One drawback of being modern father to a young child is you don’t get to go out much. Gone are the days of going to the pub after work while the wife makes the dinner – something my dad used to do daily.

So bottles of ale are the solution. Ideally polypins from someone like Nethergate is the ideal solution but even I’d struggle to get through 30 pints of 1 ale before it went off (usually 2 weeks).

I took a trip to Tesco yesterday to stock up on bottles of ale – having run out of bottle and being stuck with Desperados (Tequila flavoured lager). I’ve always seen a monster range in Tesco but there was very little on offer. Are ales seasonally supplied – I don’t know.

Lame plug I know but you can always rely on Ocado to supply you with almost 200 different bottles of ale – with the number increasing by the week. I’m pretty sure there is no-one that sells more from one place.

Anyway I placed an order for 20 or so bottles that I have yet to try and will be reviewing them in the coming days.

I’ll do a tour of the supermarkets in the coming weeks to build up my bottle reserve and will check out what is being offered by the likes of ASDA, Sainsbury and Aldi.

I know bottles aren’t everyones cup of tea, but I like them. I don’t cool them down as I prefer them at room temperature – and they are always better left open for a while or degassed by pouring them from one glass to another.