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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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Muppets perform Bohemian Rhapsody.

We needed a second vehicle so I figured that my son would just love a version II Subaru STi. It is four doors so now the only thing left for me to do is find a STi car seat for the little guy. I can not have him riding in the back without the proper support of a STi racing bucket child seat.

So far we love it. When I say “we”, I mean my wife Brittany puts up with it for the most part because she knows that I am in love with Subaru’s.

Here are some recent pictures of the new ride. These were taken after I just washed and waxed it on probably the last nice day I will see before the winter hits here in England.

Here is the gallery with all of the pictures I took throughout the day. If anyone is as weird as I am and have looked for baby car seats for an STi, let me know what your results were.

[Show as slideshow]

Well, since moving here to England I have been looking for ways to get my hands on some CoCo’s curry. Luckily my sister still lives there and she got me some of the curry-in-a-box type deals that they sell at CoCo’s restaurants. I had her send me about twenty boxes of the beef curry and I think she might be sending more soon. I know they had them in Okinawa for sale somewhere in the front when you first walk in. If you are really curious about it, just ask someone that works there and hopefully they can hook you up.

The whole process only takes only a couple minutes, if you don’t count the time it takes to make some rice. I usually go with some short or medium grain sticky rice to make the moment taste like the “real deal”. The curry comes in a bag that you can either empty into a microwaveable safe container or you can just put the bag in some hot water on the stove. I usually microwave it and it takes roughly two minutes.

Let me just say this about the end result…it is awesome! It is not quite that same curry that I love and miss, but it is far better than I imagined it to be. I would say that it is better than the actual CoCo’s Curry I had when I was in Hawaii. I sometimes cook a chicken patty and add it to the mix so I can pretend I am having Chicken Katsu Curry, haha.

If anyone reading this knows of a place to order this online, please leave a comment and let me know. I would literally kill a man for some real CoCo’s Curry. Well, maybe not kill someone but you get the idea. So, if you know someone living in Japan and you need your fix too, just have them send you some curry in a box from CoCo’s.