_Monday 10th April 2006 Travelling West during the daytime is a blast, especially on a sunny day. Time it right and you can experience daylight for 24 hours, which afforded me time to catch up on some reading. For Christmas Joce had given a book entitled Freakonomics – A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side Of Eveything, and now I finally had time to read through it. I surprised myself by finishing it by the time we reached Chicago – this may be a chunky hardback book on economics, but it’s also really interesting and easy-going. ...

Last month Jocelyn and I took a trip to the States to visit friends and family, attend Teri & Jimmy’s wedding, and take a vacation to Nevada and Arizona. So, there we were, sitting at the departure gate at Manchester Airport on a bright Monday morning, having awoken at 0430 to make our way across the Pennines. A few seats away were a group of teenagers. They were from Michigan, and they were annoyingly noisy. Thus began our American adventure. ...

Back in November 2004, I had the idea of making a “Generic Sorter for Strongly-Typed Collections”, by harnessing the mighty power of reflection. Well, earlier this month somebody anonymously emailed me some code that takes this to a whole different level, enabling sorting on multiple properties and to arbitrary depths within the domain model hierarchy, all by taking a single SQL-like parameter. It’s really very clever indeed, and I’m going to use this method in the future – thanks, anonymous code fairy! ...

The single most popular entry on this blog is, surprisingly enough, this quick post from Summer 2004 where I did a quick experiment to “prove” that in .NET the quickest way of proving that a string is empty is to compare its length to zero. Well, as of .NET 2.0, we have a new static method on the System.String class – IsNullOrEmpty – that allows you to easily test whether a string is, well, null or empty! ...

Hertog Jan Doppio Double is the only one of my twenty-four Advent beers to come in a stone cork-stoppered bottle that weighs more than the drink contained within! At 7.3% ABV, it’s also the second-strongest drink in my selection, and hence has a real kick to it. That said, it also has a gorgeous malty aroma, and strong aftertaste which beer lovers will appreciate. So whilst it’s not quite my personal favourite of the twenty-four beers I’ve had the pleasure of sampling this yuletide, it’s certainly an appropriately worthy and warming drink on which to finish. ...

The penultimate beer on my 2005 advent calendar was Ruby Red from the St. Peter’s Brewery in Suffolk. I’d been looking forward to this 4.3% ABV red ale, which, like all of the beers from St. Peter’s, comes in a distinctive flask-shaped oval bottle, so I was somewhat disappointed by the intense bitterness of the first few mouthfuls. However, I think this was mostly due to the effects of the Mexican dinner laced with Encona sauces that I’d scoffed a few minutes previously. Further into the bottle, the “subtle malt undertones and spicy aroma” became more apparent, and overall I really enjoyed this beer – I’ll definitely be trying some of the others from the range. ...

Fraoch is a 5% ABV Scottish beer that brings back many happy memories of late nights spent in the bar at the Clachaig Inn. “Fraoch” is the Gaelic for heather, so take a guess what this beer is made from? If you’ve never tried it, that might sound a bit weird, but believe me that this is a great beer with “a floral, peaty aroma, full malt body, spicy herbal flavour and a dry wine like finish”. What more could you ask for? Slainte! ...

“Jingle Knockers” isn’t exactly a phrase that inspires confidence, but this 5.5% ABV from Skinner’s Brewery in Cornwall is really good, definitely on a par with the stuff I’ve tried from Hambleton Ales and the Harviestoun Brewery. Smooth and strong, with subtle hints of Christmas pud – mmmm… Oh, and if you’re still confused by that name, the label handily explains all: “Known as the Tin Mine Fairies, the Cornish Knockers used to guide the miners to the rich veins of ore by knocking. With the demise of mining over the years, many knockers have ;returned to grass’ where, in disguise, they help with the brewing of their ales.” ...

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are many great things that have originated from America – not least of all my good lady wife – but I’ve always thought that “American Beer” is something of an anachronism! Let’s face it, most beers from across the Altlantic are sorely lacking in flavour, body, bitterness, or, well, anything remotely beerlike. So, whilst on my search for twenty-four bottled beers for this advent calendar, I was intrigued to find Honker’s Ale from the Goose Island Beer Company in Chicago which describes itself as “a smooth, drinkable English bitter for those drinkers who want more from their beer”. Well, let’s hope they’re not looking for too much more, as it only comes in a 355ml bottle. It tastes OK when compared to the likes of Budweiser and Samuel Adams, but it’s not exactly bold or challenging, and the whole experience was over far too quickly. Not exactly one to savour on a cold winter’s night in Yorkshire, but I can imagine these going down quite well in the sports stadia of Iliinois. ...

Smuggler’s Ale is another bottled beer which found its way into my calendar via an Asda beer competition. It’s 5% ABV, with hints of treacle, and is really rather enjoyable. And to paraphrase Forrest Gump, that’s all I have to say about that. Back to my beer and a DVD of Family Guy.

There’s something a wee bit disappointing about picking up a bottle labelled “MOROCCO ALE” and finding that it is, in fact, from nowhere more distant than Harrogate – the Daleside Brewery to be precise. According to the label: “The recipe for Morocco Ale is believed to date from Elizabethan times. Colonel John Grahme of Levens was a courtier to James II and the name ‘Morocco’ may have been associated with the dark Moors who came to the court when Catherine of Braganza married Charles II and brought Tangiers as part of her dowry.” ...

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). ...

Gadzooks! Who would have thought that it would be so difficult to find a few minutes each day to transcribe a few words about a bottle of beer? But it is – especially as we enter the party season and my evenings are filled with festivities. The good news is, I have three excellent beers to report on; the first two of which are from breweries that I’ve already “visited” during this advent calendar. ...

Halfway through my great beer advent calendar 2005, and tonight I’ve enjoyed the popular Leffe Blonde, a potent and delicious 6.6% ABV beer from Belgium. I’ve been meaning to try this reknowned tipple since I utterly failed to identify a snippet of the label in one of those irritating Excel-based quizzes that circulates on the interweb periodically. Anyway, I wasn’t disappointed – the small bottle size (33cl) being more than made up for by the strength and the flavour (quite almondy, I thought). There’s a good detailed review by someone with more effective taste buds than I over at the excellent Oxford Bottled Beer Database. ...

I just realised that I forgot to blog about yesterday’s advent beer. Sorry for keeping you all on tenterhooks like that! To be honest I was a bit disappointed and couldn’t think of anything interesting to say about Rudolph’s Revenge, a 4.6% ABV bitter from Cropton Brewery. It was quite similar to the equally uninspiring Mars Magic from last Thursday.