Wexford Irish Creme Ale is another product from the Green King using authentic Irish malts and hops dating back to a 1810 recipe. The beer is very smooth with a tasty caramel taste and as the name suggests is very creamy. The can features a widget, a small ping pong ball like device which releases nitrogen into the beer when the can is opened to give the beer a live taste like straight out of a draught tap. Quiet a few of the English and Irish ales and stouts use a similar idea, ball shaped and others with very high tech fins and flaps. We will do a story on widgets in coming weeks. The beer probably isn’t a beer you would want to drink year round, it is more a winter beer and goes great with rich hot foods like roasts and casseroles rich with gravy and roasted veg. delicious!

Smithwicks pronounced without the ‘W’ is Ireland’s oldest ale dating back to 1710 when it was first brewed at the St Francis Abbey Brewery in Kilkenny Ireland which is Ireland’s oldest brewery and the site of a 14th century abbey. It’s a red style Irish Ale and is now brewed in both Kilkenny and in a higher strength (4.5% instead of 3.8% form) for the exported market in the Irish city of Dundalk in Louth County close to the border of Northern Ireland. The beer has been a popular Irish beer in many markets around the world expecially Canada, but it has only recently been distributed in the USA where Diageo launched it in 2004. It is making major inroads and is fast becoming one of the favorite Irish beers in America especially in New York.

We have done a few stories on Asahi Beer Robots on Hoppsy but this one is by far the most amazing. We found this story on EnGadget and thought our readers would be interested. This robot has made its public debut in the UK at Selfriges in Oxford street in London, and took eight robotics engineers over 200 hours to build and then another six months of training it to become a skilled bar tender. He can serve a customer an ice cold beer as draught pints, half pints and de-cap bottles of beer,and he is like all Japanese very polite, has great customer focus and doesn’t need to take any breaks. Mr Asahi can serve ice-cold beer as draught pints, half pints and de-cap bottles of beer. Fully life-size and weighing in at about a quarter of a ton, he will stand behind a specially constructed bar to serve customers He has LED facial effects and the ladies better watch out because he has a red flashing heart light when he finds someone he likes. After appearing at Selfriges he will go on a national tour of the UK before popping up in other places around the world.. Engadget has a video of him in action which is well worth a look http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/02/mr-asahi-robot-bartender-makes-its-public-debut/

The taste for British beers continues- but I promise tomorrow we will try move away from England and try something else. Today’s treat is Abbot Ale also made by the Greene King group who also made yesterday’s beer the Speckled Hen, Abbot is The Green King group’s flagship brand. This one is one of England’s more popular drops and can be found just about anywhere around the world. The Abbot Ale is fairly strong tasting ale, in England and some other places you can get it from the cask but the bottle but outside Brittan you usually only see it in bottle form. Keep your eyes out for the Abbot Reserve, it has a 6.5 alcohol volume instead of the 5.0 found in the standard and both use the Challenger and Fuggles hops which give them a very bitter sting with some distinct floral and fruity tones- the Reserve like the standard its quiet tasty. The Abbot Ale dates back to 1799, but the heritage goes back even further with the brewery drawing water from a well which has been supplying which the Great Abbey of St Edmundsbury brewed beer from nearly 950 years.

For more information: http://www.abbotale.co.uk

Well yesterday’s Boddingtons’s Pub Ale got us in the mood for tasty English Beers and the Old Speckled Hen looked pretty good down at the bottleshop today and it tasted absolutely delicious- should have bought a couple more…not to worry there is always tomorrow. The Old Speckled Hen is English bitter style beer, and is fairly new, it was first brewed in 1979 by the Moreland Brewery in Abingdon which is in Oxfordshire to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the MG car company of all reasons, which was also in Adingdon. Story has it that the brewery had a MG which was splattered with paint and the beer was named after it. The beer is available in pasteurized bottles or as a cask ale. The Morand brand has a few other interesting named products including He’s Tooth, Tanners Jack and Morland Original the brewery is operated by the Greene King Brand which also produces Ruddles, Abbot, Ridley’s and Hardy’s & Hanson products.

For more information: http://www.oldspeckledhen.co.uk/

Back in 1778 two grain merchants Thomas Caister and Thomas Fry founded the Strangeways Brewery in Manchester, England, then in 1853 a traveler called Henry Boddington joined the brewery and later bought the two partners out to be the sole owner of the brewery. Their most popular product was Boddington’s Pub Ale which is now sold in over 30 countries around the world. The brewery stayed in the Boddington family until 1989 when it was sold to Whitebread which was later taken over by the huge Interbrew company who closed the brewery in 2004 and moved Boddington’s brewing operations to Magor in South Wales and their cask cale brewing to Moss Side in Manchester. Boddington’s is known as the ‘Cream of Manchester” and sadly the only remaining reminder of the Strangeway’s Brewery will be the chimmney stack which will be kept as a memorial amongst the new redevelopment being built on the site. But Manchester hasn’t lost the beer, it might not come from the city but the taste and the spirit continues- it just gets imported into town.- arr progress.

We are not sure who Dorothy Goodbody but believe me the beer is as tasty as she is. This beer comes from the Wye Valley Brewery which is a small family run brewery in Stoke Lacy in the Herefordshire which lays in the senic west Midlands of England. The brewery was started by an ex Guinness brewer Peter Amor and has become one of England’s best small breweries. The brewery makes cask conditioned beers and uses raw materials from local growers, making it a distinct and very tasty range of products. The country ale is a strong ruby ale which has rich malty flavors and hop bitterness it uses malted barley, malted wheat, flaked barley, crystal and amber malts plus a Fuggles, Bramling Cross hops and special yeasts to produce this 6/0% beer. This is not an easy beer to get your hands on but it is well worth the effort.

England’s Ridgeway Breweries ha s pretty interesting drop with Serious Bad Elf. This beer is a fairly strong malty golden ale which is fantastic in cold weather, and pretty good in the Northern Hemisphere around the festive season. The beer has a lot more hops than the average beer and it gives it a real kick giving a bit of a Belgian Tripel taste, the other kick is the 9% alcohol volume. There’s even a bit of a warning: Consumption of too much Winter’s Ale may be bad for your elf and may impair your ability to drive a sleigh or operate toy-making machinery. Another interesting fact about this beer is it banned in the US state of Connecticut. The Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection has a strange law which forbids Santa appearing on a beer label. There’s a tiny Santa up in the right hand corner of the label with his loving reindeers – a big no no in Connecticut. I’m sure its ok to carry guns in the state and drive big guzzling monster pickups to the shops but no Santa on beer- Maybe the local officials need to get a life.

Just as a footnote we have heard Rigeway make a Criminally Bad Elf with 10.5% alcohol..we will see if we can find out a few details in the coming weeks.

We have done a little more research on this story and Connecticut has come to its sences and decided that the beer can go on sale with Santa on the lable. But New York now has a problem they think Childeren will be drawn to buy this $5+ beer.

If you know any more details or have any similar stories please drop us a line.

Young’s Brewery situated in Wandsworth is the UK’s oldest brewer, dating back to 1581 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a gentleman called Humphrey Langridge started brewing a beer for the Ram’s inn which had been in the area since 1533. The brewery operation grew and before long Humphrey was supplying casks to other pubs in the region. The Ram has become a symbol of the brewery ever since. Now part of the huge Wells & Young’s Brewing Company Ltd, but still use traditional brewing techniques including a selection of cask ales at their new state of the art brewery. For nearly 20 years the group has also expanded into hotels and now own some of England’s premier pubs and are the licence holders of many of the biggest international brands in England including Fosters and Peroni.

Hall and Woodhouse are a brewery from Dorset in the UK and date back to 1777 and one of their more interesting products is the Fursty Ferret. Ledged tells it that local ferrets were often found sneaking in the back door of the local inn owned by Miss Rose Gribble to sample the tasty beer. So to celebrate Hall and Woodhouse produced the Fursty Ferret in 1980 and now is one of their most popular brands, for people and the odd weasel like creature. The brewery also makes a range of badger beers, we are not sure what the story is there but maybe badgers like a drop or two of the golden stuff too? Hall and Woodhouse also have the license to brew HB beers for the UK, using the traditional Munich recipes. The Fursty Ferret was originally a seasonable beer produced in autumn but now it is available all year round in 4.4% 500ml clear glass bottles. You cant miss the lovely ferrets on the label.

http://www.hall-woodhouse.co.uk