Travels With Nate

A few weeks ago, I got an email asking if I wanted guestlist for Evile & Wolf at Open in Norwich. I instantly replied because I knew it would be an awesome gig; then a couple of days later I got confirmation and asked if I want to interview Evile. At first, I said I’m not sure and I’ll get back to the record label but a couple of weeks later I had a brainwave – my blog isn’t just about music, why don’t I see if the band are up for a Norfolk Beer Tasting? I already knew that Joel is quite into his beer so it would be perfect. I got a reply saying it sounds like a great idea. We’re onto a winner! So, along with my good friend Rob, I took 5 beers from 3 different Norfolk breweries to taste them with Joel Graham, the bassist from Evile. Evile are a thrash metal band hailing from Huddersfield in Yorkshire, England. They currently have three studio albums, have appeared at many different heavy metal festivals, had headline tours and have supported some pretty big names. In f...

It has come to my attention that CAMRA are being twats (again). It’s even worse this time as they’re being twats about a friend’s brewery. It’s great news that Ketts Tavern which is run by owners of Norwich Bear Brewing Co , Dawn and Kev, is in the good beer guide. I mean really good news. Both Ketts Tavern and The Rose are wonderful pubs that you should definitely go to if you ever visit Norwich. They’re run by friendly people who are passionate about beer and have great bar staff too. They have pool tables and show Norwich games which are always good features. Oh and they have beer from Norwich Bear Brewing Co. So yeah, about the beer… which is the topic of this post and why I am angry at CAMRA.

So, the past weekend saw Dragon Hall Beer Festival 2 and it was a massive success. We had pretty much the whole crew of volunteers back plus some new additions which was great. We’re a great team. We had about 30 cask ales and bottled beers from Norfolk as well as 4 kegged beers and 9 bottled beers from Ghent in Belgium. Basically, if you missed it you’re an absolute fool. My two favourite beers of the weekend: Van Steenberge Gulden Draak 9000 Quadrupel – A wonderful example of a quadruple. 10.5% but definitely doesn’t taste it. Got nice caramel and malty aromas. Flavours are caramel, bananas & custard, light yeast and spice. Norwich Bear Platinum Blonde – A premium bitter. Pours a lovely golden orange colour with a bubbly off-white head. Biscuity malt aromas with some citrus. Tastes citrusy (possibly lemon) with that same buscuity malt flavour. Definitely my favourite cask ale of the weekend. See Dawn ’s impression of me here: https://twitter.com/#!/Nat...