One of the benefits of letting folks know you write a beer blog is that on occasion your nearest and dearest will spot a couple of interesting-looking ones and report back with the info. Or, better still, they’ll actually buy the beer and bring it to you. No, seriously, I’ve seen it happen. Like the time my missus came back from Aldi with a couple of bottles of Wychwood – one Blonde Wych, one Black Wych if I remember rightly. And then just the other day, I was on the phone to the folks when my old man said, apropos of nothing much:

“Do you like porter?”

“Um… Bears, woods? Pope, Catholic? Sorry, yes. Yes I do.”

He then went on to explain how on a trip to his local (Crossgates, Leeds) Asda deli counter he spotted that they were decorating the front of the cold meat display with a number of bottles of ale from the Acorn Brewery. And among them he’d spotted their Old Moor Porter, a “full bodied victorian style porter with hints of liquorice” that was a near-miss for the Champion Winter Beer of Britain last year.

So he stuck a bottle in his trolley, took it home and… drank it.

Okay, so he hasn’t quite got the buy the beer and bring it to you bit down pat just yet, but I do have a promise of a couple of bottles at the weekend if he gets to Asda again by then, or in a couple of weeks’ time if not. And at least I know in advance that it’s “smooth, creamy and delicious” (guest mini-tasting-notes from my Dad, there) so that’s another one to look forward to.