Beer: A Love Story
Having been stuck at home now for 60 odd days (I had just taken two weeks of holiday time when all this kicked off, so I was already gagging to get back to work), I’ve kind of forgotten what socialising is like.
Yes, I’ve been invited to some of those Zoom chats, and “bar crawls” but it’s just not really the same as sitting in a bar having a drink with your chums. On a plus point, I’ve not had to sit through an open mic night for weeks, so I’m thankful for life’s little mercies.
So, dear heart, seeing as how I’ve gotten bored of GTA Online, I’ve decided to wax lyrical about possibly my fave thing on God’s Flat Earth: Beer. Beer must be one of the most important things in my life. It’s how I earn my crust, it’s what me and all my nerdy friends talk about, and it’s what I look forward to at the end of every working day. Within reason. One day on, two days off.
No matter where I go for a drink, beer is something that’s always there. I appreciate a good cocktail as much as the next person (Grasshopper, if you’re offering), but I can maybe drink two before I get bored. But if you’ve got some tinnies in the fridge then I’m gonna be staying for a while. Even if the selection is lacking, there will be something I can find - more often than not though, the fridges will be an Aladdin’s Cave of tasty treats. My eye is always initially drawn to the Double IPAs, a great big joose [sic] bomb, one where I can be bukkaked with hops, to let me know that it’s time to relax. But life’s too short to limit to just one style! There’s always room for a Scotch Ale, or a Wee Heavy if we’re going to call it by its real name, full of caramel sweetness, sometimes a nice peatiness coming through, this is a true Bartender’s Beer. Buxton and Cromarty did a Cranachan Scotch Ale a few years ago and I’ll be damned if it wasn’t the greatest beer I’ve ever had in my life. Talking of beer styles, I’ve never met an Imperial Stout I didn’t love. The more akin to pudding the better.
Away from the bars, a local Bottle Shop is a truly magical place. The smaller the better, in my opinion, full of fridges keeping the beers chilled and fresh, I could happily spend a King’s Ransom on rare bottlings, and a more informed, passionate bunch behind the counter you will rarely find. Even the supermarkets have gotten on board, and some truly great UK breweries are now available as part of your big shop. Still, I’d advise you to give these a slightly wide berth and use your local bottle shop as often as possible, as they’ll be missed if they go the way of the butchers and greengrocers.
The greatest thing to do with good beer is to share. A bottle share is a thing of joy, and for those of you who’ve never been to a bottle share you’re missing out! Either at someone’s house, or at your fave bar, just pick a theme and invite like-minded people. It’s like a Tupperware party for beards. Most Brewdogs hold them regularly, and it always descends into chaos - well, as much chaos as a load of people with high cholesterol and a 10pm curfew can manage.
With shares being well and truly off the table for the time being, another fantastic thing to do with all those bottles is to store them! Lambics, Geuze, Quads, Trappists are all beautiful fresh, but something magical happens to certain beers when they are cellared. A bottle of Orval is a beautiful thing when ‘new’ (it’s always six months old by the time you get it), but around the three year mark the yeasts have eaten most of the sugars, leaving you with a beer that can stand up to the most moderately priced Champagnes. If you are going to store beer, make sure you buy two. Drink one fresh, so you have an idea of what has happened in the bottle.
Beer isn’t all rainbows and light, mind. Maybe at some point in the future I’ll write about the breweries that have ties to religious genocide, or the rampant racism at a globally respected brewery. We’ll see if this one makes it past the editors before we take a shot at that hornet’s nest, mind. Most importantly, for me, beer is about the people. I work with one of my best friends of the last 18 years on an almost daily basis (that lazy fucker won’t work weekends, because apparently that’s a thing), and the majority of our team have been here four or more years.
Every day I get to go in to sell and talk about a product that I am passionate about, to a group of like-minded individuals. The regulars have all transcended into parts of our social circles, and I have had these people drop stuff off at my house, and I at theirs (respecting social distancing, of course) during these troubled times. We’ve people who pop in to see us seven days a week, shoot the breeze, maybe have a drink, maybe not. And we all hang out together on days off.
Lastly, I met my partner as she was a regular at ours, herself working in beer, on the real ale/pub side of things. So, in a nutshell, I suppose that beer is happiness to me.
Apart from sour beer. Fuck that noise.