Brakspear Oxford Gold Organic Beer Eco Product Review

While I don’t think I’m going to get better than the St Peter’s Organic Ale I recently tested, I’m up for trying. Vintage Roots sent me another beer to test, Brakspear Oxford Gold Organic Beer.

Contained in a nice bottle with a little beer logo which is also on the bottle top, Oxford Gold is brewed using Target and Golding hops to give it a fruity flavour. It has a history of winning awards, it won an Organic Food award in 2003 and has the Soil Association Organic Standard logo too.

I loved taking the top of the bottle off, it popped off with a fizz, but I was slightly worried it might be gassy. It wasn’t however, compared to the other ales I tried it was actually heavier and more full-bodied which was a nice change but I prefer a lighter ale personally. And there was a little aftertaste, but not a bad one, I would say it was more flavoursome than other beers if that’s your thing.

Brakspear Oxford Gold Organic Beer (4.5%) costs £1.90 for a 500ml a bottle from Vintage Roots.

St Peter’s Organic Ale Eco Product Review

It’s a tough life being sent beer to test but someone’s got to do it. St Peter’s Brewery is based in a medieval hall in Suffolk and has been brewing for 700 years. The brewery sent me a case of St Peter’s Organic Ale to review.

And what a treat it was. I’ve been drinking ale for years now but recently have taken to lager and even cider in the summer. But this was a delightful way to return to drinking ale. Certified organic by the Soil Association, the ale is quite light with almost no head when poured from the retro bottle. The bottle top has a nice logo of a bird and a key for some reason.

I served it chilled as that’s how I like my beer and it tasted better that way when I tried another bottle warm afterwards. As you can tell it’s quite moreish and I found the first bottle slipping down easily. Not being an expert on beer tasting I can’t tell you what it tasted of really, it was very smooth with little aftertaste (it’s meant to have a citrus aftertaste but I didn’t notice it, maybe because it was cold) and went down a treat.

It’s very light and I didn’t feel at all full afterwards making it fine to eat at the same time. The alcohol content is 4.5% too so it’s not going to blow your head off.

You can buy a case (12 bottles of 500ml each) of St Peter’s Organic Ale for £22 (or cheaper sometimes) from the brewery’s website or from the supermarket.

Riverford Organic Food Delivery Eco Product Review

Riverford Organic Vegetables is a delivery service of food to your front door. Although it has ‘vegetables’ in the name, it also delivers fruit, meat and a multitude of other things - fruit juices, organic beer, eggs etc.

Riverford is the name of the farm where it all started in Devon, in the UK, but it’s now a franchise scheme with various farms around the country delivering fresh, organic fruit and veg to your door. Although pictured is their mini fruit and veg box, we started off with their summer box - full of calabrese broccoli, aranca tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms and so on. The boxes change every week and you can check out the website to get a box that suits you.

Prices range from £7.90 for the mini to £14.95 for the large. You can get extras on top and there’s even a meant box starting at £48.95. That initially seems quite expensive, but once we added it up - and saw the amount we got - it works out quite reasonably.

Probably the best compliment I can give is that although we received out first box free for reviewing purposes, we’ve now become fully signed up members and have a box delivered every week. We’re still working out the ideal size box for the two of us and I think most people will go through that and set up a regular order, if not every week then every other week - the flexibility of the scheme is a great attraction. You can cancel orders while you go on holiday, order more if you have friends round or change the type of box you want each week.

The quality of food is exceptional too - everything’s fresh and tasty. It’s no exaggeration to say I’ve never tasted a salad so flavoursome - the mixed salad lettuce had quite a kick. We’ve also found it ‘forces’ you to eat healthily. Every time we look in the fridge we have vegetables to make dinner from. In fact it’s been a bit of a challenge to know what to cook. What I thought were spring onions turned out to be wet garlic, which I didn’t have a clue what to do with. A quick Google search and what site came up second in the list? Riverford Organic Vegetables of course - with a recipe for potato cakes with wet garlic which I duly made. In fact the website is full of ideas what to do with your veg, although I found the search function not to be very effective and Google worked much better.

While some of the fruit and vegetables do come outside of the UK, they have introduced a UK only box so you can choose where your food comes from. All the food is organic though and delivered staraight to your door. While some of the products come in plastic bags - pak choi, lettuce etc, the boxes it arrives in are returned and reused. And our local guy is very friendly too - we’ll be interviewing Chris on Life Goggles soon.