Bonus marks for identifying the other style of beer in shot.

I started this compact journey of the soul drinking beer in Boston & commenting how English it tasted. IPA’s based on East Kent Golding & Fuggles rather than Cascade, Chinook & Centennial. Of course the irony of this is my well known love for the citrusy Pacific hops in these situations. Not that I won’t make an exception for 60 Minutes whenever the opportunity presents itself.

And then I arrived back in Britain. Where serving a pint involves a bit of elbow grease, or those of you Atlantically-challenged, the operation of a beer engine. At which point the beer in Boston tasted just like the beer in California. There is just some special about the way we serve beer in the British Isles, but especially the North. A hand pump is without doubt a better way of serving beer but it only fulfils it’s true potential when operated with a skilled hand & more contentiously a sprinkler. That little gadget on the end of a northern hand pump may look like the most miserly water-saving showerhead but it’s impact is closer to that of gravy on roast potatoes – it bring the flavour out.

I guess I still haven’t told you anymore of what I’ve drunk over the last few weeks or how it was but I think I’ve given you the ambience. And that first pint of Bushys was like finding an oasis after an eternity in the desert.

The tricky thing with writing a blog is that the longer it is since you posted an update the harder it is to do. With Ealish & I now having arrived in Boston as part of cross-country move it seems the ideal kick up the arse to get things started again. So many new pubs & breweries to explore. Oh, it’s going to be so hard

By the time BART had delivered Nathan, Andy & I across the bay to the city we were all well ready for a pint along with some meat based sustenance. I had skipped the 21A IPA at the IPA festival as I thought I’d get one from the source but unfortunately they were out of it, along with their highly reputed Watermelon Wheat. Instead they had the excellent Russian River Blind Pig IPA which I has sampled at our previous stop. I did feel that I should try one of the 21A brews so after a glance at best designed beer menu ever seen I opted for the Amendment Pale Ale. I can’t rave about their beer board enough; a good description of the beer and it’s ABV is highly valuable but telling you how many IBU’s it has is the dog’s bollocks.

I’d given up on taking notes at this point so all I can tell you about the Amendment Pale Ale or the South Park Blonde that followed is that I enjoyed them both, as I did the nice big burger. Mmm, mmm, mmm, tasty.

It was quite quiet (I thing that is the typing equivalent of a tongue-twister) as we were there mid-afternoon but if my first visit is anything to go by, it’s a great place with tasty beer & food. Well worth a visit.

It’s popularity was entirely deserved though as they had a hella lot of tasty beer. Teaming up the three of us made about half way through the list of beers, each of them a new favourite. Even though every beer was an IPA there was remarkable diversity of flavours. It must have been difficult work for the judges attempting to clear the palettes after every hop-bomb was dropped on their taste buds. Not that I feel bad for them of course.

After roughly 25 different IPA’s we took a look at the queue to buy more tickets in order to keep going and decided what we really wanted was to sit down somewhere & drink beers by the pint, not the 6oz taster. So off we headed to our next destination…