Recovery time

Well it's been a long week, and next week all the Mordue crew are very excited about the big Red Rye Riwaka order going out. Hundreds of parcels of joy to be delivered all around the UK, it sure is gripping stuff.

Anyway, this weekend (due to lots of hard work) I have had the pleasure of a Saturday off work, and by some wierd coincidence the sun decided come out. So out to one of the many awesome rural pubs of Northumberland it was, and the Joiners Arms in High Newton-by-the-Sea was not a bad choice.

It was also the first time I had been to a pub serving only Daleside and Mordue beers on cask (for those that havn't read the small print, Alnwick IPA is contract brewed in Harrogate). So to start things off I decided to quality control some excellent St Mary's Ale, straight-forward golden British bitter with a subtle kick of lime and spice. It paired brilliantly with some outstanding fish and chips.



A classic British combo, fish and chips with a pint of bitter


I did wonder for a moment if Alnwick IPA could match fish and chips better so I gave it a go. I was also curious of how my ex homies back at Daleside were doing and if their product quality had changed. Funnily enough it tasted just how I remebered it but with fish and chips it seemed distinctly malt balanced. My conclusions; St Mary's Ale rocks with fish and chips but Alnwick IPA went better with the wife's Ploughmans. None the less, it was time to move on.

 
Back in Alnwick I got to watch the sun steadily go down as I supped on a Rogue Yellow Snow IPA. The thing is, getting a staff bonus for extra hours in beer has its advantages. The main one being that if I had got it in cash the wife could have got hold of it and used it for other things. So all the beers I've previously wanted but couldn't budget for at Coppers I now had access to. One of these gems was the excellent Weihenstephaner Vitus Weizen bock which paired excellently with the wife's seafood concoction of lemon sole and seabass with a creamy scallop, mussel and chorizo sauce.

  The silky smooth texture of the beer simply glides over this dish, harmonising with the sauce whilst subtle clove and spice gently enhancing herbal lime notes in the dish. Honestly the 7.7% abv is hardly noticable and the beer drinks more like an excellent regular Weizen than a Weizen bock. German wheat beers are incredibly versatile food. Fish, seafood, Brockwursts, Thai, Chinese and even desserts they really do rock and I really should give them more attention.

So overall a rather relaxing if somewhat fish themed day. But to finish things off...

It has to be the cheese!