Cake and Blind Ale

Over at Tangelled Angel Sweensie posted the best brown bread recipe ever. So I had to try it out, I can report that's it's really tasty and easy to make. Give it a go.

While I was in the baking mood I also made this lovely Lemon Cake from the joy of baking website. It's really nice, I have to stop myself eating the whole lot of it. The icing is lovely and it's just icing sugar mixed with lemon juice. One of my new years resolutions is to make more good food and baking is definitely part of that.

Oz and James Drink to Britain was on last night and the Irish Craft Brewer section they filmed at the Bull and Castle last year made it onto the show. It showed home brewed beer in a good light I thought. It was nice to be described as the future of brewing in Ireland. Though I hope it's because we all go set up micro breweries and not because the only way to get good beer in Ireland will be to brew it yourself. The Bull and Castle got a great plug which it should as it's a great pub. Thom's beer as presented by The Beer Nut was the deserved winner. My friend Ed's beer was second due his to his tasty beer and great blarney.

The home brewers who appeared on the show gathered at The Bull and Castle to watch the programme last night. For extra amusement we did a blind taste test on five english ales. We had to taste the five ales blind and identify them. The five were black sheep ale, fullers london pride, fuller's esb, abbotts ale and bishops finger. I surprised myself by getting three right. The abbotts ale and bishops finger both tasted light struck. The abbotts really wasn't pleasant at all. I could spot black sheep as well. I mixed up the two Fullers beers. In the unmarked beers the one I thought was london pride was my favourite. It was actually ESB which is the beer I prefer most so I don't know why I didn't spot it. It's an interesting thing to do. It makes you think about what it is you like about a beer.