now barks less. We've been using a bark collar in the evenings - it's a device that gives her a blast of strong-smelling liquid (citronella) every time she gives a woof. I think you can get versions that deliver an electric shock, but that seems a bit cruel and excessive. As a result, she's got out of the habit of barking, which is a good thing, because there are few more stressful sounds than a barking dog. [Crying infants?]

She still wants to eat the cats. No progress there.

We've faithfully given her two long walks a day. This means every morning I have to get up at the crack of dawn, whatever the weather, and no matter how tired I'm feeling (usually very), to take her out. Change is normally something we aspire to but never quite pull off. RTL has forced on me a quite significant change in lifestyle.

She now looks more like a labradoodle and less like a golden retriever. Only yesterday a fellow labradoodle owner came over to me and asked, 'Is she a labradoodle? So is mine'. Having said this, most people just look puzzled when they meet her.

She now sleeps in our bedroom. Yes, I know: she shouldn't. But at least she sleeps, whereas before she was waking us up regularly at 4 am.

So back to drinks. Some more beers this weekend that I enjoyed. Worthingtons White Shield IPA is fresh and complex. Serious effort. Deuchars IPA from the Caledonian Brewery in Scotland is also fresh and complex, but it's an orange ale with a bit of malty richness to counter the hoppiness. Another serious effort. And Grolsch Weizen Premium is also a serious beer with a lovely citrussy freshness and floral aromatics. All three would be good with food.

A glitzy beer dinner

Last night’s Guild of Beer Writers awards dinner was a fun event. I didn't know what to expect, and felt a bit like I didn’t belong. After all, I’m a wine writer with little more than an amateur interest in beer, although there are obvious parallels between what I do professionally – taste and evaluate an alcoholic beverage – and beer writing.

So I arrive at the Millennium Gloucester hotel and make my way up to the conservatory, where the event is being held. It looks like quite a smart event, and there are perhaps 200 people present. After grabbing a beer from one of the waistaff, I mingle, acutely aware that I know absolutely no one here: evidently, there’s not much overlap between the wine and beer writing communities.

I begin chatting to a random stranger, and then I spot some people I do know: Rupert Ponsonby, who does beer PR as well as wine (he invited me to the dinner), and Graham Holter, currently editorial director at William Reed who will soon be going freelance. I also get to chat with Zak Avery, an off-licence manager who writes an entertaining column in Off Licence News.

Then it’s time for dinner. Our table is an entertaining one: there’s Rupert and his merry staff, plus drinks writer Johnny Goodall and another Rupert, Rupert Thompson who runs the Wychwood brewery. I learn quite a lot about beer from chatting to the two Ruperts, and I also learn that Johnny and I have something in common: we are both proud owners of Labradoodles. His is a seven-month old boy. Maybe we should get him together with Rosie, who is just beginning her second season. Johnny paid £800 for his doodle, and it was one of 12, so someone is making some cash here. It could be us.

Anyway, the food is prepared by Brian Turner and his team, and for each course Brian chooses a beer to match. Brian stands up and introduces the food and beer combos in his usual Yorkshire style. He’s quite entertaining, and the food is very good.

The beers work well. My favourite is the DeuS (yes, the final capital letter is intentional, not a typo). It’s a Belgian beer that is matured in the Champagne region – indeed, it’s a methode Champenoise beer, which comes in a Champagne-style bottle. It’s complex, fresh, zingy and warm all at the same time. It’s 11.5% alcohol and is served in a Champagne glass, and comes with a Champagne-like price tag of £12 a bottle, but it’s worth it. We also have a fantastic IPA named Jaipur, and the familiar but lovely Inns and Gunn oak aged beer.

The awards ceremony is mercifully brief and nicely compered, and then it’s time for some more beer, before heading off into the night with a belly full of ale and a warm glow.

Tired today, but beer to come

I'm feeling sluggish today - a result of staying up late to watch two episodes of the entertaining but increasingly bizarre Spooks, and then being woken up early once again by younger son, who is slightly hyperactive and at age 10 has yet to develop the teenage habit of lying in.

Anyway, I need to shake it off because I'm going out to a dinner tonight, albeit one at which no wine will be served. [Gasps of horror....]

That's because it's the British Guild of Beer Writers Annual Dinner, at the Milennium Gloucester Hotel, at which we will enjoy a beer banquet devised by Brian Turner. I'm not a member of the BGBW, but have been invited as a guest. I do like beer, though, and have written about it occasionally - although I am not an expert, just an interested consumer. I have no idea how many people will be there, but I'm looking forward to it.

[Pictured is the view from my window about 20 minutes ago. I know it's probably a bit childish, but I still find rainbows very beautiful.]

Surrey Hills and some wine

I'm slightly worried that with all these accounts of walks in the country en famille you are left with some picture of domestic idyll chez Goode. Let me correct this notion. When we announced to the boys this morning that we were intending to head off to the Surrey Hills for a family walk, there was severe rebellion in the ranks.

Not surprising, because the slightest parental request in our house is usually treated as fighting talk. For some reason, 'Would you like to come off playstation now, because you've been playing it for 2 hours and you need to eat lunch', is interpreted by elder boy as 'Step outside now'; it's not much better with younger son.

After some negotiation, we managed to set off for one of my favourite excursions, The Holmbury Hill Walk. The best bit about it is that half way round there's a decent pub where you can lunch. Fortified by a couple of pints of Ringwood, and encouraged by the half-decent weather, we had a lovely walk. Even though the kids had considered a long and painful death to be a better option than a family walk before we'd left, once we were there they enjoyed it too.

This evening, three wines sampled. Asda's Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2006 is just what you want from an inexpensive Italian red: it's pleasantly tart and light, with plum and damson flavours. Torres Gran Sangre de Toro 2003 is nicely dense, but has a little too much sweet vanilla-scented American oak for my liking: they should lose some of the oak, use a bit of French rather than American, and aim at fruit intensity. The best of the evening was Chateau Clauzet 2004 Saint-Estephe, Bordeaux. This is quite serious claret. The dark fruits nose has a bit of spice and earthiness. The palate is nicely dense with focused black fruits with good tannins and a minerally undercurrent. This is a substantial, savoury, spicy wine with fresh fruit and well judged oak. A really nice claret. 88/100

A day of family stuff

Took a day off today, to spend with the family. Fortuitously, it was one of the few rain-free days we've had over the last couple of months. It felt like summer.

We started off at Box Hill, near Dorking in Surrey. It's a beautiful spot, and one we return to frequently. A bit of gentle hill walking on a mostly-sunny English summer's day is hard to beat as an antidote to stress. From Boxhill you also get a great view of Denbies Wine Estate (below).

We then lunched at the Percy Arms in Chilworth, which has a nice garden. Greene King IPA and Ruddles Orchard were the accompaniment. This was followed by a visit to Mercedes Benz World at Brooklands, which the kids quite enjoyed. It's like a three-storey car showroom on a scale you've never seen before, with several attractions thrown in. It's free, and the kids really enjoyed sitting in some of the sports cars. You can spend a lot of money on a Mercedes. Me? I'm pretty happy with my Mazda 6 Diesel Estate, which has performed wonderfully over its first 14 months.

Then this evening it was off to Cineworld to see the latest Harry Potter film. It's good - as good as this sort of film can be. I'd rate this alongside number 3 (which incidentally had Michael Seresin, owner of Seresin winery in New Zealand's Marlborough region, as filmaker) as the best of the series. Imelda Staunton is a brilliant Dolores Umbridge, Filch is once again fantastic (especially when he's atop an implausibly high and shaky stepladder hammering Umbridge's edict no 113 to the wall), and there's a spooky, rather gritty edge to the whole film. But the problem is that by this stage in the series Rowling's books had become very fat indeed, and so compressing them into a single film means that there's not much time for character development or narrative - just action. It's hard to see how the next two films can develop the series, save for becoming 'darker', but then part of the appeal of Potter and his merry chums is magic and fun, and the lightness and childish delight is in danger of being squeezed out of this series.

Two wines. Calvet Reserve Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 Bordeaux (£6.99 Sainsbury, Waitrose, Co-op) is quite dense, dark, spicy and tannic - it tastes a bit like a Madiran, with firm, dark structure, blackberry/raspberry fruit and good acidity. Not terribly refined, but a good food wine with lots of savoury stuffing, and better than you might expect from Bordeaux at this price. 84/100. The second is Graham Beck Brut Rose 2005 Methode Cap Classique. This South African fizz is a pale salmon colour with lovely delicacy and poise. There's a smooth texture here, along with freshness and brightness. This is a really well made fizz that is fine for drinking on its own, but which would do a good job at table, too. 86/100 (UK importer Bibendum Wine.)

Wild ale and theme parks

A sort of odd blog post today. A hybrid.

First, a note about a rather good beer I'm drinking. It's Wild Hare from Bath Ales, and it describes itself as an organic golden pale ale. Slightly murky brownish/gold colour. Extremely fresh, hoppy and bitter, which I love. It's as refreshing as a cold lager but much more flavourful and complex. There's a citrus freshness here, together with lovely hoppy bitterness, and it counts as my current favourite bottled beer. £1.70 from Asda.

Second, a blog post I wrote yesterday but didn't post until today:

I’m writing this sat at a table in Burger King, in Thorpe Park. I’ve brought my elder son and three of his friends here for elder son’s birthday treat. So I’m here for 7h 30, which is OK because I’m not going on any rides and the nine-cell battery on this laptop has 89% of power left which apparently is enough for 7 h 39 minutes. Why Burger King? Because it’s the only place with a seat that’s serving coffee (of sorts). There is a Cafe Nero here, but for some unexplainable reason it is closed. Some more observations. Thorpe Park is Chav heaven. I’m quite an open minded guy, and I like theme parks generally. Loved taking the kids to LegoLand and Eurodisney because they were both done so well. Thorpe Park, in contrast, is hideous. It’s crassly commercial, of course, but worst of all it’s ugly. There’s no beauty here. There’s none of the creativity or imagination that the best theme parks have. There’s no sense of magic. It all focuses on the lowest common denominator.

The rides are all extreme, for people whose brains are so atrophied by constant immersion in popular culture, and whose souls have been numbed and bloated by modern living, such that the only stimulation that will reach them is being centrifuged at 5G for four minutes on a Thorpe Park ‘attraction’.

Lunchtime is approaching, so I may have to vacate my seat as the noise levels rise to a crescendo and the smell of fast food becomes overpowering. I’m meeting the kids at 12.50 for lunch. Don’t get me wrong, you can have fun here, and I think my boy will have a great day with his friends. But I hope that by the time he’s 18 he may have developed enough of an awareness of beauty and ugliness that he will choose something else for a day out.

My expectation is that by 6 pm I’ll be high on caffeine (having consumed regular cups of coffee such that I don’t get expelled from my various writing spots) and have got a fair bit of work done, while still being a good dad because I’ve given my son freedom to have fun without the presence of his embarrassing parent. My slight worry is that by standing out from the crowd – I think I’m alone in coming here to work on a laptop – I’ll be expelled from the park for being a weirdo. They’ve probably already got someone in the CCTV room following my every movement.

Where's the wine gone?

I really should plan my blogging better. Readers will be wondering where the wine has gone, with all this talk about beer, cider, dogs and holidays. The thing is, I reckon blogging has a more genuine voice if it is done spontaneously, in the moment, rather than being systematically planned, with entries lined up in advance.

I'm also more keen on single user blogs, although this makes blogging difficult for organizations who say 'we must have a blog', but then find that their people with the ability to make interesting comments are too busy to blog frequently enough to make the blog work.

Their solution is to have a multi-author blog, but I've rarely found one that works - the strength of a blog is that it is a single voice. You have a connection with the author that is hard to maintain across several authors. Anyway, here's another post about beer.

Harviestoun Bitter and Twisted Blond Beer, Alva, Scotland
Apparently, this attractive beer is made with three hop varieties: the aromatic Hallertau Horsbrucker, the spicy Challenger and a late hopping with Styrian Goldings. It's a pale colour and has lovely bitter, slightly zesty flavours. It's nicely savoury and hoppy with a pleasant rounded mouthfeel. I like it a lot. Available from Waitrose for the usual sort of beer price (£1.69? £1.89?).

Bank holiday boozing

My twin sister, Anne, her husband Dominic and their two nippers came to stay for the bank holiday weekend. We had a really good time, helped by the fact that our kids and theirs got on very well. Yesterday we headed up to London, spending a couple of hours at the Imperial War Museum and then heading over to Kensington Gardens for a picnic, lubricated with some Lindauer fizz. They live just round the corner from Trent Bridge in Nottingham, so we'll try to arrange a trip up there to correspond with a suitable game (we're talking cricket here). Dominic still hasn't quite forgiven me for taking him to see City play at Notts County (we're talking football now) several years ago when City were travelling the divisions. He's a rugger man, and so wasn't really prepared for the experience of being in the away end with the hardcore City boys. If I remember correctly we drew that one 1-1, with Goater getting one of his three yard specials to equalize and the city captain getting sent off quite early on.

Some nice wines over the weekend, of which my favourite was Henschke's Louis Semillon 2005 Eden Valley (£13 Waitrose). It's complex, tight and minerally with just a hint of struck match reduction and some richness as well as the lemony fruit. Stylish stuff.

We also had a bit of an impromptu beer and cider tasting, including a really weird Marzen Schlenkera Smokebeer from Bavaria that smelled like salami. I really enjoyed the Aspall Dry Premier Cru Suffolk Cyder, which is fresh, light and precise with zippy acidity. Almost Champagne like. Their website is www.aspall.co.uk, and you can get it in Asda and Sainsbury, I believe.

beer... and more cheese

Big lunch here chez Goode today, with a number of friends, including our chums who've just returned from a month in Aus. They bought with them a bottle of De Bortoli's Gulf Station Pinot Noir 2005 (Oddbins) from the Yarra, and it was really nice. De Bortoli rock at the moment - there are some great wines coming from their Yarra operation. I'm in the process of writing up my report on a visit there.

Two beers and two cheeses tonight. The cheeses were English: a Colston Bassett Stilton and Keen's Farmhouse Cheddar. Both were really lovely, with the deliciously rich, creamy Keen's winning first place in my affections. While the Colston is impressive, I'm still struggling a tiny bit with blue cheeses.

On the beer front, Sierra Navada Pale Ale really works for me. An orange/brown colour this has a complex fruity, spicy aroma with tangy citrus notes, and in the mouth it's hoppy and spicy with lovely balance. Brilliant, and widely available (Tesco, Sainsbury, Waitrose, Morrison’s, Co-Op, Booth’s). Another enjoyable beer in a similar style is the Proper Job IPA from the St Austell Brewery in Cornwall. This has a lovely citrus and honey nose with a warm malty note, and in the mouth the sweet, spicy fruit is backed up by nice hoppiness. It's a great food beer, and it's available from The Beer Club of Britain.

London murders

Had an enjoyable and rather different Friday night. Fiona and I went on a murder mystery walk through the legal district of London, which was hosted by a friend of ours, Steve Newman (he's pictured here in front of Samuel Johnson's house).

He's an actor and walks like these are his current business. We were trialling a new walk, and it was really well done. Each participant is assigned role to play, and you gradually get to know more information about your role through the course of the evening. By chatting to the other participants, mainly during the regular pub stops, you all try to identify the murderer.

An additional facet of the evening is that the walk takes you through some highly interesting, lesser known bits of town - Steve spins a wonderful story that combines the plot with the various landmarks - even the pubs we stopped at had historical significance. It was a jolly crowd and I think we all had a lot of fun, fuelled by pints of Timothy Taylor's Landlord, Fuller's London Pride, Youngs Winter Warmer and a Samuel Smiths. This sort of event would be great for teambuilding, for example, and I'd be happy to put any interested parties in touch with Steve.

Weekend away

We've spent a lovely weekend visiting my parents in Suffolk. They recently moved to Lidgate, home of famed gastropub 'The Star' - where I had an enjoyable couple of pints (Green King IPA) and a game of darts with my father last night. We visited Ickworth House on Saturday and today we went to Clare Castle Country Park (pictured - the railway station, now disused). It's nice to get away, even just for a couple of days.