Luck of the draw

There was a raffle at the Beoir Christmas party at 57 The Headline, with a top prize of a box of Irish beers hand picked by the chairman Reuben. I never win anything so was very surprised when my number came out of the hat. Even better, there were a few in the set that I'd never tasted before. Cue this blog post.

Puck Pilsner by Jack Cody's of Drogheda had been on my must-drink list for a while. It was a perfect clear gold colour on the first pour and had plenty of head retention, though perhaps I shouldn't have used a glass with so many nucleation points at the bottom. Still, drinking through the foam wasn't a hardship: there's a gorgeous sharp and bitter herbal effect from the concentrated oils. Underneath, it's pretty plain fare with light grass up front though bitterer on the finish. The body is rounded and comfy, more like a helles than a pointy pils. I don't get much malt, though there's more than a hint of candyfloss in the aroma. And maybe a whisper of cardboard oxidation too, but you'd need to be a real fusspot to notice. Stylistically, Puck earns its pilsner stripes better than most any Irish beer out there. Be warned, however, that it's bottle conditioned and if you don't have a steady hand you'll end up with something more like a kellerbier.

A witbier to follow: Mescan's Westport White. There was lots of spume on opening so it took me a while to pour, noticing a sharp lemony aroma as I did so. The colour is a little on the pale side for the style though the ABV is a totally typical 5%. Its flavour is also true-to-style though very much on the dry end of the scale. There's a chalky crispness and a somewhat harsh beeswax bitterness at first. It mellows as it warms, with hints of honey and lemon meringue peeping through. Overall it's just a little too severe for my liking: I'd prefer more of the spice and fruit you find in the mainstream Belgian examples.

That just leaves Altered Amber by 12th Abbey, a label-sticker brand which gets beers brewed by Brú Brewery in Meath. This is the first of their three beers to come my way and is 4.2% ABV and a clear, dark red-brown. The promised citrus aromas are there, though a little muted. Its flavour is complex and interesting, starting bitter and vegetal, turning to bitter coffee roast, adding in a little toffee and a little candied fruit, and then finishing dry and rather metallic, a little unpleasantly gastric and saccharine. I'd heard it being described as a plain Irish red, but it's not, there's definitely a bigger hop element. I'd place it closer to crisp English bitter like Adnams or St Austell's Trelawny, though not as good as either. The acidic finish builds as it goes and I was finding it tough drinking before the half way point. I reckon the recipe could do with some tweaking to soften it.

Definitely a mixed bag, then. Proof that raffles are not the ideal way to source new beers.

Tír Chonaill a-brew

The growth in Ireland's craft brewing scene seems to be concentrating in the north west at the moment: not terribly surprisingly since it's woefully under served with drinkable beer, though it's nice to see that some people at least think there's a market for something different. Tyrone's Red Hand brewery launches its first beer at The Brewer's House this coming weekend, while nearby Poker Tree is expected to be in production later this year, but Donegal has been quietly turning out the ales for a while now.

The label on my bottle of Donegal Blonde claims a foundation date of 2011 though I understand it was late into 2012 before anything was pouring. The brewery is based at Dicey's pub and off licence in Ballyshannon, a long-time supporter of better choice in Irish beer. The bottle styling is simple, though the first note of concern came with the less than generous fill level (left). Sure enough, coaxing a head onto the beer took a bit of splash work and the foam didn't last long. The sparkle is the lightest imaginable, but at least it's not flat, and the colour is more an attractive red-gold than generic blonde.

No qualms whatsoever about the aroma. Expecting something very plain there's actually a gorgeous spring garden floral smell. If washing powder ads had an aroma, it would be this. The flavour doesn't quite live up to it, being watery for the most part, with dry grain hitting the back of the palate and those flowers just gradually infusing the senses at the end. But, surprisingly for a brewery that hasn't mastered the art of filling bottles, there are no off flavours or nasty surprises. The recipe is flawless and I suspect that a bit more fizz would do wonders to lift it. I can easily imagine settling in to a session on this at the source, or at any of the nearby pubs who have the good sense to stock it.

Meanwhile, up the other end of the county, Kinnegar Brewing has been turning out beer on a very small scale for a couple of years now. Distribution down in these parts is sparse to say the least, but Geoff from the Bull & Castle was kind enough to nab me a bottle. There are three in the range and this one is the amber ale: Devil's Backbone. No undercarbonation problems in this bottle conditioned job: it's wild fizzy so it is, hi. (Reuben found the same.) When the foam subsides the 4.9% ABV beer underneath is revealed to be quite a minerally one, reminding me in general of the better sort of English brown bitter, and Adnams's in particular. I was sort-of expecting more of a hop perfume, given that "amber ale" carries particular US connotations and the brewer is himself an American. But the hops here are all about the bitterness, adding an assertive bite to the one already provided by the carbonation. It's very tannic, which I love, with the tea effect turning a little towards earl grey thanks to the subtle hopping.

Wonky carbonation notwithstanding, if these two are anything to go by, the future is very bright for microbrewing in west Ulster. Sadly, neither brewery is represented at the Irish Craft Beer Village which opened yesterday at Dublin's IFSC and runs to Monday, but there's plenty of other good stuff to drink, including a new Eight Degrees stout, a double IPA from Carlow Brewing and a rare opportunity to taste Irish craft cider on draught.

Yuletide miscellany

It wasn't all fancy pub-hopping in England over Christmas. I was well looked after by my sisters who sourced a selection of bottles for general drinking.

Among them was a box set from Adnams, one of my favourite English breweries. While I'm familiar with most of their output, there were a couple of new ones in here. Most of all I was keen to get my hands on Ghost Ship, their new pale ale. It's so pale as to be golden, but branding it a golden ale would be an insult: it's a style that few breweries do well and tends to be more of an attempt to catch the lager market than to make genuinely good beer. Not so with Ghost Ship: no grainy malts or bubblegum stickiness here, just bright and snappy peach and pineapple flavours sitting atop the signature Adnams crispness. That balance of dry minerals and New World hop candy makes for a fantastic flavour combination.

Also new to me was Gunhill, a sweet red ale with a thick off-white head. First sip reveals bags of milk chocolate plus some brown-maltish roast coffee dryness. A subtle bit of hop spice in the finish offers a little seasoning on what's otherwise a very much malt-driven beer. Though heavy, it's only 4% ABV. A warmer at this strength is a rare and welcome find.

The official warmer from Adnams, however, is Yuletide, which I found on draught in The Moon Under Water in Watford. On Christmas Eve afternoon this crammed JD Wetherspoon put a new spin on the phrase "Orwellian nightmare". Having elbowed enough uncollected plates aside to have somewhere to put my pint, I found Yuletide to be not all that dissimilar to Adnams Bitter: brown and quite crisp with just a little bit more of a dark taste, a sweetness which includes some bourbon biscuit and plum. Reasonable fare, though I'm sure the ambiance didn't help my appreciation. I should have gone to The One Crown down the street. I know this now.

Keeping it seasonal, I got to try Innis & Gunn Winter Ale 2012 which boasts of being a porter with molasses. The stout last year was passable so I engaged the benefit of the doubt for this. But really, they have a cheek calling it a porter. It's a pale ruby red colour and is powerfully sticky-sweet with awful plasticky plasticine flavours roaring out of it. Tough work to drink and really not worth the effort. Wood's of Shropshire manage something in a very similar style, only not disgusting, with their Christmas Cracker. Again, this is a dark red and the flavour is gently dusted with liquorice and treacle, lightened up by some sweeter strawberry flavours. A less jarring jar altogether.

And while we're on a liquorice kick, here's Bad King John from Ridgeway, a 6% ABV stout and former winner of Sainsbury's's annual beer competition. Reuben found it silky and chocolatey, but it tasted much drier to me, with lots of almost harsh bitterness, leading to that liquorice quality. Lots of roast and a big hit from the 6% ABV, it's a bit of a monster and I'm not at all sure I liked it.

Leaving winter aside altogether, the last bottle for now is Up 'n' Down, brewed by Hobsons as a fundraiser for the Walking With Offa pub walks promotion, hence the change from their usual minimalist label style. It's an easy-drinking 4.2%-er, pale and pithy with some assertive orange sherbet and grapefruit sharpness. With the carbonation kept low it makes for a very refreshing experience, which I guess is the whole point of a walkers' beer.

An eclectic bunch there, but a clear indication that pale 'n' hoppy is where it's at with mainstream British beer, if I'm any judge.

My dearest England...

We two have been intimately acquainted for many years now so it is with a heavy heart that I compose this melancholic missive. I cannot escape the feeling that, as we have come to know each other better, our relationship has changed. Perhaps it is a maturing, a sign that our youthful frolics are now properly put away to be replaced with a more cerebral mutual understanding. I hope so. But all I can say now is that things between us are unlikely to ever be the same again.

I began to suspect this when I visited you last summer, but it only really came home to me during our most recent meeting, little over a week ago in Brighton. It is my newfound belief, England, that to be a ticker in you is pointless and unfulfilling.

Please don't take this the wrong way -- I still have the greatest respect for your beers and will uphold to the death your reputation for making tasty and sessionable ales. It's just, so many of them are so similar to each other that I now find little joy in picking new ones arbitrarily in the hope that they will excite my senses and inflame my passions. Maybe it's my advancing age which speaks, but they so rarely do either.

Let us start, as I did that sunny Wednesday afternoon, in the rustic bare wood surrounds of The Evening Star. From the Dark Star range available I opted for Solstice, expecting little more than irrigation for my travel-parched throat. In fact, it's quite a beautiful hop-forward golden ale: full-bodied and satisfying, redolent with succulent peaches and nectarines. Indeed it eclipsed even the Hophead which followed, a beer which has truly delighted me in the past but proved rather watery on this occasion.

Over the following days I sought out as many of the Dark Star range as I could find. Original is a seemingly quite strong porter at 5% ABV, though tastes light with a pleasant roastiness to it, let down by a nasty metallic buzz on the end. Festival is a brown bitter, endowed most unfortunately with a flatulent egginess redeemed only by a fruity raisin complexity. Returning to the pale, there is Argus, a very bitter pale ale which wears its hops deep, offering the drinker little by way of flavour or aroma. Solstice and Hophead i would return to willingly, and while I didn't feel I'd wasted my time with the others, I did begin to suspect that perhaps sticking to what I know and like may be a useful rule of thumb in your company.

Beyond this local fare, the Evening Star was also serving Thornbridge Hopton. "Ah", I thought, "here's a brewery whose beers deserve special ticking attention, so distinctive and tasty are they, by repute". But, while there's nothing wrong with golden Hopton per se -- it's earthily bitter with a hint of jaffa oranges, chalkily dry and finishing on burnt toast -- it's not terribly interesting and certainly wouldn't have me singing the praises of Thornbridge by itself. At the opposite end of the tickable scale, elsewhere in Brighton, there was cask Bass. Not expecting much from this I actually quite enjoyed it: dry again, sulphurous as a Burton bitter should be, but balanced by a sticky caramel fruitiness. As a solid and drinkable beer, it's streets ahead of its stablemate Marston's Pedigree. That I accord equal status to these beers -- one artfully crafted in small batches, the other mass-produced under contract for a large corporation -- shows me that your beers are not be be judged by their rarity or the craft credentials of the brewery. An unsettling realisation for the travelling ticker, I hope you'll agree.

The other Brighton pub I spent a bit of time in was The Victory, a charming little L-shaped hostelry with a tempting range of draught beers. Hepworth Pullman was probably the best of them: a nicely hoppy golden pale ale with some tasty bubblegum notes. Much better than the tired by name and nature Arundel Footslogger: flat, grainy and completely uninspiring. I had finally forsworn my ticking tendencies for our future dalliances by the time I got Gatwick, offering them one last chance with Exmoor Gold on sale there. The sharp-tasting eggy-smelling beer decided me that sticking with what you like is definitely the most apposite behaviour when venturing to imbibe beyond the Irish Sea.

Of all the beers I drank on the trip, I enjoyed none so much as the two pints of Harvey's Best I had on separate occasions. I will be turning to this, and Landlord, and Adnams Bitter, and Proper Job whenever I see them. I now need a reason to stray to the other handpumps.

I must bring my ramblings to close, fair England, and bid you adieu until next month when we shall be united once more. And please rest assured that I still hold your beers in the highest regard and you have a great deal to be proud of.

Your most humble, obedient and thirsty servant,

The Beer Nut

Suffolk 'n' tasty

Of the plain brown bitters commonly served in the pubs of London, Adnams is my favourite. There is, I think, a distinctive flavour to all Adnams beers. It's a crisp, dry, almost sulphurous mineral quality which I'm guessing comes from their water. And I love it. Late last year I noticed how it carries over into the winter session beer they make for Marks & Spencer. And then my local supermarket began carrying Adnams beers in bottles. I was all over that.

First up, Lighthouse, and props to whomever decided to put a 3.4% ABV beer on the market in Ireland -- a country where light lagers have to make it clear that they're at least 4.2% ABV or no-one will buy them, and where the only mainstream sub-4% ale goes to great lengths to hide its lack of intoxicating power (today's challenge: go to the swish new Smithwicks website and see if you can find out how strong it actually is). Lighthouse is indeed light, and the lack of body leaves it just a bit on the gassy side. The flavour is mild toffee and caramel, with that signature mineral character, perhaps just fading to soapiness at the end. All-in-all I found it very similar to the M&S one. On the far side of €3, however, it represents similarly poor value. Someone's having a laugh with the pricing gun here, I reckon.

For the same sort of money you can get a bottle of Innovation, much better suited to the ABV-conscious Irish palate at 6.7%. And in conjunction with Lighthouse we get an excellent lesson in the role alcohol plays in flavour complexity. The cloudy orange-amber ale isn't at all boozy -- the aroma is all alluring and exotic spiced citrus fruits. The base of the flavour is a light tannic tea layer, with a sweet and perfumed Riesling level above it, and then a topping of zingy orange sherbet. Wonderful sophistication and utterly perfect balance. Amazingly for a beer this strength it's fantastic as a cooling refresher and one I'll definitely be keeping in mind for sunny summer evenings.

Remember those? No, me neither.

More than pants

On my last trip up North I made a point of checking out the beer selection in Marks and Spencer, having heard interesting things about their new range. I hadn't expected it to be quite so extensive, however, and found myself having to choose carefully for transport purposes. As was I came away with just four, but I thought I'd picked the ones that would best suit my tastes. (And hooray to M&S for having beers that are even suggestive of my tastes).

Dark 'n' strong is one of the ways I like 'em, so the Christmas Ale from Cropton was a definite. It's an appropriate shade of dark red-brown, pouring quite flat and nearly headless. The nose gives off a suspicious plastic whiff, as of a Christmas-themed air-freshener. My first taste impression was good -- sweet and chocolatey, overlaid with lots of cinnamon and clove. The light, thin body was a warning sign, though, especially in a supposed 6.5% ABV warmer. Beneath the seasonal flavours there's a certain citric edge, one which reminded me of mulled wine when the fresh oranges and lemons have just gone in. Mrs Beer Nut described it as "cheap champagne-cider with orange juice", thereby demonstrating she's a veteran of many more crappy Christmas drinks receptions than I. Still, I was enjoying the beer and decided to let it warm up a bit to see if it rounded out any. And it sort of does, just not in a good way. That plasticky spice sensation enters the flavour and it starts being tough going to drink while still being rather thin: a mortal sin. So, despite my sweet tooth and fondness for spiced beer, this one just doesn't cut it.

Something along similar lines happened with the Cheshire Chocolate Porter. The alarm bells started here with the ingredients listing: "Wheat syrup"? Is that just to beef up the gravity to reach 6% ABV? The beer itself pours a remarkably pale amber colour. Once again it's very thin and I found the chocolate flavour to be horribly artificial. And yet again, as it warmed it got worse, even sicklier. Though this time Mrs Beer Nut lapped it up and asked for more. Dunno what that's about.

Back to the wintery brews, and I confess to being rather sceptical at first about Southwold Winter Beer, a seasonal ale brewed to just 4% ABV. It pours a clear shade of copper and balances some seriously heavy caramel sweetness with a solid, funky English Fuggles bitterness. I thought for a second I detected a hint of skunkiness, but after a moment I realised it was more of a mineral sulphur vibe, the sort I love in crisp Adnams Bitter. Could this be..? Yes, it's brewed by Adnams. Well that makes sense. I still don't know how far I'd venture to label it a "winter" beer, but as a beer and nothing else, it's lovely. A summer session on this would suit me fine.

And lastly the one that caught my eye before all the others: M&S Scottish Ale. It's brewed with thistles! Thistles! It didn't disappoint either -- another dark ruby body, though with loads of fizz through it. It remains entirely drinkable, however. The flavour starts with a flash of spicy ginger and follows it quickly with a herbal complication which, I'm guessing, is from the dried pointy lads they've thrown it at some point. The finish is dry, maybe leaning slightly towards metallic, but I loved it and could quaff it merrily. More thistle beer please.

Though more of any of this lot would be good, to be honest. I went along to a Dublin branch of M&S and was pleased to see that a number of beers in the range had made it across the Irish Sea: about five lagers and four or so ciders. And the Cheshire Porter. And that's it. It's such a stupid, facile, misreading of the market. Yes, Irish people drink lager and cider (and black beer to a certain extent) more than anything else. But they drink it branded. Giving them a fake Heineken and a fake Bulmer's isn't going to work. And I doubt the people who pay M&S prices for their booze will be tempted. Conversely, British ale is a novelty. It could very easily be one of those things you go to Marks for because you can't get it elsewhere -- think Scotch eggs; think pork pies. It seems incredibly short-sighted, to this amateur market analyst, but there you go. One bit of cross-border shopping our recent excise duty cut won't prevent.

At the finish up

Since they re-arranged the departures section of Heathrow Terminal 1, I've always looked forward to bookending every visit to London with a pint of Adnams Bitter -- the best of the common London session ales in my estimation. I'll usually nip into the landside Wetherspoon beforehand, as there's often something I've never had. Thankfully, the airport was quiet last Friday evening so Wetherspoon (properly "The Sky Lark", to give it a name which speaks of a pleasantness it doesn't have) wasn't as awful as when it's jam-packed. One of the four handpumps was Moorhouse Black Panther and I figured that was worth a swift half. Nah: boring. The opaque porter has a little bit of chocolate and a whisper of plums, but very little besides. I downed it and headed for the departure lounge and my Adnams.

Disaster! The Tin Goose had no Adnams, but there was a beer I didn't recognise: Flowers IPA. Post-drinking research reveals this to be one of those cask beers that a foreign multinational (A-B InBev, in this case) now owns and has decided to keep on for some reason, with brewing contracted out to a brewer who knows how to do it (Badger, in this case). It's not half bad, believe it or not. Maybe it's the name, but I got a definite floral, lavender sort of vibe from it. Yes, it's a bit watery, but as a beer in a hurry it was great. Still would have preferred an Adnams, mind *sniff*.

And that, finally, brought my latest excursion to London to an end. In the words of Ronnie McGrew, whatta town.

Pubs and such

I had my back to the foreign beers for most of my evening at Pig's Ear last week, unwisely, perhaps. However, I did turn round enough to grab one beer of interest, namely Chimera by Del Ducato of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy. I thoroughly enjoyed several of the artisan beers I had last time I was in Italy, and was keen to try more. The phrase that struck me on first tasting the hazy orange ale was "malt bomb". It's not one of those sickly sweet jus des vagabonds nightmares: far from it. Instead, the beautiful hazy orange body is packed with big sticky toffee flavours. Very tasty, but I couldn't help thinking that a solid dose of big hops would have done it the power of good.

Last beer of the festival was one I didn't even bother getting out of my chair to get -- thanks to whoever passed me a glass of Mikkeller's It's Alight. There's a very nice, smooth, Cantillon-grade sourness to this saison, with more than a hint of farmyard earthiness. Only 4.5% ABV but very much a beer to take time over.

And that was Pig's Ear for another year. I didn't have far to stagger to my lodgings: the Boak & Bailey Travel Agency had me set up in The Old Ship Inn in a back alley across the street. Despite access to 24-hour cask ale I managed to resist the urge for a post-festival pint, and was glad I did: when I came down for breakfast next day I discovered that Bombardier would have been my only option. They seem pretty green in the whole hotel stakes, and the kitchen doesn't yet open for Full Englishes of a morning. It probably wouldn't have been economical for them anyway as my only company in the dining area as I munched my muesli was a tiny, but seriously rotund, grey mouse. This is what happens in pubs too posh to keep a cat.

Work was long, arduous and finished near 6 in Mayfair. I had the usual option of sprinting off to one of London's famous beer pubs, virtually none of which I've ever visited, to chug a pint or two before zipping back to Paddington and the train to Heathrow. But I decided that I really just couldn't be bothered. Instead I wandered up through Marble Arch and made for John's local-from-local, The Victoria on Strathearn Place.

This cosy traditional pub is a multi-award-winner, including a recent spell as Fuller's Pub of the Year. From the spiel on the menu it's clear that they care a lot about their beers, and while they're not shy about throwing a guest ale or two on, only Fuller's core range was available on my visit. So I settled in by the open fire for a textbook pint of Pride. I find it hard to get excited about this beer. It's good, unfussy, understated, but I have to say I prefer a bit more oomph to my ales these days. I had hoped that my follow-up ESB would be in one of the beautiful wide stemmed glasses everyone else had, but it wasn't to be. I still really really enjoyed my pint: all the weighty caramel and fruit characteristics were wonderfully pronounced.

The Victoria is definitely a pub to note if one is in the vicinity of Paddington. Thanks for the recommendation, John: you claim your ramblings are random, but I can see why you'd direct them to this place. Best beer of the day, however, was in the unlikely surrounds of Heathrow, where I idled my last half hour over a delightfully tart and fruity pint of Adnams Bitter.

I really really do need to spend some quality time drinking in London. These stolen hours between meetings and flights just aren't good enough, ESB and Adnam's Bitter notwithstanding.

Jet set whistle-wet

I reckon I'm pretty adept at the whole London-in-a-day thing, despite my protestations last time round. My old friend the Heathrow Express is a vital part of this: it's pretty much impossible to make it into central London in time for anything even resembling "morning" without using the businessfolk's 15 minute rail service to Paddington. Of course, there's a side effect whereby a sufficiently late flight home leaves time for a pint or two in town before the effortless slide back west to the airport. On Monday evening the pub of choice was the Carpenters Arms, a freehouse just a couple of streets away from Paddington, and my drinking companions were London's beer blogging legends Boak and Bailey.

I started out with a pint of Leeds Best, having read great things about it and been hugely entertained by the brewery's co-opting of the Carlsberg-owned Tetley's look and feel. The beer itself is a limpid shade of orange with a tight head and gives off a strong marmalade aroma. On first tasting there's an unsurprising sweet mandarin flavour but it's quickly knocked into touch by the rising force of English hops bitterness. It rushes towards harshness but stops just short, finishing dry and setting the stage for the next mouthful. A gorgeous beer and a tough act to follow.

Peter's Well, from the Houston brewery near Glasgow was next up, suspiciously golden but definitely not one of your lager-a-like summer ales. The dominant notes here are lemons, with the zestiness sitting on a flat and full, slightly greasy, body. The whole thing puts me in mind of Jif Lemon, creating fond thoughts of pancakes. Of course there had to be a dud in the bunch, and it was the O'Hanlon's Yellow Hammer Bailey set up for me next -- after I asked for it, I should add. Like so many of the beers haunting English casks there's really not much to it. It's another pale yellow job with a good body but very much a let-down in the flavour stakes.

After putting that away deftly, there was just one more new beer to be had. Kentish Reserve by the Whitstable Brewery was as malty as its amber hue suggested, yet still retained a lovely bitter hops flavour for balance. At 5.2% the whole experience reminded me of another, more commonplace (digitally inspired) strong ale from Kent: one I've only ever had from clear glass bottles so I probably shouldn't proclaim the Whitstable Brewery version as infinitely superior, but I will anyway. So high were my praises that Boak reckoned she'd go for a pint of the same next, thus prompting a practical demonstration of the vagaries of cask ale. The pint she brought back to the table, though looking identical to mine, smelt almost exactly like a kriek. When it passed my way for assessment (like I know anything about out-of-condition cask beer) I found it wasn't quite ready to go on chips, but probably would be by the end of the pint. So I got to witness Boak performing that great British ritual of Taking A Bad Pint Back. It was substituted without fuss. I was secretly disappointed.

Time was marching on but I couldn't leave without a pint of Harvey's Best Bitter, a beer I thoroughly enjoyed earlier this year. It barely touched the sides of the glass, but then it's one of those complex-yet-unfussy beers that still works well when inhaled at speed. And with that I said my goodbyes and sped off into the night, back on the Heathrow Express and into Terminal 1 where the departures board was telling me that, against any semblance of normality, the evening flight to Dublin was expected to leave as scheduled and that I really ought to be heading to the gate if I didn't mind too much awfully. "I don't really have time for a beer in the landside Wetherspoons" I thought. But I went and checked what was on anyway. To my horror I saw a pump clip for Hooky Gold, and was steeling myself for the swiftest half in aviation history when I noticed with relief a "Coming Soon" tag above it. Phew. So I turned tail, nipped through security, had a quick butchers for anything interesting in the airside bar -- Pride and Adnams Bitter: nice, but not worth missing my flight for -- and plonked down in my aisle seat just before the Aer Lingus lady shut the aircraft door.

Yes, I've got this post-work pints in London thing down to a fine art.

A big thanks to Bailey and Boak for the recommendation of a lovely pub within walking distance of both my day's work and Paddington, and it was great chatting to you, though far too brief. Shame I couldn't bring any of your homebrew back with me, but those airline regulations are in place for my safety, y'know?

Everything you see on TV is fake

Especially me. Oz Clarke and James May were in the Bull & Castle last night filming a couple of sequences for their upcoming TV show on beer. (They've been previously sighted on the beer blogosphere here and here.) The bit involved them having decided that mass-market beer in Ireland is generally rubbish (well spotted) and turning to the nation's home brewers for something decent. The brewers present their beers to them one at a time and they pick a winner. Of course, not all of us at ICB make beer, and several people brought extra beers along, so the line-up was padded out with some fake home brewers, including me. The proprietor of Black Cat Brewery is over at the GBBF at the moment so gave me his fine Centennial Ale to present to the guys. My pitch won them over and this is the one they picked. I'm told, and well believe, that Laura's Jump Up, Hop Back IPA was their favourite on taste alone, but evidently my superior skill at talking to a camera about things I know nothing about counts for more in TV land.

I was talking to Oz afterwards. That man knows a startling amount about beer. The show, due to air in either October or January, looks to be brilliant ("Basically it's about how it's OK to get a bit pissed and enjoy yourself" -- James May). Look out for me in episode four and don't believe a word that anyone on TV says.

Leaving the glamorous media life behind, I'll finish my run-down of the Great British Beer Festival which I attended last Tuesday. Readers from the Society for the Protection of the Beer Nut's Liver will be pleased to note that I don't have many more beers to mention. Apart from the Clotworthy Dobbin I got from the Northern Ireland bar, I only had two thirds of a pint from the main regional bars of the festival.

The brewer from Moor had paid a brief visit to our table so, in the absence of any other decision-making mechanism, it was his Peat Porter I went for. I was hoping I'd get something like Wickwar's Station Porter which I enjoyed recently and which (far less importantly) had just picked up third prize in the Champion Beer of Britain competition. There's a great balance to this beer: a dry and roasty porterishness next to a sweet alcoholic scotch maltiness. Not a whole lot of smokiness to it, but I still approve.

My last festival offering is Finn's Hall Porter, from the Beowulf brewery in Staffordshire: I'd reached that stage of festival-going where I'm picking beers based solely on the cool names. There's a very pleasant bitter damson-like quality to this one, backed up by more of that porter dryness, this time with coffee overtones. Another quality black session beer: more of this kind of thing closer to home please.

Having been drinking and blathering for over six hours, it was time to pack up my festival glass and head back to Heathrow. Last time I was through I rejoiced at being spared the unpleasantness of the landside Wetherspoons due to Heathrow's revised security arrangements. So, having first made sure there was nothing of interest in the landside bar, I went through to the main departure lounge of the terminal, and the much-more-civilised Tin Goose where Adnams Bitter was on tap. A deliciously sessionable sweet pint, this one, with lots of fruit and an interesting sulphurous note I've come to associate with Adnams beers. A decent, unchallenging pint to finish with before heading back to the land of mostly-crap beer. I'll definitely be stopping at the Tin Goose next time I'm through Heathrow, though I may be moving up to the first class lounge now that I'm that bloke off the telly.

Just so long as no-one discovers I'm a fraud...