LONDON. We can't get enough travel here. One of us is off to Oz, to catch the irrelevant end of The Ashes. Another of us (me), a glutton for punishment, wanted to see just how bad London Heathrow airport was today, considering fog had shut it down for several days. Well, I made it out alive, albeit eight hours late. But some of the time was well spent... I stopped in for a pint of cask-conditioned Marston's The Ashes Ale. The tagline was "Definitely Not for Aussies." Well, considering the Aussies have pulled off a 3-0 victory in the best-of-5 Ashes tourney as of last weekend, England deserves something this good to drown its sorrows in. This beer is sweeter (not as hoppy) and lighter than a typical British bitter. It's pale (transparent) and light (not caramel) in color and was served colder than usual (was this intentional?). The head was whisper-thin, and rapidly disappeared. The back palette was lemony. They should make this beer year-round. Look for it.

NYC. This beer wins our award for "best looking bottle and label." Seriously, this one looks like a high end single malt scotch label. Not too surprising, it's a beer from Scotland: Innis & Gunn Original.

They age the beer 77 days in oak casks. They claim it adds "an incredible depth of taste." We say it's honey sweet. Interesting, but sweet, sweet, sweet. Carmel tasting, not a great head, but good mouth feel. Some back palate tastes that we really couldn't identify. A shame we bought just one bottle, but we fear that the sweetness would've just been too much for a second tasting.

We'll try this again, just to make sure we weren't missing anything. But they sure got one thing right: they sure know how to label a bottle.