Travels With Nate

Everyone knows Duvel. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a fully fledged beer geek like me, or if you’re just an everyday person who likes the occasional supermarket selection when you can’t be bothered to go to the pub. For years now, the golden Belgian strong ale has been a mainstay in the fridges of many pubs and supermarket shelves. You can go to a seemingly average boozer with a less than interesting tap list and you’ll probably find Duvel. You will find it in all of the major supermarkets, too, rarely priced at more than £2 a bottle. This 8.5% foreign delight that you see everywhere, with its crunchy nut cornflake sweetness, just enough booziness that teases you, telling you to drink more when you know you shouldn’t, has become as common as Fuller’s London Pride, and it’s not a bad thing. Slightly harder to come by, however, is their yearly Tripel Hop release. This has been released each year for a fair few years now and I’m happy to say that I’ve caught 4 of them now....

I bought this one out of curiosity and that I fucking love Brooklyn Brewery. I've been happy with everything I've had from them so y'know, and pumpkin isn't really a common fruit to use in food and drink in the UK. My experience with pumpkin is very limited. I have carved pumpkins at halloween but I've not eaten it. I've only had 3 different pumpkin beers - Southern Tier, Wychwood & Timmermans. I really enjoyed 1 out of 3, the Southern Tier Imperial Pumking Ale. It was beautiful. I asked on both Facebook and Twitter today if anyone has had this particular beer and was it good. I got mixed results back. Matt said he didn't enjoy it, Rich simply said "Meh" but in the other corner we have The Biere Belle and Mel who both enjoyed it. This, naturally, leads me to the assumption that it's a beer for girls (although I'm well aware that the lovely ladies in question drink big beers too!). So, will I side with the ladies who love it ...

Me in the Black Heart. Credit to Matt Curtis for the pic! Ever since I first read about Californian brewery Russian River ’s beer Pliny The Elder I wanted to try it. I didn’t think I’d ever get the chance unless I were to go to California where even it its home state, it can be hard to come across. And then yesterday happened. I took a day trip to London to hang out and drink beer with Matt & Karen who run the Evening Star pub in Brighton. They have recently returned from a holiday in America and told me that they had a bottle of beer for me. I was hoping it was Pliny but I thought “No, surely it can’t be...” and it was. When Karen handed me the bottle, I had to contain my girly screams as we were in a public place. It’s possibly the best present you can give a beer geek!