What's in an ale

I recently drank as my evening's poison a pint of Boon Doggle from Ringwood Brewery, a microbrewery I have been rediscovering recently. I must confess, I first chose it for the label, which I always loved: they have a boar on it and that is very cool. I generally prefer darker beers, but for a blonde, this one is pretty dark, for one, and it has flavour as well. Anyway, I didn't know this particular Ringwood ale. I shared this picture on Facebook (because yes, I am sometimes shallow enough to take pictures of my drinks and share them on Facebook). The wife of one of my wife's cousin commented on it, saying that she and her husband had visited the brewery when they had started dating. She also added that the Old Thumper is good (and incidentally it is my favourite of all Ringwood products). The morals of this seemingly trivial anecdote are the following: 1)the picture of an beer can have an emotional impact and bring memories and 2)some women actually like beer. I knew it already, but I still find it surprising.

Reinbeer!

During Advent and the Christmas holidays, I often drink and try seasonal drinks. Mulled wine of course, but also Christmas beers, or Christmas themed beers. They show up in pubs everywhere here when Christmas is coming. I think they are more Christmas-themed beers than Christmas beers per se. In other words, they just put a Christmas label on a beer and voilà. The one I am about to plug, like many of the ones I drank, use the legendary Rudolph's red nose as a symbol for alcohol. I have seen many beers named Rudolph in the past. This one is named Reinbeer and it is from Ringwood Brewery. The beer is quite nice, easy enough to drink, maybe not dark enough for my taste and not really red like I would expect from its label. Not my first choice of real ale for the season, but it is from Ringwood Brewery and I often enjoy their products, so if only for this, I would encourage people to try it. And it does have a nice word play for a name.