Friday night saw me out celebrating in Halifax at our departmental Christmas meal (FWIW, I drank a few pints of Santa’s Little Helper from the Caledonian brewery). As a result, I didn’t get chance to enjoy my advent beer, and have been playing catch-up with a couple of randomly-selected bottles tonight.
Firstly, the sixteenth beer to be selected from the vase of fate was Delirium Nocturnum, a 9.0% ABV dark ale from the Huyghe-Melle brewery in Belgium which comes in silver glittery 330ml bottles featuring pictures of pink elephants. I was somewhat apprehensive, but needlessly so, as this is a surprisingly well-balanced and hoppy triply-fermented ale – not a novelty drink at all (despite the packaging being somewhat reminiscent of a Pizza Express salad dressing bottle).
Secondly, today’s drink was Rolling Hitch, a 5.2% ABV India pale ale from the Darwin Brewery in Sunderland. This was specially created for the purposes of entering (and winning) a competition to supply all Asda stores. It’s fruity, sharp, bitter and hoppy – very enjoyable.
Oh, and in case you were wondering,a quick Googling reveals that a Rolling Hitch is a seafaring knot – “if a jib sheet jams in a winch, you can attach a rolling hitch to take the pressure off the line as you undo the jam” – so now you know.