Special London Ale (Youngs)

Name: Special London Ale
Label: "Matured live in the bottle for that fresher taste. Can be enjoyed cloudy, but ideally pour slowly leaving the last few drops in the bottle with the yeast."
Brewery: Young's
ABV: 6.4%

Tasting notes: "Rich and malty with notes of candied fruit and a powerful spicy hop finish."

Game: Belated happy Xbox One X day! Our console arrived on the morn of release day - big thanks to Amazon from everyone at GamingAles Towers! Amazon came in for some stick for failing to deliver consoles on release day. Reports have been coming in that customers were furious. Lives have been ruined. They couldn't bear to look at their stupid old Xbox One or Xbox One S knowing that the Xbox One X was out there being played on by other customers.  Numbers of people affected are vague, but initial estimates indicate it's about six or seven. We will be keeping an eye on the situation so watch our twitter feed to keep track of the latest developments.

Five AM Red Ale (BrewDog)

Name: Five AM Red Ale
Label: "Bitter Sweet Chaos"
Brewery: BrewDog
ABV: 5.0%

Rating: Tastes amazing. Not much more to be said really. Could have done with a bigger bottle. Or more bottles.

Game: Disaster! Amazon are telling me that my Limited Edition Batman Arkham Knight pre-order due next Tuesday has been "delayed as the manufacturer has advised us that there's been a packaging quality issue."  Swines! Think something similar happened in America with the Arkham Knight Batmobile boxset - in that instance it sounded like the Batmobile turned out to be shit. Anyway, I look forward to my updated packaging... in JULY!  To be fair to Amazon though they are sending out download codes so we can still play the game on release day. Smiley BatFace.

Bitter & Twisted (Harviestoun)

Name: Bitter & Twisted
Label: "Spicy - Aromatic - Zesty - Blond Beer. In the early days Bitter & Twisted was brewed with a fractious mouse for company; this testy rodent became the brewer's inspiration. Harvie is now our mascot."
Brewery: Harviestoun
ABV: 4.2%

Rating: "B&T has a superb hop profile; it combines aromatic Hallertau Hersbrücker with spicy Challenger, finished by late-hopping with Styrian Goldings which give a very distinctive citrus sharpness. Like all Harviestoun beers, B&T has won awards at home and abroad. We bottle with less carbon dioxide which is why our beers taste more natural. For splendid refreshment, enjoy cold."  ...it combines aromatic what now?? Anyway check out my umlaut!

Game: Only 2 days 'til Xbox One Day!  I've been nervously enquiring with Amazon if they're definitely sure I'm going to get my pre-order on release day. They gave the stock answer of, "We'll process orders in time to be delivered on the given delivery date in your account".  What I actually want to hear is, "Yes! You'll definitely get your Xbox One on release day. In fact I'll be driving it around to your house personally and will be there at 6am to ensure you get the maximum amount of daylight hours in which to set up and get your game on!"  At least they responded though, which was nice. I like it when companies offer support via Twitter. The personal touch, y'know?

Frank's Ginger Beer (Kopparberg)

Name: Frank's Ginger Beer
Label: "Best served chilled over ice - Genuine Swedish Ginger Beer - Alcoholic"
Brewery: Kopparberg
ABV: 4.0%

Rating: "Frank's ginger beer is a traditional beer blended with ginger. Contains barley malt."  I used to despise ginger beer. After drinking the alcoholic version though, I must admit it's definitely an acquired taste, which I seem to be acquiring fairly rapidly. Who the heck is Frank though?

Game: Facebook and Twitter competitions are awesome aren't they. Usually I win absolutely nothing though.  However last week I won £50 worth of Amazon vouchers courtesy of Playr2.com and their newly launched Playr2 Facebook page.  Then I won a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 t-shirt courtesy of the fine folk at Game's Twitter account @GameDigital!  A colleague said I should buy a lottery ticket considering this good run of fortune. I enquired whether he was mad and that I may as well just throw a quid down the drain - there's a fourteen million to one chance of winning the lottery you know!  No-one really wins any money anyway. The "winners" are just taken away to a secret island where they're eaten by rich, fat people with a penchant for human flesh.