Travels With Nate

8 Foot Sativa is a 5 piece heavy metal band from New Zealand and when this album hit my inbox, I thought I knew what to expect as I loved this band years ago. I was expecting pure Nu-Metal, but that's not what I received, and it's definitely not a bad thing. You see, what I've heard from 8 Foot Sativa previously has been quite light. Not exactly chart friendly, lyrically but certainly musically. Again, this is no bad thing. The Shadow Masters brings something new to the table. There's a lot of metalcore in the heaviness of Anatomy of Hate  and Never Abide  with massive crushingness and intense lyrics, yet there are fairly light hearted proggy singalong songs like Shadow Master  and Feeding The Weak . This album is taking a completely different angle, and proving that a band doing something different isn't a bad thing. Lyrically, 8 Foot Sativa were always quite strong and intense but musically and production quality was lacking, and The Shadow Masters  proves j

You know me, I don't usually do beer reviews. I'd rather rant about shit, but I dunno, this has impressed me enough to write. If you've been reading this for a while, or looking at my tweets, you'll know that I haven't always said nice things about Norfolk Square brewery. I've said previously how Crazy Horse American IPA, while being nice, does not taste anywhere close to an IPA. It's more like an English Strong Ale, and Lunatik, again is nice, but not an IPA, to me it tastes more like a Belgian Tripel. Well I've wanted to try Black Widow  for a while and today I managed to buy a bottle from Harper Wells  in Norwich. It's an Imperial Stout aged on Port. So what's it like? Brewery:  Norfolk Square Beer:  Black Widow Style:  Imperial Stout Country:  England ABV:  9% Look: Silky black. Small off white head. Aroma: Bitter black coffee hit, some dark chocolate and a smidge of boozy port. Flavour: Bitter dark chocolate, freshly bre

The Session is a monthly event for the beer blogging community which was started by Stan Hieronymus at  Appellation Beer . On the first Friday of each month, all participating bloggers write about a predetermined topic. Each month a different blog is chosen to host The Session, choose the topic, and post a roundup of all the responses received. For more info on The Session, check out the Brookston Beer Bulletin’s  nice archive page . This month’s session is hosted by Ding and (I think) it’s about the differences between America’s and Britain’s beer culture… Let’s pretend, just for a moment, that this is actually a guest blog by two people. One of them is an American who knows a little about American craft beer and that’s generally what he buys, and the other is a British chap who just goes down the pub. These guys want to tell you about beer culture in the other person’s country but they’re not very well educated in it… American: “British beer? It sounds