TOPIC:

hello everybody. I was thinking of making a raid north of the border for supplies. looking at the sainsbury's website, there is some damn good savings on ale & single malt whiskey. Seeing as my knowledge on the north is fairly minuscule, could anybody give me some pointers? choice & price minded. It's been years since I've been up there.

Not sure about the whisky, but if you're in Sainsbury's and you see bottles of Clotworthy Dobbin, buy it all <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) --> (that's what I did). They usually have a great ale selection.

If you're heading as far as Belfast, The Vineyard[/url:2yivlqdg] offy is the place to go for choice.

Bushmills realeased a whiskey to celebrate 400 years. It's the best blended whiskey to be put on the market in years. it will be sold out by year end.
It cost about 45 pounds, but there is a shop beside the Botanic inn in belfast that sells it for less.
It retails for 90 + euro down here.

Use Sainsburys website as a rough guide as most stores seem to stock quite a lot of other stuff which isn't listed. Also not everything listed on the website will be available in all stores (sadly most stores i've been to recently have stopped stocking the Meantime brews)...

One that's worth picking up and which seems to be available in most stores is Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier Dunkel - very tasty

The Whitewater brews are widely available - usually Clotworthy Dobbin and Belfast Ale. The Belfast Lager less so...

Guiness Foreign Extra and Timothy Taylor Landlord are always available and are always worth picking up...

As TheBeerNut said the Vineyard is a must if in Belfast. Also GapWines (<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="www.gapwines.com/">www.gapwines.com/) is well worth a visit. The Website currently lists Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout and also the Brown Ale - sadly neither of these are in stock at the minute (i think i cleared them out when they were !!)

All Sainsburys are not the same! I know I posted something like the following before, but in my experience; if you go to Sainsburys in Newry their beer selection seems to be aimed at punters from down south who want to load up with the usual macro beers. But Sainsburys in Sprucefield is well worth the trip.