This weekend (Friday the 9th to Sunday the 11th January 2026), there will be a Dark Beer Festival at The Jolly Fisherman (facebook page), 3 East Beach Street, Hastings TN34 3AR (tel: 01424 428811). There will certainly be some VERY interesting beers available, I haven't seen the full list yet, but I know of one rather rare classic that will be coming on, cheers! 😁

A Wee Bit Different - MEAD!

I have plenty of beer blogs to come, including one with input from a mate about beers and pubs in Clitheroe in Lancashire, but before I forget, I'm posting about this mead I recently bought, Festive Season-ish and all! From Axminster in Devon, Lyme Bay Winery (website), and their 14.6% Moniack Mead. This mead was originally made in the Scottish Highlands, 7 miles west of Inverness, at Highland Winery/Moniack Castle Winery until they stopped producing it in 2012 (started in 1979). Lyme Bay Winery bought the recipe soon after, and Moniack Mead is made to the original recipe, indeed, the bottle label says "Specially selected by Highland Wineries."

The history of mead goes back thousands of years, "potentially as far back as 20,000 B.C." in Africa (Batch Mead). However, it is neither beer, cider, nor wine, and very probably created before any of them, but is simply fermented honey with water and yeast added. Where, and from which plants, the nectar is harvested by bees influences the taste of honey, consequently mead too. 

Moniack Mead is a deep golden orange colour, with a big honey aroma. It tastes of honey in a significant way, of course, but the fermentation takes out much of the sweetness of the honey, and there are hints of butterscotch and caramel too. It could replace dessert wines at meal times, but is actually much less sweet than most dessert wines as it dries out in the aftertaste and is surprisingly easy to drink, not cloying at all, and not as heavy as you may expect, although very smooth and 'clean' to drink. I like it, indeed, I'll be back for more, sláinte! 😉

Hoppy New Beer!

Have a Happy Hoppy New Year Beer folks, cheers! 😁

Christmas Westmalle 2025!

Trappist beers are traditionally brewed by Trappist monks within the walls of a Trappist monastery, Westmalle was founded in 1794, and became an abbey in 1836, their ales, brewed at the Brouwerij der Trappisten van Westmalle (brewing since 1836 - website), are up there among the best beers of Belgium. Although the monks no longer brew the beers themselves, they remain in overall charge of the brewery, ensuring traditions are upkept, and pure ingredients used, water from their own source, 100% barley malt, hops, and yeast from their own culture.

This year's Christmas present from my brother was 4 bottles (top image) of my favourite regularly available Belgian ale (glass from last year, cheers Dan!), always bottle conditioned of course, the Westmalle Tripel, which I have written about many times before (eg blog). The Tripel is a 9.5% golden beer, with a subtle fruitiness and quite dry and bitter finish, quite frankly an excellent beer! There are a number of bars in Brussels where I would always drink this, the waiting staff in the magnificent Le Cirio in Brussels (website), by La Bourse, always taking care not to disturb the sediment, but leaving the bottle for people to add the sediment if they so wish. Indeed, the owner of the bar closest to where my brother used to live always called me "Monsieur Westmalle", but that bar, sadly, is no longer open, the owner having retired.

You will appreciate just how much I appreciated this Christmas present brought back from Belgium by my brother, he knows what I like, cheers Dan, Merry Christmas! 👍 

Happy Hoppy Christmas!

BEST WISHES TO ALL, CHEERS M'DEARS! 😁

So this is Christmas...

I saw the St Bernadus (website) Christmas Ale (10.0%) in the Jolly Fisherman in Hastings (blog) and there were only 2 bottles left, so I had to go in for one! I've talked about the brewery before, eg in my blog about St Bernard's Day back in August, so I shan't repeat myself here, but just write about the ale. As you can see it has a very dark deep red in colour and yes, it is a Christmas/Winter ale in style indeed! A fruity roasted malt aroma with a hint of chocolate too, and a big fruity taste, I noted damson plums in particular with a hint of cherry, plenty of body unsurprisingly, and with a dry finish and pretty damn good! A Belgian Christmas ale to add to the English one from Harvey's I recently imbibed (blog).

And my brother Dan has brought back beer from Belgium for me again for this year's Christmas present, he told me it's not the same as last year (blog), so I'll have to resist temptation and see what bottles there are, yes, I can tell it's 4 bottles from the shape, to come... 😁 

Met up with Leeds John yesterday at the Eel & Bear (blog), and drank this rather sumptuous Biscoff Chocolate Brownie, a 7.0% Pastry Stout from Somerset based Yonder Brewing (website). Again, does what it says on the label big time, biscuit, vanilla, caramel, coffee and chocolate in the aroma and taste, smooth and luxurious, sumptuous indeed, cheers! 👍

A Christmas Ale Story...

Yesterday I received my first Christmas Card, many thanks Neil and Sara, so I thought I'd open this bottle that Jackie had kindly donated to me, cheers m'dear! Indeed, I hadn't drunk Harvey's Christmas Ale (website) since we visited East Sussex Harvey's Brewery 6 years ago (blog), and it was a pleasure to return to drinking their, as they describe it, Barley Wine.

First brewed in 1972, Harvey's Christmas Ale, a mere 7.5% 😉 and I believe brewed with locally grown hops, Fuggle (hopslist) and East Kent Golding (hopslist). These hops, combined with the malts used, produce an ale with dark fruit flavours, notably damson/plum and a suggestion of port wine. A deep chestnut colour, a bit sweet to start off with, though a nice bitterness coming through at the finish. It's not quite as good as the cask version we drank back in 2019, but as I said before, it's a bit of a Christmas Pudding of a beer, I like it!

I'm not saying Harvey's nicked my calling it a "Christmas Pudding of a beer" and now include it in their blurb, they probably always have, but I came up with that description back then independently, but which came first, who cares? I guess we'll never know, cheers! 😁