Beer: They’re Taking the Hobbitz to Isinglass
Brewery: Fallen Acorn Brewing Co.
Style: IPA
Strength: 4.2%

It comes in pints! With a label like that I couldn’t not buy the beer. Matching it with this edition of the Hobbit might be sort of cheating but it had to be done

I can’t say that the flavour of isinglass is really something I’ve put much consideration to before. My understanding was it wasn’t used as much any more but that might be more to do with my preferred beer styles.

The taste is light and bright. There is a coolness which fills the whole mouth, almost like mint but with a mild bitterness rather than the lingering cold burn.

Book: The Hobbit
Author: JRR Tolkien
Publisher: Harper Collins (this edition) George Allen & Unwin (first edition)
Published: 1937

It’s The Hobbit. You’ve read it, had it read to you, watched it, or at the very least heard of it. The progenitor of Lord of the Rings but a classic of the genre in its own right. It is whimsical where it wants to be, and seat of your pants exciting when that’s more appropriate.

My own first foray into Middle-Earth came from my dad sitting down in between mine and my brother’s beds and reading this to us. I could only have been 7 or 8 at most but I still vividly remember being enraptured. It feels like a perfect book for a parent to read to their kids, which makes sense as it was workshopped in the bedrooms of his own children.