Thursday 5 January 2012

Welcome to Total Ales

I've been toying with the idea of starting a new blog for months, specifically I've been trying to decide whether or not the internet needed another bloody beer blog clogging it's already fat laden aorta. After months of soul searching I decided that it most definitely did not so I've decided to start one anyway.

This isn't my first attempt at a blog, once upon a time I wrote a blog about guitars which was great because frankly, I love guitars. However thirty-something posts later my interest waned and the poor thing fell by the wayside like so much roadkill on a Yorkshire B-road. This was perhaps because I actually run a guitar shop and writing about your work on your day off is hardly appealing, plus when you are selling a range of products and then blogging about stuff that your suppliers can't even get hold of then the whole activity becomes counter productive.

On the contrary there are few things I love more than coming home from a tough day hocking guitars to Slash wannabes than cracking open a bottle of finely crafted... err... craft beer. I don't just drink beer, I get my nose in there, I let the flavour take me to another place (after a few beers it's usually to the toilet for a wee) get really involved with the beer and then I let my friends know about it. Now this is the part that really annoys everyone because not many of my friends appreciate beer in the way I do, especially my long suffering girlfriend Dianne HOWEVER I have decided that the internet DOES CARE and as such I will attempt to write about beer once or twice a week.

This blog will mostly feature me gushing about the beers I love, which for the record are big, hoppy American style beers that smack you in the face with their mighty hoppy fists. Many of these beers are India Pale Ales or IPAS but not exclusively, I love stouts, porters, bitter, red ales, wheat beers, lambic and sour beers... in fact you name a style and it's unlikely I don't like it. I'll also aim to write about the beer selling establishments I visit on my travels, profiles on my favourite brewerys and at some point I'll tell you a story about a bloke in his mid to late 20's who used the think Doom Bar was haute coutre as far as ale was concerned until fate sent him to the US of A where his mind was truely opened. As for being Gonzo, it's just a turn of phrase but expect more Great Gonzo and less HST...

That, however is for another time and in the mean time read on and if you make beer and want to send some for me to review then please do but be warned if it's shit then I won't hold any punches (tip #1 don't brew shit beer). So if you made it this far, thanks and I hope you enjoy reading the blog, oh and remember... "Good people drink good beer".

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