from the land beyond SNPA

Lucky enough to be in central Oregon at the moment. In addition to the nice lifestyle, good friends, excellent climate, awesome trails and stunning landscape it's also blessed with some truly outstanding beers.

We're in Bend - population 80000 - and it boasts 9 (nine) different breweries, most  of which have brewpubs too.

Wide selection of beers on offer, but favourites for me are the classic NW IPA styles. Deschutes are the local 800 pound gorilla and the Mirror Pond and Inversion have gone down a treat.

Favourite of the trip so far is Boneyard RPM IPA available at our local - Brother Jon's Public House. No brewpub, but  a visit to their tasting rooms sounds like a perfect Friday afternoon mission.

Excuse my potty mouth, but why the fuck aren't people brewing stuff like this in the UK?

And another thing, the three local supermarkets and even the local convenience store all carry local, quite local and not-so local craft beers in quantity in addition to the general purpose cooking lagers.

Summer. Beer on the beach.

Waitrose and beyond...

This is the deep south. Reduced Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in Waitrose. But really you want to get yourself over to a beer shop in Brighton, where the Sierra Nevada ain't reduced but is numerous. I've had Tumbler, Glissade and Torpedo. They are clever brewers.

Start 'em young.

Oddbins is done. But fortunately Waitrose have picked up the green label and its going at £1.89...Tesco are still the best bet for stock and reasonable price, but its good to have options...

Hoptimum.

Bring the pain.

progress

after doing some time in oz i returned with a healthy respect for their beers, and a long lasting dislike for all of their sportsmen (the women i hold no grudge against). i respected the VB, not for it's taste (what taste?) but for it's alarming hangover capability - never, ever again. i also respected the little creatures - not the kangaroo for it's jumping ability, not the platypus for it's egg laying prowess - but the very fine pale ale brewed in freemantle, western oz (not bloody perth you idiot). i had many a good night with the little buggers and on returning to blighty was on a mission to find some here. as luck would have it when i contacted the lovely people at LC brewery they had just packed off the first consignment of the pale to the u.k. and it was heading to those lovely people at waitrose - i was saved. nowadays the lovely pale ale is a common sight on the shelves of the finer beer selling establishments and it still takes me back to the heady days of drinking in st kilda.

so can you imagine my delight when i found this little beauty...

progress no?

of course it was those lovely people at utobeer that once again brought this to me. and talking of progress....

quality ale? in a can? surely not?!?!

tastes pretty damn good to me.

will let you know how the little creatures bright ale goes down once it's chilled.

so dr jon. the future of this blog?...

The secret lives of prams...

Who knew?



What with one thing and another this blog has been pretty quiet. Why? well, sierra nevada has enjoyed a solid flow of stock to TEsco (£1.67 a bottle), Oddbins (£1.99) and various boutique beer emporiums in Glasgow (Lupe Pintos american and mexican deli, The Cave, Peckhams, etc). It is also easily available on-line (Beers of Europe, the Drink Shop and Beer Here to name 3).

It would be nice to see some standardisation of price. It would also be nice to see some availability (except sporadically) of some of the other sierra nevada ales, porters and weisse, but i'll live.

The future of this blog? Who knows....