Inabottle

What a great name for a beer and it's 4.1% dontchaknow.

Visit the Dorset Piddle Brewery here.

Hey, Pass Me a Beer!

Kiped from the ONT.

Redundant Day at the Beach

Almost a clone of yesterday, a little hotter, and, if possible, a little less breezy.  We got started a little earlier to beat the heat, and only partly succeeded.

 Not an ideal day for a dog with a winter coat still...  She started out raring to go, and ended up dogging it.

Beer for brunch?  Hmmm. A little early for me, thanks.

 Aw, Mom, do you have to walk so fast?

 A nice day for a boat ride under a shady canopy.

A sailboat leaving the harbor after staying the night.  They asked if they owed any money.  Heck if I know. 

Brooklyn

No I'm not off on my travels again just yet. But just look what I found by chance in a local supermarket:

Readers of long standing will recall that I love this imported beer. It's just that I don't seem to be able to locate it that frequently and in fact I suspect the last time was possibly in 2007. That's far too long to wait. At £1.80 (about AU/US $2.90) per bottle they're a tad pricey but come on, it would have been rude to refuse wouldn't it? LOL

I'll Drink to That!

Flying Dog Brewery Offering Beer Year-Round to Benefit Oyster Recovery Partnership 

Drink beer and restore the Chesapeake Bay – all year round.

Next week, Flying Dog Brewery’s Pearl Necklace Oyster Stout will be available for purchase year-round with distribution throughout the country.

A dry stout brewed with local Rappahannock River Oysters, Pearl Necklace was initially released as a limited edition brew last November.

Flying Dog decided to brew the beer year-round not only because the beer itself was well received, but also because it supports a cause essential to the brewery’s backyard. Proceeds from the beer benefit the Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP), one of the region’s leading nonprofits restoring oysters back into the Chesapeake Bay.

“Our initial work with the ORP was just the beginning,” Ben Savage, Flying Dog’s VP of marketing, said. “Sales of Pearl Necklace will continue to benefit the ORP and also raise awareness nationwide of how critical oyster restoration is to the Chesapeake Bay.”

The goal is to enable ORP to plant at least 1 million baby oysters back into the Chesapeake Bay through proceeds from Pearl Necklace Oyster Stout.

A million oysters really isn't that many; when they spawn oysters, the eggs and young oysters are extremely small; one female oyster can literally produce more than a million eggs.  Getting them to grow through the larval stages and to settle as a small oyster spat is a bit of a trick, but oysters hatcheries have been producing billions of them for years.  Having done that, the hard part is putting them into a place in the Bay where they stand a decent chance of surviving until adulthood.

“A healthy oyster reef not only filters the Chesapeake Bay’s waters, but also provides habitat for other important marine life such as blue crabs and striped bass,” Stephan Abel, Executive Director of the ORP, said. “Every oyster we plant back into the Bay will have an immediate, positive impact.”

Savage added: “Drinking Pearl Necklace literally helps restore one of the most endangered habitats on the planet.”

I still don't know about brewing beer with oysters, but I've had other Flying Dog beers, and they were drinkable.  The Oyster Recovery Partnership is not high on my list of  favorite charities, but, yeah, I'll buy a six pack to help them.  But that wasn't a very high bar was it?

 Thanks to Wombat-Socho for taking my early submissions for the weekly Rule 5 link around at The Other McCain's "I Need to Know", and also to The Classical Liberal who linked it with "She's the Woman."

The Way It Shatters

One of the reasons I just don't seem to be able to shift the excess weight at the moment LOL.

Best cold from the fridge.
















It's a good job this is only available in the UK (as an expensive import) from a few select retailers, else I would be buying a bag each week.

We just won't mention Sam Adams beer. That can't be responsible for weight gain surely LOL?

Half Full..?

Just look what the nice man from UPS* has delivered today, all the way from the Boston Beer Company. Will definitely enjoy a cool glass of my favourite American lager from one of these. Cheers!

Have a look how my chilli plant is coming along, now in the relative warmth of our heated conservatory; it is most certainly Autumn here so it and the peppers had to come inside. Don't they look great? I'm feeling the urge to start cooking real soon...

Apologies I've not yet posted any pictures from my travels to Webshots. I've been somewhat preoccupied. Promise to do it soon.



16 Oct Reading 0 - 1 Swansea
19 Oct Bristol City 1 - 0 Reading

Bit of a mini-slump in performance going on. The Royals are stuck in 11th place on 16 points.






*Other delivery companies are available.

Frank

My Ginger Beer obsession knows no end! All the way from Sweden, Frank's Alcoholic Ginger Beer. Serve well chilled over ice mmmm.

Tempting

Alcoholic Ginger Beer. How could I resist?

Few Thoughts

In no particular order:

• Have successfully tracked down Fentiman's Traditional Ginger Beer. It's "Botanically brewed" dontchaknow. Will enjoy drinking, I'm sure. Just have to remember to gently shake first.The bottle that is LOL.
• Reading FC thrashed Peterborough United 6 - 0 today. The Royals move to 9th in the Championship. Very little chance of a play-off place sadly.
• The General Election will be upon us 6th May. Whoever wins I just hope they put an end to the horrible habit of briefing the press and pre-announcing everything. You know: "The Prime Minister will later today announce that..." I mean you either announce something now or you say it later.You can't do both, with me?
• The new style Daleks are rubbish. I mean they suck, big time. With a few minor tweaks, the classic design of Doctor Who's greatest foe has remained unchanged since 1963. Why a major and appalling overhaul now?
• While I feel for all those stranded air passengers, as someone who lives under the flight path of the busiest airport in the world, it's lovely and quiet without any planes flying for two days now. For those from "out of town," Britain and most of Europe is closed to air traffic thanks to an Icelandic volcano.
• LL has done very well this week in his swimming class. Am very proud. 
• You can tell spring is here and summer not that far away: the air is full of the smell of BBQ lighter fuel LOL.

My, How Little You've Changed!

Recently I've been taking an interest in tracing my family tree. Although to be honest I've been taking a bit of a back seat and been getting some help. Something that has come to light is just how fixed in the Reading area all sides of my family have been. You'd think therefore tracing ancestors would be pretty straight forward but when one branch a generation or so back have the "Smith" surname it's not such a small task tracking down the right family members from old census documents. Particularly when someone has seen fit at a later date to amend documents, changing descriptions of occupations to more "glamorous" sounding ones...

Anyway something that has been quite fun has been looking at old images of Reading town centre. This got me thinking about how much the town has changed over the years and perhaps how much or little a grandparent (or great grandparent) would recognise of our home town. Cutting a long story short, I took a walk about town today armed with my camera. Take a look, what do you think?

Friar Street, looking towards the clock tower of Reading Town Hall (1950ish) and what is now Reading Museum (2010).

Queen Victoria Street, looking towards Heelas department store (1950ish) and the recently re-branded John Lewis department store (2010). Note the façade has had something of a face-lift but it is the same store. Promise.



Oh I should also mention that apparently last weekend the final batch of beer was shipped from the town's brewery, bringing to an end a proud history of beer making in Reading. I blogged about this a couple of years back when the closure was announced; the Three B's are no more.

Oi! Ginger!

Long standing readers to Mostly Harmless will know I absolutely adore all things ginger. Especially Ginger Beer. So you can imagine my delight when I discovered this in my local Waitrose supermarket. It's come all the way from our colonial cousins living in the Land Down Under. Can't wait to try a bottle later tonight. Strewth!



















And while on the subject of ginger-ness, my very own 'copper-top' in the form of LL (he gets it from his maternal Granddad) has been doing rather well lately. I have him every Saturday and in the mornings he goes to Gym club for an hour or so, where sadly (LOL) I can only join the other parents and watch from the balcony. He really enjoys it and while he's keen, he'll get all the encouragement I can give. They assess the kids about once a term to national gymnastic standards and I'm pleased to say that with some effort he's been able to progress, winning himself this lovely certificate.   

And this afternoon we popped along to the Wycombe Swan theatre where they were having an open day, including guided tours from back stage all the way up into the lighting gallery. Excellent fun and was totally free. Now that's not bad is it?

Since I'm on a bit of a blogging-roll... I found this recently, all the way from the New England area of the US. I used to have one on the back of my previous car, which didn't make a great deal of sense in the UK but you should have seen the faces of puzzled on-lookers! Maybe I should consider it again..?

While I think of it, we don't change our clocks in the UK until 28 March. I checked here on the government website, since there'd been a total lack of coverage this past week. Sorry for any panic/confusion caused LOL. Spring is still due to start tomorrow though.


Middlesbrough 1 - 1 Reading

Take Courage

Out drinking in a pub on a Monday night? Naughty me LOL.

Mind you, it's been a long time since I've had the pleasure of drinking Directors bitter and draught at that. Although the bottled stuff is pretty good too dontchaknow. Mmmmm.





Both Courage Best and Courage Directors bitter used to be brewed in my home town but the "brand" has now been sold to another brewer. Still tastes fine though.













Kind of makes up for some truly appalling recent football results:

20 Oct QPR 4 - 1 Reading
26 Oct Reading 0 - 1 Leicester

Dare I even go look at where the Royals are in the table now?

Newcastle Brown

Newly relegated Newcastle, the Magpies, gave the Royals a lesson or two in playing "the beautiful game."

Newcastle 3 - 0 Reading

Too Many Pies

I'm told there's something we can learn from every experience, whether it is good or bad.

One thing I did learn from Mum's funeral was that trying on my suit for the big day, I've clearly been eating too many pies. I'm not too over weight by any stretch, just carrying some spare that made doing up the jacket more like Mission Impossible.

So let's be honest about this: I enjoy my food and on top of that I eat the wrong things when I'm sad. The same is also true when I'm happy. A few years back it wouldn't have made a jot of difference, I could stuff my face with no consequence plus I was playing quite a bit of sport and walking a lot.

So I've come to the conclusion I need to change my habits, nothing Earth shattering you understand. I don't believe extreme changes in diet or fitness regime are necessarily healthy or likely to succeed in the long run. For me it has to be a subtle, modest change that I can actually achieve.

So today I took myself round the university lake for a bracing walk- it looks kind of good doesn't it? When I got back to celebrate I rewarded myself with a few beers, so not such a good start after all. Perhaps I should say today has been one of the few decent weather days we've had in a good while and that'll excuse the beers.

Anyway here's the plan, if you can call it one. Shed a few pounds by doing more exercise and trying to eat better meals, less junk.

Oh and before I finish: yes I have checked my weight on the scales but it's on a need to know basis. I could tell you but I'd have to kill you.

Only The British

Today our Finance Director is leaving the company. This has come as something of a surprise and has saddened many- he is one of the most popular people here. So last night we made our way to a local pub for farewell drinks and cheesey chips (pictured). Turnout was at around 95% of the company, which speaks volumes. Even if just that's just for the promise of a free drink LOL.

It occured to me- as we all stood in the beer garden- that only the British would be brave, no make that foolish enough to pretend to be warm on what was quite clearly a chilly evening. I think other more sensible nations would probably have said "Look there's a nice warm inviting pub- why don't we go inside?"

Anyway the garden was nice enough, the sun did try it's best and above all we had a pleasant evening.

Farewell Three B's

For longer than I have been around, my local town of Reading has been known as the home to the 3B's.- Bulbs, Biscuits and Beer in the form of Sutton Seeds, Huntley & Palmers Biscuits and several brewers notably Symonds, who later became part of Courage Beer.

Sadly Sutton's uped to moved to Torquay years ago; their offices long gone and the fields they used to grow the seeds, now an industrial park that does at least bare their name.

Huntley and Palmers has also gone now. The one truely recognisable town centre landmark building left, now turned into trendy appartments for the good people of Reading. Their main site next door now demolished and rebuilt as the home to Prudential.

So what of the brewers? Well Courage moved out of the town centre in the 1970's to a (then) state of the art plant right by the M4 motorway. Through various changes in ownership the brewery is currently owned by Scottish and Newcastle, the UK's biggest brewer. This week they announced the now out of date plant is to close in two years, with the loss of some 300 jobs, bringing to an end the era of the 3B's. Kinda feel sad about that.

No doubt the real estate value is far higher than any benefits of continuing to brew on the site. I guess we'll end up with yet another "exciting business park" that will sit largely unoccupied, like the others in this area.

So as this doesn't sound all doom and gloom, Reading does have it's Football (Soccer) Club to be proud of: up there in the top flight, Premiership league. At least for the rest of this season. Come on The Royals!

Any history fans out there might like to research this some more and maybe take a look at Reading Abbey, now a ruin thanks to the sacking of church property by a certain monarch who didn't quite see eye to eye with the clergy. Such was the status of the Abbey and Reading in general, there is said to be a King burried here but also the town was once the only place outside London where Parliament could be held.

Call the Fire Service - Too Many Candles

Choices for the next few days are:

Parties, over-indulgence and likely inebriation.

Or

Hide until all the fuss has died down.

Either way I won't be around for a while

Beer

As some of you know, having aquired a taste while visiting Boston a good few years back, I love Sam Adams Boston Beer but being stuck in the UK have problems getting hold of the stuff. I like it so much I even bought shares in the company!

My local Waitrose and Sainsbury supermarkets used to stock it until around Christmas 06 but for whatever reason don't anymore. So my quest began to find anywhere else that stocked Sam. So far no good.

However while visiting Tesco's recently I discovered they now carry Brooklyn Lager- another gem of a beer I have had the good fortune to sample. I cleared the shelves in the Wokingham store last week.

I would invite all beer lovers to give these two wonderful products a try; you never know you might enjoy them.

And if anyone has any suggestions where I might get hold of Sam Adams beer here in the UK, please let me know.

Here's the official web sites:

http://www.samueladams.com

http://www.brooklynbrewery.com/

31 May 07 Dawney says: Have you tried http://www.surf4wine.co.uk/1354-BB07-Sam_Adams_Boston_Lager?