The wine and beer thread (all drinks allowed!)

Wine wise, French mostly, some Italian and Spanish. I prefer reds although do like Austrian white, amongst others.

Trusting the advice of a good buyer of wine can be very rewarding. Some of the better wine in France is coming from vineyards that don’t want to conform to the rules of the local appellations. They feel they can make better wine following their knowledge and instincts. And it’s true.

One sommelier at a lovely restaurant says that the best vineyard in the Bergerac region does this. All their wine is sold as Vin de France, yet it knocks spots off more accredited vineyards.

Through sponsoring Hadleigh Parkes while he was with Scarlets, we got to tasting some NZ Pinot Noir, Snapper Rock. His brother is one of the main guys then.

A good Muscadet?

You could also try a Chablis never lets you down.

That reminds me of the chabookoo huts on the copperbelt in Zambia. Cleaned the pipes that did. 

For beer, I think two fo the best UK breweries at the moment are St Mars of the Desert from Sheffield and Newbarns from Leith. St Mars of the Desert provide some really good koelschip hopped IPAs and lagers which emphasise the fruity characteristics of the hops and less so the bitterness  - a little traditional crossed with modern crossed with experimental. They do a cracking barley wine which is a whopper for blowing your head off. Newbarns focuses more on traditional beers made really, really well - set up by a guy who used to be the Head Brewer of the Tempus Project at Beavertown before it sold off to Heineken. 

Lastly I'd say if you like wine and beer then you should give Lambics a go if you haven't before. They're a type of beer which are fermented spontaneously in open vats at night time with wild yeasts and bacteria from the air which adds funky, tart, and sour flavours to the beer and are left to age in barrels for up to three years. Cantillion in Brussels are one of the best at these with the two main styles being a Gueze which is a one year, a two year, and a three year lambic blended together and Kriek which is a lambic combined with macerated cherries. 3 Fonteinen are another amazing Lambic brewery but more expensive than Cantillon who themselves will sell a bottle of Geuze in Brussels for about 7 euro (their brewery tour and tap room are well worth a visit) but because they have limited brewing capacity over in the UK you'll be looking at about £25 a bottle... Worth a try for a one off though and if anyone does I'd love to hear what you think!

Some of the kegs: https://www.beerhawk.co.uk/perfect-draft-range/perfect-draft-kegs