Is this the best place to have a beer?
I get lots of email. Sure there is a lot of spam but some of it, like the picture above from Paul, is from the writers and plenty is from readers. Paul wrote to send me a bit of the trip he and herself to the village of which included a B+B and a pub called The Olive Branch. At the pub...
They had three ales on tap while we were there, Fuller’s Chiswick 3.5%, Olive Oil 3.6% and Grainstore Ten Fifty 5%. Of course I tried them all! Chiswick is a favourite of mine, as eulogised after my trip to the Norwich Beer Festival last year. It's a flowery hoppy beer that I never get tired of. Olive Oil is the Olive Branches house ale, brewed by Grainstore. A copper coloured ale, more bitter than the Chiswick but a good rounded flavour for a session ale. On the way home we stopped in at the Finchs Arm, Hambleton, Rutland Water and I had a pint of Grainstore Cooking, at 3.6% it would appear to be not too dissimilar to Olive Oil. Grainstore's Ten Fifty was a fantastically complex ale, malty, not too bitter, tastes of toffee. Same style but head and shoulders above Old Speckled Hen.It was only later when I was checking around the blogs that I get to Paul's one - and then I realize that this is not the back of the B+B but the pub's garden. I can't imagine a nicer scene for a pint.
Other than that, the response to the naming of the winners of TAP NY 2007 tickets has been great. Both winners are attending with pals and the sponsors are delighted. The contact person is going to give our poets a meet and greet when they arrive. I also had an email about a ballcap with a beer opener attached, a site about Belgian beer advertising of one sort or another, a kegerator locating web widget as well as a nice email from a guy called John:
My name is John, webmaster and owner of thevikingtavern.com which is a site for my tavern located in Spokane, Wa. We have over 32 beers on tap and over 100 bottles from all over the world. I've started to receive solid traffic and top 10 rankings in Google for Spokane taverns, Washington import beers, and Spokane beers to name a few. And plan to have many more.Very nice...but does it have an English country garden? I have also had a few emails from a guy trying to get me go in on a bar in Nigeria. Not a million zillion dollars in a government account sort of spam - just one pub. I think it's actually legit.
I also heard from Dick Pepper who runs a beer podcast called "Big Foamy Head" which is going to have its 73rd episode on the 18th of April. Our contributor Donavan Hall has a podcast and his is up to episode #84. Me, I only listen to baseball games on AM radio these days.
Like Donavan, however, and also now Stonch I am home brewing again with the focus on half-batches of low-budget all-grain low-strength beer. I am on my second pico-batch of 3.5%-ish porter, finishing the last of the first nano-brew in tonight's beef stew. All supplies are shipped in from the ever excellent Paddock Wood of Saskatchewan, a firm I would definitely like to attract as a sponsor. Speaking of sponsors, we have added ads to the bottom of individual posts and we'll see how it goes.
Other than a few emails with me moaning about Cantillon and others moaning about my pathetic taste, that is it for another Monday night mailbag. Now if I can just find a beer garden like Paul's.
