 Life moves so fast these days that it’s easy to feel like you are hanging on to the latest pop culture trends by your fingertips! It’s inevitable that you will miss out on the next big thing or the next next big thing. Take for example television! With all the streaming services now available and the advent of box set binging, keeping up with what’s hot is harder than ever before. Game of Thrones is a perfect example, it’s filmed not far from the Liquorjunky Bar and I have been on several of the sets, the actual programme however, well I’ll get round to it someday! Craft Beer it seems moves even faster than television, fashion or tech! New breweries pop up daily & staying current of what’s considered fresh is impossible.. so to cut a long story short, you can forgive me when I present you with Marco Pierre Whites Real Ale almost 7 years later In early 2011 the famous Chef Marco Pierre White, henceforth known as MPW, seemingly decided to get into the beer business. Real Ale business to be exact. It was around the time, coincidentally, that MPW decided to tell his customers and anyone else who read the articles, that British food should be paired with beer and not wine  Although a concrete timescale is a little hard to pour, it appears that MPW’s collaboration with Manchester based brewery, JW Lees and the subsequent removal of customers favorites such as Fosters and Strongbow from a few of his Gastropubs also fall within the same six month period. The newly created real ale, called the Governor, after his fathers greyhound failed to capture anyone’s imagination and only poured salt on the wounds of his establishments regulars who having failed to embrace his changes, continued to pine for their old, now removed, favorites. It seems that I should have clung on to my bottle of “The Governor”. Internet articles referencing the beer do exist, but are short in both content and number. In fact I may have endured an item that would have been better placed in my special collectors box, which I keep under an inch of dust beside the bin.  The Governor which was launched in both cask and bottle, comes in 500ml bottle and is served at 4.1%. The label which is signed, not by Marco but the breweries Michael Lee-Jones clearly outlines that this is a beer to be combined with food.
To be fair in my assessment, I whipped up a full bowl of dry roasted peanuts to compliment the Governor. The nuts didn’t so much as compliment this as save the entire experience The Governor looks ok in the glass, the head is a little thin and it’s aroma isn’t the worst, the taste however was hard to find. It’s bland, tasteless, carbonated and weak. A complete miss for a product that markets itself as Real Ale. Suddenly it’s failure is making sense But how does the story end, well after rejecting MPW’s plans for modernization. Modernization for not only their beloved bar but their individual palates, it was in fact a staff revolt that brought the curtain down. Legend now has it, that only one manager of a particular pub remained after the entirety of the venues staff walked out. The gastropub was shuttered and listed for sale shortly after.. This post began in the present but I quickly realized that it would only work as a historical piece. You see, The Beer that I picked up for less than a pound in, you guessed it, Home Bargains Larne, has seemingly become more elusive than a bottle of original recipe Sailor Jerry! This isn’t down to some clever marketing ploy, designed to create demand through scarcity, a’la Cabbage Patch Dolls or Tracy Island at Christmas time. Nope, it seems that the truth actually lies in a culinary geniuses ego & the crucial massaging that although expected, didn’t come.. It is possible that a beer caused a successful business onto its knees?
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 What do you do to celebrate jacking in a day job, leaving the rat race & turning your home brewing hobby into your occupation? Well, if you are William Mayne you brew a beer to mark the occasion and call it P45! Seems pretty straightforward. 3 months ago in September 2017, Mr Mayne took that life altering plunge, which is impressive in its own right. The real proof (if needed) of the steelyness of this guys kahunas though, comes with the fact he only set up his brewery in 2016! Utilising a bullpen, yep an actual pen in which live bulls would be kept, I’ll assume it wasn’t being used at the time. William Mayne began producing his craft beer on his grandparents farm in Newtownards, Northern Ireland (a few miles North East of Belfast)  Initially brewing less than 400 Litres of Beer per Batch, all of which was bottled and painstakingly labelled by hand. William emulated the marketing style of Del Boy and sold every bottle from the back of his little car! Things have changed a little in the past 12 months, all for the positive. After picking up a local business accolade in late 2016 and hooking up with a local Distributor, William Mayne recently launched a crowdfunding campaign, with the aim of improving on site facilities, increasing the capacity for production & onsite bottling. Having raised over ten thousand pounds in 28 days, it would seem that the story of Bullhouse Brewery is just getting started.  If you would like to support the expansion plans of Bullhouse sheer you can find more details here -
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/bullhouse-brew-co-expansion/ This is the official description of P45 from the company website at www.bullhousebeer.co.uk “Dangerously drinkable Pale Ale. Strong Biscuity Backbone underpinned with a plentiful does of citrus fruit from the Amarillo”
I found it to be exactly as described. The citrus fruits, I’ll accept the mans word that hail from the Amarillo, mix well with the overall flavour. It’s definitely something i could drink a 6 pack of l, which is not something I can always say of craft beer. Eyes are peeled for the rest of the core range and the special brews popping up. No one at www.Liquorjunky.com has any connection or financial interest in Bullhouse beer. I bought this can, drank it, liked it and here we are! Enjoy  In the last ten to fifteen years its been hard not to notice a significant increase in the number of gardens displaying ghoulish Halloween models from late September onwards or the sheer number of homes bedecked in streams of twinkling lights with Inflatable Snowmen and Reindeer guarding the front door. The finger, probably large & foam, can be pointed fairly and squarely at the good ol' USA.
Uncle Sam's Classic holiday traditions, that we are well accustomed to seeing on the silver screen, have steadily taken hold in our realities. In fact this is true to such an extent, that its highly probable you are currently living in a house that can quite possibly be seen from space. Of course, whether you embrace this décor personally or merely go along with the will of those in power, aka the kids, is irrelevant. In spite of all this over exposure, far removed from the timeless beauty of a simple Christmas tree. Our Cousin's across the Pond have given us a classic holiday tradition that I will happily accept, and that tradition is Eggnog. The American as Apple Pie, Christmas delight that has quietly made its way to the UK, Europe and even Australia, where its popularity is said to mirror that of its home nation. |
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