Very Nutty Black (Thwaites)

Name: Very Nutty Black
Label: "Export strength - Bottle conditioned for a truer flavour"
Brewery: Thwaites
ABV: 3.9%

Rating: On the bottle it says that "Daniel Thwaites has broken all the rules with an export strength version of its award winning ale." That Daniel is a complete maverick! His ales are cracking as well!

Game: Just about wrapped up Deadly Premonition now. It seems to veer wildly between spookily gory and horribly farcical. In one chapter a woman has her tongue cut out, is stabbed in the chest and is then strung up ready to be dropped and impaled on a spiky tree shaped sculpture below, and in the next chapter you have to chase a dog around the street Benny Hill style, complete with ridiculous soundtrack. It's strangely addcitive, it's probably a work of genius that will gather a cult following and it's one of those games that will get remade or ported over to next-next-next-gen consoles. I don't know how to rate it, I don't know what score to give it. It's a 2/10 and an 8/10 game all at the same time.

The Bishop's Tipple (Wadworth)

Name: The Bishop's Tipple
Label: "Rejoice & enjoy the fruits of our labour & be thankful that the Earth provides - Choicest hopped classic English ale."
Brewery: Wadworth
ABV: 5.5%

Rating: First brewed to celebrate the inauguration of George Reindorp as Bishop of Salisbury, this Wiltshire Strong Ale has a full flavour which is well balanced with hop bitterness for a clean finish.

Game: Two hundredth post today! To celebrate here's a list of the forthcoming games on my "must buy" list. Time to get the pre-orders in...

Gears of War 3 - 20/09/11 Rise of Nightmares - 30/09/11 Batman: Arkham City - 21/10/11 Silent Hill: Downpour - 28/10/11 Elder Scrolls v: Skyrim - 11/11/11

Assassins Creed Revelations - 15/11/11    Mass Effect 3 - 09/03/12    Aliens: Colonial Marines - 30/03/12    Kinect: Star Wars - ??/??/??    I Am Alive - ??/??/??

Master Brew (Shepherd Neame)

Name: Master Brew
Label: "Kentish Ale - The Local Hero"
Brewery: Shepherd Neame
ABV: 4.0%

Rating: Andrew Jefford describes it as "this amber-russet Kentish ale owes it uniquely invigorating style to a profusion of pungent Kentish hops infusing its mouthwatering base of crystal malts." Anyone who can use the word "pungent" in a positive way is alright by me.

Game: "Death by Xbox" hysterically screeches the headline of bag o' shite rag The Sun this week. The "journalists" involved should take note of David Staniforth's more level headed comments. Considering his comments come just weeks after the death of his son Chris, the chap deserves a medal. Rather than blame gaming, he recommends taking breaks during long gaming sessions. Personally I like to get up every once in a while and get another beer from the fridge. But without wanting to sound flippant, Deep Vein Thrombosis can be a real problem if you're sedentary for several hours at a time. Take a break after a few hours, go for a twenty minute run, have a walk around, anything to get the blood moving. Get UFC Personal Trainer, then you can play games and get fit at the same time! Oh, and one more thing, don't buy the Sun.

Explorer (Adnams)

Name: Explorer
Label: "Serve Chilled - Beer from the coast - Brewery of the year 2011 - Awarded by the Good Pub Guide - Voted for by you, Thank you!"
Brewery: Adnams
ABV: 5.0%

Rating: I'm always a bit wary of any beer that advises it needs to be chilled in order to taste good. Examples being Carling, Carlsberg Special Brew etc - basically anything that would taste like piss at room temperature. But that's lager and this is Adnams blonde beer, and I can report that it is exceptional. It blends Chinook and Columbus hops from the New World and as it says on the label, the citrus attack will burst on your palate.

Game: Just been on UFC Personal Trainer. I've had a few problems tonight though, nothing to do with the software I hasten to add (it's awesome) but more to do with me being a bit rubbish.  This is probably down to 'bad form' but for this session my knees felt like they were crumbling whilst doing forward and backward lunges. Also, I managed to punch myself in the face whilst doing some 'rear elbow' moves. Still, I did it whilst sweating and being knackered so it must be doing some good...

London Porter (Shepherd Neame)

Name: London Porter
Label: "Dark Beer - Rich & aromatic with notes of chocolate - Dark & intense with a hint of spicy liquorice"
Brewery: Shepherd Neame for Sainsbury's Taste the Difference range
ABV: 5.0%

Rating: Chocolate gives me a crippling migraine. This contains notes of chocolate which didn't result in migraine related agony. Win.

Game: Another game currently on the go: Quake 4. This is an old skool corridor shooter and its great. A bit last-gen but so what. Not even going to bother with multiplayer though. Do you know why? Because multiplayer is boring and sucks! Sorry.

IPA (Marston's)

Name: IPA
Label: "Sainsbury's Tastes the Difference - Delicate, fresh nose with floral & Citrus aromas - A traditional brew with clean bitter hop flavour"
Brewery: Marston's
ABV: 5.9%

Rating: Sainsbury's tells us to literally "Tasts the difference". Just noticed the tiger on the label too - instant awesomeness right there.

Game: At the moment I have quite a few games currently on the go. In the fall of this year (sorry for the Americanism) and early next year there's going to be some mega games released that I simply HAVE to buy including but not limited to: Assassin's Creed Revelations, Batman: Arkham City, Rise of Nightmares (Kinect), Star Wars (Kinect), Silent Hill: Downpour, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, I Am Alive, Jurassic Park: The Game, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Halo 4, Gears of War 3 and Far Cry 3. Lot's of colons. That's how exciting it is!

Tutti Frutti Pear Cider (Brothers)

Name: Tutti Frutti Pear Cider
Label: "Mixed fruit flavour perry - Last year festival goers started to mix our Pear, Strawberry, Lemon and Toffee Apple ciders together to make a Tutti Frutti. Here's the luxury version with some extra Passion Fruit & Blackberries as well. Enjoy"
Brewery: Brothers
ABV: 4.0%

Rating: As the one reader of this blog knows, I'm not really a fan of cider. But this drink is stunning. And the colour of it is ace too.

Game: Time to kick some ant and spider ass in Earth Defence Force: Insect Armageddon. Technically speaking spiders aren't insects but we'll let that fact go shall we. There are four classes of soldier to try out, each with different characteristics and loadouts to maximise your bug destroying efficiency. This is just good old run and gun, blow stuff up, fun. So basically no storyline or plot then. 7/10

Toffee Apple Cider (Brothers)

Name: Toffee Apple Cider
Label: "An acquired taste but then so is freezing rain in your face and evenings that start at 4.30pm. The Brothers"
Brewery: Brothers
ABV: 4.0%

Rating: I acquired the taste instantly for drinking this. It's amazing and I don't even really like cider. That's why I drink ale. But this is amazing.

Game: I have mostly been playing Alice: The Madness Returns and Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. I always forget what the Forgotten Sands is called and call it the Sands of Time instead. I must remember that it's Forgetten and that it still contains Sand but no Time, even though in the game you can tamper with time when you screw up. All very confusing... great game though! 7/10

Southwold Bitter (Adnams)

Name: Southwold Bitter
Label: "Southwold Jack is one of Adnams' oldest & most loyal figureheads, that's why we've chosen him to be the icon for one of our most famous beers."
Brewery: Adnams
ABV: 4.1%

Rating: Understated on the label with regards to ingredients, but this beer makes a cracking pint so say I.

Game: I saw a trailer for Deadly Premonition ages ago and it looked like crap. I heard some quite good things about it so I thought I'd give it a go.  It looks like crap. Why does it looks so rubbishy last gen? Anyway the actual game is a surreal, quirky, survival horror, murder mystery.  Think Twin Peaks meets L.A. Noire meets Silent Hill but with the aforementioned shit graphics.  It's absolutely brilliant though! At the moment I'm giving it 8 out of 10.

Miss America (Batemans)

Name: Miss America
Label: "Celebrating American Independence - Just as you'd expect, Miss America is a full, well rounded, robust beer, bigger and better than the rest!"
Brewery: Batemans
ABV: 4.1%

Rating: Aswell as the portly looking lady on the front the label also says, "Goes great with Hamburgers... lots of them!"

Game: Getting fit sucks. It's too much like hard work and it's as boring as shit. So how great is UFC Personal Trainer? It's a game and it's exercise, all on the same disc. Overall, it's excellent. Full of absolutely knackering exercise routines but still suitable for all abilities. Light exercise or get your ass kicked exercise, it's up to you. My only quibble so far is it's frozen up a couple of times, which is a bit soul destroying when you're forty minutes into a high impact strength training routine and you've lost all your progress. Also, it doesn't register my push ups very well. Push ups are hard. Recognise the push up damn it, so I just have to do sixty rather than one hundred and twenty!!