St. Austell - Tribute

Tribute is not only the greatest and best song in the world but also the benchmark to which all other beers should ever be compared. It comes from Cornwall, a land of heavy drinking and a fascination with putting meat into pastry, so right off the bat you know it's going to be at least half decent. The reason I like it is that when you have that first sip, you just think to yourself "Yep, this is what all beer should taste like." I mean, you later have to amend that thought because it's not the best beer in the world, it's not even the best beer that St. Austell produce, that prize goes to Proper Job (for the time being at least but it is an absolute f***ing barnstormer of an IPA,) but what Tribute does is reminds you of all the best parts of ALL of the other beer you've ever had. It's crisp and tastes as pure as a mountain spring, it's lightly fruity but not overpowering, it's as refreshing as shoving your face into a chilled watermelon and it costs 2 measly quid in shops for a pint bottle and it's one of those ones that tends to be on sale a lot too, which is a major bonus.

I truly envy the Cornish because they've got a reputation for making good beer, sometimes that can be a curse (some of the Skinners lot are a bit weak actually,) but when they make a good beer like Tribute, they make it so that you never really want to drink anything else. They didn't exactly break the mould in making this little tipple but they seem to have borrowed a lot of moulds from other people, smashed those ones up and forced them all together to see which combination worked out best, and the best bit about this... I never thought I'd say this, but it's the colour of it. You pour it out and it is the exact shade of brown that all ales should be, it takes you back to the days of being a child and sitting in a pub with your parents or grand parents watching elderly gentlemen drinking brown stuff out of dimpled glass mugs.

There are better beers out there but there are definitely worse and for the price you can't go far wrong with this. It's available at Waitrose stores across the country.

Food suggestion: Pork scratchings and lots of them! This would work well as a session beer or a 'quiet night at the local' beer, just not an 'out on the razz' kind of beer. A caramelised pork belly with seasonal veg would also do this beer justice. However, if the weather is clement and you feel like sitting outside then you could do a lot worse than pairing a ploughmans with this.

Drink this if you like: Cumberland ale, Doom bar or Wadsworth 6X, they're all fairly similar, crisp and slightly fruity though each has differing ratios of each element. They're all quite light and lack the stodge that some of the meatier IPAs, porters and stouts may offer.

Orchard Brewery - Core Blimey

A painfully bad pun of a name followed by an aroma of green Starburst and a taste like cold sick. This "beer" manages to offend all of the senses at once without having the decency of have any redeeming features whatsoever. When I say that it tastes like cold sick, I literally mean that the first taste after the aroma is of bile and I felt the back of my throat dry up and shrivel into something I haven't experienced since I drank a snakebite made from special brew and white lightning at university. I truly regret buying this and the fact is that I only bought it because I was in a lovely farm shop in Chilham (near Canterbury, a place called Badgers' Hill) and the rest of the products I had previously purchased from there were delicious (it's one of the few places I know of that actually sells mead.)

To go into slightly more depth, the aroma whilst you're drinking is the lesser of two evils and distracts you from the fetted, orchard, puddle water that they sell for nearly £3! That's Fullers Double Stout money! If you drink this straight from the bottle then you've got no chance at all. I am considering pouring this down the drain, which means I will have poured £3 down the drain. This is not true, I have paid £3 for a lesson and that lesson is this: Don't buy flavoured beer from anywhere other than a specialist beer shop... Because it'll taste like the inside of an S.U. toilet after a "students drink for free" night.

Food suggestion: Chewing gum to get the taste of rotting organs and stomach acid out of your mouth. I imagine a Murray mint would work just as well, just do whatever it takes to make you forget you ever made such a stupid decision.

Drink this if you like: Being a f***ing idiot.

(I did drain this in the end. 5/6 of a pint left... And I feel very strongly about that kind of thing!)

Jura Superstition

Yup, that's right! I like whiskey too! Maybe it's something to do with it having a very similar process to beer or maybe it's because I like ordering whiskey at a bar whilst under the, thoroughly deluded, impression that it
 makes me look a) cultured, b) intelligent and c) Like a total BADASS.

This story starts off with me forgetting my Dad's birthday... Twice. It was only really in the matter of 2 days so I'm not sure if it counts as me forgetting the birthday twice. However, in recompense for my absent mindedness, I made a tithing of a lovely single malt called Jura Superstition. My father is a fan of smoky, peaty, whiskies; the kind that taste like the burning embers of a, once mighty, forest fire. I'm not. Now, knowing that it was in and around the area of 100% likely that I'd nick a glass of this, I went for a single malt that I was told was both peaty and smooth.

It's slightly caustic in smell and retains a nice satisfying burn, but it's a slow one, it's one that sticks around a little and let's you think about what you've done before eventually leaving with a bit of a whimper. Not to say that this is a weak whiskey, it's not! It's 43% and that's not to be sniffed at, but it's just not awfully complex. I read a review of this and the guy said he could taste ginger, samphire and maritime... I'm sure he was trying to say Marmite but he'd be wrong then too. Whiskey tastes like whiskey which (guess what?) TASTES LIKE WHISKEY! Yes, you get floral elements in some and hints from oak in the other but that's from the process in which it is made. However, for such simple base ingredients, you do get a massive range of tastes and effects. I'd say this one has just the right amount of peat to the taste, any more and it would taste like floor cleaner... Floor cleaner that went down smoother than a pole dancer who spilt melted butter all over her thighs! ...But still floor cleaner.

Now here's my point: There are two types of people in this world. They are people who buy a mac and people who buy a PC, people who drive an automatic and people who fix up old bangers, people who buy automatic lemon zesters and people who call people who buy automatic lemon zesters "wankers." When you buy a whiskey like this, what you get is a nice time of things, it's like a trip to centre parks; it's relatively inexpensive, fun, slightly dangerous but a lot safer than spending much more on a trip to the Amazon to get stung to death by a million angry, poisonous, jungle badgers. You're either the guy who's wearing the comfy slippers or you're the guy who's taking his slippers apart to see how he can make them go faster. This single malt is definitely for the guy who left his slippers alone. If you just want to relax with a nice whiskey then you definitely can't go wrong with this, it's smoother than most bourbons, even, but complex enough to put it well above the Bells/Teachers/Famous Grouse, blend, crowd.

If you're not a peat fan AT ALL, if the very thought of it repulses you, then this still makes a very good gift for most men over the age of 40... And some under that age but it's a much safer bet if you keep that age as a rough guideline. However, a better guideline would be to measure the sageness of the gentleman in questions beard.

Food tip: Ox tail soup! I generally find that whiskies are winter warmers and, thus, have to be paired with traditional winter food. This would also go well with a thick Irish stew or a hearty beef casserole with suet dumplings. Why did I add this bit to the end of my reviews?! It just makes me hungry!

Drink this if you like: Talisker and Laphroaig but have been warned that you have to cut down on your peat intake by a doctor. If you are a traditional Speyside fan then this could convert you a little as it's not as hardcore as it's Island compatriots but is still just a very nice glass and a half full. If you didn't understand anything I just said and think that Bells is good whiskey then you have wasted both your time and mine... Good day to you sir!

Peroni - Gran Riserva

The words "Gran Riserva" make this beer sound a lot grander than it actually is. It is, by no means, a bad beer because it's a refreshing and easily drinkable beer with hints towards it's double malt without truly delivering. This is the kind of beer you really need to drink by the pint on a hot summer's day to truly appreciate because if you look at it as being just another in the lager crowd, which Peroni is (even if it is near the top of the mass produced lager crowd,) then it is a very good beer, it has light cereal notes and a little zing that reminds you that you're drinking something that can potentially make you fall over in a pile of your own sick. It's satisfying in it's own way but for just less than £2 for 330ml you can find much better value and MUCH more taste elsewhere. Considering that the mighty Curious Brew from Chapel Down is around that territory you'd have to be mad, or have a massive hard on for Italy, to pick it.

We really are spoiled for choice in the "fine lager" (which can really be anything that doesn't describe itself as ale or dark beer,) department now, especially since Sam Adams and the Brooklyn lagers have gained some steam over here. I would say that if this beer is ever on offer in your local supermarket, then you should buy it, buy 12 and make a night of it, but don't think that this is the best that "fine lager" has to offer us because as nice as it is, there is just better out there if you're willing to look for it.

Food suggestion: F*** eating! This is a fine Italian lager! You should be drinking this in a tall glass at a high table near a busy road whilst wearing ridiculous sunglasses, smoking and womanising. Though if I had to pick a food to go with it then I reckon a nice stodgy risotto would suit it well... Or a salad if I'd suddenly lost all respect for myself.

Drink this if you like: Kronenberg and are tired of having such s*** taste in beer.

Saint Omer 8.0 Biere Forte

Looks much cooler in this picture than it actually is.

Not too long ago I gave my dad £40 before he went off to France for his annual booze cruise, I gave him a list of my favourite beers from my recent holiday in Germany as well as some Belgian and French ones that I have fond memories of. He returned with a couple of interesting bottles but the bulk came in the form of 3 cases of Saint Omer... The one with the big ominous 8% plastered all across the front of the can and in that instant I thought to myself, "Oh f**k! He's bought me 3 cases of French special brew." I knew how Jack's mother felt when she sent Jack out to sell their prize cow only for the little bastard to come back with magic beans, but not unlike that story, these 3 crates of magic beans came up trumps.

No, it's not subtle, in fact it's about as subtle as a Viagra advert having construction workers hammer nails with their throbbing nethers, but it is merely a stronger and more flavoured version of the regular Saint Omer. Now I will say this: I would kill, LITERALLY KILL, to have a mass produced beer, made in this country, that didn't taste like cold, arm pit, sweat. The beer gods were not kind when they decided what mass produced beer would represent England, seemingly they were playing a game of "beat yourself repeatedly in the face with a crow bar until you get irreversible brain damage" and decided on Carling. Though France don't have the best beers in the world (we'll leave that to the Belgians and the Germans for the moment,) they do have a beer that is both tolerable and cheap.

So I was surprised when I cracked open a frosty can (don't drink this warm!) Because it was pleasant, it was maybe a bit plain and you could get hints of the alcohol coming through but it was nice enough. The lack of subtlety comes when you're on your second can and your face down on the kitchen floor in a pile of your own sick.

To that end I have developed a way to deal with this drink that turns it from an ugly duckling into a bigger, uglier, duckling with huge fake tits. What you need is a litre glass, they're not easy to find but lots of blokey, gadget, shops do them. Once you have that, go to Waitrose. WHAT?! NO! TESCO, SAINSBURY's or ASDA WILL NOT F**KING DO! LISTEN TO THE INSTRUCTIONS, GO TO FU**ING WAITROSE! Then buy the own brand lemonade, sugar free if you're a big girl's blouse who's worried about losing their womanly figure. Chill both, put them into the litre glass and f**king enjoy. Yes, it's a shandy, but it's a shandy that involves a pint of 8% foreign hoozits, which means you can drink twice as much in half the time. Ask yourself this one simple question: Have you gotten completely wrecked on JUST shandy before? Omega Shandy! BOOM! Do it!

If you do it right then it'll look like this. If you do it wrong then you're a freakin' idiot because it's just beer and lemonade! Get your life sorted out!

Food tip: Anything that you would normally have on a picnic. Get all your picnic food, make yourself a few of these and then instantly fail at leaving the house, you know it makes sense!

Drink this if you like: Seeing double for a week.

Brewdog - Mikkeller, I Hardcore You

If I had to nit pick then I'd point out that the couple on the bottle aren't anatomically correct. The sight of genitals with a good beer should be like having cheese with crackers.

You know when you've bought a good beer? You know you've bought a good beer when the guy you buy it from is wearing a t-shirt with that exact logo on it. You know you've got a good beer when, instead of giving you some bulls**t about what it's supposed to taste like, it has a government warning about pregnant women and your potential ability to drive after consumption. You know you've got a good beer when the first sip makes you a bit tipsy and the rest of the bottle makes you a bit happy. Mikkeller is a seriously hardcore IPA from the revolutionary beer punks over at Brewdog that has hops for days and a drinkability that you don't often find from a beer that is 9.5%. I chilled this in the fridge for about half an hour as I don't like my IPAs too cold but if it comes down to it, I'd prefer it ice cold to warm. I find that between 25-35 minutes is about right for a lot of dark beers.

The after taste somewhat reminds me of the first time I ever had Haribo sourz and shandy whilst the nose is a heady grapefruit that is as subtle and penetrating as a ninja gigolo. I gave myself about 10 minutes to write this review, the idea being that I start drinking, start writing, finish writing and then finish drinking. This one didn't make it very far. I started writing and then almost instantly finished drinking. I imagine a beer like this could turn me into an alcoholic because it's the kind of beer you have to drink on your own, when you pop the cap you can't help but suddenly feel selfish and protective. Right now there is a fly in my room buzzing around the top of the bottle and I genuinely begrudge it the residue on the lip.

I can't remember how much I paid for it, surprisingly I'd been drinking, but it was between £4-6 and for that money you get 11.2 fluid ounces of brown joy that'll put a smile on your face (insert pun about Japanese businessman here,) a hole in your wallet and a gap in your short term memory.

Food tip: Not that I really like eating anything more complex than pork scratchings whilst having a good drink because I only have a finite amount of room in me and I need all that for the lovely booze, but I imagine this would go really nicely with some sort of duck dish. In fact you can buy this beer over at the Bottle Shop in Canterbury and Cafe des Amis (Mexican joint with weird art, friendly staff, uncomfortable corner tables you should avoid and the best Mexican food I've ever eaten,) is a 3 minute walk from there, they do amazing duck fajitas, order take away (which I don't think they do) or sneak this in like a total badass. If that idea is too risky for your liking then I can imagine it going well with a nice bit of lemon chicken or even some sweet and sour if you're tired of following the rules and want to act like a total rebel... Fight the power!

Drink this if you like: Drinking good beer... More specific? Ok! If you like intensely flavoured trappist style blonde beer; lighter, more citrus inspired brunes or really hoppy English IPAs like Cannonball or Green Daemon, by Magic Rock and Hopdaemon respectively.

Don't drink and drive, especially when there is the option to drink and then drink some more.