Golden Host (Jennings)

Name: Golden Host
Label: "A deep golden beer with a hint of spice & toffee"
Brewery: Jennings Brewery
ABV: 4.2%

Tasting notes: "A full flavoured golden bitter brewed using the finest English malted barley and carefully selected aromatic hops. A generous handfull of crystal malts has been added to give a delicate flavour & subtle aroma."

Game: New(ish) to Xbox Game Pass, Ruiner.  This Cyberpunky, Blade Runnery top down twin stick shootery game has brilliant aesthetics and design but a punishing difficulty level. Deep weapon and ability skill trees and a great looking city-hub area make for an intriguing experience potential RUINED by an insane difficulty spike after the first mission. We shall try to persevere with this but first, let's knock that difficulty level down a bit...

6.5/10 - score to be revisited possibly

Westmorland Ale (Jennings)

Name: Westmorland Ale
Label: "Delicate hop flavours with hints of toffee & caramel - Delicious & refreshing well balanced amber ale."
Brewery: Jennings
ABV: 4.0%

Rating: "A lovely golden amber ale with subtle hints of toffee and caramel, beautifully balanced by hoppy notes from the Fuggles, Goldings and Challenger hops." Another from Sainsbury's "Taste the Difference" range. This beer goes great with summer.

Game: The difficulty in Max Payne 3 seems to have ramped up which suggests I'm close to the endgame.  I kept dying over and over and was getting mildly frustrated when Catherine suddenly fell into my lap. Not literally, it actually fell onto the floor after being put through the letterbox. Anyway, so far it's full of sexy anime, fiendish block related puzzles and drinking in a bar. Lots of games seems to involve drinking. I might start drinking the same in real life as the character in the game, just for that added level of immersion.

Tom Fool (Jennings)

Name: Tom Fool
Label: "A Classic Amber Ale for the Foolish of Heart"
Brewery: Jennings
ABV: 4.0%

Rating: "Said to enjoy the odd tipple, Thomas Skelton - the ghost of Muncaster Castle is still fooling around today. His favourite beer named after his good self, is a golden amber ale with all the characteristics of a true traditional English beer." Ghosts like it, so it must be ace.

Game: So Batman: Arkham City went straight to number 1 in the UK All Formats Chart. Who saw that happening? Everyone, that's who. The game is quite simply stunning, both in looks and more importantly, gameplay. Some key points of note so far: there are an amazing amount of characters all inter-woven throughout the story via the main plotline or side missions, spanning the history of Batman and Detective Comics. As with Arkham Asylum, there are a wealth of upgradeable gadgets and combat moves. The combat is great. I start to struggle when surrounded by more than ten enemies at once as my feeble brain struggles to keep up, but now theres double counters, several special takedown moves and evasive moves to give Bats a serious ass-kicking edge. I did experience one glitch a few hours in where... nah never mind, it was only minor and I don't want to say anything negative about this masterpiece of a game.

Cocker Hoop (Jennings)

Name: Cocker Hoop
Label: "An unashamedly cocky golden pale ale"
Brewery: Jennings
ABV: 4.2%

Rating: Cocker hoop means in very high spirits or boastful apparently. Which is infinitely better than being a cocky little shit.

Game: A couple of games absolutely sped through in the past week were HAWX 2 and Medal of Honor. Both short and sweet. I couldn't be bothered with the MoH Tier 1 stuff or multiplayer. Not. Arsed. I give them both 7.5 / 10. Thats the definitive review for both of them. You don't need to read about them anywhere else. Thanks.

Cumberland Ale (Jennings)

Name: Cumberland Ale
Label: "Pure Lake District - Late afternoon in October looking over Cummock Water"
Brewery: Jennings
ABV: 4.7%

Rating: New label with nice picture.. still doesn't taste like sausages... Win.

Game: Oh no, gaming burnout? Worries about work and family stopping me from enjoying anything?  Depressed.  Don't know what to play, might be time to buy Red Dead Redemption, it's GTA but with horses. You can upgrade your horse. Everywhere is sold out. FAIL.

Bitter Lakeland Ale (Jennings)

Name: Bitter Lakeland Ale
Label: "The Jennings Castle Brewery, nestled between the rivers Cocker and Derwent"
Brewery: Jennings
ABV: 3.5%

Rating: I love castles me, and to think one is also a brewery!

Game: Going through a bit of gaming crisis at the moment. Don't really fancy playing anything. Must be a dose of gaming burnout or something. This will surely be fixed by Alan Wake next week. I've had another article published by the way, this time for the excellent www.b4hd.com website. It's about movie tie-ins.

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.