Tipped

Amazing Selection

December 08, 2008

Its hard to find decent beers in off-licences, I know that some of the chains stock some decent stuff but in London its mostly just local shops and they only ever sell the standard run of the mill beers.

City Beverage has an awesome stock of beers, ales and stouts. Being a pale ale fan I mostly stock up on Sierra Nevada, Titan IPA, Little Creatures and Coopers from Australia - they have a pretty good range of Meantime beers including the coffee and chocolate - they stock most of the Pitfield range and they have Asahi black which is awesome.

I don't know much about wine but the selection is huge here and they also sell fresh coffee which makes the shop smell amazing.

Once you shop where you won't ever want to just grab something from the local shop ever again.

Keywords: Sierra Nevada, Titan IPA, Little Creatures, Coopers, Asahi Black, meantime brewery

All things Grape

February 29, 2008

This is a great little shop in the middle of Old Street. Although it doesn't look particularly fancy on the outside, it has an extensive selection of wines to meet all budgets. If Stuart is in the shop, he is only too happy to spend ages chatting about a specific wine.
Sign up for their free informal Friday evening tastings and you can have an informative evening getting through various bottles of wine - either from a particular grower or region. A weekly email sets the agenda for the evening - print it off for your tasting notes. Some basic nibbles are provided, so you have something to line your stomach with. Downside is that by the time the tasting finishes, I'm generally quite sloshed and then whip out the credit card and buy a whole case of wine, negating the cheap evening I've just had...

Keywords: wine, tastings