Norfolk Bitter (Woodforde's)

Name: Norfolk Bitter
Label: "Brewed at Woodforde's Broadland Brewery, Woodbastwick, Norfolk - Smooth with a subtle hint of citrus fruits"
Brewery: Woodforde's
ABV: 4.5%

Rating: "A perfect match for... Caramelised crispy pork belly and roast meats."  That's proper food and ale right there.

Game: Got so many massive games on the go at the moment, Skyrim, MW3, Assassins Creed Revelations, Batman etc. I spend about half an hour each gaming session arguing with myself about which game to put on. Yeah I hate being bi-polar, it's awesome. Opted for Modern Warfare 3 tonight. It's very violent. In fact, it's quite horrible if you consider the level of realism. It just reminds you how shit war really is. War should be banned. From now on countries should settle all their arguments and power struggles on Team Deathmatch instead. No more senseless waste of life. Result.

Headcracker (Woodforde's)

Name: Headcracker
Label: "Very strong, pale Norfolk ale"
Brewery: Woodforde's
ABV: 7.0%

Rating: "Headcracker is strong and full-bodied, rich and surprisingly pale. It carries an interesting and complex plummy flavour throughout which is countered to some extent by a light bitter edge at the end. A consistent championship winner that will leave you positively glowing".

Game: I've found another grotesquely underrated game, Vanquish. Underrated by the game buying public anyway if sales are anything to go by. But, it received excellent reviews from the industry. I thought the demo sucked, maybe that had some effect on sales, but anyway the full game is pure 3rd person shoot-y, robot-y brilliance. There's even an amazing on-rails level, I'm not usually a fan of on-rails sections in games but this one just looked absolutely stunning. Gameplay-wise this on-rails section is the same as all the others (i.e. shoot stuff and try not to die), but it looked incredible, Act 2 it was in I think.

Just realised Batman Arkham City is out next month (October)!  And as Robin famously once said *: "Holy shit, Batballs! I can't f*cking wait for that game to come out!"

* Robin may not have said this.

Norfolk Nog (Woodforde's)

Name: Norfolk Nog
Label: "Champion beer of Britain - 'Old' Dark Ale"
Brewery: Woodforde's
ABV: 4.6%

Rating: "This is a smooth, reddish-black, rich and rounded 'Old Ale' with a velvety texture. The beer oozes dark and sweet roast malt flavours including hints of chocolate, treacle and liquorice. These flavours really come through against the subtle hopping that characterises this previous Supreme Champion." - Another beer that is just so darn moreish!

Game: I've watched loads of films recently so... welcome to my new feature, "One Word Movie Reviews."  First up Monsters: shit.  Next up, Adjustment Bureau: ace. And finally for this round-up, Limitless: Incredi-pill.  Ok, that went pretty well. I'm not changing the title of the blog though, it stays as Gaming Ales. That's rubbish enough, Gaming & Movie Ales would just be ridiculous.

Nelson's Revenge (Woodforde's)

Name: Nelson's Revenge
Label: "The Norfolk born hero of real ales - 200th Anniversary - The Battle of Trafalgar 1805 - 2005
Brewery: Woodforde's
ABV: 4.5%

Rating: "The rich and floral aromas initially excite the tastebuds. The following burst of combined flavours from the citrus hops and the blend of Norfolk malt confirms that this is indeed a delicious beer. The flavour then develops from the biscuity malt sweetness to a long hop-induced finish."

Game: Reached the first boss battle in Deus Ex, a big badass dude called Barrett. I almost thought at one point that this section had completely ruined the game... yes, it was tough. But then, a moment of inspiration - the old gaming cliche of explosive red barrels! Chuck barrels at Barrett, they go boom, Barrett dies, job done.

Admiral's Reserve (Woodforde's)

Name: Admiral's Reserve
Label: "Strong with great Norfolk character - 200th Anniversary - The Battle of Trafalgar 1805 - 2005 - Bottle conditioned real ale"
Brewery: Woodforde's
ABV: 5.0%

Rating: "The solid and generous sweet fruit flavours blend intimately with the luscious malted barley creating a complex and extremely satisfying dark chestnut-coloured beer. The combination of malt and the full hop flavour gives a long dry finish.  The beer is both wonderfully, and dangerously, drinkable." All of this is true, especially the last bit.

Game: Pre-ordered Deus Ex Human Revolution at the eleventh hour and it arrived on Thursday. Woo! Don't know much about the "IP" (Intellectual Property - business speak for "stuff I invented") but apparently it's quite a popular PC franchise. I fell out with PC gaming a long time ago so missed out on a bunch of stuff. Anyway, it's great and looks like it's going to be an epic sci-fi adventure. Blade Runner meets Mass Effect. I've only played a couple of hours of it and it's getting 89%.

Wherry (Woodforde's)

Name: Wherry
Label: "Champion beer of Britain - Bottle conditioned ale"
Brewery: Woodforde's
ABV: 3.8%

Rating: A Supreme Champion beer of Britain, Wherry has a fantastic zesty aroma, and an initially crisp and clean floral flavour that evolves into a hop influenced citrus taste and a slightly sweet malt background. Give it the chance to develop and you will appreciate a late hint of grapefruit rind.

Game: Apparently games are "toxic" and rioters are addicted to them. So says Supertit Jo Frost in the latest example of sensationalist knee-jerkery. Considering she bases her career around fixing bad parents, she seems completely oblivious to the fact that bad parenting is a key contributory factor to the recent riots in London and other major cities. Supertit.

Sundew (Woodforde's)

Name: Sundew
Label: "Deliciously golden and refreshing - Woodforde's Norfolk Ales - Bottle conditioned real ale"
Brewery: Woodforde's
ABV: 4.1%

Rating: Subtle golden beer - pale in colour and light on the palate with the distinctive hoppy Woodforde's finish. Fate decreed that the first production of this beer coincided with the revival of the beautiful and mysterious wetland flower of the same name, in the heart of East Anglia, much to the delight of naturalists everywhere. This is a perfect ale to compliment a warm summers evening, or a cold summers evening... or any evening for that matter.

Game: Not played a decent racer in a while so step up Dirt 3.  First point of note is that it looks absolutely amazing. The cars, trucks and buggys handle brilliantly too compared to the last racer played which was Need for Speed Hot Pursuit (seriously, the handling seemed totally broken to me on that one).  A neat feature of Dirt 3 is you can upload your triumphs and, in my case, epic fails to YouTube. Here are two reasons why this noob ain't a rally driver in real life: reason one, reason two. During the second clip the co-driver, or whatever he is, said something like "It's ok, I think I'm still alive" or words to that effect. Cheers for that.