Intuition Pale (The Wee Beer Shop @WeeBeerShop @AtticBrewCo) By @SpectreUK

Intuition - "a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning", was the definition from a quick look on a popular search engine (okay, it was Google). I don't usually look up words in a blog. I know what intuition means, however, I'm not always very good at it. I have a habit of bashing myself against a brick wall until whatever it is I should know instinctively finally sinks in. I guess it depends what it is, but I think many people have that same feeling of; "no it can't be like that, maybe it's like this." I guess it can often be considered as "denial".

Where denial is concerned in this blog is the fact that I may be slowly running out of beers to blog about. I have a few beers in my cavernous beer fridge, but running through many last night I was a little taken aback by the fact that I'd already written about most of them. Super markets are not so full of varieties of beer as they used to be in the UK. However, "we endeavour to persevere" as the old Indian mentioned in a favourite Western of mine, Josey Wales. So we have found one or two suppliers we can look to online.

This Intuition Pale was produced by Attic Brewery. At 4.4% in volume it's their "flagship beer", sported as having a taste of "pineapple and ripe peaches with a pithy bitterness". I even had to look up 'pithy'. I think I'm getting old and maybe forgetting things I already knew. Being a session pale ale, meaning a beer with less alcohol by volume for when in the "good old days" (so they say) a worker could have a beer and a break from working on heavy machinery. These days a lot of machinery seems to be at a touch of a button. Yet no beer at break time for those who may want it. I'm definitely getting old. Some twenty-odd years ago I did like a quick half and a bag of ready salted crisps or pork scratchings in the nearby pub in the afternoon at work sometimes.

Having said all that, I'm hoping for a "terse and vigorously expressive" bitterness from the hops in Intuition, rather than too much pith from a fruit. On opening the can there was a fruity tropical aroma with a touch of sweet pale malt to finish. This misty golden pale ale poured with a cheerful head. On taste there was a definite pineapple fruitiness with a touch of peaches. There was also a keen sharp edged bitterness that followed those luscious fruits, and then the sweet pale malts rolled along into the aftertaste. This beer went rather well with my scampi and chips for my dinner. Yum.

Swiss Miss Unicorn Marshmallow Coca Mix (Candy Mail) By @Cinabar

I recently had an online from an import shop and I couldn’t resist adding a box Swiss Miss to my order. They make hot chocolates and do themed ones like this Unicorn Marshmallow Coca Mix. They are instant hot chocolates but are generous with the powder and are nice and sweet. Good instant hot chocolates are hard to find, so I do like this brand, and they appeal to my sweet tooth and love of novelty.

Inside the box are double sachets, one half has chocolate powder and the other half has marshmallows. I poured the cocoa into my mug and I poured most of the mallows in too, but left a few for sprinkling on the cream topping. Now the whole box is centred around these being unicorn marshmallows and in reality they are just small bits, which is disappointing. I was hoping for them to have some shape. Not to worry, they looked pretty in the mug.

I added hot water and the cocoa dissolved super quickly. Then I decorated, and it did look smart. The flavour, too, is a blast of sweet and a lot of chocolate. It is a soothing drink and one of the few that passed the test for me in the instant section. I loved the fun nature of the drink and it is pretty with coloured specks everywhere, it looks like a party more than a unicorn. I will still smile when I make the rest of the sachets, they are good fun.

Califia Farms - Pumpkin Spice Cold Brew (Ocado) By @Cinabar

 

This is my season, I love cinnamon. From here all the way to Christmas, warming spices are everywhere. We start off the season with this Pumpkin Spice Cold Brew by Califia Farms. I ordered this bottle online and I actually ordered two because I didn’t know how big the bottle was. Yes, I know it tells you on the site but only in the small print, I thought the bottle would be a one serving, whereas it actually lasted me a couple of days.

I poured some into a glass and could already pick up the spice. I gave it a sip and it hit the spot completely. There was plenty of spice, and the coffee was sweet but not overly so. There was lots of cinnamon and nutmeg and it had a lovely warming flavour despite being from the fridge and being cold. This was an excellent pumpkin spice coffee. The milk in the drink is almond and it is very mild, just a hint of nuttiness but mostly a thick creamy base. The only thing is, it is a bit weird drinking ice coffee in the autumn. I couldn’t get enough of it in the summer. However, if it is pumpkin spice I’m still in - I’ll just put that jumper on, get my slippers on and have myself an iced Pumpkin Spice Cold Brew.

Kit Kat Chunky Lotus Biscoff (Tesco) By @SpectreUK

Finally someone listens to me. Okay, so it probably wasn't me, but at least Nestle have created what I wanted. A couple of months ago I blogged about a mini Kit Kat Lotus Biscoff. I said that compared to the amount of calories that were in it, the bar was way too tiny. I also said that all I could think about at the time was a Kit Kat Chunky. Well, now Nestle have produced a Kit Kat Chunky Lotus Biscoff.

I had a good cup of fairly milky tea with a couple of original Lotus Biscoff on the side to compare their flavour with this Kit Kat Chunky Lotus Biscoff. On opening the wrapper I could see the thick coating of Nestle milk chocolate. On first bite there was a topper of creamy Lotus Biscoff followed by three wafers underneath. This bar had a good crunch and a little spiciness from the Lotus Biscoff flavour. Not as spicy as the original Lotus Biscoff, but the flavour was there all the same, and all covered in luscious milk chocolate.

This Kit Kat Chunky Lotus Biscoff was very flavoursome indeed and I'd definitely have it in regularly. It went rather well with my cup of milky tea and original Lotus Biscoff on the side. I even managed to save a little calories for some toffee popcorn and vanilla ice cream too.

Information on the wrapper; Per 42g bar was 221 calories, with 5.8g of fat, 18.9g of sugar, 0.12g of salt. Please see see attached photograph for the ingredients.

Quality Street Favourites - The Purple One (Tesco) By @Cinabar

The greatest of all the Quality Street sweets is The Purple One. There is no contest, these are the ones I pick out of the tin each year. I love nuts, I love oozing caramel and a chocolate layer and I’m not sure how you could improve that. I guess this year you could go back to the proper packaging. I’m not a fan of the new paper wrappers. The old wrappers were biodegradable by the way, despite reports in the press of them being plastic, they were entirely plant based. So who knows what that was really about?

This new bar, Quality Street Favourites - The Purple One, is a representation in bar form of my favourite chocolate. The bar is well a bar, so quite flat. How are they going to pull off oozing caramel and a hazelnut? Well, only one way to find out. I broke a piece off and immediately the caramel showed up, and it was runny, which was a really good sign. I gave it a taste, and it worked, it recreated all my favourite flavours. Yes, the nuts are in smaller bits but there were enough of them to give flavour, the caramel was pretty plentiful and had the sweet golden flavour and the smooth sweet milk chocolate enveloped the whole thing. It was gorgeous. This bar didn’t last long. I only intended to have a couple of pieces as a taster but I couldn’t stop myself.

Sadly, the wrapper on this Quality Street Favourites The Purple One bar doesn’t recycle in our home recycling bins and it doesn’t biodegrade. I hope they work on fixing that.