Travels With Nate

Alright, my advent calendar didn't quite work out did it? I know I've posted before but apologies, I was a little busy. I'm still busy, I have stuff to do, but I really want to do 12 beers of Xmas to support my buddy Steve at The Beer O'Clock Show. Him and Mark run a brilliant podcast that I was lucky enough to guest on once (until my battery died and I had no charger) and I'm looking forward to doing it again one day. Yesterday was day one and I picked Stewart Brewing Weiss Christmas Blanc (4.7%, Edinburgh). We'd shared a few bottles of this in the office as they were nice enough to send us a bunch of samples when we bought a couple of pallets from them, and I enjoyed it but on cask it really is even better. So this beer is a German style Hefeweizen with added spices, in the spirit of Christmas. To be honest, I think it was a genius move to brew a Christmas Wheat Beer because nobody else seems to do it - Christmas beers all tend to be fairly dark. It po

2014 has been absolutely mammoth for me because I finally got myself a job in the beer industry, at Redwell Brewery in Norwich. I've been drinking Redwell beers since the beginning and I've known everyone involved since way before it started so I was so happy when they offered me a job. Basically what I'm doing is covering all aspects of social media, marketing, promotions, events, beer festivals amongst other things. I've been here about a week and a half now, and it's just awesome! I'm so happy to be working in an industry that I love, with some really awesome people who I call friends. Anyway, I do Golden Pints every year and it's always so difficult because I drink a ridiculous amount of beer. Probably too many beers. I'll give it a crack, though, as always. Best UK Cask Beer:  Oakham Citra (again) - Seriously, I have no reason to choose any other cask beer. This is probably because these days, I don't drink enough of them and when I do

Alright, I haven't kept up with my advent calendar because I've had other things to do, but it's cool. I imagine I'll get back on it soon... rest assured that I've still been drinking all the beer! Anyway, last Friday manager of Ten Bells in Norwich, Richard, invited me and a guest along to sample Bullitt's new menu along with the winter cocktail menu. We arrived at 7:30pm and were shown to our table by Richard who left us to peruse the cocktail & food menus. After a while another member of staff came over to take our first cocktail orders - I went for a Cold Buttered Rum which was incredible - it was so smooth with the rum and spices coming through perfectly. My guest went for something a little different - I forget what it's called but it was marvellously sour and bitter with a little sweetness. Our food orders were taken - I got Pork on Pork while my guest got the only suitable option for her as she doesn't eat meat, Taiwanese style hira

So day 5 now, and my second day at Redwell Brewery as Marketing Manager and it's a beer from a strange land since David Jones is back. This is a beer he has been brewing at Helsingborg Brewery in Sweden. Brewery:  Helsingborgs Beer:  Kaffestout ABV:  8.5% Style:  Coffee Stout Country:  Sweden Where I drank it:  Redwell Brewery Look:  Pitch black with a large tan head that sticks around for a while. Aroma:  Coffee, coffee and more coffee! Woah. Flavour:  Sweet black coffee with a handful of spiky hops. Mouthfeel:  Silky smooth, so drinkable. Overall:  I absolutely love this beer. It's ridiculously drinkable and delicious and I want more! Cheers, Nate

As I've mentioned before, Adnams are one of my favourite British breweries. They may be fairly traditional with Southwold Bitter and Broadside, but head brewer Fergus proves that he can use lashings of hops and brew new world style beers time and time again. To be honest though, i rarely buy their bottled or canned beers (other than Ghost Ship) because here in Norwich I'm guaranteed to find their beers on cask and keg everywhere. They did, however, contact me a couple of weeks ago asking if I wanted to try their two new beers to write about and here's the first one... Brewery: Adnams Beer: Wild Hop ABV:  4.8% Style:  Amber Beer Country:  England Where I drank it:  At home Wild Hop Amber Beer is a very awesome idea. What Adnams did was put feelers out into the internet to essentially crowd source wild hops, as well as ones that people had been growing in their gardens. Due to this, it's rather interesting as the hops used are basically unspecified - they cou

"I don't like lager. I only really drink ale but this is awesome" says Jim as he slams his empty glass that used to contain Redwell Hells Lager on the table. This is why I do the beer thing, for reactions like this. I introduce people to beers they wouldn't usually drink. Last night I had the pleasure of meeting up with British Heavy Metal band Raging Speedhorn before the first night of their first UK tour in 6 years, at Norwich Waterfront. You'll know from my history that I don't do regular band interviews. They're boring. The guys from Raging Speedhorn agree "Why have you reformed? Who are your influences?" Jay tells me they get asked all of the time. So I took the guys to Norwich Taphouse and figured I'd introduce them to our beers from Redwell Brewery, just to put an awesome spin on things. We started off with Hells, which was loved all around the table. Guys, like Jim, who don't drink lager, loved it. They say they could

Woop, day two! That means two blogs in one day. Poor you. Anyway, I'm sure y'all know what the deal is. Brewery: Thornbridge Beer: Sequoia ABV: 4.5% Style: American Amber Ale Country: UK Where I drank it: Mash Tun, Norwich Thornbridge are, without a doubt, one of the best breweries in the UK. Again, it's a brewery that nails everything they do and I've been drinking their beers for as long as I remember. Sequoia is an American Amber Ale... it's a style that's not brewed so often over here, with many breweries favouring American IPAs or even Red Ales. I'm probably cheating a bit here as it's a beer I know and love already, but still. Looks: Dark Amber, slightly hazy (cask was fresh on & I don't mind a bit of haze) with a lovely fluffy white head. Aroma : On the nose you get chewy toffee sweets along with some pine and citrus fruit. Flavour: Citrus fruits leading into light toffee with a lovely marmalade covered digesti

Just an idea I got, I'm gonna make sure I write something every day and to do that I figured I'd write about a beer I have each day leading up to Christmas. Obviously this is a day late but YOLO. That means you unlucky people get two blogs today. Brewery: Beavertown & Mikkeller & Arizona Wilderness (collaboration) Beer: SOUR POWER ABV: 6% Style: Red Saison with sour cherries & redcurrants Country: UK/Denmark/USA Where I drank it: Norwich Taphouse (Half pint on keg) So this is a collaboration between the awesome Beavertown Brewery in London, Mikkeller in Denmark & Arizona Wilderness in the USA. I'm a massive fan of Beavertown as they seem to nail every style of beer they brew, and Mikkeller is legendary. I've never had anything from Arizona Wilderness because I'm pretty sure they don't export, but I've heard very good things. Look: As red as a cloudy summer sky, that is to say that it's pretty damn red but there's defin