Sloe drinking weekend

This week I have mostly been drinking ...
To Upper street (yeah I know) to meet BLBW for some free beer, it was at the design centre which I didn’t know had this amazing roof behind its crap 80’s front. The beer expo was really good more relaxed and less blokey than the Great British beer fest, with time to talk to producers and taste (little measures not pints) lots of beers. The God lager was good (which is what the name means in Swedish!) We had some excellent beer and cheese from Exmoor and from Czech and the Badger ales were as good as ever. Beer people on the whole are generally friendly types so we had a pleasant time.

During a break in expo we retired to the George Lamb (?) in Quick st which even though it’s a bit upper middle class won me over they were playing Billy Bragg as we walked in, they served excellent soused sardines and plates of ham and the beer was good too. I’m afraid I like a dodgy boozer but sometimes a bit of autumn sun, the tang of the med on your lips, Billy singing Woody in your ears is not too bad at all.

Sunday saw what is now an annual tradition (3 years and counting) picking sloes for sloe gin. We went to Ashtead common which is great for us city dwellers as it is only 30 mins on the train and is next to the station at the other end (plus we own the place anyway). The sloes were a bit thin on the bush because of the poor summer but we took some arty pictures of the burnt oaks (again!) and drank some of last year’s sloe gin to bless this year’s crop (this is now a tradition do you see how these things work).

As I’ve said before if you want to know about sloe gin can I direct you to my favourite site on the web “Sloebiz” an entire site devoted to sloes and sloe gin which proves that British people are strange and wonderful by turn. Watch this space for a sloe recipe I’m working on.