The wine and beer thread (all drinks allowed!)

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!

I’m not an out and out Cabernet Sauvignon fan, however, one recommendation from a Majestic manager was a Chilean one from a Norwegian who emigrated there. 

It came about to fill a mixed case of 12. He extolled the virtues of Vik’s A by saying it was something he discovered at a managers tasting day. Not expecting much, he was surprised to be delighted by it, as were his colleagues. So much so it was voted best wine of the event.

I found it equally impressive.