Rosey Nosey (Batemans)

Name: Rosey Nosey
Label: "Independent since 1874"
Brewery: Batemans
ABV: 4.9%

Rating: Its got Santa on the label so it's ace. If you don't like Christmas for no good reason then you suck. If you want, send reasons for not liking Christmas to me so I can judge whether you suck or not.  Some responses:
1. "My Grandad died on Christmas morning". Judgment - you don't suck. Your Grandad sucks for dying at Christmas and spoiling it for everyone else. 
2. "I hate all the expensive Christmas shopping, the Christmas songs and trying to find a parking space". Judgement - you totally suck. Stop being such a tight arse, everyone is abit poorer at the moment not just whingey you, enjoy the music, you only hear it once a year rather than the normal sh*t you listen to everyday, get to the shops earlier so you can find a car parking space.

Game: After the slightly violent previous post this post focuses on other, non-violent, aspects of Assassin's Creed 2.  Erm... it looks fantastic, superb musical score and sound effects, it's got horses in it and some eagles.

Autumn Fall (Batemans)

Name: Autumn Fall
Label: "Barley, Oats, Wheat, Rye - multigrain beer"
Brewery: Batemans
ABV: 4.2%

Rating: Find a tree and look at it. Are all the leaves nearly gone? If so, drink this.

Game: Nothing but Assassin's Creed 2 for a whole week... seven days. Usually I can have a game done and dusted in a few nights but this just keeps going! Incredibubble. Even been doing moves that I don't know how I did it. There was this one time, where I sneaked up on a guard on a rooftop, and he like totally heard me or something because he spun and was all like "oi what are you doin up here" and he came at me with his sword so I panicked because I was hoping for a silent kill so ended up hitting probably all the possible button combinations in one go and suddenly I'd drawn my sword and had grabbed the guard by the neck with the sword across it and was prompted to either "Kill" or "Throw". Rather than just throw the dude from the roof I hit "Kill" and sliced him across the old jugular and the lifeless corpse fell from the roof. Smiley face.

Riggwelter (Black Sheep)

Name: Riggwelter
Label: "Strong Yorkshire Ale"
Brewery: Black Sheep
ABV: 5.7%

Rating: Drink too much and you'll be riggwelted (on your back). From the Old Norse; rygg - back and velte - to overturn. 

Game: The best game on the Xbox 360 so far, Assassin's Creed 2. If you disagree then you're a bit rubbish.  Bought the really overpriced Black Edition from play.com and saw it on ebay for double the price. Shoulda kept it shrink wrapped... or bought two.

White Wych (Wychwood)

Name: White Wych

Label: "Wickedly Refreshing Golden Ale"
Brewery: Wychwood
ABV: 3.8%

Rating: Almost like lager but in a good way and being a moron not necessarily a prerequisite to drinking it

Game: Assassin's Creed 2 is definitely more than I hoped it would be. Its amazing attention to detail and depth far surpasses anything achieved by the first Assassin's Creed (also excellent I might add). Its so realistic that "the line between the virtual and real experience becomes blurred and the game becomes a simulation of real-life situations".  Watch out work colleagues, tomorrow I may think I'm in 15th century Florence and may try and stab you in the face, neck, back or worse depending on which of your particular body parts happens to be facing me at the time. I just can't tell what's real anymore. After work I fancy a trip to the local airport. Now where did I put that machine gun.....?

Deuchars IPA (Caledonian)

Name: Deuchars IPA
Label: "Distinctive - refreshing"
Brewery: Caledonian
ABV: 4.4%

Rating: Cask Champion Beer of Britain 2002 and BIIA, World Champion Cask Ale 2005 - enough awards already

Game: Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed II, Assassin's Creed II.

Bluebird Bitter (Coniston)

Name: Bluebird Bitter
Label: "Traditional hand brewed cask & bottle conditioned using only the finest selections of hops & malts"
Brewery: Coniston Brewing Co.
ABV: 4.2%

Rating: A fine session ale

Game: After play.com's failure to deliver on time Asda have come to the rescue in the interim. Assassin's Creed 2 is amazing and definitely warranted a release day purchase. Move over Modern Warfare 2...

Brakspear Triple (Wychwood)

Name: Brakspear Triple
Label: "Thanks to the two fermentations in the Brakspear 'Double Dop' system and another in bottle, this highly aromatic and satisfying strong beer delivers its rich flavour with subtlety and balance"
Brewery: F*ck knows, brewing of Brakspear beers was taken over by Wychwood in 2002 apparently, and it says Marston's PLC on the back of the bottle. We'll go with Wychwood.
ABV: 7.2%

Rating: Stronger than a 14 stone chimp

Game: Ordered Assassin's Creed 2 Limited Black Edition from play.com and was expecting to be playing this. However at time of writing it has failed to arrive. I pre-ordered it back in JUNE, and they can't even arrange for it to be delivered on time. The complete knobcocks *quiet sigh*. Back to Modern Warfare 2 then... progressing nicely on Hardened difficulty.

Sneck Lifter (Jennings)

Name: Sneck Lifter
Label: "Strong ale - Pure Lake District"
Brewery: Jennings
ABV: 5.1%

Rating: I always think of necks when seeing the name. It has nothing to do with necks.

Game: It's come in for a lot of critiscm in Parliament and from "religious leaders", Modern Warfare 2 is jerking a lot of knees by the sounds of it. Most of what has currently been written is just sensationalist, lazy journalism. However, politicians and "religious leaders" are probably the kind of people who should actually sit down and play the darned thing. Maybe then they wouldn't be so quick to go to war in the first place. And to those PC people whinging that its just kids playing it, getting all desensitised, traumatised and other words ending in "ised",  why isn't the parenting issue being focused upon? The game and content is rated 18. So it's not for children. Children shouldn't be given the game, in the same way they shouldn't be given alcohol, cigarettes or smack.

Hooky Bitter (Hook Norton Brewery)

Name: Hooky Bitter
Label: "Where progress is measured in pints - Golden & well balanced"
Brewery: Hook Norton Brewery
ABV: 3.6%

Rating: It may be weaker than a day old kitten but it's a pint in a bottle - hooray!

Game: Here is my slightly more indepth review of Brütal Legend.

Dark Lord (Batemans)

Name: Dark Lord
Label: "Dark ruby beer"
Brewery: Batemans
ABV: 5.0%

Rating: Their beers win Gold medals and everything.

Game: Finished the single player campaign for Brütal Legend, primary and secondary missions, now trying to mop up the collectables. May try multiplayer, although its solely RTS which was pretty good actually in single player, just unsure whether the annoyance factor can be handled in multiplayer... Full single player review coming soon.

Organic Ale (St. Peter's)

Name: Organic Ale
Label: "Light malted barley and hops create a refreshingly wholesome flavoured ale"
Brewery: St. Peter's
ABV: 4.5%

Rating: It's organic, which means the more you drink the healthier you get... or something.

Game: Biggest release of the year! Yep Modern Warfare 2 has arrived and yep it's literally irresistable. Straight from the off its frantic, enemies and allies dropping like flies everywhere, bullets flying in all directions - complete bloody mayhem. And **spoiler alert** you get to massacre innocent civilians! Woohoo! Who hasn't wanted to walk into an airport terminal and spray bullets into innocent bystanders? Who hasn't??  Well me actually. I was smart and opted to shoot towards, but not at, the civilians, the goody two shoes that I am. It fooled Makarov anyway, at least until the end of the level....

Bombardier (Wells)

Name: Bombardier
Label: "English - Premium Bitter - Brewed in the heart of England, this is a richly rewarding traditional, burnished copper ale, bursting with English spirit."
Brewery: Wells
ABV: 5.2%

Rating: Very English - some PC Councils will no doubt try to ban it at some point

Game: Still Ghostbustin'. The voice acting is terrific in this game, makes it worth playing just for that. And FIFA 10 is still annoyingly realistic. Got through to the 6th Round (quarter final ??) beating Watford 3 - 1 then get hammered at home 0 - 3 in the league to Sheffield United. Loss of concentration apparently according to Andy Gray....

Tanglefoot (Badger)

Name: Tanglefoot
Label: "Deceptively drinkable - Brewed for a crisp dry finish"
Brewery: Badger
ABV: 5.0%

Rating: The name is what happens when you drink lots of it apparently

Game: Today its more about a game not being played. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is out today and Sainsburys were selling it for £26. They had sold out by 8am - so their stock orderers are either complete fools or it was a genius idea to get people into Sainsburys stores. Asda were selling it for £32, again, sold out. Supermarkets obviously suck at judging demand and I refuse to pay £44.99 for it from Game, Gamestation or HMV when everyone else has been getting it for cheaps. Could these three stores not have varied their prices a little to add a bit of retail competition to proceedings? Or did they just price fix knowing the idiotic supermarkets would sell out in about two minutes? Who knows, and more importantly, who cares?

Old Growler (Nethergate)

Name: Old Growler
Label: "A robust superior porter - Award winning ale"
Brewery: Nethergate
ABV: 5.5%

Rating: Its bark is as good as its bite

Game: The video game adaptation of Ghostbusters is still fun to play even several hours in. Fun, scary, fun, great boss battles, and a bit more fun.  Longer Ghostbusters: The Video Game review here as this is supposed to be bite sized reviews not er.. three course meal reviews...

Cumberland Ale (Jennings)

Name: Cumberland Ale
Label: "The genuine taste of the Lake District - since 1828 - Full flavoured with a delicate hop character, light yet robust"
Brewery: Jennings
ABV: 4.2%

Rating: Thankfully doesn't taste like sausages

Game: Whom is one going to contact? Ghostbusters are back with a boo! If you grew up in the Eighties and/or like Ghostbusters and you don't have a massive grin on your face when watching the opening sequence then you have no soul. You've already given up the ghost (rubbish pun intended).  Right from the off this feels like a solid game with a lot of potential. Amount of game played: about 10% so more reviewings in a later post.

Banana Bread Beer (Wells)

Name: Banana Bread Beer
Label: "Beer brewed with bananas"
Brewery: Wells
ABV: 5.2%

Rating: The thousandth bottle still tastes as good as the first.

Game: Down to the last RTS section of the Brütal Legend single player campaign. It's a real shame that the RTS sections tend to be slightly off-putting when thinking of what game to play. These sections definitely make this a "mood game" i.e. you really have to be in the mood for RTS to pick up and play this especially if you don't fancy slogging through the secondary missions. Revised rating: 7/10

Mad Goose (Purity)

Name: Mad Goose
Label: "Watch out for the goose, her hiss is far worse than her bite. Though she might drive you clucking mad, underneath it all she's not that bad - Award winning ales from Warwickshire"
Brewery: Purity
ABV: 5.0%

Rating: More excellent than mad

Game: The only downside to Halo 3: ODST is that it's really quite short. As it was originally intended to be a Halo 3 expansion/download this should not come as a complete surprise. As the price tag has also dropped significantly, now £24.99 - cheers Argos, you do now get more value for your pennies in this two disc set, with the addition of Firefight mode and Halo 3 multiplayer maps. The main campaign is well written and put together - it perfectly captures the atmosphere of a lonely trek through a destroyed New Mombasa searching for clues to the whereabouts of your squad mates. The fact that you're not Master Chief also means that you genuinely feel like you could get your ass severely kicked if you stumble across one of the strong Covenant forces patrolling the deserted city. Sneaking around like a big chicken is sometimes the order of the day (if chickens actually sneak or not though is debatable).