Nobby's T'owd Navigation

Bottle conditioned with perfect carbonation
Nobby's T'owd Navigation [baron rating 4/5] - 6.1% dark brown ale,sweet molasses smell,full bodied fruitcake taste,earthy bittersweet finish
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Thank you to Andrew (@TheAleRoom) from The Ale Room for sending this through for a baron rating!

Buy Nobby's ales from The Ale Room

Beavertown Neck Oil

Not can conditioned
Beavertown Neck Oil [baron rating 4/5] - 4.3% gold ale,floral citrus fresh hop smell,mild herbal citrus bitter taste,fruit squash finish
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Thank you to Paul Kruzycki from Ales By Mail for sending this through for a baron rating!

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Shepherd Neame Barley Wine

Bottle conditioned with perfect carbonation
Shepherd Neame Barley Wine [baron rating 5/5] - 10% dark amber ale,boozy port smell,dark treacle gingery sweet bourbon taste,mellow finish
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Thank you to John Humphreys (@ShepherdNeame) from Shepherd Neame for sending this through for a baron rating!

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Salopian Kinetic

Bottle conditioned with lively carbonation
Salopian Kinetic [baron rating 5/5] - 6.5% copper ale,all citrus fruits esp blood orange smell,zingy zesty bitter taste,fruity bitter finish
Listen to what Chris, Stephen and the Baron have to say about it

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Thank you to Jake (@SalopianBrewery) from Salopian Brewery for sending this through for a baron rating!

Buy Salopian ales from Holborn Ales

Looking forward to hosting Ales By Mail's live twitter tasting featuring Okell's ales

On Wednesday evening at 8pm I'll be hosting the next live twitter tasting for Ales By Mail. They got in touch a couple of weeks ago and asked if I was familar with Okell's and would I like to run the session.I am quite familiar with Okell's, the Isle of Man's largest brewery as I've been to the IOM a number of times, and make a point of hunting out some cask pints of Olaf or MPA (two fantastically tasty sub-4% ales). My initial pick of Okell's bottled range was Aile & 1907 but supply issues of 1907 meant that we've gone with my backup plan of their IPA.


Nice clean branded bottles and a lovely pint glass!

Okell's Brewery
  • IPA - 4.5% "extremely light-coloured beer with a surprising full-bodied taste. The sweetness is offset by a very strong hopping rate. That gives the finished beer an overall roundness with very spicy, lemony notes and a fine dry finish to counteract the initial sweetness"
  • Aile - 4.7% smoked porter, "Aile is the Manx Celtic word for Fire and this crafted Okell's beer has delicate, smokey aromas derived from the careful addition of peated malt. This malt is made from selected barley that uses burning peat during the malting process"
If you've taken advantage of the free bottle codes then I'm looking forward to you joining me at 8pm on Wednesday night as we walk through the two beers, I plan to start with the lighter IPA and then move into the slightly stronger in alcohol but much stronger in taste Aile.

If you've got them in the fridge (I have), make sure to take them both out around 15 minutes before we start, you want the IPA to be coldish and refreshing but not so cold that the subtle balanced of flavours is lost, make sure the Aile comes out at the same time as you want that to be a bit warmer to really let those peated smokey aromas open up.

See you on Twitter at 8pm Wednesday, please use the hashtag #beerybits so that we can all follow along and see what everyone is posting. Oh and make sure you are following @AlesByMail as not only will they be joining in but they might be running some competitions as well! Also you might like to follow @OkellsAles which is the account for Dr. Mike Cowbourne, head brewer at Okells who will be joining us online for the evening.

Thanks to Chrissie Saunders from Ales By Mail for asking if I would like to host the tasting session and sending through the bottles and glassware.

Looking forward to baron rating Salopian Kinetic

The next in Salopian's brown bottle range is KiNETiC, this was announced via Twitter a couple of days ago that it was now available in bottles and Jake from Salopian kindly sent a 'care package' through to Baron Towers:

Salopian Brewery
Look out for a 'baron rating' for this Salopian Brewery beer soon, and a big thank you to Jake (@SalopianBrewery) for sending it through to me!

Buy Salopian ales from Holborn Ales

Salopian Sentinel

Bottle conditioned with perfect carbonation
Salopian Sentinel [baron rating 5/5] - 8.4% amber ale,citrus tropical fruit smell,fruity syrupy resin spicy taste,dusty bitter resin finish
Listen to what Chris and the Baron have to say about it

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Thank you to Jake (@SalopianBrewery) from Salopian Brewery for sending this through for a baron rating!

Buy Salopian ales from Holborn Ales