To celebrate St George’s Day, Drink of England, Wells Bombardier is undertaking a nationwide hunt for the Champion of England.

And to celebrate readersheds.co.uk inclusion on the list of champions, our patriotic friends at Bombardier have given us four cases of the lovely Wells Bombardier to give away. So we are going to split it up so that two lucky sheddies can win two cases each!

Bombardier is the most English of beers - brewed right in the heart of England with accredited natural mineral water from the brewery’s very own well. It is available across England in good cask ale pubs, or it is available in bottles and cans at supermarkets and off licenses.

Enter here

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Hopefully I will be posting more again about my 2nd favorite pastime - drinking real ale….

Weatherpersons (love them or hate them) have got a good range of Welsh beers on at the moment ready for our Patrons saints day on Sunday.

out of my patriotic nature, I have sampled a few..

As usual the Bullmastiff boys (Bob & Paul) pull out the stops and have produced a great drinking session beer

but Conwy brewery have a great one with their Honeyed brew…. shame I had to get back to work.

Golden ale with honey aromas rounded off by a dry bitter finish. ABV 4.5%. Welsh honey sourced from Newquay Honey Farm, www.thehoneyfarm.co.uk

Lovely beer bit a bit strong for lunchtime, from tudor Brewery

If you like beer and would like to add your photos, then join my Beer of the Week group.

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BBC up north east, reports (around 20 mins in)

Emma Milne sets out on a pub crawl with a difference - this time round the breweries set up in sheds in back gardens in Darlington

We mentioned the beer sheddies before but its great to see them in action.

They have their own Beer of the year award and competition is held in one of their sheds.

John is one of the sheddies and you can read his beer blog here

Some great sheds and looks like wonderful beer, we would love to see some of them on readersheds for Shed of the year.

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A great little story from the Journal in N’castle

Image from dtbg.co.uk

The equation couldn’t be simpler. While men and sheds have always been an irresistible combination, inserting brewing enthusiasm into the formula results in Paradise.

John Winterburn, John Anderson, Pete Fenwick, Ian Jackson, Trevor Danes, John Penman and another half-dozen ale stalwarts scattered from Hartlepool to Gainford in County Durham meet up every three weeks – in a shed – to sample one another’s latest efforts and talk about mashing, boiling, fermenting and conditioning.

With doors closed, pints poured and spiders on guard, it’s boys’ talk that oft-times wanders along the lines of tongue-and-groove, felt roofs and dovetail joints, but invariably returns to beer.

Darlington Traditional Brewing Group was formed in 2002 after long-time home-brewer John Winterburn was invited by the Workers Education Association to run a course on full-mash brewing in his local community centre. The original scheme has run its course but the 12 remaining members continue to brew in back yards, kitchens and garages – and every one of them has his own shed-based pub to reflect in and mull over what grown men reflect in and mull over.

“We all have our own recipes,” says lollipop man John Winterburn. “We take it in turns to host meetings where there’s a bit of a spread and always a new beer to try. People ask all the time if they can join, but we’ve got no more room at the moment because only so many people can fit into a shed.

“We can brew 10 gallons of beer for £5 or £6 by buying ingredients in bulk. It’s not just about cost, it’s about quality. We can make beer just like you’d buy in a pub. The only thing we can’t do is lager – Darlington water doesn’t have enough carbonates in it – but one member tried it by buying five gallons of spring water from Morrison’s and made a brilliant pilsner.”

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Our friends at Camra of course the people that are Campaigning for Real Ale, Pubs and Drinkers’, like us sheddies!

Has given us a copy of the 3rd edition of the excellent Brew Your Own British Real Ale

You can win a copy here.

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My first pint of the new year and I was disappointed.

It was the 99p Greene king IPA over at my local JD Wetherspoon, I know it will prove popular in these credit crunch times, but it was too cold..and tasteless (I have had GK IPA before and it was drinkable) .. but not today, maybe it was new year flush or maybe it was the bitter taste of paying 99p!

I am sticking to the guest ales from now on, not that Iam made of money but it pays to get a half decent pint.

on the plus side I had they £2.99 Ham, eggs & chips and it was very good.

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I don’t post enough about my other love on this blog as much as I would like - Real Ale that is……

I have been partaking in the wetherspoons beer festival for the last week or so around the pubs of Cardiff, and have had some great beer… here is a selection.

Anyway you can Vote for your favorites over at their website.

My task for 2009 is to brew my own in the shed, so any tips welcome..

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Keep wanting to do another one of these posts from my Beer of the Week Group

anyway two dates for the diary

The Worlds Biggest Real Ale festival 20th October to 16th November

Oct-O-Bar-Fest 08 Thursday 23rd - Sunday 26th October 2008.

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Congrats to the otley brewing company they won the Champion beer of Wales 2008 with their excellant but strong 08

Overall Winner – Otley O8

Runner Up – Brains SA Gold
Third place Brains Dark

Arfur Daley has a video of them hearing they won.

Category Winners
Mild
Winner - Brains Dark
Runner up – Bryncelyn Buddy Marvellous

Bitter
Winner – Purple Moose Snowdonia
Runner up – Bryncelyn Holly Hop

Best Bitter
Winner – Evan Evans Cwrw
Runner Up – Bryncelyn Oh Boy

Golden Ale
Winner – Brains SA Gold
Runner Up – Tomos Watkin Cwrw Haf

Strong Bitter
Winner - Rhymney Export
Runner Up - Otley OG

Old Ale
Winner – Breconshire Ramblers Ruin
Runner Up – Purple Moose Dark Side of the Moose

Stout/Porter
Winner – Bullmastiff Welsh Black
Runner up Cwmbran Stout

Barley Wine
Winner – Otley O8

Speciality Beer
Winner – Otley O Garden
Runner Up – Conwy Cwrw Mel

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This is my 801st post on this here blog…

The beer first - as you know I like my real ale, but yesteday I went along to a new pub in the centre of Cardiff, called zero degrees, its pub that brew’s it’s own beer or as they say

ZERODEGREES is a pioneering drinking and dining concept at the forefront of the emerging trend towards fresh, handcrafted beers brewed by microbreweries.

anyway it’s was not real ale in the sense of what I normally drink, but “hand crafted beers on tap” I only tried a few of them, the Pale Ale 4.6% was the only one that could be seen to be like a normal bitter.

.

The Black Lager 4.8% was like a beer I had in prague (and you can get it in weatherspoons - Kozel), very nice and malty.

The star of the show was a Speciality fruit beer, a mango wheat beer

I know this seen as more a ladies drink ;), but on a warm day it was perfect.

The good thing about zero degrees is that they provide take outs, in 5l party packs or 50L packs!!

Well worth a visit but not this weekend as Munster are playing in the heineken cup and it will be packed as it’s just next to the Millenium Staduim

The photos now! they deserve a post of their own, so thats now 802 posts on this blog!

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