Mackie’s of Scotland Mint 70% Cocoa Chocolate (Lidl) By @Cinabar

Mackie’s of Scotland is a company I associate firstly with ice cream. They then went on to make crisps, which is diversifying quite a bit, it isn’t a similar market. When I was in Lidl I spotted this Mackie’s of Scotland Mint 70% Cocoa Chocolate bar which means they have entered the confectionary market too. Basically Mackie’s of Scotland seem to make all the treat foods I really like, which is fine by me.

This mint bar is a dark chocolate bar mixed with mint crystals. I opened up the wrapper and was pleased to see a very smart looking bar inside. My bar was broke (this was due to the journey it took in my rucksack) but the pieces were all embossed with Mackie’s letter and icons, and it looked quite posh. The aroma was amazing, really strong mint and cocoa and I couldn’t wait to give it a try.
The pieces snapped nicely and the flavour was quite strong of dark chocolate, but as you chewed the sweeter tones comes through as did a lovely rush of mint. The chocolate wasn’t too thick when it melted, but it did coat the tongue nicely. I would certainly look for other flavours from them as this bar was a hit.
It turns out Mackie’s are good at whatever they put their mind to be it haggis crisps or Mint 70% Cocoa Chocolate bars.

Rolo Muffin (Costa) By @Cinabar

Thankfully there were two of these Rolo Muffins left in Costa when I went to make my order which meant I got to avoid any awkward questions about who got the last Rolo (Muffin). Thankfully it was me. Costa has teamed up with Rolo to release this new Spring edition to its menu. I do like caramel and chocolate muffins so I was rather looking forward to having this with my latte.
The Rolo Muffin has three mini Rolos on the top, sitting is a butterscotch flavoured caramel. I picked these off to start with and they were really good. The sauce on top was really tasty, the flavour was very rich and full on caramel. This for me was the best part of the muffin. The chocolate sponge was good too, and I ripped the muffin in half to look at the caramel sauce inside. Mine had a bit of a stingy portion, and the flavour of this caramel was more buttery and sweet, but I much preferred the topping to this bit in the middle.
This Rolo Muffin was good, I liked the link up between the two brands and I would I try it again. I wouldn’t fight to have the last one though, I’d be equally as happy with one of Costa’s salted caramel muffins to be fair. For me I just didn’t think there was enough caramel filling in the middle of my Rolo Muffin.

Cheap Beers! Not just for men with beards. (@NLi10)

I'm enjoying my re-discovery of the world of beer.  I'd not really drunk it since uni and finding nice ones now my 40 year old taste buds have all died is quite fun.  England doesn't really understand the smoothness that I love, but there are a few to try still.

These are non-alcohol beers.  The left one was a bit too sharp. The right one was nicer.  Neither had any issues with not having the alcohol - it was more that they just aren't in the right part of the beer spectrum for me. Nice glasses too.

This was the cheapest beer in Asda that I liked the look of. Under £1!

Feldschlossen sounds like it should be getting sloshed in a field.  It isn't (it's small castle in the fields), but it's still suitably German enough that I'm probably going to have fun.

Made in France though - which is a bit confusing.  Apparently they are now owned by Carlsberg which is more disappointment.   But it's actually alright.  It's not Leffe, but it's certainly not English Pub Swill either.  One for the budget conscious days then, or for saving for with a strong curry.

Raspberry Sour (Harbour Brewing Company) By @SpectreUK

I'm often feeling a little lazy when I write a beer review. It's on these lazy occasions that I pick a beer from my cavernous beer fridge that has more of an explanation on the label. A label can often talk about the background of the beer, the brewery, the different malts and hops used in the brewing and any extra twists. Sometimes I find a beer that's worked it's way somehow to the front of the fridge that doesn't particularly have much information on the label at all. This Raspberry Sour is one of those beers. It only really tells me that raspberries were used in the brewing. It doesn't really say much else asides that it's 4.8% volume and that it's been produced by the Harbour Brewing Company in Bodmin, in North Cornwall. So I figured I may still be lazy and just open the 330ml bottle and see what it tastes like…

I remember in the past the sour beers I have had were pretty sour. Sour beers are intentionally acidic, with a tart sour flavour to make your toes curl as you drink them. On opening this Raspberry Sour it certainly had the "Wow!" factor of sour aromas. The beer was very acidic in smell to start with and then there were plenty of raspberries with their flick-knives out at the back of the aroma. This beer also has Lactobacillus in the ingredients beerandbrewing.com tells me that "Lactobacillus is one of the most common and most feared beer spoilage microorganisms. It belongs to the group of lactic acid bacteria." It's often used in yoghurts.

On pouring this deep red coloured wheat and malted barley beer, the colour reminded me of some horror movie I'd seen in the past at some point or other. I was beginning to wish I'd tried this beer around Halloween time. This Raspberry Sour beer is indeed face twistingly toe curlingly sour. There is almost a wheat and hint of sweet malted barley to start with which gets quickly overshadowed by the sourness from the raspberries and the extra special kick from the Lactobacillus. Wow, if you want an afternoon kick up the bum of a waker-upper brew than this is for you. Just don't drink it late at night, you may stay awake from the super sour flavour or at least have sour dreams of red beer that goes bump in the night!

Kit Kat - Gold (Co-Op) By @Cinabar

This Kit Kat has been a hard one to track down, I have searched around several different branches of the Co-Op for this and it has taken me until now to find it. The idea is that it is a Gold edition Kit Kat and it sounded in theory what a lot like the old Caramac Kit Kat used to be like. I was so pleased when I went back to my local shop and found it, at the back of the shelf, the last couple of these in a box. Like finding gold, pun intended.
First thing to note was my inner child was really hoping for some edible gold leaf or glitter here, something that matched that shiny packaging. There wasn’t any there was just a two tone Kit Kat with a milk chocolate base and a beige colour top.
Inside the Kit Kat are the usual crunchy wafers, I’m always a fan of Kit Kat because of their textures and this Kit Kat Gold bar was no exception to that. The flavour was mostly of milk chocolate but with a nice caramel flavour twist. It was a little sweeter and a litter creamier than a regular Kit Kat, and it was tasty.
After all the searching for it I realised it wasn't all that exciting. It works, who doesn’t like chocolate, wafer and caramel, but it isn’t as full flavoured as the Caramac bar used to be, and it isn’t as pretty as it could have been either. Nice enough to try but quite happy to pop it in the category of decent bar but not one that will have the same nostalgia of the Caramac flavour.