TheNoiseThatWeMade

Amsterdam Beer & Food Explorations By   thenoisethatwemade • 18 Jul, 2017 • A city where beer and windmills combine to glorious outcomes. That's Amsterdam. Luckily due to family connections, it's a place I get to visit at least once a year and each time the beer scene develops. Here a little guide to a number of places, it's not a definitive list, just a list, my list and I hope you enjoy it: Brouwerij 't IJ A great place to start is this brewery tap room, situated at the foot of a windmill, not far from the city centre stretch of Amsterdam. You can walk, you can also jump on a tram. We did the latter. You'll only really find Brouwerij 't IJ own beer on the draught taps, but with the variety in styles that isn't a problem, as you'll find plenty to work your way through. There's a paired down food offering including meatballs and cured sausages. De Bierkoning A long-standing specialist beer shop around 15 minutes walking distance from Central Stat...

Beer Cocktails By   thenoisethatwemade • 18 Jul, 2017 • Beer cocktails can easily divide people and to be honest I've had more poor attempts than actual combos that have worked. One thing I do know is that the team at Sheffield venue,  Picture House Social , know their spirits, liqueurs, garnishes, bitters and foams more than most! So if anyone can pull off a beer cocktail it's this team. The idea actually came about from a  Sheffield Beer Week  event in 2016 and the team came up with the above three combinations. I wanted to share the recipes here as all three worked a treat, so the learning is - start by knowing your ingredients, think classic cocktail recipe inspiration and then bridge the flavours/texture a beer can bring to the cocktail. Hurrah! My favourite of the evening was the Kraken rum and coffee cocktail using the Crate beer to make a stout syrup and topped with a coffee foam. Cocktail 1: Kraken, Creme de Mure, coffee, Crate stout - heat to reduce and mak...

Reflections – Manchester Beer & Cider Festival 2016 By   thenoisethatwemade • 18 Jul, 2017 • My blog has stood still for quite a few months...well seven to be exact. I've really not had the inspiration to write outside of the normal day job. I guess that could be seen as an unusual thing to say considering I work in the beer industry and spend most of the hours in the week buying, invoicing, stacking, selling, shipping and occasionally drinking the stuff. But sometimes you just want to enjoy the downtime and get out of what seems like a constant echo chamber from the usual voices. Saying that I kept getting messages on my phone about storage issues so I've finally succumbed to writing as I didn't want to delete all my photos, but rather document them somehow and somewhere! In a funny way it puts a different angle on things when you can reflect back. With that in mind, I was leafing through these photos from  Manchester Camra's Beer and Cider festival 2016  held at M...