I DEMAND TO HAVE SOME BOOZE!

The first thing that attracted me to this particular brand of beers were the labels.

If you know anything about... well, anything, then you'll recognise those obscene scrawlings to be the work of the great Ralph Steadman. Most famous for his work with Hunter S. Thompson in illustrating his book Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas, Steadman has been one of my favourite illustrators for close to a decade now, ever since I saw this little beauty:

That illustration was included as a folded up poster with my dvd copy of Withnail and I.
Withnail and I, incase you are somehow insane/unaware of it's existence, is Bruce Robinson's paean to 1969, a counter-argument to the commonly held view of the '60s as being all sunshine, light, hope and peace.
I won't get into the movie TOO much, since I'd keep you reading for an hour if I did, but Withnail and I is often mistakenly seen as just an invitation to imitate it's elegantly wasted eponymous characters, reduced to a student drinking game in some circles.
True, it does contain a HEROIC amount of booze consumption and general drunken hilarity, but watch it 30+ times (I had a very boring adolescence) and you'll see so much more to it.



ANYWAY! That illustration, with it's scraped out lines, disgusting unidentified stain of a colour scheme and depiction of living in utter filth blew my tiny teenage mind. So the point is, I've always had a soft spot for Steadman.
So when I saw a collection of beers packaged in this awesome insanity, I didn't hesitate to try 'em!

The geniuses behind these beers are Flying Dog Ales, who I think are based out of Baltimore? If you want to know more, read up at their awesome site here http://flyingdogales.com/

I'll confess, this isn't the first encounter I've had with these beers, I'd actually sampled one of the varieties a few days previously after a trip into Peckham's Deli. When paying for the bottle I bought that day, the cashier got talking about the new arrivals to their stock, the unusual names, asking if I'd ever tried them before.
As I leave, she hollers after me "COME BACK IF YOU EVER WANT TO HAVE A RAGING BITCH!". Which is a weird thing for a girl to shout at you in public, especially when you're there with your girl.
Without any hint of innuendo, I took her up on that offer, and went back to buy as many of these beers as I could carry.

First of the evening is the, yep, you guessed it, Raging Bitch!
Usually when I open up a bottle, first thing I do is take a long, hard, Hannibal Lecter-esque sniff of it, and this one had a REALLY overpowering reek. I mean that in the nicest possible way. It was almost fruity, really quite a nice smell, so I was a little skeptical as I'm not really a huge fan of fruity beers.
Luckily, this was nothing of the sort, and upon the first swig it's true taste hit me like a sledgehammer. A very small, liquid sledgehammer.
It has a really strong, dry taste, or at least the first gulp did. My first thought? I don't really like this. I was gutted. I really hoped it would turn out like a lot of other beers, if I gave it a chance it might surprise me. So I persevered, in the name of science! Or just being a drunken git.

Swig after swig goes by, and it never QUITE hits the enjoyable stage. It has a taste, I'll give it that much, I just never really warmed to it.

Next I go for the Old Scratch, which is the bottle I tried previously.
It says on the bottle this is a lager, so I take the first sniff n' swig combo thinking I know exactly what I'm gonna get from this. It's everything I expected and... less? I don't know if it's the fact I'm drinking it after a VERY overpowering-tasting beer, or if it's just a very smooth lager, but this doesn't really pack a punch at all! Two disappointments in a row? Nooooo!

I wonder if it's one of those beers that goes really well when you're stuffing your face with a gigantic pepperoni pizza? I endeavoured to find out. Turns out it is! Probably doesn't need to be QUITE so specific in your choice of accompaniment, but this was a real tasty, smooth lager to take a gulp of after a few famished bites. I'd definitely have this again, just without any overly-high expectations.

With two beers down, and a pizza devoured, I'm more than ready to take on their classic pale ale, the eponymous Flying Dog.
Now THAT'S more fucking like it! The second it hits my tongue, there's a good frothy texture, genuinely delicious taste, and I think I've finally found my weapon of choice.
It's not a sour taste, but it definitely has a real robust bite to it, nice n' zesty, but still goes down smooth. I'm getting through it pretty quickly by this point, maybe slightly influenced by the fact I've actually decided to leave the house for once and go for a coupla drinks out there, in the... OUTSIDE WORLD!

I blame the two beers I've consumed before the invitation arose for my foolish decision to go out. Anyone who knows me (or has read any of my other terrible so-called 'reviews') knows that I cannot handle my beer. The myth that the Scots all have ironclad stomachs and can drink anyone under the table? I'm the exception that proves the rule. Give me a bottle of whisky and I'm fine, I'll sit quite content, slugging through it for hours. But give me more than 3 beers in the space of an hour? I'm useless.

So with that moment of self awareness and deprecation, I'm off out to the pub!

postscript: I managed to work my way through a further 3 bottles of Newcastle Brown and a couple of Jameson that night before wandering home and falling asleep fully clothed. I'm a real class act.

Cinnabourbodons

So I've been talking about making something along these lines for a year now, and I finally found myself bored outta my skull enough to finally do it.

I haven't baked a cake since I was about 13 years old, so I didn't go into this filled with confidence at how it would turn out. Especially not since my ingredients were... a little unusual.

Yeah, the name is basically a drunkenly assembled portmanteau combining three things I fucking LOVE: cinnamon, bourbon, and Mastodon. Since I couldn't get a hold of any of Brent Hinds' every-drug-under-the-sun-infused blood (I suck at being a stalker), the first two alone will have to suffice.

So first up, seperate out your various measures of ingredients:
• 5oz self-raising flour
• 4oz caster sugar
• Stork margarine
• 2 eggs
• 2 large tbsps of cocoa powder
• Cinnamon (add to taste)
• A very, VERY generous splash of bourbon. I went for Southern Comfort, the wimpiest, but sweetest, brand I know.

So firstly, grab a pyrex bowl, pour in all your dry powder ingredients first, then add your margarine, then your eggs. Grab a whisk (I'd recommend electric, because I'm a lazy motherfucker, and you're guaranteed a better consistency with a little high-powered assistance), and bury it right deep in there, and start mixing!

Once it's mixed together pretty well, you can start splashing in some bourbon 'til you get the correct texture. I don't really know what that is, not being a cake/bake expert, so I just kinda played it by ear. Or sight. Or taste. Whateverthefuck sense is applicable here.

Add some extra sugar, bourbon, and a liberal sprinkling of cinnamon, all to taste.

[Insert photo of finished, whisked product here. Or don't, if you're an idiot who forgot to take one.]

Divide your mixture up between several cake... things. What are they called? The wee paper... skirts.
Cake skirts.
Fuckit, that'll have to do.
Anyway, divide it up between a lot of 'em, or just a couple, depending on how big you want the finished product to be. I went for big-ass-motherfuckers, as I believe is the correct industry term.

Once thats done, pop them into a pre-heated oven (gas mark 3) for between 15 - 20 minutes.
If you're feeling particularly limber, try and air-drum to anything from Blood Mountain. I pulled every single muscle in my arms doing so.



Once the time has passed, take 'em out of the oven and poke one with your finger. If it raises pretty quick, they're done. If it stays poked, then they're either not quite baked, or you've added FAR too much bourbon.
Guess which I fell victim to?

So now that your cakes are ruined, it's time to make the icing.

I didn't realise how fucking annoying it was to whip up some simple chocolate icing! Goddamn!
Dump your butter into the dry ingredients, and basically just... fuck around with a fork trying in vain to integrate the ingredients. Eventually lose the rag with it and say "fuck this!", storm off in a huff for 15 minutes, then grudgingly return and have another shot.

If you're still completely inept, boil up a tiny amount of water, and splash that in there, to help break up the chunks of sugary butter, and continue whisking it into something resembling dog shit.

It tastes marginally better than it looks.

Spread it out over your terrible cakes, and attempt to make it at least halfway presentable by swirling the icing around to little points. God they look awful, don't they? Sprinkle a little cinnamon over the finished products, and try to muster up some faux-enthusiasm at the prospect of eating all of them by yourself...

Börek Too Late

I know, I know, that's an awful title, but it gives me an excuse to listen to Saint Vitus as I type this, so fuckit, it'll do.

Anyway, this will be a super-quick post because this is a super-quick snack.

Although I originally intended for this to be part of a wider range of BBQ snacks, but since no-one ever wants to hang out, grill meat and neck beers with me, I still made enough to serve about 6 people and ate them all myself.

First off, gather your VERY minimal ingredients. When I last ate this, it was made with either just feta cheese, or also using sucuk, a type of Turkish sausage. Since central Scotland isn't exactly known for it's rich Turkish culture, I couldn't get a hold of any sucuk, so substituted it for some chorizo.

Before you do ANYTHING else, turn your oven to gas mark 5, and place your chorizo in a covered dish, and let it sit in there for around 15 minutes. Next up, up dice your feta into small manageable chunks. Such a minimal amount of effort really shouldn't justify a picture, but...

Another ingredient I had to substitute is the standard filo pastry used in borëk, for the much more readily available puff pastry. No major difference, really. Anyway, lay your pastry out on some flour-covered film, and roll it as thin and flat as possible. Cut into sections about the width of a credit card.

Once your chorizo has been in the oven for it's allotted 15 minutes, remove from the dish and dice into (incredibly oily, messy) chunks. And try not to eat about half of it as you do so. I fucking love chorizo. Fun to eat, fun to say. Chorizo, chorizo, chorizo!

Anyhow... load up your chorizo and feta onto half of your pastry bases, making sure to keep the filling away from the edges, and use the other half to cover the filling, pinching the edges of both parts of your pastry to form little delicious parcels. Baste these with one single whisked egg to seal them, and glaze them with a thin layer of the egg to give them a good golden glow once they're cooked.

Lay them out on a baking tray, and pop them in the oven for around 15 minutes, turning occasionally to make sure they don't burn.

And that's pretty much it! Half an hour and you have a pretty decent portion of delicious snacks that can be kept refrigerated for days, eaten hot or cold.
I recommend hot, the gooey melted feta is just tooooo fuckin' good!

Raider of the Lost Beer Reviews

This 'review' is taken from a stained and torn scrap of paper I just found amidst the clutter of unanswered letters, receipts, magazine cuttings, hastily scribbled dream recollections and unfinished sketches that currently occupies my desk.

 I found the photo of the beers it relates to, it's a couple of months old now, but I figure I may as well type it up out of boredom more than anything else. It's more or less a direct transcription of what is scribbled above, with any added recollections I may have, and updated opinions on the beers I've tried again since then.

First up, if I can recall (and going by the neatness of the handwriting before it descended into a drunken scrawl) was the Paradox.
I've tried just about every Brew Dog beer I can get my hands on, and they're all interesting in their own way, but the Paradox is one I have craved a few more times since this initial test.

I could give a run-down of what makes this beer so interesting, the way it's brewed and whatnot, but they say it better than I ever could, and with a better site design HERE, so all I can give is my own opinion of this delicious, strong-as-fuck brewed-in-whisky-casks beauty of a beer.

My scribbled notes tell me I thought it had a real strong first impression, but not necessarily in a good way. Thank fuck I got over that, because the more you drink of it, the more adjusted to the overpowering taste you become, and you can really settle in and enjoy it. I wouldn't say the whisky taste is OBVIOUSLY whisky, but it definitely lends something to the flavour, which after trying 2 or 3 bottles since, I evidently still can't figure out. It seems to be out of production, so it might be kind of hard to track down another bottle in an attempt to come up with a comparison. It was good though.

Next up (possibly) was the London Porter.
I didn't hold out a lot of hope for it, because I'm a total design snob and the fact that it was a Sainsbury's own brand beer, I thought it would be horribly generic mass-produced swill. On first sip, oh how wrong I was!

The label describes it as having a rich, dark chocolate flavour, with a hint of spicey liquorice, which I thought sounded awesome, except for the liquorice aspect because that stuff is sheer processed gelatinous cancer tissue, and if you eat it, we can't be friends. Anyway, back to the beer... When I tried it, that was exactly how I would decribe it too. It reminded me of heavy stout, in the texture at least, it had a really thick, almost syrup-y consistency, like a thicker Guinness or something.
Basically, it was heavy as fuck, pretty hard going to drink, but so worth it for that tangy, dark sweetness.

Next up was the Black Sheep, which I seem to remember drinking outdoors, while reading a book, and it being unrefridgerated before I started it. I think maybe my judgement of it would be clouded by the warmth, and it says that in my drunken notes. I thought it had a real dry taste, and the label itself described it as having a 'dry, refreshing bitterness'. Like most beers, after the initial adjustment to the taste, it started going down pretty smooth, and I definitely enjoyed it, but then, there's very little I enjoy more than lying outdoors in the sun with a book and a beer.

Last up was the Warsteiner, which I remember drinking with a meal that same day, so maybe the food I ate affected my feelings about this beer.
I remember buying it because it's surprisingly difficult to get a hold of ANY German beer over here, never mind one that a certain German won't decry as being 'shitty Bavarian bullshit!', so I was hoping that this one might meet with her approval, as well as my own. So upon seeing the only German bottle in the supermarket that WASN'T Becks, I was pretty excited to try it.

The first thing that hit me, which I've noted down in almost indescipherable handwriting by this point, is that it has quite a strong smell, pungent, very gassy. I remember it being quite dry, and having an almost meaty flavour, like a smokeyness to it, but again, that might just be the fact I was having it with dinner. It got to be pretty tough going to finish it by the end, but I was 4 bottles into the day by that point so my stamina was waning a little. I'll definitely pick up another bottle sometime to give it a fairer chance.

Going back to my notes, I've also written 'BIG ASS' which I'm assuming refers to the size of the bottle and not MC Hammer lyrics. 'Goes well with biscuits' is another gem.
I'm pretty sure I am the least qualified, least professional beer reviewer in the world if that was all I could think to say!

That's not going to stop me from reviewing almost every new beer I can find. Til next time...

Rouladen-ial Of Life

I had waited to try this meal for what seemed like forever, ever since I first saw this amazing creation, so when I fiiinally made it over to Germany 3 weeks ago to spend a week with the awesome girl who first told me about it, that was one of the first things we did.
I think we started preparing this meal around 10pm or something ridiculous, which considering it takes around 3 hours to cook, including prep time, was semi-retarded. When I finally got around to eating it, it was a totally sacrilicious experience.

Even though I would unfortunately be making it alone this time, I didn't change a thing about the recipe or the process, since it turned out so goddamn incredible first time around. My only concern was finding decent quality thinly sliced beef, since it's not something that I'd ever used before, and didn't know a whole lot about.
Luckily my local butcher had a pretty incredible selection, and the wee girl of about 13 behind the counter knew exactly what I wanted from my less than eloquent description "uhhhh, it's like a thin steak, but with no fat, and it's real big, like... an A3 sheet of paper?" "ummm, you mean beef ham?". BEEF HAM! Amazing name for it, considering it has fuck all to do with ham. Good ol' retarded Scotland.

Anyway, here's all the stuff you need...

First step would be to dice both your onion and your cornichons, then fry them for a coupla minutes without burning them.

Next up is the fun part! For some reason I can't remember, you need to smash the meat flat, so lay down a big piece of greaseproof paper and sit your beef on top of it. Cover with another piece of greaseproof paper, then take a pot or pan, and start battering the hell out of it.
This is yet another one of those moments where I might come across as mildly psychotic, as I kinda enjoyed the feeling of repeatedly slamming the pan down and seeing the blood spatter out of the lifeless tissue. Mmmurderous.

Top the meat with a LIGHT sprinkling of chilli powder and herbs, you dont wan;t anything to overpower the taste of your filling.

Speaking of the filling, the carnivore in me enjoys the hell outta the fact this dish is basically wrapping meat inside another kind of meat: bacon cubes!
First, spread a tablespoon of mustard on each piece of meat, getting really even, but not too thick, coverage. Next take your bacon cubes and sprinkle a handful on each mustard-coated beef section, and then grab a handful of your fried onions and cornichons and do the same.
Spread them out evenly across the meat, but not too close to edge so they don't fall out when you roll 'em up.

Next you... well, roll them up, basically. No fuckin' shit, right?
Once they're rolled into delicious beef parcels, cut about... say a metre of thread (I'd prefer to have something thicker, twine or whatever, but I don't have any), and wind it around the rouladen several times, then tie a series of overly complex knots (which any good serial killer should already know) to bind them tightly.

This is the last stage before you have nothing to do for a coupla hours. Fire up your frying pan, and lower your delicious meat parcels into the frying pan like Norman Bates disposing of Marion Crane's body in the trunk of her car.

Give them around 5 minutes, just to brown the outside and seal them.

To continue the metaphor, you then push the wrapped victims into water, but best not to use swamp water like Bates, a pot of standard boiling water will do. Cover the top, and leave for around 2 hours, checking on them occaisionally.

While you wait, check out the song that inspired the latest awful metal-tastic pun post title.



Even if you're not much of a death metal aficionado, you cannot deny the power of THAT riff that first rears it's monstrously catchy head around 0:49. The legendary late Chuck Schuldiner is one of the inventors and innovaters of death metal, and with riffs like that, no wonder he's still considered one of the greats. RIP Chuck.

Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, it's two hours later, because you've sat mesmerised by that riff and played the song a further 23 times.

When we made this meal in Germany, it was served with a whole bunch of sides, including plums in their deliciously syrupy juice. Unfortunately, I'm kinda weird and just don't get the appeal of having sweet things in a main meal (sorry Steff!), so I decided to skip that side dish.

However, there were these awesome ready-made dumpling things, which I later learned I could make using suet. When your rouladen have around 30 minutes left in the pot, fill a bowl with 100g self-raising flour, a pinch of salt, and around 50g shredded suet. Whisk this into a thick, doughy mixture using around 5 tbsps of water, and all your flour and suet has been absorbed into the mixture. Place the dough onto more greaseproof paper, dust your hands with flour before dividing the dough into 8 individual balls.

Drop these into your pot along with your rouladen, cover again, and leave for around 20 minutes.

When your 20 minutes are up, uncover your pot and the dough balls should have expanded out a helluva lot, and absorbed some of that incredible meat stock. Remove your rouladen, place them on a tray, then remove the dumplings with a slotted spoon, and place them on the same tray, and pop it in a pre-heated oven for 5 minutes.

During these 5 minutes, you can prepare your gravy. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I like my gravy like I like my music; thick, black and sludgey. The amazing juices from your meat should have given you a pretty heady beef stock to work with, but it was still nowhere near thick enough for my liking.
Mix up a decent amount of Bisto gravy, using 4 heaped tsps and hardly any water, so it's thick as fuck. Add it into your beef stock, stirring the whole time, until it thickens up. Skim off the oily fat, and pour the remaining goodness into a gravy boat.

Remove your rouladen and dumplings from the oven, and serve! Then annoy the hell out of whoever you made it for by spending 5 minutes taking a million photos of their dinner...

I gotta say, these turned out incredibly! Admittedly, I was a little surprised that they did seeing as I was flying solo this time, and I didnt really have the benefit of a genuine German carniwhore to make sure I didn't completely fuck it up.

I guess I'll just have to cook 'em for her again to see if I did good, right?