beards, bellies and ale

this week we tootled along to the Battersea Beer Festival for a celebration of real ale. For those of you unfamiliar with ale it is defined as… ”beer brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide”.

It is the kind of stuff that most australians would think of when they imagine being served warm beer and I have had the odd visitor turn their nose up at it but really, it is delicious. Apart from the many and varied flavours that you don’t get drinking cold lager, it is produced all over the place in small breweries which means it always has a story. So, the stories from Wednesday night included:

• Old Bushy Tail – a reddish malty beer from Bushy’s brewery on the Isle of Man
• Quadhop – fruity hoppy golden ale from Downton brewery in Wiltshire
• Hophead – an old favourite hoppy bitter from Dark Star in West Sussex
• Dogwatch Stout – chocolate aftertaste from Nelson in Chatham
• Beijing Black – lovely stout from Potbelly in Kettering

and last but not least, Madog’s Ale which according to the notes had a ‘malty nose’ which in reality translates to smelling of farts from Purple Moose in Porthmadog in Wales. 

the market at borough

borough market on a saturday is definitely one of the highlights of the week – bacon bap with brown sauce from roast, monmouth flat white and if you wander for more than half an hour, a cheeky half in the Market Porter. This morning we were joined by the lovely April who is visiting and we wandered home with a bag full of Flour Power Banana Cake, ingredients for potato and leek soup and some Cotherstone cheese from Neal’s Yard.

sunday night in bethnal green

Justin works with lots of cool people and one of the coolest is Andy Liu. He has been giving us the inside vibe on chinese food in london and tonight he took us to gourmet san in bethnal green. We had some rather tasty treats, lots of garlic, lots of chilli and the odd bit of offal. I wish I could tell you what we had properly but basically it was a cold beef and tripe salad with coriander and sesame, fish cooked in a broth and loaded with chillies and the most delicious garlic lamb skewers…

and then we caught the tube back and walking home it started to snow. Proper snow. Sometimes london is really quite rockin.

Online TV

I’ve been using myp2p for a while now to watch football, but have now discovered KeyHoleTV…which lets you watch live Japanese telly online! It’s total awesomeness.

Instructions here:
http://xorsyst.com/japan/watch-japanese-tv-online/

And download here:
http://www.v2p.jp/video/

i am addicted to the web…

but how can i resist when these lovelies are around…here are just a few I can’t stop visiting at the moment:

http://issuu.com – lots of magazines, some amazing photos books and asterix comics. fantastichen.

www.designspongeonline.com – yum. tasty interiors, mini trend tips and links to great online design stores.

www.etsy.com – if you have spoken to me in the last 6 months you will know that etsy changed my life, it continues to do so…

chat bald.

Reading List

Why do I choose such big books?! I’ve been reading most of these for months now…some for more than a year!

Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947

I’m quite into European history and love Berlin, so I had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately, however, it’s a bit dry and isn’t really a popular history title. And why do there need to be so many Fredericks?? Hard work.

The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century

Ah, Runciman. I loved his History of the Crusades and he hasn’t let me down here. Great book.

The Ancestor’s Tale

There is some interesting stuff in here, but it’s hard work when you hit the invertebrates. 

The New York Review of Books

One of my favourite things in the world. I bought my first one when I was in the US for work a few years ago and haven’t missed an issue since.

The Week

Great to have for a flight or just lying around the house. I’d definitely rather have this than a UK newspaper.

German beer styles

My first ever post on our blog…hoorah! And what better place to start than a list of German beer styles! We’re heading to Berlin tonight so stay tuned for photos of us sampling them:

Altbier (“old beer”): top-fermented then cold-conditioned

Berliner Weisse: top-fermented, sour wheat beer

Bock: strong, bottom-fermented

• Doppelbock: stronger version of bock (“double bock”)
• Eisbock: bockbier lagered at sub-zero temperatures
• Maibock: brewed to celebrate Spring

Braunbier: made with dark malts, usually bottom-fermented

Dampfbief (“steam beer”): warm top-fermentation

Diaet Pils

Dinkelbier: top-fermented with a proportion of spelt malt (“dinkel”) and usually including both malted barley and wheat

Dortmunder Export: pale, bottom-fermented

Dunkel / Dunkles

• Muenchner Dunkel: dark, bottom-fermented
• Schwarzbier (“black beer”)

Export: typically a golden, bottom-fermented beer

Gose: top-fermented, sour wheat beer

Haferbier (“oat beer”)

Hanfbier: brewed with hemp blossom rather than hops

Hell / Helles (“pale”)

• Muenchner Hell

Kellerbier

Koelsch

Kraeusen

Lagerbier: bottom-fermented

Landbier

Maerzen (“Maerz”=”March”)

Pilsener / Pils

Rauchbier (“smoke beer”): produced using malt that has been smoked over beechwood

Roggen: top-fermented beer made with malted rye (“roggen”); also usually includes both malted barley and wheat

Schankbier: beer with a lower-than-usual alcohol content

• Luettje Lage (“little round”): dark, top-fermented Schankbier

Spezial

Steinbier: currently extinct!

Ungespundet (“unbunged”): only made by a handful of breweries within a 30km radius of Bamberg

Vollbier

Weissbier / Weizenbier: top-fermented; typically made with equal parts wheat and barley malt

• Hefeweizen / Hefeweissbier (“hefe”=”yeast”): unfiltered wheat beer
• Kristallweizen: filtered wheat beer

Zoigl: brewed in communal breweries in Oberpfalz

Zwickel (“tap”): unfiltered, bottom-fermented

live at scala

yep, we were sad little aussies and went along to see uncle paul. I was slightly relieved when he forgot the opening lines to deeper water, he must have a million songs! Scala is a kick arse venue, and as you can see from the pics you can get really close…

summery sundae

Jus and I are just back from our annual trip to leicester for summer sundae. A most excellent little festival with room to breathe, toilets with soap and lots of chidlets with little ‘ear defenders’ on.

We managed to catch Wild Beasts (www.myspace.com/wildbeasts), Camera Obscura (www.myspace.com/cameraobscuraband) and roisin murphy (of moloko fame).

We also managed to sample several of the beverages from the real ale tent – Justin dug the Moonshine from Abbeydale Brewery in Sheffield and I had far too many of the Herefordshire Perry.

Fortunately we got a bit of sun in amongst the rain dribblets and a very pleasant time was had by all. 

k x

back in the saddle

after a rather long time being lazy and not updating the blog, I finally updated our photos and thought I should post something. So here is the something, not much, but for a sunny sunday in london not bad.