Daleside Chocolate Stout

Time for a stout by daleside from north yorkshire. I might have had this one at the pub before. At a beer festival. Or well might have, these chocolate beers seem to taste alike. I not reviewed it so might as well make some notes on it. Its a special chocolate stout. I say "special", there are a few around now. Including one by Young's which ben found.

A very black stout with a red/brown head. The smell is a sweet dark chocolate sent with a bit of coffee. The taste is all about the malt and coco. Quite a smooth drink. Saying that though iv had smoother stout. The taste could resemble a classic porter (if you forget about the coco) yet smoother. The beer is a casual 4%.

Rating: Good
As you can see am a professional at rating beer
Overall: Its a nice chocolate stout. It might be worth a 4 but ill give it a 3 I cant drink a lot of else chocolate stouts unless there really good. Being rich and a single taste makes it something of a special one off ale.

Clumber

Went to clumber park. Took dog for a walk and took some photos.
Ben and Tash

"I don't know tash. Hows this gonna fit on the van roof"

We are there. Don't you know?


Weird old seat things.


Tash posing.


If you want to see all the art photography see photo for a month blog.

Batemans beers

I have 2 Batemans beers from aldi.
One is the Combined Harvest and the other is the XXXB pale ale.

I had the XXXB first last night (the dark bottle). While my internet was down (orange suck). Copper red colour, not much aroma (trying to be professional here, no I did not get beer up my nose when smelling it. I'm a pro you know) but I got a slight bitter smell. The taste is crisp, slightly sweet nutty distinction and bitter. A rather dry finish to it.
Other info: Good size bottle 500ml. ABV 4.7%. The main malt is a maris otter. Goldings, Challenger, Liberty Hops. OG 1050 Colour EBC 30-35 Bitterness EBU 38.

Rating: Good
As you can see am a professional at rating beer
Overall: Nice pale ale. I prefer an IPA style but still enjoyable


The Combined Harvest beer is a multigrain beer. Instead of malted barley, Malted Oats, Rye, Wheat & Barley are used.
Says on the bottle: "A UNIQUE COMBINATION of barley, oats wheat and rye. The result is a beer with equal appeal to male and female drinkers and also young drinkers, due to its subtle, smooth bitterness."
The colour is a yellowy brown/amber colour. The little aroma is a sweet smell maybe hints of rye. The taste is crisp, fruity and a balanced hoppy flavour. This would be a great beer for just lazying around in the summer or enjoying the sun (the same thing right?).
Other notes: Good size bottle 500ml. ABV 4.7%. OG 1045 . Colour EBC 12-17. Bitterness EBU 28. Malts include malted oats, rye, wheat & barley.

Rating: Enjoyable English pale ale
As you can see am a professional at rating beer
Overall: Ill give it a 5 because I think this would be a great beer for the summer. Would go with any dish.

Richards Brewing again: Bitter

Randomly decided to brew something. For just something to do. Brewing a pale/bitter ale. Based on a extract kit from Wilkos. £10 brew buddy bitter which I think is made by youngs but I could be wrong.
I have added a few things to it, making a partial mash. Cascade hops, maris otter malt, medium spray malt and some oats.

Maris otter malt...

The extract mix...

Oats and Cascade Hops

Everything in (I think)...

I am using a dry yeast instead of the normal wyeast. I have only brewed 2 beers with dry yeast and they were my first ones, they weren't bad for money.

Once its in the keg it wont be long till its drinkable. Unlike the barley wine which is still a little to hoppy. Needs to mellow out a few weeks.

Random thought...

If a cider and black is a pint of cider and with added blackcurrant (gross)... is a pint of Guinness and blackcurrant called black and black (very weird and gross)?

War on my own ISP

Worst Internet Provider on Watchdog is yeah you guessed it ORANGE!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/wat...

Based on sum of 1s & 2s (extremely dissatisfied, dissatisfied)

1. Orange - 12,313

2. TalkTalk - 11,944

3. BT - 10,669

4. Tiscali - 10,412

I have phoned 2 more times and still nothing they will just put me on hold when I ask for a migration code.

A fryer is perfect with need for speed?

Amazon uk thinks a fryer is perfect with need for speed (360)

Thats right you can get a kitchen appliance and an xbox game together!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000

Marstons Old Empire

This IPA is made by Marstons brewed in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
And I thought green king was good. It's a little darker and more hoppy than green king. Has a better taste to it and its stronger to. A 5.7% ale. Beats green king's IPA by taste and strength. If I was to explain why it has a better taste to the popular green king I would say that: It has a much more fruit taste to it and has a little more hop taste. Yet I would say its not as smooth (but I might be wrong about that iv not had it on cask). Theres little carbonation but that kind of adds to it being from a small brewery, least thats what I think.


Rating: Very Good
As you can see am a professional at rating beer
Overall: Its a very nice enjoyable ale and refeshing. Better than green king IPA.

Orange broadband = rubbish

Having been on this network for a few years, about 5. From freeserve to wannado to orange. I kind of see a pattern emerging and its downwards spiral of doom. Orange can barely manage a mobile telecommunications brand let alone a ISP. Skipping this shit. I can honestly say don't waste your time with it even if its offered free with a mobile contract. Just don't tempt yourself. You will be trapped on a 12 month contract.

Iv phoned them about 5 times complaining about the poor reliability (sometimes I wont have the internet for an hour) and all they can say is: "reinstall the modem" OK OK. FFS. Ill give you reinstall modem how about the 3 computers in the house all doing the same thing with the same usb modem (tested and tried)

Then they might try this trick:
"oh well ill do a line check and you phone us back if it happens again"... they leave it at that. Basically they do nothing a line check IS NOT going to solve the problem is it.

The truth is, from what iv seen from friends and family, the ISP is beyond it. Lock stock fucked or shit is another word for it.
Anyway I'm going to try and cancel it at sometime or see if they let me move to something more better. With a descent company that will be bothered to fix something instead of orange (the future is not orange! If it was everything would disconnect and their helpline would be useless as talking to a cheese sandwich) .

Kegging Barley Wine

Transferred the barley wine into the keg today. Never seen so much sediment at the bottom of the fermenter bin. Must be about 1-1.5 inches thick. I'm not going to take a picture of it (lucky you) but its like thick mud. 3 Gallons does not look a lot in a 5 gallon keg but it should be worth it. Smells strong. Take your eyes out.
...Now to wait for it to age

Hmm what to brew next? Maybe an IPA or wheat beer, something easy to drink. I might need a new keg. I have one with a beer already in but if I cleaned it out (like a nuclear technician with bleach) it might be okay for the job.

Current TV Rocks

Sky TV has generally been poor since [dot] TV was shut down and has never had anything different other than rubbish. TV call in channels like quiz's, a lot of cheap entertainment channels that show programs from the 80's, then there's crap like re-run channels sky three, uk gold, e4 plus what ever. Crap.
...Anyway current TV is a lot like youtube. It shows user created content. That doesn't mean a stupid video of someone's cat jumping at walls. But real, interesting documentaries. I turned it on and watched a program or Pod as they call it about a Guerrilla Gardener. People that find a ugly space in a urban area. Then under cover of darkness they plant a load of shrubs and flowers to brighten the place up rather than keep phoning the council (who wont have the time or care about doing something like this). Amazing idea. I want to join in! sounds like fun.
I also watched a pod about a dude looking to buy a cheap house since he cant afford to have his own and basically he is stuck to rent for the rest of his life. Another about Africans trying to make it to Europe which I think was a professional pod with a real journalist.
The channel also shows a pod called Google current about interesting searches.

If there's nothing else on TV I think ill just watch Current Tv from now on.
www.current.tv

Brewing: Barley Wine number 2

My 2nd try at barley wine. My first brew was a not so strong barley wine which turned out more like a bitter IPA. Anyway this time I used a youngs barley wine 24 pint kit and added

• Maris otter malt
• A little bit of chocolate malt (I like a dark brew)
  
• 2x Medium spray malt
• cascade hops (boiling)
• Willamette hop (finishing)
• 1 Scottish ale yeast
• Oh and I forgot I added 100g of honey
  

All heated to slightly boil for an hour.

Hoping to make it strong one. I never make a brew over 3%. So this time I'm using a brew heater belt! This better turn out a good one, if not ill age it.

Rite Flanker

Yeah you read it right. Rite not right flanker.
A beer by Wickwar Brewing.
Its a fruity beer, some caramel maybe, dark amber colour. Little hop taste and lots of malt flavour.

Commercial description:
Due to be in the pubs at the beginning of February is the exciting Rite Flanker, brewed just for the Six Nations Championships. At 4.3% abv, it is an excellent brew full of muscle and determination. With a delicate blend of those oh so beautiful Fuggle & Challenger hops.

I would have thought a beer brewed for the six nations rugby would be a bitter or stout beer. If you like sweet fruity beers you might like this. Boring if you ask me, iv had better fruit ales.

Rating: was ok
As you can see am a professional at rating beer
Overall: boring

Set Firefox as the default browser in Kubuntu (KDE)

If you dont like to use Konqueror for web pages then you can use this:

1. Open Konqueror
2. Go to Settings > Configure Konqueror
3. Go to file associations
4. Find Text in the 'Known type' box, expand and click html
5. You will see in 'Application preference order' that Konqueror is above firefox. Change it so that firefox is above (or add firefox if its not there and put it above Konqueror).

Website links in applications such as gaim or kmess will now load firefox instead of Konqueror.

"This APT has Super Cow Powers."

Easter egg in APT, used in debian based linux (that includes ubuntu) Advanced Packaging Tool.

1. Type 'apt-get help' (don't need to be root). Will return with a line saying "This APT has Super Cow Powers."
2. Type 'apt-get moo' will return with a cow drawn in ascii and message "have you mooed today?"

A cow in the terminal.

Kmess 1.5-pre1 KDE MSN client

This is a new one to me. Never heard of it until a few days ago. Its a simple, easy to use MSN client for KDE. Like an alternative to Kopete.
It has some good features:

• Notification's that look like speech bubbles
• Choose display pictures
• Personal message support
• Connection status indicator
  
• Quick email button - although I don't use hotmail (dreadful email service)
  

If you like Amsn you will like this and like it better. Its smaller, faster, and easier on the eyes.

You can download the installer from
http://www.kmess.org/
It is available in the ubuntu packages, however only version 1.4.3 which doesnt have many of the neat features as the 1.5-pre1. So I urge you to get the KDE installer.

Installed Beryl

I wasn't going to install it since I found compiz the 3d window manager to be a total cpu hog. I was talking about compositing window managers with a fellow linux user and 'Dave' the other day so its been on my mind. Anyway I was reading one of the forums on ubuntu and some user said that it was quicker than compiz. I found this guide:

• http://wiki.beryl-project.org/wiki/Install_B...

What the hey I thought. Might as well try out a fork of compiz, some of the compiz developers spilt from the main project to beryl in September 19, 2006. Never thought to try it out even although the plugins always make the front page of digg.com.
Installed it on my old laptop with XGL. It took about 20 mins at tops and I'm impressed it doesn't choke the cpu to death, the Intel graphics controller works well. I turned off the animations since they start to annoy more then anything. I put the Refresh Rate to the max which stops the windows from lagging a little to perfect. Some neat themes to choose from.

Screenshots DO NOT DO BERYL JUSTICE so here's a video. I didn't show anything of the cube I only have two hands and it kinda makes me dizzy.

I'v read many things about compiz to be included in later ubuntu versions. That's kind of bold to do so but still disappointing. Wrong window manager. It should be beryl. Never mind. FeistyFawn Herd5 (beta of the next ubuntu code named: FeistyFawn) already comes with desktop effects. It states that:
Graphical Desktop Effects will be made extremely accessible, with one click activation in the system menu.
So at least it wont take 20mins of downloading/writing small scripts for it to work.