Eddie

This is my own take on a traditional Peruvian Steak Paella. The rice, which I import directly from Lima has been marinating all weekend in a blend of spices, the details of which I will take to my grave. The hand reared steak is a piece of my 5 year old daughter's favourite cow Matilda, whom she helped slaughter.

Little things please little minds.
This cheered me up...

Beautiful.

Yep.
Although my dislike for them is powered by the inherent rationality of supporting Derby. If I wasn’t a Derby fan, I wouldn’t be arsed.
My new dislike for Millwall, on the other hand, is due to obvious, specific reasons.

We had the ceremonial tasting of the pork pie this morning. Absolutely lovely.

Not eating these tonight, but will definitely sample part of one tomorrow.
I decided to try my hand today at making a hand-raised pork pie (actually, I made two). In the process, I test-drove my new meat grinder - perhaps the best £25 I've spent recently that wasn't on beer. I must have read about 10 methods, and all the recipes were vastly different as far as the hot water pastry was concerned. Some had twice as much lard as water, some had twice as much water as lard, and so on. 
Another issue was making the pastry case separate to the pie, by using a jar, bottle, dish or anything like that as a mould, then putting it in the fridge until the pastry hardened, then trying to remove the (uncooked) pastry from the outside of the mould without breaking/damaging it. In the end, I decided to just roll the pastry out, mould the meat into the dimensions I wanted and then hand-raise the pastry around that. It seemed to work fine.

It's Flemish stew - tastes utterly fantastic.
3 or 4 chopped onions 7 or 8 cloves of garlic, chopped 250 g mushrooms (I use chestnut mushrooms, but any really) 2 carrots, sliced thinly (julienne) 400 g beef (I tend to use shin beef - cheapish, but a decent cut) 25 cl beef stock 60 cl Belgian dark beer (I tend to use Leffe Brune - not the best by any means, but ok in a stew) Half a teaspoon of nutmeg 2 dessert spoons Syrop de Liege or any heavy fruit preserve (I've tried Morello cherry preserve, and that was really good) 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar 2 dessert spoons Demerara sugar 2 slices of bread, liberally coated in Dijon mustard 1 bouquet garni Method
Fry onions in hot olive oil until they start to caramelise Add the garlic, reduce the temperature a little, continue frying for a couple of minutes until the pungent aroma hits Add the meat, fry until browned and sealed. Add the mushrooms and carrots Add the beef stock and beer Add the vinegar Reduce to a simmer Stir in the nutmeg Add the sugar and syrop de liege Add the bouquet garni Spread 2 slices of bread with the mustard and float on top of the stew, mustard side down Cover and simmer for 3 or 4 hours, until the meat starts to disintegrate, stirring occasionally. By now, the bread will have completely dissolved, and this causes the stew to thicken When the stew is very thick, serve with French Fries or chunky chips.

It’s a Gulden Draak night tonight!

Little things please little minds.
This cheered me up...

Just unpacked my latest order from Beers of Europe.
4 x Samichlaus Classic 2 x Tongerlo Prior 2 x Waterloo Tripel 2 x St Barnardus Abt 12 2 x St Barnardus Christmas 2 x Trappistes Rochfort 10 2 x Malheur 12 2 x Bush Ambree 2 x Schneider Weisse Tap 6 Aventinus 2 x Schneider Weisse Tap 5 Hopfenweisse 1 x Aecht Schlenkerla Marzen Rauchbier 1 x Boon Oude Geuze.  
See you in a little while.
 

Little things please little minds.
This cheered me up...

Just unpacked my latest order from Beers of Europe.
4 x Samichlaus Classic 2 x Tongerlo Prior 2 x Waterloo Tripel 2 x St Barnardus Abt 12 2 x St Barnardus Christmas 2 x Trappistes Rochfort 10 2 x Malheur 12 2 x Bush Ambree 2 x Schneider Weisse Tap 6 Aventinus 2 x Schneider Weisse Tap 5 Hopfenweisse 1 x Aecht Schlenkerla Marzen Rauchbier 1 x Boon Oude Geuze.  
See you in a little while.
 

Bought a six pack of Pilsner Urquell today.  Nice and bitter, good choice.  Cheers @Eddie

Thank you for taking the time to list those for me.  Think i will start with the Urquell and come back to this list later for further study.

How's about Pilsner Urquell? It's the original Pilsner and, in my wife's opinion, still probably the best. Then there is Budvar (not the American abortion), Augustiner Lagerbier Hell or Hacker-Pschorr Kellerbier. None are particularly strong, but all are full-flavoured lagers which are world-renowned.
You could always try some of the less extreme Belgian blond beers like Brugse Zot, Keizer Karel Charles Quint or, if it's holy water (Trappist) you fancy, try Chimay Doree (Gold).
If you can tolerate wheat, there are some wonderful German Weissbiers and Belgian Witbiers, such as Schneider Weisse Tap 2 (Kristall - a filtered wheat beer) or Franziskaner Kristall, or the cloudy Hefe Weissbiers like Weihenstephaner or Schneider Tap 1. The Belgian go-to witbier is Hoegaarden - much maligned but I think it's delicious.
 
 

Yes, us too. I had trips planned for the North Sea beer festival in Ostend and the Kerstmarkt in Gent, but hopefully both will be on again in 2021.
 

Ooft! I'm pretty sure I've never seen let alone drank a coconut black triple IPA before. This is a big boys drink ?
There are lot of 9, 10, 11%+ beers which hide their strength almost too well, so you end up necking them,  no danger of that here, this one will last me, oh, at least 20 minutes.
 

My first order for Christmas went to Westbeer, which is a Glasgow brewery that do German beers. 
12 x St mungo - lager 
12 x Heidi Weisse - wheat beer
12 x Munich red - red lager. 
Should be with me in 48 hours. 

My last three orders from BIAB arrived last week, and that's it for me for some time, until they get their act back together (if they ever do). I've cashed in most of my outstanding vouchers with them and am now using alternative sites. Les Bieres Belges is very quick, and no more expensive really, and you can say the same for beeronweb. One has slightly cheaper bottles and a slightly more expensive delivery charge, and the other one is the other way round.
The beauty of Beers of Europe is the free delivery on orders over £60. Tynt Meadow, for instance, is considerably cheaper from BoE than it is picking it up directly from the monastery if you order 24 bottles.

FYI ordered Sunday afternoon 15 x 75cl and 3 x 37.5cl (for E20 DPD delivery).
Arrived in Derby just now, all a-okay (took 3 days).

FYI my brother put his order in yesterday and had an email this afternoon saying it's shipped today.

Watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit for the first time in years. Groundbreaking (for it's time) and very entertaining.
 
Ted McMinn/10

Rampage, starring Dwayne Johnson
Mindless dross, but you knew that anyway. At the same sort of level as Megashark v Giant Octopus, and the same sort of plot line.
Utterly, mind-numbingly bloody brilliant - if you don't take it seriously.
Somewhere between 0/10 and 10/10, dependent upon how drunk you are.

Thanks - there are some pretty good prices on there. To tell the truth, although I am a huge fan of Geuzes, I'm not sure I could tell the difference between (say) a €20 sample and a €50 sample. My pocket is pretty well at the bottom end - some of the 3 Fonteinens, Boon Gueuze, Lindemans and Oud Beersel are more my price bracket.