Maple Gold (Joseph Holt)

Name: Maple Gold
Label: "Golden ale - Pure gold from the heart of the Maple Tree"
Brewery: Joseph Holt
ABV: 4.3%

Rating: "Glorious golden ale with a refreshing hint of Canadian maple. This ale is crafted to be the lighter sister brew of our award winning Maple Moon Ale, using amber malts and cascade aroma hops."  I always knew Maple Moon had a sister, and she's fit!

Game: Finally got round to getting Rocksmith. Guitar Hero was ace but I can't help feeling like a tit when I strap on a plastic guitar with six massive buttons instead of strings. With Rocksmith I can strap on my real guitar! Now, I'm not very musical, a turd could probably play better than me, if turds could pick up guitars. Really impressed with the game though, I'm definitely improving already and I've only played it twice. My guitar is a Squier Strat by the way. I know nothing about guitars (I always thought it was 'Squire strat'), yet I can sense guitar aficionados mocking my Squier. The swines.

Two Hoots (Holt)

Name: Two Hoots
Label: "With great beer comes great wisdom but we only care about the great beer - Golden Ale"
Brewery: Joseph Holt of Manchester
ABV: 4.2%

Rating: "Over 100 years of the collective wisdom and passion of our current brewing staff has been crafted into this light fruity golden ale."

Game: Visually Far Cry 3 is superb. The islands are teeming with wildlife too. And what's the first thing you do when you see loads of wild animals? Slaughter them of course and then skin them to make wallets and weapon holsters.  The skinning of animals has become quite popular in video games for some reason. In Assassin's Creed III, I didn't feel like there was much purpose to this animal bothering but with Far Cry it's a necessity. Especially if you want to take on the island's baddies with more than just a pea shooter and a small pebble.

Manchester Brown Ale (Joseph Holt)

Name: Manchester Brown Ale
Label: "A smooth traditional ale from Manchester's heartland"
Brewery: Joseph Holt
ABV: 3.8%

Rating: Quoting the label on the back "said to be the 'taste of coming home' by many a wanderer from the North West".

Game: Immediately disappointed with Darksiders unfortunately. Think I was expecting some kind of Dante's Inferno awesomeness but it's nowhere near.  Gave it a good go yesterday though and it's definitely picking up.  Still not convinced that the graphics are much cop, again comparing to Dante's Inferno (which incidentally has razor sharp visuals which look fantastic in glorious HD). Jury's still out.

Fifth Sense (Joseph Holt)

Name: Fifth Sense
Label: "A premium ale to captivate your sense of taste"
Brewery: Joseph Holt
ABV: 4.3%

Rating: Like the fifth dimension, this is well tasty.

Game: This week I've mostly been mashing up trax on DJ Hero or something. Admittedly there's a lot of musical chav pap in this game but there are also some gems hidden away, Foo Fighter's Monkey Wrench mixed with Beastie Boys Sabotage for example. Vanilla Ice Ice Baby / MC Hammer U Can't Touch This. Superb.  Makes you feel a bit like a DJ as well. Not quite as addictive as the first time you play Guitar Hero though but a nice twist to the music rhythm genre. 7/10

Sixex (Joseph Holt)

Name: Sixex
Label: "A traditional beer for real players"
Brewery: Joseph Holt
ABV: 6%

Rating: Looks like Coke, tastes like awesome.

Game: "Bioshock 2 DLC Already on the disc - Is That Okay?" http://bit.ly/9fRnEb.  No, that certainly is not ok. So downloadable content is already included on the disc that I've already bought? So buying the downloadable content is effectively unlocking what I've already bought rather than, er... downloading content?  Frankly that stinks.  This situation is like when John Lennon said The Beatles were bigger than Jesus. I'm going to burn my copy of Bioshock 2 - not really, but I have sold it, yesterday before I knew about this article... but anyway feel my wrath 2K!  At least John Lennon was right 2K, at least he was right.

Thunder Holt (Joseph Holt)

Name: Thunder Holt
Label: "Storm in a bottle"
Brewery: Joseph Holt
ABV: 5.0%

Rating: Joseph Holt is miles better than the biblical Joseph (who, by the way, was Jesus's real dad and may or may not have brewed beer).

Game: Had a bit of a dose of nausea playing Bioshock 2. It was quite good actually in an augmented reality kind of way. Apparently motion sickness and video games is a "taboo" subject but I thought it was great. It's recommended that when you experience motion sickness when playing a video game, you MUST stop playing immediately. Yeah right!

1849 (Joseph Holt)

Name: 1849
Label: "Champion ale - Count the rings of experience"
Brewery: Joseph Holt
ABV: 4.5%

Rating: Dark, rich and hoppy

Game: Back on Assassin's Creed 2. The best game ever made... after Creatures on the Commodore 64 - we demand a remake!

Maplemoon (Joseph Holt)

Name: Maplemoon
Label: "Full bodied pleasure with a twinkle of maple - Mystical Maple Ale"
Brewery: Joseph Holt
ABV: 4.8%

Rating: A glimmer of Canadian maple which makes it very pleasurable on the taste buds. One of the better things to come out of Manchester, UK.

Game: There are sooo many quests in Dragon Age: Origins I've lost track of them all. I don't know where anything is and I keep getting wasted by packs of wolves. Christmas tomorrow!