Wandsworth Common Halloween Beer Festival 2012

I blame Fuller's. It was the Brewer's Reserve (8.2% ABV) that started Dan down the slippery slope. A barley wine aged in cognac casks it tasted of brandy, which was interesting but not the sort of thing I go for. Which was just as well really. Having "gone large" early Dan followed the Brewer's Reserve with Downton Imperial Stout, (9% ABV) and Orkney Skull Splitter (8.5% ABV). He did then switch to the excellent Bristol Beer Factory Milk Stout (4.5% ABV), a beer of more modest strength, but alas, it was too late.

As his higher brain functions started to close down his spinal cord staged a coup and whisked him home on his beer scooter.

Missing in action

We were a bit put out to be a man down, particularly as we'd had a few ourselves by then, in fact we'd reached the pork scratchings stage.

The world's biggest pork scratching

Our beery highlights were Magic Rock Dark Arts (6% ABV), which was the lovely Lisa's favourite, and Windsor and Eton Kohinoor (4.5% ABV), which was mine. I'm a bit bored of blond beers at the moment but this hoppy little number was refreshing after all the dark beers. It's also got jaggery sugar in it which I've long been curious about, as Randy Mosher goes on about it quite a lot in my favourite brewing book Radical Brewing. How much of the flavour in the Kohinoor came from the jaggery sugar I couldn't say, probably not a lot, but I was please to have drunk something made with it.

I think this was one of the best of the Wandsworth Common beer festivals, in fact for Dan it was probably too good.