Mary Jane (Ilkley)

Name: Mary Jane
Label: "Pale Session Ale - Powered by beer"
Brewery: Ilkley Brewery
ABV: 3.5%

Tasting notes: "Intensely refreshing, with citrus aroma and balanced bitterness. Named after the character from the Yorkshire anthem "Ont' Ilkley Moor Baht'at"." - We thought it was named after Spider-Man's girlfriend!

Game: Remember Assassin's Creed Unity? Ignore the haters, it was an epic game. In honour of this we have two figurines on show Elise: The Fiery Templar and Arno: The Fearless Assassin. These both fit together to form the diorama below. Both look great and are superbly detailed. As with the Evie and Jacob figurines, the bloke is still fairly cheap whereas the female character is reassuringly expensive, expect to pay about £85 for Elise at the moment.

Rating: 9/10

Elise: The Fiery Templar and Arno: The Fearless Assassin

Robert Burns Brown Ale (Belhaven)

Name: Robert Burns Brown Ale
Label: "Original Scottish Craft - Warm Reekin' Rich"
Brewery: Belhaven
ABV: 4.2%

Tasting notes: "Brewed in honour of the Scottish Bard, this is a chestnut brown ale with rich sweet tones of Scottish toffee and subtly malty aftertaste. Great to savour on its own or with stews, steak pie or - of course - haggis!"

Game: The final figurine in the first delivery from Eaglemoss Alien and Predator collection is Issue 3: Corporal Dwayne Hicks. Although the facial likeness isn't great, again it's a well painted, well detailed figurine. Here the pose is Hicks inspecting the dead facehuggers from Aliens, when he picks one up with his gun and there's some dead ones on the floor. It's at this point they should have got back on their spaceship and nuked the planet from orbit. Lots of pain avoided. No need to thank me.

Rating 7/10

Issue 3: Corporal Dwayne Hicks

Inferno (Oakham Ales)

Name: Inferno
Brewery: Oakham Ales
ABV: 4.4%

Tasting notes: "Inferno uses a blend of five different hops from the Yakima Valley to create its floral aroma and unique flavour. This light, igniting ale flickers complex fruits across your tongue, leaving a dry, fruity, bitter finish, smothering your thirst."

Game: The second figurine in the first delivery of the Eaglemoss Alien and Predator figurine collection is The Predator.  This is Issue 5. Not sure why they've sent the first three in a weird order but there you go. As with the Xenomorph in issue 1, this figurine is quality and depicts the Predator after it shows it's ugly mother f*cker face to Arnie near the end of the Predator film. You can see the mask partially submerged in the mud. Great paintwork, no noticeable seams.

Rating: 8/10

Issue 5 The Predator figurine

Scarborough Fair IPA (Wold Top)

Name: Scarborough Fair IPA
Label: "An India Pale Ale Full of Coastal Harmony"
Brewery: Wold Top Yorkshire Brewery
ABV: 6.0%

Tasting notes: "Strong and well hopped for the voyage, sending IPA from the Wolds to the World. Interestingly brewed with a pale predominately Wold grown malt base, a triple hop blend and Maize for the head retention."

Game: Continuing with the gaming themed figurine reviews, this figurine review is only indirectly associated with gaming but shush up. We're reviewing the Eaglemoss Alien and Predator figurine collection. First up is Issue 1: Alien Xenomorph figurine. These figurines are 1:16 scale which I think means that if they were 16 times as big they would be an actual alien.  This figurine is decent quality, amazingly detailed and really well painted. FYI it's the Alien from the film Alien which is a film about an alien. Even the stand is detailed with the cap of the unfortunate Samuel Brett and the alien's shedded skin. Is shedded a word? Or should it just be shed? Or is that a place to keep a lawnmower?

Anyway, rating: 9/10

hi-res of Alien Xenomorph from the film Alien about an alien

Suffolk Blonde (St Peters)

Name: Suffolk Blonde
Label: "Tropical aromas of bananas & cloves - a delicate, beautifully balanced wheat beer"
Brewery: St. Peter's Brewery for Sainsburys
ABV: 4.7%

Tasting notes: "A traditional ale brewed with Hallertau hops and a proportion of East Anglian wheat to give delicious yeasty flavours typical of German wheat beers."

Game: We've not played any new games for a bit... gaming burnout possibly so today we're reviewing something gaming related but not actually a game! It's the official Ubicollectibles Evie Frye The Intrepid Sister figurine and Jacob Frye The Impetuous Brother figurine. These are purchased separately but can be combined to form the diorama of “The Wise and Wild Twins”. The level of detail on these is pretty great, from the rook to the dead rat to the upturned bottle of elixir. Jacob is still quite easy to get hold of (prices from around £35) but Evie is a lot rarer so expect to pay over £150 to complete the set.

Rating: 8/10

hi-res Evie and Jacob Frye diorama

Maritime Salted Caramel Porter (Meantime)

Name: Maritime Salted Caramel Porter
Label: "Brewed exclusively for Marks & Spencer"
Brewery: Meantime
ABV: 5.5%

Tasting notes: "This ale is brewed by the Meantime Brewery using 7 different malts and British hops from Kent to produce a very well balanced, traditional porter, a style of ale which dates back to 1750. It's been given a fantastic Belgian-inspired twist with the flavours of rich salted caramel."

Game: We're branching out our business on Elite Dangerous. To start with we were transporting data. Now we're starting to trade proper - yesterday we travelled somewhere to buy fish. We were able to fit a whole two fish in the cargo hold. My spaceship looks pretty small but surely there's room for more than two fish?  I could have stuck a fish in each pocket and traded more? We've either got the smallest cargo containers in the world or the fish were actually 59ft megalodons [I'd like to see you try and fit those in your pocket - Ed]

Mission rating: 2 fish out of 2

IPA (Cotleigh)

Name: IPA
Label: "The Somerset Craft Brewer- This label by Quantock Design, features a original illustration recently discovered in the Cotleigh archive. We believe it was produced around 1985, and are very keen to track down the mystery artist"
Brewery: Cotleigh Brewery
ABV: 4.0%

Tasting notes: "Cotleigh IPA was first created by Head Brewer Guy Baddeley and adjusted to perfection in the Brewery's 35th Anniversary year. It contains a blend of three bittering hops and a beautiful aromatic Motueka hop from New Zealand. This golden IPA is a full bodied malty beer bursting with long lasting moreish flavour."

Game: It's "Let's buy a random game" week! This weeks random game is Elite Dangerous.  Remember the original Elite (or Elite Plus) from the 80's / 90's?  Well I do and it was great but 14 year old me didn't have the foggiest idea what was going on or what I was doing.  So now after firing up Elite Dangerous I can safely confirm that old me also doesn't have the foggiest idea what is going on or what I am supposed to be doing. Graphics are good though.

Rating: 8 learning curves out of 10

Battersea Rye (Sambrooks)

Name: Battersea Rye
Label: "Specially brewed for Marks & Spencer"
Brewery: Sambrook's Brewery
ABV: 5.6%

Tasting notes: "Made with 100% British ingredients, this bold spicy beer has a lovely coppery brown colour and a subtle rich fruit aroma."

Game: Tried to pre-order a SNES mini this week. No chance because it seems everyone who managed to pre-order is then putting them on Ebay for two, three or four times the price. At first I was angry at these profiteering twats. Then I thought, "why didn't I think of that" [because you're not a twat? Oh no hang on... - Ed], and then I oscillated between those two thoughts for the rest of the week. Finally I had an epiphany, why the SHITS don't Nintendo just MAKE MORE CONSOLES?

Nintendo rating: 0 SNES minis out of 10