Beer Beauty

Beautiful Beer on ITV’s This Morning! Woohoo!

Beer featured on THIS MORNING!

Beer Cocktails in London

Beer cocktails!

Rik Mayall is back with Bombardier!

Rik Mayall returns as The Bombardier

FemAle 2012 – Beer & Food Matching Dinner

Get ready to drool!!!

Greene King’s new beers

Greene King told me about their new beers and their TV campaign

Beautiful Beer on ITV’s This Morning! Woohoo!

Posted by BEER BEAUTY on May 9th, 2012

Beer got another look-in on the telly today when I was invited into the ITV1 studios of the This Morning programme today. I had a fabulous time with Phillip and Holly about my mission to spread the word about the beauty in beer to women and to anyone else who’s interested!!

I know there are tons of men who read this blog too so I’m not ignoring you either, boys! But you know how I feel about getting more women interested in beer and I know many of you boys are on board with the mission too!! CHEERS!

So I showed off the following FIVE fabulous beers which are among my (many) personal faves and I’m sure which you’ll all have your own opinions on (cos we beer bloggers aren’t half vocal, eh?!?) Plus we chatted about matching beer to food, and how exciting it is to have a go and I gave some tips on how viewers can start their own beer adventures. What’s so exciting is it just goes to show how much the image of beer is changing and that mainstream telly is really getting switched on more by beer. In my eyes beer ISN’T just a man’s drink. It can be fun, it can be elegant, it can be chic, it can be glamorous! It can be all these things and more!

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Beer Cocktails in London

Posted by BEER BEAUTY on April 26th, 2012

So I’ve been doing some journalism work in London’s Canary Wharf lately. And there’s a bar I’ve popped into a couple of times for a cheeky fix of Staropramen (I love that beer) called The Parlour. The guys who run this place – Chris Edwards and Mixologist (affectionately known there as ’The Mixo Man’) Dave Tregenza – have embraced the idea of putting Beer Cocktails onto the bill.

You should know I’m a massive advocate of having fun with beer. Beer cocktails are no exception to that. And I think they’re a terrific way of getting women and novice beer drinkers into seeing beer in a new, rather more interesting light. In fact, I devised some for a Marston’s Christmas gathering I was invited to host last year. True, many beer traditionalists won’t like the idea. I’ve not got an issue with that either. It’s horses for courses, right?

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Rik Mayall is back with Bombardier!

Posted by BEER BEAUTY on April 2nd, 2012

You might remember Wells and Young’s brewery based in Bedford introduced Rik Mayall as the bombastic Bombardier to advertise the beer of the same name last year. Well this year he’s back with a vengeance!

I’ve been sworn to secrecy for WEEKS but can now reveal that the brewery’s spent £5million on a new campaign to make some more crazy TV ads featuring the soldier, his fellows and the wenches (!) and sponsor primetime programming on the male-focussed digital channel, Dave. The 10-15seconds ad spots start on the 16th April will run every night from 9pm till midnight on the channel, 5 days a week for a whole year. It’s the biggest ever investment into the brand and in the ale category as a whole. What is it with ale all of a sudden? Greene King the other week with it’s £4million and now Wells and Youngs topping that with another million?? Good times! Read more »

FemAle 2012 – Beer & Food Matching Dinner

Posted by BEER BEAUTY on March 30th, 2012

To all of you came along last night – THANKS FOR MAKING IT AWESOME!!!! Cheers for all the lovely comments & tweets of appreciation and thanks through the night, afterwards and today!

I hosted a second, highly successful FemAle night at Birmingham’s Malmaison hotel last night. The fabulous Purity Brewing Co supplied the beers – 3 of their own brews (produced at their brewery near Stratford-upon-Avon) and 2 beers that they import as well as one extra-special addition! The hotel’s head chef Brian Neath devised the menu, and it was Sous Chef, Mark Walsh and his team on the night who delivered us some wonderful creations. A fabulous job done by Jill Martin from Purity, and Zara Goodwin from Malmaison too – what a great team, huh?!? Read more »

Greene King’s new beers

Posted by BEER BEAUTY on March 25th, 2012

A few weeks ago I got an email from Greene King saying ‘Come and join us at one of our pubs in Mayfair, we’ve got something exciting to tell you’. Intrigued and unable to squeeze anymore information out of Jo Kreckler (my thumbscrews have lost their mojo!) So when I pitched up with the likes of Roger Protz, Pete Brown, and Michelle Perrett (the Morning Advertiser’s News Editor) I realised something big was afoot.

I got lead to the bar to try one of three beers on cask: 2 of them new and one the familiar IPA. Brand new pump clips too. The most notable thing was the brewery has taken the bold decision to use the IPA beer style as a brand and extend it to the naming of the 2 new beers. Contentious decision some might say. Read more »

Sainsbury’s Great British Beer Hunt 2012

Posted by BEER BEAUTY on March 25th, 2012

Sainsbury’s is putting its best foot forward once moreand has got its rival supermarkets on the run with the Great British Beer Hunt again. It’s a competition for microbreweries around the country to enter to be in with the chance of getting sold in supermarkets up and down the land (as long as the judges think the beer tastes good enough and is likely to sell well, of course). The closing date for breweries to enter is tomorrow and then the judges will have the enviable task of tasting some amazing beers in a bid to choose a top beer to stock in their stores for 3 months from November 2012. I was lucky enough to be invited to judge the final last year. Click here to read my article about the winner and hear Olly Smith making the winning announcement! Read more »

Happiness is a beer by Nogne O

Posted by BEER BEAUTY on March 18th, 2012

Who ever says beer isn’t sophisticated & elegant is talking complete and utter CRAP. Why? Well when you’re stepping through the doors of the ridiculously sumptuous Kensington residence of the Norwegian Ambassador, Mr Kim Traavik, for the UK launch of Nogne O (one of the hottest breweries on the block right now) beer bloody well can’t FAIL to be sophisticated and elegant.

Lounge suit was the order of the evening (I couldn’t quite decide on the right dickie bow to wear myself), along with ornate furniture, high ceilings, chandeliers and the kind of glorious opulence you might imagine would be more suited to the launch of a new Champagne evening. But this is where beer surprises me, very pleasantly. And it’s where beer is totally ahead of the game. Read more »

Soothing Beers For My Furrowed Brow – Part 1

Posted by BEER BEAUTY on March 11th, 2012

(l-r) Lioness, Lady Leshurr, Roxxxan, Baby Blue, Mz Bratt & Amplift Dot - some of the UK's most amazing female MCs

I’ve been working on a gruellingly hard project this last month – making a one-hour documentary for BBC Radio 1Xtra. If you’re interested, it’s presented by the fabulous presenter (and my new chum Sarah-Jane), airs at 9pm next Sunday 18th March (Mother’s Day), and is called ‘Ladies With Lyrics – The Rise of the UK Female MC’.

It profiles some of the hottest, most lyrically talented, charismatic female rappers on the scene right now, asking them about their inspiration, their hopes and dreams for the future, and also asking if 2012 is the year that one of them might hit the mainstream. I interviewed 4 from the 6 pictured below - this is them last October at 1Xtra live gig. They were brilliant , clever and funny. They’re all in their early twenties and make me SICK! But seriously… a few of them have deals with a major record label and are tipped for mainstream chart success. Read more »

The Launch of Our Beer: Chocolate Cyn

Posted by BEER BEAUTY on March 7th, 2012

Sara, Shea, Me and Jane launching our beer - Chocolate Cyn! (Pic: London Cocktail Scholars)

We did it! We launched our beer last night. A 4.8% ABV dark, beautiful, smooth and delicious, chocolatey, spicy brew called CHOCOLATE CYN.

Tap East at Westfield Stratford was the location and tons of people turned up to sample our wares. It was got quite emotional. So many lovely twitter friends turned up to say HI and wax lyrical with me, Jane and Shea about the beer and our mutual love of it. Bloody brilliant. Here’s what happened on the day we brewed it!
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Live With Gabby (& X Factor Winner, Matt Cardle!)

Posted by BEER BEAUTY on February 24th, 2012

I still can’t believe I shared 5 minutes on air with Matt Cardle on Five’s Live With Gabby ??? And I grabbed a cheeky kiss off him too. Well, wouldn’t you?? And it was all in the name of BEER. Of course!

It was a bit surreal cos he won X Factor back in 2010 (which was the most watched series of the show SO FAR!), he’s a platinum-selling artist, is about to go on a UK Tour and stuff and despite all that he has a very chilled aura. And there I was plying him with beer at 11 o’clock in the morning live on national television!

He was very excited by it all cos he loves a decent beer.
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