Beer Moose

 I know that iron lungs are a rather out of date form of ventilation, they use negative pressure for one thing! Don’t worry, despite the fact that I spend a lot of thinking about ventilators, this isn’t going to be a blog about PEEP, pressure support or my favourite ventilator mode. The title is a reference to a song by Radiohead. Which takes me to the first Guinness stop, in part 5 of the challenge!  The Six Six Bar, formerly The Boat Race, has been a big music pub, when in its best incarnations. Friend of the blog, John, suggested going to watch a Radiohead tribute act, for some reason I agreed. To be honest, they were better than I expected, and I don’t like Radiohead that much.  The Guinness was real surprise, a strong and respectable 3/5! Thankfully there were no Creeps around! The Free Press was next. I find the Free Press very hot and cold. Sometimes you get great beer, sometimes it’s awful beer. The Guinness fell more into the latter category. A perhaps generous 2.5 out of 5. 

In a pre-event to Moose On The Loose - Reading, the Cambridge lads heading to Reading, via London, and had a few London beers. Since getting to Reading means getting between London Kings Cross and Paddington, we decided to walk and pub crawl between the two. Paddington station is most famous for blue jacket wearer, Paddington Bear. However there’s a new bear in town. Guess we’d better go and find it. The Cambridge crew, consisting of myself, Nathan and John, arrived into Kings Cross at around 11am. We headed straight for The Euston Tap.  I decided to start on a nitro stout, Social Club by Round Corner. A strong start, to what I hoped would be a top beer weekend.  From The Euston Tap, we did a decent stroll towards The Jackalope.  I’d been to this pub before, to have a pint before a Manic Street Preachers concert!  I was in the mood for something German, luckily for me, Ayinger Hell was available!  I really like this pub. It’s a proper back street boozer, but feels very upmarket. Pint t

With relegation looming, it was near vital for Cambridge United to get something from this game. What followed, was a performance I’ve seen too many times recently. United were spineless, gutless and pathetic. The players don’t look interested or up for any sort of battle. Being so pathetic whilst playing for a team, whose motto is United in Endeavour is disgusting. In my twenty years of watching this club, these must be the most unlikable group of players. I actually cannot wait for the retained list to come out, so I can celebrate the departure of several players, who I never wish to see at this club again. Anyway, onto the away day! We started by taking a walk out to the ruins of Reading Abbey. Certainly, a different start to an away day!  That’s pretty much all the sights to see in Reading. It was 11am, and the only pub open was the spoons. Needs must.  We then got the train to the ground, which is accessed via a car park. That will be important later.  We arrived in another time t

  Cambridge made the 180 mile round trip, to playoff chasing Lincoln City. With games coming thick, fast and running out, could Garry Monk’s U’s break their Tuesday night curse?  I took the obligatory photo of The Abbey and hopped onto the away bus, ready to make the two hour journey to Lincoln. Upon arrival, we headed straight for the pub!  Being a Castle Rock pub, The Golden Eagle, I was excited. It didn’t disappoint, a strong shout for away pub of the season! My pint of Castle Rock Harvest Pale was brilliant.  Pint dispatched, it was time to head to the ground. Somehow a ground tick for me. I’ve now seen Cambridge play Lincoln ten times!  There was time for 5/10 pie.  A strange ground, with four unique stands. The away end featured portaloos, which gave a very non league vibe.  Lincoln are one of the form teams in League 1. I would have been delighted with a point. What followed was a gutless, spineless, pathetic and lacklustre performance, as Cambridge suffered a humiliating 6-0 ha

I love The Blue Moon and their tap takeovers, even more than I love Maximo Park puns! The Blue Moon is one of my favourite pubs, and it will get its own blog post soon. On the first Thursday of every month, the pub hosts a tap takeover. This month, Pressure Drop showcased their beers.   I had a taste of the pineapple sour, but it wasn’t for me. I don’t like pineapple in anything and I find sours hit and miss. I therefore opted for a half of Super Lite. I actually quite like, light lager as a style. They’re refreshing and great style to start a sesh on. Super Lite was a pretty good example of this style. I stayed on the lager theme, and had a Fair Weather Friend, a citra infused pilsner. This was my beer of the evening! A really refreshing, yet dry tasting beer. The citra gives your taste buds a good kick! It was at this point, I realised that I had errored. I should have had the Ja before the citra pils. I couldn’t get a good feel of the 3.2% session IPA (don’t get me started on that p

  It’s so good to see Cambridge’s smallest pub back open! I was invited to the preview night and had a great time. For most of my drinking life, this pub was fairly rubbish. The beer, although cheap, was terrible. Most of it came from a brewery, which no longer exists. I don’t miss it. Enough about rubbish beer though, what’s the new Rad like?  Well, in my opinion, it’s just what Cambridge needed. The beer scene in Cambridge is sadly dominated by Greene King, there are too few places where you can get both a good range of beer and beer served in good condition. The Rad had one of the best ranges of beer, I’ve seen in ages. There was literally something for everyone. From sours, to various types of IPA, impy stouts, lager and bitter! There were some preview night teething issues with the beer screens, but it’s so good to be able to see the beer list, style of beer and strength so clearly! The condition was excellent, as expected.  I sampled beers from Marble, Two Flints and Anspach &