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Here are some of the pictures from Connors first Christmas. He is only three weeks old, so he could have cared less about what was going on. Too bad Brittany and I had to dress him up in a Santa outfit to take pictures. Poor guy is really going to hate us for taking so many embarrassing pictures when he is older.

What are parents for though? If we weren’t embarrassing our children all of the time, what would we do? Haha!

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I am not a big fan of drinking cider and maybe that is because I generally do not come across it often back in the states. However, I have noticed that many of the pubs here in England offer at least one kind of cider on tap.

That got me thinking and because my beer store always carries Strongbow Cider, I decided that I would finally buy a four-pack of the 500ml cans and give it a shot.

Strongbow is a dry cider and at first glance appears to be apple juice when poured in a glass. To me it taste like a tangy/bubbly apple juice with a kick. Coming in 5.0% ABV this cider can really sneak up on you after having a few.

I can only drink about one or two of these before my taste buds have to take a break though. As I stated earlier, I am not a big cider fan, but I do enjoy the occasional glass.

So far, Strongbow turned out to be better than what I was expecting in a cider. I will be tasting a couple more ciders in the future, so stay tuned.

Leffe Blonde is a Belgian Pale Ale and at first I must admit that I was not that into the taste of this beer. However, after my second time tasting this beer I began to really enjoy it.

It pours a nice clean golden color with an aroma of spice and fruit. The initial taste was sweet and spicy with hints of clove, yeast, and banana.

It seems that after drinking a couple Belgian beers now, I have noticed that each beer recommends a special type of glass. Apparently almost every Belgium beer has its own special drinking glass.

Overall, I would definitely drink this again.

This is my first “beer post” so I figured that I will start with my new favorite beer…Hoegaarden Witbier. Hoegaarden is a Belgian white beer brewed in the town of Hoegaarden.  Although this is considered a summer ale, I am just now enjoying it for the first time in mid December and must say that it is just terrific.

At first glance, I think it poured a hazy golden yellow color with an  initial aroma of yeast and pepper with a slight hint of cloves and orange citrus. The taste was a very mild and pleasant peppery/citrus taste leaving no aftertaste. Also, the beer feels light and creamy on the palette and overall I find this to be one of the best beers I have ever had. A little disclaimer though, this is my first beer review so I hope in the future that new beers will surprise me and take over the number 1 position.

As I have stated before, I started this photo/beer project because I absolutely enjoy drinking beer and taking pictures. So, I figured I would take pictures of the different beers I try while living in Europe and share those experiences with others.

You may be wondering what photography and beer have in common. Well, the short answer is they are both things that I enjoy a lot. This got me thinking that maybe I should start taking photos of some of the beer I get to enjoy so I can have a personal record of the ones I like.

Let me start by stating that the only thing I know about beer is that I like it. So, please do not read my reviews and base your beer tasting experiences off them.  This is just a place for me to share what I think specific beers. Who knows, a couple of years from now I may actually know what I am talking about.

Shortly you will begin to see pictures and brief overviews of each new beer I taste. This entire idea/project all started because I recently discovered a Belgium beer that ended up being so delicious that I wanted to write about it here on my blog.

So…stay tuned!

Our son Connor Garret Kimball was born on December 2, 2009 at John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, England. We are extremely excited about having this little guy in our lives now! This is the first post of what will eventually become a photo journal of his magnificent life.

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