Pub Shed II - The Sequel

It is rumoured that this could have more sequels than Sylvester Stallone's Rocky... but much more enjoyable and a better plot.  Well it's early days - so who can say?

Anyway back to the gripping plot and on a cold and chilly January evening, the OF's met at the Poet & Hack to dispel the mid-winter blues with some real ale sampling.

Father Christmas (or to be more accurate, my son Andy) had brought me a lovely present of a 9 pint mini keg of Rudgate Brewery Jorvik Blonde Ale.

So a perfect candidate for the OF's sampling and (I think) the general verdict was a jolly good ale with a fruity smell of peaches and melon and a sweet smooth light hoppy taste.  Ok - I borrowed those tasting notes from the Rudgate website - but it was very nice!  Thanks Andy.

OF's looking pretty happy about the keg of Rudgate Jorvik

Not content with one guest ale the last OF to arrive, came bearing shopping bags of another guest ale from Palmers Brewery in Dorset (not to mention a bag full of bar snacks).  So excited were the OF's by this development that we forgot to take any more photographs of proceedings and got straight down to sampling Palmers Best Bitter and Dorset Gold both of which were found to be eminently drinkable.  One of our number was however tempted by a Ringwood Old Thumper, having unfortunately missed the opportunity to sample this fine brew at the Ringwood Brewery tour because 'time' was called.

It is 'customary' at the Poet & Hack to share a verse or two of prose or poetry and this evening the great Sir John Betjeman read us two of his poems entitled 'A Shropshire Lad' and 'Youth and Age on Beaulieu River, Hants' (from his Banana Blush recording).

So after our literary diversion, the evening wore on pleasantly and conversation wandered from one unusual topic to the next, until someone suggested that a wee dram of single malt might round off an excellent evening.  Luckily (or not as the case may be) the landlord happened to have a bottle of Laphroaig Quarter Cask to hand.  Much fun was had in sampling this whisky with its very strong smoky, peat flavour. and varying degrees of water were added to taste.   One OF suggested that the effects were still felt the following day, but as it was his first whisky -  and having started with such a strong flavoured one, perhaps that wasn't too surprising.

In the style of Alan Davies' Untitled TV programme, it was decided that the title of the evening's proceedings should be 'The Joys of Vinyl'.  Perhaps that might be better left unexplained - but I did say the conversation wandered!

Time gentlemen please......