Brand New Beer N Biceps Podcast

01/26/18 • -1 min

On the 4th of June 2017, Todd and I got drunk, very drunk. The kind of drunk where you stand up after a while on shaky legs, walk outside the pub and decide to create a podcast about beer n biceps. You’ve probably done exactly that yourself right? What were our qualifications to do so? I knew quite a bit about fitness and nutrition after a degree in Sports Science and 7 years as a personal trainer. Todd had been my most successful client ever. Neither of us knew anything about beer except that we loved it and couldn’t imagine doing a podcast without it. We started our brand new beer n biceps podcast with absolutely no idea what we were letting ourselves in for.

Was it a success? Well yes and no. We managed to get a LOT of listeners, far more than the 20 people we had expected. But nowhere near what the big boys were hitting. Our show could be funny at times, and we like to think it was interesting, but wow was it amateur.

Todd and I would plan it out 10 minutes before the start, randomly buy a beer on the way and then google all we could about that beer just before the show started. We made promises we didn’t keep. We messed up our live show, we messed up our podcast in a beer shop, and some episodes we just completely forgot to promote.

So we’re doing it again, we’re restarting the podcast, it’s a reboot. We’ll cover similar themes but in a better way. We’ll be more focused, better organised, and ... Okay, I’ll level with you. It took us two weeks to record our new episode 1 and already we’re messing things up. But in a charming way right?

Brand New Beer N Biceps Podcast

So what is different about our new podcast format? Well instead of randomly picking beers we’re following a plan. This series (8 episodes) will focus on the best of English beers. We’ll be looking at Newcastle Brown ale in this episode and then Badger beers in the second. Series Two will look at the Celtic nations (Wales, Scotland, Ireland), and in the future, we’ll look at Belgian, German, American etc ...

The episodes will also be much shorter, instead of 60 minutes + we’ll be trying to limit each episode to just 30 minutes. This will prevent us from waffling on too much and will help keep us more relevant. So that’s what you’re getting with our brand new beer n biceps podcast, so let’s get cracking with episode 1.

Training 101

As this is a January based episode (though it’ll be almost February by the time this goes live). We thought that it would be the perfect time to plan out what you are going to do WHEN you sign up for the gym. If you want success in life you’ve got to work for it. Avoiding difficult seeming tasks like signing up to a gym will only slow you down. We’re definitely of the opinion that getting out there, putting your money where your mouth is, and removing yourself from your comfort zone is the only ways to be successful.

Beer of the Episode: Newcastle Brown Ale

What an excellent beer to start (or re-start) our journey with, Newcastle Brown Ale is a superb ale. It tastes great when chilled, where it is a proper session beer (you can drink loads of it) but it takes on a whole new flavour when served at almost room temperature. In Michael Jackson’s Great Beer Guide, Newcastle Brown Ale is described as “the most popular bottled ale in Britain”. We’re not sure how accurate that is anymore. But the beer has definitely had a resurgence in popularity over the last few years.

The beer has been around since 1927 and up until 2017 has always been brewed in Newcastle. Last year Newcastle Brown Ale was purchased by Heineken and production was moved to the Netherlands. I’m not usually too fussed by bigger beer companies taking over smaller ones. But it is definitely a shame that a brewery that has been around for 90 years and is famously made in England is now going to be made in a completely different country. Makes you feel that a little bit of history has floated away.

Let Us Know Your Thoughts

So that is episode one of our brand new beer n biceps podcast finished and we’re pretty happy with the new direction that we’ve taken. But it would be great to get some feedback from you guys. Remember you can join our free Facebook group, come say hi on Instagram, tweet us on

Brand New Beer N Biceps Podcast

Training 101

Beer of the Episode: Newcastle Brown Ale

Let Us Know Your Thoughts

Previous Episode

Beer N Biceps Xmas Special Episode

Our last Beer N Biceps episode of the year is a xmas special where we drink Elf Juice by Bad Company and talk about the ways in which you can maintain your weight, prevent weight gain, or even lose weight over the Christmas holiday. This is not something that you need to do, and Todd and I are quite honest about why we’re not going to be following the rules too strictly ourselves. But if you decide that this is the year when you don’t gain weight over the holidays, then this podcast can really help you.

Xmas Special

This episode is quite a bit shorter than our usual ones, at a brisk 30 minutes. This was for 2 reasons: 1) We had a shorter message to share this episode, and 2) We have decided to try and keep our podcasts a little bit shorter in the future. An hour is a lot of time to perform and to ask our listeners to pay attention for that long is tough! So we have used this xmas special to try out the shorter format. Let us know whether you prefer it this way, or you enjoyed the longer episodes more.

Xmas Special Beers

We were drinking Elf Juice during this podcast, a beer from the Bad Company Brewery which is situated in North Yorkshire. While looking up this particular brewery (that has been operating for just 3 years) we found that Yorkshire really does seem to be becoming a hotbed for newish quality beers. You’ve got Saltaire Brewery which opened near Bradford in 2005, Black Sheep near Harrogate which was opened in 1992, York Brewery (1996), and Vocation Brewery in Hebdon Bridge, which we reviewed in episode six.

While Elf Juice was surprisingly nice, it doesn’t have too much competition in our opinion. Xmas special beers tend to be very overpowering, too high in alcohol, and basically a bit gimmicky (a bit like xmas special podcasts I guess). Elf Juice is guilty of all of these issues, but it seems to work in spite of this. It’s too strong tasting, filled with flavours that you’d find in mulled wine, and it’s a very dark looking beer. But we still enjoyed it a lot.

Well that’s about all we are going to talk about in this episode. Have a great Christmas, have a decent New Year, and we’ll see you in 2018 with a brand new training program, a new-look podcast, and a whole host of awesome things planned.

Next Episode

Perfect Warm-Ups & Badger Beer

In the second episode of our new-look podcast, we are discussing perfect warm-ups and drinking Badger beer. Well, we call it badger beer, but actually, the brewery is called Hall & Woodhouse brewery. We really enjoyed ourselves during this podcast, mostly thanks to the excellent beers! We’re loving this 30-minute format, it’s easier to listen to, and more importantly – it is a LOT quicker to perform.

Perfect Warm-Ups

I’ve changed my mind a lot about warm-ups over the years, when I started training myself I thought that they were very important. Always getting onto that Cross-trainer before a session could truly begin. After a while, I grew bored of spending 5-10 minutes per session mindlessly pedalling and started entering the gym “cold”.

This was fine, I was young, wasn’t lifting heavy, and had no previous injuries. These days I walk briskly to the gym before performing multiple practice sets for a great warm-up.

A practice set is where you perform the exercise you were planning on doing (a bench press for example) with a weight that is significantly lighter. Think about it, you are working the correct muscles required for the exercise, practising the movements, and getting a feel for the equipment.

But there are a couple of exercises that I do add in as a warm-up, which aren’t practice set exercises. For upper body, I perform face-pulls, a great exercise using a cable machine.

For the lower body, I will perform some dumbbell goblet squats. They are light, easy to do, and they warm you up great before performing barbell squats, or deadlifts. They are crucial for perfect warm-ups.

Badger Beers: Hall & Woodhouse Brewery

The beers we drank in this podcast all came from the Hall & Woodhouse brewery in Dorset. The brewery was originally opened in 1777 in the village of Ansty. It was moved to Blandford St Mary in 1899 and has stayed there ever since. The beers that we tried were Golden Champion and Fursty Ferret. They also sell Furkin Fox and Golden Glory. This brewery has always been a favourite of mine, and the beers were a perfect choice for our Best of England Beers.

Next Time

So a nice and quick podcast on perfect warm-ups and English beer, Badger Beers are a great rival for last week’s Newcastle Brown Ales. In our next episode, we will be drinking beer from Oakham Ales and discussing rest periods.