DON'T MISS SAINSBURY'S 25% OFF WINE SALE

When I was retailing I never ever had a 25% off wine sale - my margins were much lower than that so I would have been losing money. A couple of my supermarket competitors in Australia regularly held 30% off sales. Their prices were so high to begin with they could afford to. To Sainsbury's credit they offer the 25% off their regular prices AS WELL AS their weekly specials.

We grabbed a few samples to test as well as stocking up on our old favourites like this

Sainsbury's Winemakers' Selection 2015 Malbec is just as impressive as their 2014 release. 

Spicy, savoury and beautifully balanced.
But there is a serious problem with this wine - it's so quaffable that the bottle will be knocked off before you get a chance to appreciate how outstanding it really is. Which is why I disagree with their back label recommendation to "consume this bottle within a year of purchase". Let it breathe for a few hours or drink it over three days [challenging, I know]
At £5 it's an outstanding bargain. With a further 25% off on a straight or mixed six you won't buy better at a mere £3.75
At this price an indisputable 5/5 rating from me

THE LABELS ARE ALMOST AS MUCH FUN AS THE BEER

If I was looking for a hand pulled draught beer to drink at home this would do me nicely. It's a rich amber ale proving, once again, that intense flavour has nothing to do with alcohol levels. The bead is tiny and restrained so it slips into that real ale niche quite nicely.

It's another one from the Skinners and once again the back label is a hoot "In Cornish folklore Betty stogs was reputedly full-bodied. golden-hearted and just a little fruity ............."

5/5 rating from me

Betty Stogs Brazen Cornish Bitter

4%  a/v

Skinner's Brewery Cornwall

£1.39 at Lidl [500ml]

TWO "BETTER BE QUICK" £3.99 BARGAIN CLEARANCE WINES FROM LIDL

I  spotted these two during today's grocery shop. I've got the boxes I want and I have no idea how much they have left but both were really good value at their £6 original asking price. Both have a silly geographical labelling theme and are imported and bottled for Off-Piste wines. I hope they're not too piste off with what's happened to their wines:

LA MERIDIONALE GRENACHE MOURVEDRE TANNAT £3.99

750ml Western Cape South Africa 14% a/v

"LM wines are inspired by the French settlers who arrived in the Western Cape of South Africa in the 17th century" Really? I'd be far more interested in knowing what percentage there was of each grape as an explanation for the final result. It's a surprisingly soft wine with plenty of complex spice. Great drinking now and has enough acid to warrant a place in the cellar at this price. 4/5

AXIS 2015 CLARE VALLEY RIESLING 

  750ml Clare Valley Australia 12% a/v £3.99

"Australia's Clare Valley lies on an axis of 274 degrees from Botany Bay where the first European settlers arrived in the 1700s" That's all kind of true but if you want to be really accurate they rejected Botany Bay and settled in Port Jackson [Sydney] in 1788. My goodness, almost the 1800s!

And the wine? It's past its first flush of youth and has developed a slightly cloying palate weight. It's still dry with zesty fruit zing but for me this is either drink now with spicy food or cellar for 5-10 years when it should develop into a toasty gem.

4.5/5

IT's THE KATRINA & THE WAVES OF BEER

There's a lot happening on this label from the necktag down.

"In 1997, armed only with their surname, a chap called Steve and his family dreamed of setting up a community brewery in Cornwall . Since then we've crafted countless casks and won hundreds of awards"

Reaching the back label there's a description of a perfect beach somewhere between St Ives and Padstow where this is the perfect beer to sup as the sun sinks over the water. 

I want to go there, right now, TODAY as the temperature hits well over 30 in the South of England. But it's a long drive and the sun will have set by the time I get there so I'll just duck down the road and get some more.

This is a delicious, beautifully balanced hop driven [blend of three] Pale Ale that will have me searching out more from the Skinners

5/5 rating from me

Lushingtons Sunshine Pale Ale

4.2%  a/v

Skinner's Brewery Cornwall

£1.39 at Lidl [500ml]

DID THEY PUT THE WRONG LABEL ON THIS?

When I pick up a beer from the supermarket shelves labelled IPA I hope for an aromatic hop laden fruit fest. Sometimes they fall short but rarely are they so wide off the mark as this.

What poured into the class was a very pleasant beer that was treacly and toasty without a hint of hops. 

BE WARNED! Impossible to rate

Skrimshander Kentish Ale IPA 

4.5% a/v

Hopdaemon Brewery Kent

£1.25 at Lidl [500ml]

CAN'T RECOMMEND THIS HIGHLY ENOUGH

Now THIS is a SPIRALIZER £14.99 from Dunelm.
Absolutely outstanding with the only residue being a small mushroom shaped core.

NOT QUITE THE LOCAL WE WERE HOPING FOR

THE BULL at BARMING 
After a brisk stroll from home, down hill, along the Medway then uphill to Tonbridge Rd we'd covered 3.5km before we found a pub. We'd driven past it so many times but there's a whole new incentive to stop when you're walking on a warm day and the sun has just made it beer o'clock.
"Let's see if they've got anything interesting on tap".

And did they what! The bride's eyes lit up when she saw the Aspall logo. I tend to agree. May just be THE WORLD"S GREATEST CIDER. So we were definitely stopping but just as well I had £10 in the back pocket. I asked the bored young bartender for his beer recommendation. Given that we were the only midday patrons he had plenty of time to consider his advice.
To his credit he recommended one of the greatest beers I've ever sipped. Enticingly balanced between overdoses of hops and malt this instantly scored my 5/5 rating. 

So with lure of the Wednesday £7.50 steak special, a level 2km walk from home and two repeat pints we vowed to return. This could be our new local promising a vast improvement on The Fox. 


Once again Sharp's Cornwall Atlantic Pale Ale [£3.50 pint] was just as impressive as was the Aspall Draught Cider [£4 pint]. But the steak was just OK. We expect better from Pubs or maybe that's just an Australian thing. The tomato was blandly uncooked and the peas were just peas. There was enough mustard to last a lifetime. The chips however were sensational. But do you walk 4km on a Wednesday night to spend £22.50 on two outstanding pints and a hundred or so outstanding chips?

The Bull has plenty going for it. There's lots of space, a pleasant enough beer garden plus a few nooks and crannies to escape the crowd - if there was one. Maybe its old owners who have run out of steam or new owners who are sussing out the market.

We'll probably give it another try and hopefully we'll be acknowledged as new patrons rather than an interruption to what looked like the publican's family gathering.


THE BULL INN 
5 TONBRIDGE RD MAIDSTONE PH 01622 726468

The OWB Scale Explained

The argument that there are only two types of beer has a few variations: Ale or Lager? Warm or cold? Low alcohol or full strength? Good or bad? But there's no bad beer, some just taste better than others. Draught or containered? Why do people go to a pub and drink beer out of a bottle or can? 
I'm putting forward the proposition that all beers can be divided into 5 categories 

THE OWB Scale Categories

1. BEER. This is the simple straightforward, don't think too deeply about it, stuff that tastes like ........ beer. They can be chilled to within a fraction of freezing and no-one will complain. They're designed to be quaffed straight out of the can or bottle because no-one cares two hoots about what they look like. But for what it's worth they, like all beers, will taste better out of a glass.

2. MALT. These are the ones with flavour dominated by one of the four ingredients of beer. It's the malt that provides the sugar for the yeast to create the alcohol. And because there are so many grains, so many combinations and so many malting options there are a myriad of flavours in this category. But they all come back to a central theme of richness, toastiness, colour and complexity that demands to be poured into a glass. And sipped and savoured.

3. HOPS. The other flavour ingredient  in beer is hops and it's all about aromatic bitterness. The flavours can be so intense they are like the NZ sauvignon blancs of the beer world. They also contribute an important chemical stability to beer so they're not just all about froth and bubbles. Every time you encounter an IPA you're in for a hop blast. And as much of a hop fiend as I am [I've been known to sniff pellets of Fuggles] on a regular basis I can sympathise with beer drinkers who reject the style. If you're a fan they MUST be poured into a glass because that ensures your nose has a chance of extracting all the aromatics.

4. PERFECTION. These are the beers with a brilliantly balanced palate of hop and malt flavours. You don't taste many.but have the best glass on hand when you find one

5. WEIRD: These come about when there's a fifth additive to the basic beer ingredients of water, yeast, malt and hops. The weirdest, worst and undrinkable example is Carlton and United Breweries adding vodka to their Carlton Cold beer. Meanwhile there are mango,chilli, lychee and the Belgium fruit beers. which are all perfectly drinkable. But still weird.

NOW THIS IS HANDY!

How could you resist grabbing a bottle of this? And never letting go. About AUD$16 from Barracuda in the UAE [December 2015]. Turned out to be a very passable Italian Cabernet Sauvignon which would have been outstanding value if the dollar was worth more.

There is also a lean chablis like chardonnay in the range. Not quite as impressive as the cabernet but still very worthwhile.

Pasqua Le Collezioni Delle Venezie 2013 Merlot

I have an embarrassing lack of knowledge about this wine other than that I've tasted it and really rate this delicious bargain red.
 Only 12% a/v but it has a mid palate weight with a mix of really lovely flavours, some fruit and some definitely terroir. It's not that rather bland, soft squeaky clean style that Australian producers put out to the market. This is so much more interesting.

Our Price: $9 per bottle by the dozen

SOLD OUT