Time to Grow Up?

In the last week or so I have read a couple of links posted by people that are young, intelligent and know quite a bit about beer.

The first was a blog post by Rowan Molyneux about the now infamously recalled CAMRA young members recruitment leaflet and how sexism is still going strong amongst the ranks of CAMRA members.
Had CAMRA actually paid any sort of attention to the young people it had asked about how to portray potential members in the leaflet would have been very different and almost certainly not have to be recalled over a very public shaming of the organisation.
The young CAMRA members told the HQ that the leaflet was not fit for purpose but HQ went and ran with it anyway. Putting it as kindly as i can at this point....Muppets.

Secondly was a link thrown onto twitter by Matt Curtis. The link was about a local CAMRA branch defending a pub that was putting on racist entertainment and Matt made the point to me on twitter that CAMRA HQ probably had no knowledge of the event and wouldn't have known about the branch defending the 'entertainment'. Fair enough but as a Branch Secretary and Festival Publicity Officer he's probably helped book the entertainment, of course he's going to defend it!
The language used to defend it is interesting too, it's quite belligerent and unapologetic, not an image that the membership(in my eyes) portrays generally.

Now as you may know, i am not a CAMRA member and i never will be, it has no real appeal to me and i cannot see that changing so you may see this as a bit CAMRA-bashy but i'm really trying not to be.

That said, isn't it time that these sorts of occurrences became an odd slip-up rather than an almost weekly event?

Considering the average age of the membership i find it ironic that the organisation needs to grow up, not just a bit either, quite significantly in my view. If it doesn't the organisation will be marginalised in the very beer industry it worked so very hard to help save.  Let's face it, without CAMRA the beer scene in the UK would not be anywhere near as interesting as it is at the moment!

Castle Milk Stout

So Thursday is apparently one of the two days a week that the cleaners come into the apartment so i had to make myself scarce for a couple of hours this morning and off i went to the shops.

I had to buy some milk for Lucille anyway so it all worked out well. She'd also pointed out a bottle shop to me and said that they sold beer as well as wine so in I ambled.

The fridges for the beer were decidedly disappointing but something caught my eye as i looked at the rows of six packs of bottled of Fullers ESB and London Pride the cans of the much maligned Castle Lager....Castle Milk Stout...?

What is this canned creature that dares rear it's ugly head in the fridges of a posh little bottle shop? I mean look at the picture below, that is one UGLY can! It's like it hit every side of the canning line on the way out! ;-) ok that didn't work but it's a horrible looking thing.

I was hooked though, I couldn't look away, I really wanted to try it but I didn't want to waste any of the money in my pocket. What to do? What to do? Intrigue got the better of me as I reasoned with myself that as someone who professes to love beer and keep an open mind I should buy it. So I did.

I don't even really like Milk Stouts I said to myself as I meandered home. Its a style that I generally find too sweet.

It says on the tin: Rich, Dark, Smooth. Rich yes, dark certainly, smooth it aint. It's just too fizzy to be smooth. It's not unpleasant though and i'm really, really glad about that because I like a good stout from time to time and I thought that somewhere so hot and sunny(most of the year) might struggle to produce a decent one. I was doubly glad because I'd also found a Milk Stout that I liked that wasn't made by Left Hand Brewing Co!

The head collapsed in the glass a little too quickly and as I said it was a bit too fizzy but i'll be drinking this again without a doubt!

Tasting notes : Rich, lots of burnt malt in there, little too fizzy with a sweet, cloying after taste that lingers just long enough to not be unpleasant. Pretty nice actually.

Two Days In, Two Excellent IPA's Later

As I sit here looking at the table cloth of cloud cascading off the mountain overlooking this wonderful city I'm struck by one thing.

Panic.

Not only have I quit my job and told everyone I'm going to write a book, I have no fucking clue how to accomplish this.

But I'm here and I have time on my side; I'm going to have to start the research again because the last lot was shockingly amateur but then, avid reader, you'll know just how shite my writing is so why should my research be any better?

My plan is to write something everyday and it may come across a bit diarised but I need to get the old grey cells working. You may with to tune out some(or most) of it will be garbage!

At least I've found my writing spot. Somewhere in the apartment that I'm comfortable.

I've had two IPAs from two different breweries and both were excellent. The first one was Skeleton Coast IPA from Jack Black's brewery which at 6.6% abv and in a 440ml bottle it packs a wallop(no nobody hit me over head with one!). They recommend that you pair it with lamb or spicy veg curry so I might try the 2nd bottle with dinner in that case as we're having ostrich chilli!

The second I had was so good I had a second pretty quickly after the first. it was from the Devils Peak brewery and it's called The Kings Blockhouse IPA. What sprang to mind whilst drinking this was 'Wow this could fuck you up so very perfectly!' It's so very drinkable that you don't realise you're drinking a 6% beer which, incidentally is better than Goose Island IPA(another favourite of mine).

Anyway my better half is on her way home so i'll leave you for now.

Later.