Wychwood mysteries solved

Straight from the horse's mouth:

Thank you for your email.

The bottle cap is one of our standard Wychwood bottle tops and could be from any of our range of Wychwood Bottled Beers. Unfortunately we do not produce a non alcoholic beer. The January’S ale is only available in cask during January and this year is 2.8% abv. (this was 3.8% in 2011).

The lowest abv bottled beer that we produce is Brakpear Bitter at 3.4%, the next are Goliath and Ginger Beard at 4.2%

We hope that you are able to get the opportunity to try one of the above beers, which are widely available from most major supermarkets and if we can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Kind Regards

Wychwood Brewery

Marstons Beer Company

So to sum up, there is no non-alcohol Wychwood, so I'm wondering if maybe it was the Gingerbeard (which is alcoholic but if you think "ginger beer" you might think it isn't).  January'S ale (with the capital "S" that mad me think it was January Sale at first) has a alc. content that varies by the season and thus the discrepancy there, and the cap is their "standard one" which is about what I figured.

Just in from Australia...



From our good friend Mynx , 5 new caps.  Starting at top left, we have a Crown Lager.  This beer was so premium, from 1919-54 it was ONLY served to visiting dignitaries in Australia.  Next is a Cooper's Pale Ale, from a brewery established way back in 1862  Their beers have a secondary fermentation, meaning they have yeast- and thus, sediment- left in the beer. Not sure I'd like that...  Then comes a West End Draught, first brewed by the South Australia Brewery, since bought out by Lion Nathan in 1993.  Up to then, it had been the top selling beer in the state.  Next is a Miller Chill, their version of Bud Light Lime- even though it had started out as a "chelada-style beer"  (meaning it had clamato, red pepper, and other disgusting things added to it).  So when BLL took most of their market share, they re-formulated, while Bud began making their own chelada beer.  Ring around the rosie..  Finally, we have a contestant from Wychwood breweries of the UK, who make a whole mess of different beers.  I'm not sure which one, though I know it is NOT a Hobgoblin, which seems to have a blue cap.  One of my sources says its a Scarecrow Golden Ale, but I don't know.

So that's the scoop.  Thanks again to a lovely lady for the lovely caps.

New years day

First off, the best harbinger of the new year came Friday from our friend Theng:

A lovely homemade Christmas card from Malaysia!  Thanks and God Bless you!!

Then we move on to the NYE party.

People were losing their clothes pretty early at this thing.

Laurie got a high score on a Wii game that I could see about as well as the camera...

But the reason why the story is here was that I opted to do another beer tasting, the results of which I shall now reveal.

First at the top- and last one I drank- is a Red Stripe Light.  This Jamaican Lager was actually pretty good- however, it was made better by how bad the one before it was.  Next to him is a Leinkugel's Honey Weiss, which was a lot better than the other wheat beers I've had.  (Sure beat the Fireside Nut Brown I had at Christmas!  Who wants coffee in their beer?) 

The solid gold is a Leffe, a Belgium Abbey beer.  Leffe Blonde is what we tried.  you can look here for what they have to say about it.  This was to us, like a bad attempt at wine (which when you consider that someone brought a chocolate wine that tasted more like chocolate Ny-Quil, is saying a lot).  Tasted like it had a clove soaking in it.

To its left is a New Belgium Ranger IPA, an India Pale ale.  For us, one picture is worth a thousand words:

As Jack's face can tell you, this had to be the single most vile thing of any sort that ever passed my lips. EVER.  Both the bottle and the sip's worth in Jack's cup swiftly found the kitchen sink.

The final one there was a Landshark Lager, a benign little  Bud Light-ish lager that offended no one.

This here is an unopenned Boulevard Pale Ale. Boulevard is the 10th-largest craft brewer in the nation.  However, since our experience with the Ranger IPA was so, er, bitter, this bottle will go into the "Bottle Wing " of the collection unopened for the forseeable future.

Combine these with various sips of slushie concoctions, a swig of that horrifying Chocolate Ny-Quil (sorry, Joyce), and more-than-neccessary palate cleansings with Rum and pepsi, and you could say that a good time was had by all:

However that does leave us with the nasty experience of before...

...and after...

Mommy, I promise I'll get the caps catalogued tomorrow... I don't feel so good right now...