Beer Sommelier Diaries

Burnt Faith, #London's first dedicated #Brandy distillery for 200 years, isn't simply copying #Cognac but exploring what they can do with the spirit when not bound by the French AOC rules.

Somewhere in a mushroom farm in Oxfordshire sit 170 or so barrels that will make or break the future of London’s only dedicated brandy distillery — one of the most intriguing startups the city has seen for a while. Burnt Faith is the first brandy house to fire up its still in the capital for two centuries or more. That’s a long wait, but Londoners will have to hold on just a little longer to…

A spot of inside intel for anyone interested in #Gin (with a small side-helping of #AI)

Strap in, this one’s a bit nerdy. I’m going to share with you a few things I learned last week during the Gin Guild’s annual Ginposium seminar. Gin’s post-covid recovery News here is broadly positive, with sales at least 10% higher in much of the world than they were back in 2019 before covid came along to stir everything up. There are a few notable places, however, that have yet to recover,…

Just want to see what happens and whether this posts straight through or ends up as a draft post or what…

With all the gin sloshing about my life lately, is it any wonder Dirty Martinis have been playing on my mind? More on the delicious filth here 👇🍸

I am smitten by the dirty martini. It’s like a sickness. It gets under your skin and suddenly nothing else will do. Take back your dry martini, shining silvery and crystal clear in its glass. Take back your lemon twist. Give me a glass with that tantalising haze and a trio of stuffed olives marching down the pick into its briny depths. Sarah Rense, writing in Esquire, feels the same way. A…

A quick write-up of the absinthe martini — a drink I'll be returning to very soon. Perhaps tonight. Or... lunch?

You’ll like this. It’s perfumed, subtle, complex — and potent. It’ll blow your head off in the most enchanting way. I used the Difford’s recipe, which is: 70ml Silent Pool Gin (I used their Platinum Jubilee gin)15ml Dolin dry vermouth5ml La Fée absinthe Combine and stir over ice until the outside of the mixing glass is nice and frosty, then strain into a chilled glass and float a star anise…

A quickie blog post on the glorious simplicity that is a Campari and soda.

For me this is best served in a double rocks glass filled to the brim with clear ice. I mean it: right to the top. If your ice floats once you’ve poured the drink then you’re doing it wrong. Or you could do as the Milanese do and chill the Campari, the soda, and the glass before serving. Bit of a faff. Ice works. Ice is great. If you’re worried it will over-dilute your drink just knock it back…

NEW ON THE BLOG I've finally decided to start putting up tasting notes again starting with this one for #NZBeerMonth

You feel like a giant holding this dinky can, wrapped in its lilac label that only ups the cute factor, but it’s an alcoholic hand-grenade at 12% ABV. I’d like to see more beers in cans like this, ideal as they are for the domestic voluptuary. You can indulge in all the sensual delights strong beers offer without feeling obliged to pursue a solo mission through a sharing-size portion. This beer…

A quick update on last year's post about drink-free days to share with you how I fared after hitting publish. Did I manage to walk the walk? (TL;DR - yes.)

I wrote a post a year ago about the important of taking days off drinking throughout the year, not just during ‘Dry January’, ‘Stoptember’ or ‘Sober October’. In that post I mentioned I’d started counting how many drink-free days I took that year (albeit only from June onwards). Well, I carried on counting. In fact I counted right through 2021. And now seems like a good time to share with you…

NEW ON THE BLOG: here's my guide to vegan beer in the UK in 2021.

It has been four years since I last wrote about vegan beer and things have changed, so I’ve decided to revisit the subject. I will answer some of the questions you might have, like “how on earth can a beer not be vegan?” and “how is vegan beer made?” After that, I’ll put together a short list of some of the better vegan beers available in the UK at the moment. Finally, I have a list of UK…

New on the blog: Don't buy fear and ignorance

I received a sample of Drinkwell IPA over the weekend. It came in a very smelly box — really stinky ink — but that’s not why I want to write about it. There also seemed to be some confusion between the packaging and the PR over whether this beer was called Drinkwell IPA, or Heracles IPA, or some combination of the two. But that isn’t why I want to write about it either. The marketing blurb on…

So you want to get better at describing beer? Let's take a look at some approaches you can use.

There’s no getting round it, if you want to become a better beer taster you need to learn how to describe the stuff clearly and accurately. Flavour is wrapped up in language, and you need to identify and understand what you’re tasting. So you can follow proper tasting technique and write scrupulous tasting notes, but… how do you actually get better at describing beer? (more…)

Getting the skinny on low calorie beers

This article was first published in issue 38 of Ferment Magazine in April 2019. The best thing about a workout is the feeling afterwards: the warm glow in your muscles, the sense of achievement, the peace of mind restored. Maybe even that hint of smugness; it would have been so easy to stay on the sofa watching Netflix but instead you got out of the house and put in the work. That deserves a pat…

# So you want to get better at describing beer

There’s no getting round it, if you want to become a better beer taster you need to learn how to describe the stuff clearly and accurately. Flavour is wrapped up in language, and you need to identify and understand what you’re tasting. So you can follow [proper tasting technique] and write scrupulous [tasting notes], but… how do you actually get better at describing beer? Different ways of…

New blog post today about filtered water. Thanks to @ZeroWaterUK for the free jug!

Here’s something a little bit different— not beer, cider or spirits but water. It’s easy to take for granted if you live somewhere with decent tap water. It’s just… there. In your house. Whenever you want it. So when I was contacted by water filter company ZeroWater asking if I wanted to review their filter jug, my initial reaction was “uh… why?” But I was intrigued when I saw this video. I…

NEW BLOG POST on the importance of not drinking sometimes. How many drink free days did you have last year?

So here we are in another new year. Many of us will have made resolutions to become better versions of ourselves than we were last time around the sun. And for lots of us at this time of year, as we wave goodbye to the midwinter indulgence for another eleven-or-so months, that means drinking less. At least for a bit. (more…)

New on the blog: what is 'mixed ferm' beer?

I’m rather annoyed with myself. In a recent newsletter I lazily referred to saisons as being ‘mixed ferm’. That was wrong. They are not. Or, at least, they don’t have to be. It’s not a characteristic of the style. I guess some saisons might also be mixed ferm, but you can be a perfectly good saison without it. You can even be the best: Saison Dupont. But what is ‘mixed ferm’ anyway? Well, that…

NEW ON THE BLOG: Best Booze Books, 2020 edition. We may not be able to go out for a drink, but we can at least read about it.

Right, it’s pretty clear what the deal is here so minimal waffle and let’s just get on with it, right? Right.

No affiliate links or anything. Just recommendations because I think these books look good.

I’ve avoided linking to Amazon where possible.

Noble Rot: Wine from Another Galaxy

Noble Rot is an excellent wine magazine, and also a pair of restaurants with a fantastic wine…