iLoveMyBBQ.com team (L-R) Cairo, Granny BS, Clim Tim, Clim Claire, me laying down (tired)

Well, what a year it has been, not only in terms of awareness of this blog and its phenomenal and unexpected growth but also personally for Cairo and I.

2009 was a massive year for us personally that included getting married in early 09 (about time!) and also having our first child, Mini-Barr towards the end of the year - hopefully this explains why iLoveMyBBQ.com went so quiet towards the end of the year!

In terms of this site 2009 was huge. During the peak BBQ months we struggled to cope with the amount of traffic, questions from BBQ fans and companies getting in touch to ask us to review their products. The site featured in several national newspapers and magazines (website of the day in The Times being a notable highlight) and we were asked to give our opinion on various new BBQ gadgets by a few TV and news shows! Wow…

The two things that really made us both really sit up and take notice were; one, the fact we were asked about potentially selling the site on two seperate occasions and two, when we ran a competition towards the end of the last BBQ season we had hundreds and hundreds of entries - more than we could have ever imagined!  This tells us we must be doing something right.

So, here we are in early 2010 (very early!) and we are planning new ideas and recipes and BBQ related gadget stories for the site. As ever, if you have any ideas or suggestions, please let us know.

Thanks for everyone’s support in 2009 and we look forward to an action packed 2010 of BBQ’ing.

Andy & Jilly (AKA Cairo)

Wines of Germeny and From Rioja

Following on from our recent research in to the best BBQ Beers and the perfect Fizzy Wine and Champagne for BBQ’s we got together with the lovely people from Wines of Germany and Wines From Rioja so they could help us find the perfect BBQ wines for this summers Barbecue-a-thon.

Wines of Germany and Wines from Rioja picked a shortlist of 5 wines they thought were the best accompaniment for your BBQ’s and here is the low down.

Muga Blanco 2008 - £8.00 from Majestic (out soon) - Plenty of complex zesty lime flavours with a gorgeous spicy oak finish. Perfect with Jerk Chicken Skewers or Asian inspired Pork Chops.

Luis Canas Fermentado en Barrica 2007 (6.99 from Sainsburys) - Rich and lemony with nutty oak hints and a crisp finish. A great partner for seafood and chicken, or if your BBQ is a more low key, hummus and dips.

2008 Black Tower Rose (£4.99 from Sansbury’s, Somerfield Morrisons, ASDA & Co-op) - This refreshing and mouth watering rose’ is arguable the taste of the summer and at just 9.5%, this naturally lower alcohol wine is a perfect lunchtime tipple.

2008 Devil’s Rock Riesling (£5.49 - Co-op) - Fresh and clean with zesty lemon and grapefruit flavours, it’s an ideal choice for alfresco drinking on a warm summer’s day.

2008 D:Vine Pinto Noir Rose’ (£5.08 The Asda) - as the name suggests it is indeed heavenly, bursting with fresh flavours or ripe strawberry and red cherry.

Even better than the comprehensive review above Wines of Germany and Wines From Rioja also asked Anna Noble, Associate of the Institute of Wines and Spirits to give us her take on the best wines for a summer’s BBQ and she said, “The oak ageing gives these white Riojas a lovely rich texture and nuttry flavours that work really well with barbecued chicken. Anna also added, “If you are looking for something a bit lighter and fresher to go with Asian inspired dishes and salads, German wines are terrific. They are also naturally lower in alcohol which makes them an ideal drink for lunchtime”.

Have you tried any of the above wine? If so, why not post your thoughts below...

Souther Comfort, Lemonade and Lime

It takes a lot to nudge Pimms and Lemonade from our favourite BBQ Drink spot but we think we may have found an even better tasting rival. Step forward Southern Comfort, Lemonade and Lime!

Available for just £5 for 4 cans I will admit that after initial scepticism (I am a SoCo and Coke Man after all) I could have (sensibly) drank this for ever!

We had ours at nearly ice cold temperature and my one regret was that we only bought 4 for testing purposes!

The reason it nudges Pimms off the top spot for my favourite summer drink of 2009 is because it is not only refreshing, but is also not so sickly sweet that you find yourself pulling those funny faces.

Here is the write up from the lovely people Southern Comfort…

“With 35ml Southern Comfort, the sparkle of lemonade and a zing of lime, Southern Comfort, Lemonade & Lime gives you a taste of New Orleans, anytime and anywhere, and is perfect accompaniment to alfresco fun. Whether a summer BBQ with friends, lunch in the park, a festival or a house party, Southern Comfort, Lemonade & Lime adds a touch of New Orleans, crammed into a streamlined can”

Southern Comfort, Lemonade and lime is available from the likes of Threshers, Sainsbury’s and Tesco at the introductory price of £5 for 4 until 18th August. Oh yeah, and if you just want one can, it will only set you back £1.59.

Have you tried the new Southern Comfort, Lemonade and Lime? If so, why not tell us what you thought in the comments section below?

iLoveMyBBQ.com Favourite BBQ Beers

It is a tough job but someone had to do it. The iLoveMyBBQ.com team has finally completed the difficult task of reviewing a good number of beers to make sure we can give you the absulte difinitive answer.

We have tried a great number of beers so for this article we have just shortlisted it to our final 5  favourites, and listed them in the order that we like them.

Some points to note; we have given every beer a “Taste”, “Cool-Factor” (how good you look drinking it in public) and a “Frisky-Factor” (how many bottles it takes before Clim-Tim get a bit frisky with Clim-Claire) rating out of 10.

Number One - Sol 24 x 330ml bottles available from Majestic for only £21.60!

Our absolute favourite BBQ Beer, best served with a wedge of lime and at a near ice cold temperature. We love the fact this is not as strong (or “hoppy” as my right hand testing Man, Clim-Tim calls it) as some of the others on offer. The fact it is so light makes it a great session drink and despite constant jokes about pig-flu, we think it is possibly the best thing to come out of Mexico since bushy moustaches!

No 1 BBQ Beer - Sol

Taste 9/10 - only lost points because of the tangy lime you sometimes get from the top of the bottle

Cool Factor10/10 - the choice of the coolest social breeds out there, Graphic Designers and Marketing Folk

Frisky Factor 6/10 - Clim-Tim needed a fair few before getting jiggy with it

Number Two - Peroni Nastro Azzurro 24 x 330ml Bottles from Majestic, only £25.92

Porbably the most controversial selection of the bunch. Controversial because it was only really the blokes that like this one so we discounted the ladies opinion as punishment for them always switching to wine half way through a BBQ and showing disloyalty to our noble beers!

Personally, I love this beer and think it is the best BBQ beer available for a drink in the evening after a hard day at work or toiling in the garden. It only lost marks because it is not quite as cool as Sol. No need for lime or any of that shenanigans in Italy’s leading lager and the taste is strong, crisp and very addictive.

Taste 9/10 - strong and crisp - will take you mind of the rigours of the day (sorry, sounded a bit arty there!)

Cool Factor 7/10 - I can imagine one of the trendy teacher from school drinking this

Frisky Factor 4/10 - A strong lager with strong consequences for Clim-Claire

Number Three - Corona Extra 24×330ml Bottles from Majestic only 30.00

This narrowly pipped Sol to the top spot and would have probably won had we not accidentally drink one and then followed it with a Sol. It is a great session beer but has slightly less flavour than its fellow Mexican beer colleague.

Clim-Tim loves this one, probably because he can drink industrial vats of the stuff without it really affecting him and I liked it because you can just keep drinking it without getting bored, which happens quite often with BBQ session drinks.

Corona BBQ Beer

Taste 8/10 - Lost out to Sol because it has a slightly less distinguished flavour

Cool Factor 9/10 - Unites people this one, accountants, marketing folk and even social workers all drink this

Frisky Factor 10/10 - Tim can drink this until the cows come home

Number Four - Staropramen 24 x 330ml Bottles from Majestic only £24.00

Came from nowhere really this one and only came into the reckoning after BBQ lager discussions led it to be compared to Becks so we thought we should give it a try. I am glad we did now because it was much better than Becks and did not leave the dodgy after-taste that we found comes with Becks.

Comes from the Czech Republic and that is pretty much all we know about this mysterious but tasty BBQ drink. It did have a smooth taste which made it work so well over a long BBQ’ing session and unlike some of the other pilsner beers it did not leave us with the mother of all hangovers the next day.

If only it was a little more popular it would have got a better Cool Factor score and maybe featured higher.

Taste 9/10 - Great tasting beer, if not a little to “hoppy”

Cool Factor 5/10 - Never seen anyone drinking this in a bar. Shame, as it is a great drin

Frisky Factor - 3/10 - Like Spinach to Clim-Tim’s Popeye! Only a few in and we knew a good night was ahead.

Number Five - Asahi Super ‘Dry’ 24 x 330ml Bottles from Majestic £22.80

I cannot remember how we found this little beauty. It may have been whilst trekking around Majestic and looking for new lagers to take part in our BBQ Beer challenge. However it made it into the testing zone no longer matters as it is one of the nicest beers we tried.

Japan's Best BBQ Beer

The flavour is very distinctive which is good because you remember it but not so good when you are drinking it through a long BBQ session. When you consider that it beat off challenges from the likes of Becks, Fosters, Stella and Heineken you can understand how much we liked this little Japenese fella. One thing we did notice and did stand it in good stead was that when it was not quie chilled to its optimum temperature it still tasted vey nice.

Taste 8/10 - Probably had the most distinctive beer of all the BBQ lagers we tried.

Cool Factor 7/10 - As with everything from the Eastern world, it is cooler than Daniel Craig in an ice bath - just not very mainstream yet.

Frisky Factor 7/10 - This posed no significant Frisky Factor threat to Clim-Tim and in turn, Clim-Claire.

Have you got any BBQ Beer tips or favourites or disagree with the judges decision? If so, post a comment below or send them to andy@petoba.com

Sabrage Champagne Sword

For those of you looking for a nifty BBQ trick, here is a special just for you. How to open a bottle of champagne or fizzy wine using a sword, or if you don’t have  a sword handy,  a kitchen knife! This is called Sabrage: The art of opening a bottle of champagne with a sword - it dates back to cavalry times!

A few safety tips first… Keep an eye on where the cork goes! You don’t want your pet, kid or elderly relative finding it and cutting themselves on the broken glass. Also, don’t try and hold the wine from the spout, it is sharp! And finally, only do this if you are a sensible adult… no really, this ain’t for kids to try on their own.

So let’s get started, for this you will need a bottle of champagne or fizzy wine (don’t worry, none gets wasted!), a willing volunteer and either a sword (not many people have these lying around any more) or a sturdy kitchen knife.

You will need to find the seam on the bottle of wine, as shown in the picture below.

Seam on Champagne

You need to then go outside, address your audience and carry out the following…

Slide the knife up the seam towards the cork to give you a guide on where you need to be aiming for. When you are confident that you have it sussed, give it a mighty slide up the seam towards the cork and strike the cork this time… hey presto, the top goes flying and you are a BBQ Party trick hero!

Here is a video of our friend Sophie trying it at a recent BBQ.

Open BBQ

So last weekend was BBQ Season 10, Game 2 and it was another away fixture, this time at Granny BS’s house.

On the menu was a great BBQ recipe of Paul Newman BBQ Sauce Marinade with butterflied chicken breasts and some traditional burgers.

I have only tried the Paul Newman BBQ sauces a few times and had forgotten how wonderful it tastes. The BBQ Marinade is tangy enough to get your attention but not so strong as some of the lesser BBQ flavoured marinades out there, as in it does not make your eyes water!

I carried out my duty of butterflying the BBQ chicken breast fillets and ensuring they were well soaked in the Paul Newman BBQ Marinade Sauce.

As I said, we also had a traditional, nice big juicy burger in floured baps that tastes awesome and a home made potato salad which was fantastic.

Cairo and I were not drinking on this one but the Clims went for some Marlborough White Wine from Majestic, which seemed to flow very well indeed!

I am currently planning a new decking area project in our garden which could dominate the next few weekends BBQ’ing plans, but I am hoping that it will all be worth it!

The Marlborough Hills Sauvignon Blanc 2008 Marlborough is £7.49 from Majestic and £5.99 when you buy 2 or more.

Best Sparkling Wine BBQ Drink

Following on from the post about the drinks which we feel are the best BBQ drinks out there, I wanted to do a further breakdown of which drinks from each category we felt were our Top 5 and today’s blog is about Sparkling Wines and Champagne.

Once again, all of our drinks came from Majestic Wines and were either recommendations from the entire iLoveMyBBQ.com team (apart from Clim Tim, he is a purely Beer man!) or from the great team at Majestic.

I feel I should point out that the obvious thing would be to put the champagnes at the top of the list and they usually would be but we were looking for a combination of affordability and being able to get through a good few bottles without needing a second mortgage

Our Top 5 Sparkling Wines or Champagne for a BBQ (or Barbecue) are as follows:

1. Prosecco Frizzante II Cortigiano NV Veneto - £5.99 - A super affordable, very dry, fizzy Italian wine. The bottle may not look as elegant as some of its rivals but the taste was a winner with everyone and is best served with some pressed strawberry.
2. Cava Calamino NV - £7.99 or £4.99 when you buy 2 or more - A Spanish Cava that is again very reasonably priced and which really surprised me as I am not normally a big fan of Cava. The best BBQ Drink to accompany tough meats like steak and pork and Clim Claire especially liked it (say no more!).
3. Lindauer Brut NV - £9.99 or £7.49 when you but 2 or more -  One sip and you can see why this is one of the most saught after Sparkling Wines from New Zealand. We felt it was maybe a bit pricey compared to the taste of the less expensive rivals but loved it all the same.
4. Taittinger Brut Reserve NV - £39.99 or £23.99 when buying 2 or more - The Grand Daddy of Champagne and you can taste why. Granny BS’s favourite and it went down an absolute storm during the testing. The other great thing about Taittinger, or any of the other great Champagnes for that matter, is that if you stick to just drinking Champagne then you don’t suffer from a hangover! Apparently. A brilliant drink an would be top if it was not so darned expensive!
5. Heidsieck Gold Top Vintage - £33.99 or £16.99 when you buy two or more - My personal favourite and it just beats Veuve Cliquet to the 5th place spot. A nice crisp, dry Champagne that flowed a bit too easily during testing. Best of all, if you get a few bottles it won’t break the bank and is a nice treat if celebrating a special occasion.

Now, if you want to party like P.Diddy and Fiddy Cent then you need some of this: Louis Roederer Cristal Vintage Champagne - at £200 a bottle it is certainly on the more expensive side!!!

Hope you liked our Best BBQ Sparkling Wine and Champagne Drinks Research, we enjoyed doing it!

Pressed Strawberry with Fizzy Wine - Best BBQ Drink

For some time now I have been meaning to write up the results of last years ultimate BBQ drinks research. Yes, hard work I know, but someone has to do these things and we at iLoveMyBBQ.com are all very well qualified!

I should point out that we split the test into BBQ Drinks categories which were beers/lagers and ales, white wine, rose wine, fizzy wine and “others” and then chose an overall Best BBQ drinks winner. In this post I am just going to go over the overall winners.

Oh yeah, we also added our own things to make up some BBQ Drinks Recipes.

To make life a bit easier we got all of our drinks for the testing from Majestic Wines (a great place and very knowledgeable team of people as well).

We also carried out the testing over the entire summer of 2008 (would have been a long and messy event if it was done over just one weekend!).

Anyhow, the list of winners for each category will follow, but before I get onto that, the formal winner (or should I say winners) of the iLoveMyBBQ best drinks of 2008 was a really close call between traditional Pimms and Sparkling Wine with Pressed Strawberry’s in. It was such a close call we decided to name them both as winners.

iLoveMyBBQ.com 2008 Best BBQ Drinks are as follows:

Overall favourites:

Traditional Pimms

Best served with all the usual garnish that makes this drink such a big summer favourite at every Barbecue we have! Just grab yourself a big jug and put just under one quarter Pimms to 3/4 Lemonade and you are halfway there. Cram in a load of ice, some sliced apple, orange, lemon and cucumber hey presto you are ready - ps, some liked it better with a bit of mint in as well.

A great BBQ drink which everyone unanimously liked.

Sparkling Wine with Pressed Strawberry’s

Chillax during your BBQ drink testing!

First up, the Sparkling Wine we chose as the winner was probably the cheapest on offer at Majestic but it certainly tasted much more superior than the likes of the Hardy’s, Jacobs Creek and Montana Sparkling Wines that we also tried. We all loved the Prosecco Frizzante II Cortigiano NV Veneto that costs just £5.99 a bottle. To give it the extra twist, and why it achieved the top spot you need to add some Straweberrys. You don’t need to do anything to them other than cut them in half and drop them in your chilled sparkling wine.

Once in, press the strawberry against the side of the glass and the juices will turn the drink a very light shade of pink.

A wonderful drink, and perfect to relax with when get jiggy with your grilling!

How very cool is this, a very nice man from a production company who work for the BBC got in touch today and asked what my top BBQ tips and tricks would be.

Crikey, to be put on the spot or what!?

BBQ Drinks Ahoy

Having now had chance to get over my brush with stardom I have took a bit of time out to draw up a list of my Top 10 BBQ (Barbecue) Tips and Tricks. So here we go;

1. Use a kettle style BBQ - they not only cook your chosen slab of meat more quickly, but they also deliver a better smoked flavour option when you use flavoured wood chips.

2. Use baskets to cook your food in, so you can turn them more easily and move on and off the heat hotspots more easily.

3. Always try and use your local farm shop or butcher for your meat - the supermarkets get enough of our money and the local butchers are much nicer cuts.

4. Chillax when cooking - BBQ’s are supposed to take an age to do properly and there is nothing wrong with taking your time.

5. Never use firelighters or chemicals to get your BBQ going - they make the food taste funny and can result in the loss of eyebrows

6. Use flavoured wood chips to make the food taste nicer and the smoke smell better

7. Get yourself a mini preparation table to sit alongside your BBQ where you can slice meat to make sure it is cooked

8. Always butterfly your chicken breasts - they cook alot quicker and remain moist and tender

9. Try new things, meat that would normally cause a diplomatic incident can be well disguised using a BBQ - for example, BBC Radio Gloucestershire want us to try squirrel (not sure if I am ready for that though)

10. Have a cold drink alongside you at all times!

Clim Tim's Birthday

The weekend just gone was Clim Tim’s Birthday (45) and he decided that given the nice weather we should begin Season 10 early and get BBQ’ing. Never one to miss a chance to BBQ we saddled up and headed on over for an away fixture.

The earliest we have ever done BBQ’ing before was April for Cairo’s birthday so to get our charcoal out this early was a real plus.

Given the early start and fluctuating temperature it was decided to take this old school BBQ style and so a nice plain and simple Sausage and Beef Burger was the choice of the day.

Clim Claire gave the ASDA Home Grocery Delivery a go given that their meat is supposed to have the best quality of all the supermarkets and so it was a good place to start.

We went for the recommended pork and apple speciality sausages from ASDA which cost just £2.28 for 6! Bargain ahoy….

Apologies but I cannot remember the name of burgers!

Cairo and I took along a few bottles of vino given there was going to be a big attendance as the extended Clim Tim’s family were coming. We went to our favourite wine place, Majestic Wines and brought along a South African White Wine called Boschendal Sauvignon Blanc which we first discovered at a friend’s wedding and is very nice indeed, and also a Majestic Rioja Crianza 2005 Berberana which I did not try but every said was great.

Back to grilling; given I had not used a BBQ forover a year and the last one was using a kettle BBQ rather than the open BBQ the Clims use I was a bit nervous but all came good. By the way, if you are deciding which BBQ to go for, go Kettle BBQ everytime, much more variety and quicker cooking times!

With a bit of careful rotation everything was cooked within 25 mins and everyone started making their own burgers using the ingredients Clim Claire had prepared.

All in all, a nice relaxed way to start BBQ Season 10. Game 1 was a success and so I am really looking forward to getting our kettle BBQ up and running and trying out some new BBQ recipes!

Wine for Game 1’s BBQ came from Majestic Wine

The BBQ recipe Sausages and BBQ recipe Burgers both came from The ASDA.