The Brewer Half's Half Brewed Reviews - Beacons Orange

So RachelInWales is away, leaving me home alone. What do I do to entertain myself? Write a beer review, of course! (with a helping hand from some more beer).

(Actually that's as far as I got that night, I just ended up drinking beer...)

This review is actually taken from some semi-drunken scrawlings on my phone, and I've finally got around to tidying them up.

I was in my local Wetherspoons, about to tuck into one of their good selection of real ales when I spotted "Orange Beacons", a 4.3% wheat beer by Beacons Brewery with real orange. I was worried that this would be another overpoweringly fruit flavoured beer, but for some reason decided to buy it anyway. I was very glad I did. In fact, I was so impressed, I immediately started writing this review.

It poured a very clear, light golden pint. The aroma was of orange (not surprisingly), noble hops, and a slight sourness. Hm...this could be good.

The taste is a balance of wheat, hop, and orange flavours. There is a very gentle sourness (which is a fine thing in a beer of this style), and sweet light maltiness. This is a good wheat beer in its own right, with a sympathetic addition of orange. The best bit about the orange flavour is that it is not overpowering and artificial, but has a great depth of flavour. It is well balanced with hop bitterness, leaving a lingering bittersweet flavour.

Extremely refreshing, with a depth of flavour to cut through. I recommend you find a pint and try it! Best on a hot summer's day, although you probably won't find one of those in the near future.

1 Week in Belarus!

So I've had a busy month... well I've had a busy 3 months... and I didn't get to tell you about some of my adventures!

One adventure was my trip to Belarus.  Belarus is near Russia, and it seems a lot like Russia, and when you go to the embassy to get your visa you sit in a little basement room full of mirrors with one table in the middle and it's a bit odd.

Belarus was very flat, and when I drove anywhere I could see for miles.

There were loads of massive buildings

There were cool soviet happy statues

One time we went for a walk and I saw this singing group, possibly from Belarus X-Factor?

 There was a market on the weekend with lots of things fro sale, including these steins, but also including the wooden mace. Do you think I could get that through customs?

In the morning I went for a run in the flat park.  I went for 2 runs actually, one at about 2 miles (which my GPS didn't like and called 10 miles, but I'm pretty sure I didn't do 2.5 minute miles for 25 minutes).  I also did 3.5 miles.  This was all before the Cardiff half and was basically my only training, so that wasn't super clever.  I ran to this big monument, but then I took a photo of it at night, just to be confusing:

Food in Belarus was okay but strange.  I'm not sure I'm super excited to go back but i'm very glad I got to see what's there!

Adventures in Mid Wales. Actually North Wales (MTB Machynlleth, Dogellau & Llanidloes)

Last week I had the week off work, so Brewer half and I decided to take an adventure to mid Wales for some biking and camping.  Our first stop was a visit to the most chaotically awesome brewery we have seen - the Waen Brewery.  Llanidloes is about 2 hours north of Cardiff and Brewer half saw his dream brewery and excitedly talked beer with the lovely Sue and Mr Waen.

Waen do such lovely beers, we enjoyed a few pints of festival gold at the local (YUM!) before heading up to camp near Machynlleth.

Machynlleth is a basically unpronounceable Welsh town, but it has some mountain biking and is in the bottom of Snowdonia mountain range AND our campsite looked like this

I know, it is mental.  There were no other campers there (probably because it is October in Wales) so we had the whole site to ourselves. To make it more awesome, there was a rainbow!

On Thursday we went mountain biking, but I didn't take any photos.  We did the Mach 2 trail.  It was pretty but not very technical, and most of the time I thought we were lost.

We drove past this view.  Mid wales is stunning!

Then we drove past this lake! I use editing software on the photo, but still it is pretty!

 On Friday we went biking at Coed y Brenin.

Of course I love Y Wal and Afan Argoed most of all, but Coed y Brenin was amazing.  We did a 20 mile route which was long and difficult and tiring and also scenic and fast and exciting.  The descents were incredible and I really want to go back.

Also all the routes start with cool entrance ways, like this one. But this route was black/severe.  We'll have to do it next time

 It was an awesome mid-Wales adventure!

Race Report - Cymmer Triathlon (Standard Distance)

In July I entered the Cymmer Tri. Cymmer Tri is an off road triathlon near Afan Argoed, my favorite mountain biking destination. 

Cymmer Tri is a 600 meter pool swim, 20.8k mountain bike, and 6k run.  The novice distance (which I did last year) is half that.

Triathlon is awesome because it is entirely faff.  

Faff is a very British word that is described as: 

"To dither, futz, waste time, be ineffectual, "I spent the day faffing about in my room". Mainly found in Scotland and the north of England, but also popular in South Wales"

How much faff is Triathlon?  First there is the epic packing of the car:

The key to  boy-packing is that even though you have a whole car to pack you should always make your girlfriend sit on all her things in the front seat

Then you get to the race and you set up your "transition" which takes ages and involves putting baby powder in your shoes and race numbers on your shirt

It also involved strapping candy bars to your bicycle with tape and nom-ing jelly babies (if you're the Brewer half)

As always, I am the sensible one with a tri-bag, which is a little snack bag on the front of my bike which I normally fill with jelly-babies and fig rolls (or jelly beans and Fig Newtowns for my American readers [my dad])

The bag is awesome because when you desperately need snacks they are right there for snacking!  I also like eating bite-sized pieces of things so couldn't be messing around with unwrapping a candy-bar on a ride.  I even pre-cut my fig-rolls into fig-bites.

Then you have your transition basket. All cool people have transition baskets, to carry around all the transition things to and from transition. 

And then you do a triathlon!  I had seeded myself a bit too high in the swim which was annoying because most of the people started the swim before me (they start the swimmers slowest to fastest) and by the time I got in I felt like I was behind.  

Actually my swim position was 30th out of 50; I was 40th in the pool so I had ranked myself 10 places too high. Whoops.

My transition took me 1 minute and then I went out on the Bike - I was right behind Brewer half for a while but then he steamed up the mountain and I was left grinding away. It was an annoying climb.  I made up some time on the descent but was still 42nd overall for the bike.

And finally, the run.  Running is the worst.  I was very tired, and I really thought I was last.  I was almost positive I was last.  I finished the run in what I thought was last, 33 minutes and in 45th place.

Overall I was 44 out of 50. But if you include everyone who did not finish, and those who did not start, I was 44 out of THE ENTIRE WORLD so that's pretty awesome!

After triathlon the faff starts again - you do everything in reverse, pack it all down, load the car, and head back home with you triathlon basket and a medal.  

It's a good sport!

Cardif 1/2 Marathon 2013 - Race Report (my first half marathon!)

In December I decided to sign up for the Cardiff half, knowing that it was ages away and I had loads of time to train.  Brewer Half and MTB ben also debated signing up, and we 3 all had different approaches to training.

I downloaded a training guide and started following some running bloggers

Brewer half joined a running club and started running with his running friends

MTB Ben ran as far and as fast as he could, then did the same the next day, then did the same the third day when he heard a pop in his knee and decided running was stupid.

So Brewer half and I entered the half, and 10 months later it was yesterday.

I had not done much training.  I ran about 3 miles once a week for a month before the race. August I did 41 miles in the whole month... September I did 15.

I was not prepared at all, and found myself googling "how to run a half marathon with no training" the day before the race.

Either way, we go to the start line at 8am and Brewer half got a coffee

We got into the pens at 8:30 (I was yellow: 2hr+, Brewer was Green: 1hr 45+)

I couldn't really hear the starting gun but as we headed out there were loads of people so I wasn't tempted to go too fast and kept a steady pace.

There were lots of stations along the route with music and water and energy drinks, and tons of people out cheering which made everything way more fun.

At around mile 6 I started to feel bad and I had a side cramp and I was thinking about what a stupid idea it is to run a 1/2 marathon with no training but then I found a power station and got a gel and saw a camera and everything was okay again.

Raceface is not prettyface!

I took little sips of water and poweraid at all the stations but tried not to drink too much. I felt pretty good, and even managed to smile at the 12.5 mile camera!

I crossed the line at 2hr 45 minutes but my chip time (because it took a while to get to the start) was 2hr 33 minutes, which is a dang fine result!

After the half my legs hurt a lot so I put frozen peas on them.  

Then I ate everything.

Mission Burrito opened this weekend in Cardiff! I think it's because the first time I had Mission burrito was after hungover-ly watching the Bath Half and dreaming of doing a 1/2 then eating a Burrito - and so a lifelong (er, 6 month) dream was realized when they opened a restaurant just for me!  Thanks guys!

Then my cake tummy was still empty so we went to Pettigrew Tea Rooms for cake.  Chocolate Almond cake yes please!

Cardiff half was super well organized and well marshaled.  Cardiff is a great city for running and there were no boring parts on the route - I think I liked the parts around Cathays best because all the streets were closed. the barrage and bay were gorgeous, weather was great - I couldn't have asked for more and I'm already looking forward to my next half! (Santa to Sea in California....?)

What an awesome day!

Forest of Dean Duathlon - Race Review

On the 15th of September I competed in the Forest of Dean Duatlon.

The race consisted of a 10k run, 40k bike, 2k run.

Brewer half assured me that last year there were loads of punters, so I probably wouldn't be last. Brewer half and our friend Speedy O'Irish headed off at 7:30am.  As we drove to the start the weather looked increasingly dire:

 I started to prepare myself for 3 hours of rainy exertion.  Surprisingly we were one of the first to arrive, which made me wonder why I was stupid enough to wake up at 6:45 on a Sunday morning at all.

I didn't see any punters, and started to get a little nervous when the guy next to me started assembling his full Time Trial bike

But soon it was time for my favorite part of the race - race numbers!  This one was especially awesome because they used sharpie to write the number on my leg AND my arm

Despite being number 1438, there were only about 60 people competing.  When we got to the lineup they asked if I as doing the short or the long course, apparently there was a short course which was 1 lap of the 5k run, then 1 lap of the 20k bike, then 2 laps of the lake (2k).  I asked if I could decide after the first lap of the run.

We racked the bikes (notice huge lack of punter bikes!) and then headed to the start line

The race started and within 5 minutes I was off the back of the group, and within 10 minutes I couldn't see anyone ahead of me.  When I finished the first lap the marshals asked if was on the long course or short, but I decided to stick with the long.  So I headed out for my second lap.  It was a very nice course, about 3k steady uphill and 2k down.  But quite scenic - since I was already last I stopped for this photo

I finished the run in 1hr 10min, which beat my last 10k by 6 minutes.  Yahoo!  The bike was a bit hard as there were quite a few hills, but even though I wasn't the fastest I still felt like I was moving at a decent pace.

On the second hill of the first lap I passed a puffing lady on a road bike and then a guy on a mountain bike, and finally a lady on a hybrid.  I'm not very good at hills but spinning past people while they grind up feels awesome.

I knew I was 3rd from last after the ride but really didn't want to come in last as I started the final run. The first lap of the lake was painful as my legs were so tired from the first run and the cycle, and I know my movements were a hideous lumbering gait, but I didn't care. I did walk a bit.  From across the lake I saw the lady with the hybrid and I knew she was one place behind me so I made sure to finish in front of her, which I did by at least 3 minutes.

Horray I was done!

Speedy O'Irish and Brewer half were waiting for me at the end, as they had been done for a while. Speedy O'Irish had come in as first lady, and Brewer Half had come in before her, so both were happy with the result.  I had come in Not-Last, so I was pretty happy too.

Overall it was a really good race, well organized, nice people, scenic course, and I got a race medal and a tee-shirt! Looking forward to doing it again next year!

August Recap

August was a strange month.

I started focused and dedicated.  I cycled a lot. I cycled in Denmark. It was interesting and exciting

I went to North wales with work, and I ran up and down and all around and it was good.

Then, I started a fairly major work project in Swansea.
Suddenly I didn't have time anymore, for me, for sports, for anything.
I clocked 187 hours of unpaid overtime in August.

(photo is illustrative of how August felt)

I was away 29 out of 31 days.

I used the hotel gym a little, went for a few rides and a few runs, but nothing major, and not at the frequency or intensity I wanted.

I cycled 172 miles in August, which is 143 less than July.

I ran 24 miles in August, which is 21 more than July

September should be an interesting month - I have the Forrest of Dean Duathlon on the 15th, and I'm preparing for the Cardiff Half marathon on the 6th October.

Time for training!