I'm beginning to think all baths were designed for midgets.

This challenge started out as a pure accident; and one I have taken a hearty liking towards. Following on From Terrance’s Sticky disaster in the bath. I decided to see if it was all beers/ciders which were going to cause issues or it was the bath in general.

Item 1: The bath is one of those weird corner baths; which as I found to my cost doesn’t allow you to fit in it whichever way you are positioned. In the end I decided on an convention lieing down position with my feet hanging over one side.

One advantage to this bath was the addition of rather large shelf next to my drinking hand so there was never any issues of bath water contamination or beery shampoo to contend with.

Drink #1: Can of Woodpecker Cider

As mentioned above this was a pure chance challenge; I decided on a whim to have the first bath in my house since I moved in; (I currently only took showers). The bath had been cleaned recently so I decided to start filling it up. However since it needs about 20min to actually fill up with sufficient water to cover my gentleman’s area I got a bit bored and opened a can of cider and wandered off to check my E-Mail.

Halfway into my second can I was caught out, and had to quickly adjust the water level to one which was slightly lower than testing an Archimedes principle. In short: I was left with half a can and a hot bath. Not wanting to waste either I lowered myself in can in hand and began to relax.

Now one disadvantage of a hot bath is you sweat a lot; you literally sit in there and “stew” great at getting you clean but can be very uncomfortable after a few min; enter the can of cheap dry cider. Wow, what a revelation! It may not have come directly out of the fridge but the can was cool and allowed me to regulate my temperature much easier and the dry taste contrasted beautifully with the hot steam.

It was savouring this that I remember reading about Terrance’s experience with Jacques in the bath and I would have to reaffirm that a “sticky” or sweet drink in such a situation would be intolerable; but a dry cold cider suddenly added to the experience of bathing rather than taking it away.

Drink #2 : Newcastle Brown Ale (Bottle)

I don't think this picture does justice to how fizzy this drink was.

Now since this is a serious experiment I could not just have one drink and be done with it so the next time I had a bath I made sure one of my favourite tipple was on hand. The taste was a perfect contrast once again so I did not imagine the first time; however; the bottle caused issues.

The narrow spout and heavy glass tended to “overfizz” the nukie at the best of times, lieing in a bath however the angle was much shallower so I managed to fizz some beer out of my nose a fair few times! This was obviously “not on”; and whilst the beer calmed down once it dipped below halfway the need to be extra careful initially put a real downer on the experience.

I would have to give points to it making you gassy. In a bathroom which echos you can get some quite spectacular belches going on; although from a pure comfort factor this obviously is not ideal.

Drink #3 : Crumton Oaks (Cider) in a pint glass

Keeping with the dry cider angle I decided to check if a simple pint glass could overcome the issues with the fizziness which can occur using bottles. Pouring the drink into a pint glass is normally the best way to drink Nukies in pubs or at home; whilst I didn’t have any to hand at the time drinking cider out of a pint glass I could at least test the principle.

Initially all was well… I had a firm grip and I could lie back savouring the heat and reach out take a drink and hardly need to open my eyes. Alas it was not perfect as I was finding to my cost. You see a bath has some degree of soap in.. and soap and glass make for a slippery surface. The pint glass was increasingly hard to hang onto -  the simple can I could crush slightly to get a better grip. The glass however was not as easy to hang onto.  To my credit there was not a single drop of spillage although it came close a few times. Once again like the Nukie I had to sit up and drink carefully… in effect ruining the experience of the bath in the first place.

And so the humble can wins out; its stackable, doesn’t take up much space and doesn’t suffer from the “soap” issue. I personally prefer a dry cider choice but bitters and ales will work just as well.

The day: 17
The drink (s): Newcastle Brown Ale, Woodpecker, Cromton Oaks Cider
The place: The Bath
Positives: The cool dryness of cider complements the bath perfectly
Negatives: Any sort of glass wear with soap can lead to bath disasters.
Conclusion: Even though the choice of a can narrows your choices; it is an experience everyone of us should enjoy at least once in our lives.

Sidenote: Having come up with the title now I have a sudden urge to get a can of Directors Bitter for my next bath….

ale · Bath · Beer festival · Crumpton Oaks · dry cider · fizz · Newcastle Brown Ale · none sticky · Woodpecker

I have been thinking a lot about the pub; or lack thereof for quite a while.

I was lucky enough to be brought up and witness the end of the pub crawl, a ritual undertaken by all walks of life up and down the country. It was a simple idea really. You come home on a Friday night after a hard week’s graft, and got ready to go out to start the weekend; there was an enjoyment in doing the simplest of things. Changing clothes to go out always had to be accompanied by some good music. Not just anything; but fist pumping back beats and catchy melodies you’ll have stuck in your head for the next hour. Your dinner was prepared quickly but it was never just reheated leftovers from Thursday… it was always something special even if it was just a trip to the chippy on your way home. As soon as you finished your private rituals you set off for the pub.

The pubs back then were laid heavy with smoke, stale beer and perpetually gloomy even though the sun had not yet set. People who ordered food in such places were looked at with disdain; this was a Friday night after all and good times should be had by all.

The first pint was always a risk… most of the time it had been in the pipes since last night so a gut wrenching sour after taste almost always accompanied it. There was no real ale… there was a choice between: bitter, lager or Guinness; all of which kind of tasted the same and you differentiated between them by the cost and alcohol percentage. Now cost, there is a touchy subject, and one I’ll return to later.

But the first pint was always a good one; no matter how sour watered down it may be. It was a symbol of breaking the tyranny of the 9-5 day and recognising you would not need to wake up early to go into work tomorrow. One by one your friends started to gather to be greeted with choruses of “hellos” or in some cases people who you have not seen for a while by cheers.

One pint became two; two became three; and invariably the subject was raised: where to next?

Nights out were never a single pub; there were several pubs; meeting different people in each one your group splitting up, merging from pub to pub. Some pubs were noted for their great jukeboxes; others for their atmosphere. Sometimes another part of our anatomy did the talking and other pubs were suggested simply because we knew other people will be there. Debates were raged over the benefits of each pub and the group flowed from one to another – driven by seemingly random impulses across town.

Towns and cities back then were heaving with revealers relishing the fact it was the weekend travelling back and forth between the many pubs which dotted our towns. I have been out recently and you no longer see the trains of people moving between pubs… just single groups here and there moving between the few pubs which remain. When I first started going out there were bouncers on most pub doors – simply to make sure the place did not become too overcrowded. This was Friday nights out on the town, every weekend; Saturday nights sometimes as well; but that never had the same “just off work feel” that the magical Friday gave.

I’m sorry that people who are turning 18 now cannot experience the pub culture and crawl; in the glimpses of young people I have seen around town these days the entire premise seems to revolve around vodka and how fast you can drink it in a trendy bar with hard lines and cold lighting. Nights drinking sterilised and chemically pure alcohol in various fizzy and fruity concoctions in a cool over-metallic environment. The weird smell of smoke machines and too much Lynx following them around all night.

You are not likely to bump into an old man at the bar who twists your ear about politics; there is no old dusty settee in the corner which had lost all its spring long ago. There is no travel between the different pubs to experience each character. There is no need. There is a bar which has the same type of people and the same layout as the last one. Always too cold; and always the same. Dozens of ramshackle little pubs with less space than an Ethiopian grain storage silo are replaced with sprawling “state of the art” and neon bars.

Have we progressed? I think not. The decent few pubs who remain are always on the verge of collapse with groups of patrons sitting in the corder mumbling in the corner about the prices of beer. When I was 18 I went out with a tenner in my pocket and it was enough for six pints of beer and either a taxi home or a kebab; and that was more than ample to have a good time.

So what does this mean for the Friday night this week?

Well I plan to have a couple of pints in the pub and go home early… perhaps picking up a few cans from the shop. There is no dancing to oasis when you are getting dressed to go out any-more; there is no changing your razor blade for a new one; and there is no more pub crawl… in fact the last pub crawl I was in involved a car… as the distances were too far to walk.

Beer festival · Blackburn · crawl · ethopia · friday · friends · night · oasis · pub · Thwaites · youth

Now, where were we…

Yes after a semi-enforced lay-off, BadPoo is back and what better way to celebrate than drinking beer in a massive sports hall in Wigan. There really is nothing to gladden the heart more than a real ale festival that takes place in space normally dedicated to exercise and physical fitness and this is as fine an example as you’ll find anywhere; 3 basketball courts worth of gymnasium liberated from hosting pointless pursuits like running about and instead turned over to the forces of beery libation.

Upon arrival, though, getting stuck into the ale is nigh on impossible as you’re suddenly confronted by about three-quarters-of-a-million potential beers to pick from and absolutely no idea how to make a choice. My usual technique in this situation is to simply bowl up to the first place at the bar with a gap and ask for whatever’s directly in front of me. In this case, I end up with Kirkby Lonsdale Jubilee which is a bonus as it’s from one of my favourite breweries. It’s a 5.5% stout that comes with a warning from the barman that it’s a 5.5% stout, an odd note of caution really considering I’m at a beer festival. The drink itself is a bracing introduction to the day’s festivities with a powerful, earthy quality. It’s a little like eating nuts that smoke 20-a-day.

We drink our first beers at the top of the wooden spectators benches on the side of the hall, and survey the scene as the festival unfolds and a ragtime band whose members all appear to be in their mid-80s rattle through their set in the corner to general apathy from most of those assembled. They could quite easily be playing through a version of ‘So Fucking What’ by the Anti-Nowhere League and most in the hall would still just be debating the merits of a pint of mild called ‘Fanny Batter’ or something. Such is the tragedy of the beer festival entertainer.

And so we move on to Brew Dog, the Man City of the beer world. Lots of publicity, usually quite good but still somehow vaguely fake. 4-0 at home to Rotherham in the FA Cup then an underwhelming one apiece away to Stoke. Your grandad has never heard of them doing anything because, well, they didn’t do anything when he was around. They’re a half inch from the lager world, the name over the content. Punk IPA is an example of this hype. As much as we all like a good beer, there are essentially just bad beers, okay beers and good beers. Punk is a good beer so the hype around it is like trying to come up with new superbly graphic superlatives to describe in what fashion you’d roger Kate Middleton on her wedding eve. Our tasting notes reported this sexual transgression as “Charlie Sheen’s Twitter Account seen both during a live drug and sex binge, and edited the morning after. A mixed bag.”

Next up it’s Whatever from the Prospect brewery which tastes dangerously similar to Cheerios and after the more complex and challenging earlier efforts serves as a welcome reminder of the pleasure of drinking a beer that doesn’t require a run-up. It’s quickly despatched with which leads directly to the inevitable moment when the festival drinker must confront the toilets. Beer festival toilets fall into two categories- at festivals in marquees you tend to get the portable bogs which, and this is a scientfic fact, cannot go longer than an hour at any gathering before all being subjected to some form of rectal Judgement Day and becoming as terrifying to confront as The Somme in 1916. In Wigan’s case, we have to deal with the other kind- the established toilets that are completely overwhelmed as they haven’t been designed or plumbed with the intention of servicing 2000 real ale drinkers on a festival session. Naturally, by the point I visit them, the only person who can negotiate them without getting the bottom of their jeans soaked would be a gifted stilt-walker.

We move on to a beery error now, a failure in record-taking which can only be attributed to a) going to the bar and asking for the first thing I saw and b) not actually caring what beer it was. Our scribbled notes hint at something along the lines of Black Death but the festival programme suggests this didn’t actually exist. I must, then, hold up my hand and admit to buying some random bollocks and hazarding a guess at the name later. Whatever this beer was, it had the striking characteristics of the watery remnants of a flooded kitchen floor.

Things continue to threaten to take a tailspin as one of our semi-sacred rules of beer drinking gets broken next in a spirit of hi-jinks. Normally I try to avoid any ales with names that are puns or that could be construed in any way as a bit naughty; the theory being that if you have to come up with an attention grabbing name then the ale can’t be up to much. However, Love Muscle from the North Yorkshire brewery has caught the eye of some of the group and so we end up with three half pints of a drink named after genitals. Luckily, it turns out to be rather refreshing and is now, officially, The Best Beer In The World To Share A Name With A Penis, except for Thwaites legendary Throbbing Phallus Bitter, natch. The tasting notes we made at the time for this one describe it as ‘like being kicked in the throat by a dying panther wearing wet socks’ which probably says less about the beer and more about us drinking on an empty stomach.

Fortified by an empty stomach, I progressed into some heavy-duty quaffing with a half of Rudgate’s Jorvik Blonde. This beer was probably named by someone with no beerception, who would have realised that the kick-ass name “Jorvik” does not sit alongside a pussy word like “blonde”. Much better candidates would have been Jorvik Bastard, Jorvik Hammer Of Destruction or Jorvik Pillage And Burn. Frankly, this schoolboy nomenclature misdemeanour put me off the entire beer and I could only summarise it as being memorable in the same sense it was memorable the first time you tasted dishwater out of curiosity.

Back to the Prospect brewery now for their Nutty Slack which is award-winning apparently, though the exact nature of these awards wasn’t divulged at the time. It’s a fiesty mild this one; dark, rich, a man’s drink if every there was one. In fact, it tastes exactly like it was brewed for coal miners who like to take their work home with them. There isn’t a beer that would sum Wigan up better without being served with a pastry lid.

And so we finish with a true beer afficionado’s favourite. Hoppy, hints of ginger, chocolate and thyme with a finish that leaves your throat as raw as drinking paint stripper. Yes, who could mistake Allendale’s Beacon Fire. This beer is like asking four male strippers to dance on your face while you decide which brand of turps to drink: equally disturbing and heavy with portents of doom. If the day of reckoning came and you had to choose your final drink, you’d throw this in the bin and die sober. A week later, my abiding memory of this beer is a strange burning sensation at the back of my throat which made me feel like I’d been fellating a very homosexual stag party for at least three days.

All in all, Wigan is a good beer festival. You don’t have to stand round while the hardcore CAMRA geeks monopolise the tables for ten hours, thanks to the seats at the side. It’s free for CAMRA members and prices were good. Knock off one or two weapons-grade ales which destroyed my throat and this would have been the best beer fest for a while.

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There is something intrinsically beautiful of the marriage between food and drink. You can have the most perfect pint in the most beautiful location in the entire world and yet you can still top or ruin it with the addition of food. The subtle earthy flavours of many a pint have been ruined by your ability to still taste the toothpaste from your rushed attempt to get ready. In much the same way *any* pint can be improved by the addition of buffalo wings or a salted pub snack.

Unfortunately this is not the 30 meals in 30 places challenge; (although; that in itself does sound tempting). So the addition of beer snacks is more relegated to a trivia or stand along entry outside of the challenge; but there is something special which marries the two independent items into one whole which is greater than the sum of its parts.

What am I talking about? Why the cooking with drink approach! Not the set the house on fire with a chip pan approach but the incorporating the subtle (or not so subtle) flavours of your favourite tipple into a meal. This has been done many many times: Sherry in Christmas Cakes, beer batter; but the “big one” which stands out is coq au vin; which is literally chicken (well… roster) cooked in a bottle of wine; sometimes adding brandy to the mix.

It's all Greek to me.

So, which bottle did I choose to cook my whole chicken in? A traditional Burgundy; an extravagant Champagne or a cheaper New World wine? In the end I turned to Greece Port. “Laverodaphne of Patras” to be exact; which is classified as a “Sweet Red Wine”. I partly choose this bottle partly as I wanted a rich sweet wine to add to the sauce it will invariably create; and partly because I liked the label with it half been written in Greek.

Knives are fun

So onwards to the cooking; I got hold of a small full chicken, shallots, chestnut mushrooms, birds eye chillies, potatoes, tomato purée and some lardons (erm… bacon cubes). As you can see they are all arranged in nice neat little bowls – something I never do in reality but I wanted to make it look all smart for the camera.

To anyone who hasn’t prepared a whole chicken before I can highly recommend it; although a few Kung Fu sound-effects may have escaped my lips whilst I set at the poultry with a large carving knife. Although the actual finished product looks largely tame the cracking of the bones (along with my own attempts at a “Sun-character Rushing Strike Attack” quickly reminded the vegetarian that he had more important things to deal with.

I know Kung Fu

After the chicken was on the tray it was time to add the “au vin” part; the cock part was dealt with in the last paragraph. Here is where the meal is actually created and a single mistake or miss-calculation can ruin a perfectly good piece of chicken very easily. Thankfully I had come prepared; in no set order I added:

• shallots (peeled only)
• 4 birds-eye chillies disesteemed and chopped (keeping seeds)
• 1 knob of butter (sliced it looks worse than it is)
• 1 tsp of crushed garlic
• 1 tbsp of tomato purée
• Lardons sprinkled around between the chicken
• pinch of rosemary
• pinch of thyme
• And the most important ingredient… about three quarters of a bottle of port.

Perfect fit!

Carefully lifting the now nearly full tray it went straight into the oven on a “medium” temperature; it’s gas.. I have no idea what the numbers mean; but it went on the squiggly line in the middle of the dial.

Now I could relax and put my feet up on the sofa and began to enjoy the port. Considering it is Greek who are well known for their fine wines the actual port had nothing bad about it; but then it didn’t; have anything good about it either. Since I had spent the better part of an hour chopping and preparing however it was a welcome relief.

After 30 min however I was brought back into the kitchen by the sound of the smoke alarm; now don;t be worried we have the most sensitive smoke alarm ever created and any addition of any combination of steam and/or smoke sets it off. I did need to be reminded to have a look at my creation (who needs oven timers when your smoke alarm is better!)

Look no fire!

I don’t mind telling you now it smelt good! Carefully stirring the juices with a spoon mixed up the final ingredients and back it went in the oven again. The more the juices are reduced the thicker and richer the sauce becomes. Anyway onwards to the rest of my meal; I lightly fried off the chestnuts mushrooms flavoured only with a touch of salt and pepper and a dash of Worcestershire sauce. At the same time I started off my potato chopped into small cubs for faster cooking!

After the mushrooms were cooked I took out the tray again and layered on the mushrooms on top of everything. With a dash of olive oil drizzled on the top I whacked it back in the oven this times turned up to full. I was in the home straight now and the entire house was smelling like Christmas The curry smell from the street of takeaways nearby finally banished to the netherworlds.

Shroooms!

A quick drain and mash of the potatoes later and out it came for the final time. I do not mind admitting my mouth was watering by the time it was time to dish up. This version of the recipe is a lot shorter than the traditional “soak chicken in wine for a day” kind of preparation but it had taken me close to 2 hours to get to this point.

At times like this a picture is worth a thousand words and I can only wish you could have smelt it when it was removed from the oven for the last time – you will just have to contend yourself with admiring.

Mmmmmmmm

Served and ready to go!

I won't lie... it was good!

Now what did it taste like? I won’t lie; it was good. Bloody good! Even with the multitude of herbs, spices onions and mushrooms I could still actually taste the port underneath it all. I was right a sweet port brings the sauce alive and this was no exception. Like a cold shandy on a warm summers day I had found the exact location for port. Don’t drink it its passable at best; cook with it! Throw it into any dish and the flavours come alive as it adds a rich depth to whatever you are cooking.

The day: 16.
The drink: Laverodaphne of Patras (Port)
The place: Coq au Vin
Positives: Used as a cooking ingredient it brought what can be a dull dish alive with flavour.
Negatives: As a drink it fails.
Conclusion: Its fun to dismember a chicken and drown it in port.

cooking · coq au vin · food · port · wine

I recently claimed on here that the French are no good at beer which is actually a tad unfair, as well as being entirely accurate. You see, en Francais they can’t make a decent pint to save their lives, probably because they’re all far too busy committing exhistalist acts of adultery whilst guzzling decadent pastries and smoking 300 Gitanes a day. However, they do have an apperatif, called Picon.

On it’s own, it tastes of burnt oranges and looks like the sort of cough syrup that Victorian nannies gave to pauper children in the workhouse to shut them up till they died of cholera or something. It’s not really very pleasant when knocked back by itself and it doesn’t really work with a typical mixer but throw it into a pint of blonde biere and things get decidedly engaging.

I first got a chance to try a picon biere out in La Rochelle earlier this year after having a pop at one of my favourite holiday pursuits- Foreign Beer Menu Pontoon. Basically you sit at one of those lovely European cafe bars, out front on the pavement if you can, and peruse the menu which, if it’s a good establishment, should have 6 or 7 beers on there that you’ve never heard of.

Picon- the apperatif that doesn't have a funny caption

Now the idea is to start working through them trying to have a better drink with each successive choice. If you pick one of those awful dark Europen beers that tastes of treacle and death, or if you’re really unlucky and pick the non-alcoholic lager, you’ve ‘bust’ and it’s time to leave the bar. Trust me, it’s fun.

Anyway, one such game on the French Atlantic coast lead me to order a Picon biere and be confronted shortly afterwards with a sort of orangey brown and moderately fizzy pint. Intriguingly, the addition of an orangey liqeur to continental lager creates a drink with the taste of a nice pale ale but the cool, sparkling refreshment of a shandy. It was confusing and alluring at the same time, like a wet dream about a second cousin.  I was hooked.

Upon returning to France the other week, and after the success of the floating Leffe, I decided to source a bottle of Picon and intorduce everyone else in the villa to the majesty of it’s marriage to lager. One problem- the drink I’d had in La Rochelle had been served to me out on the pavement so I’d not seen it being prepared. I therefore had no idea of measurements, of how to mix the two ingredients, of the order in which to put them in the glass and even of the best beer to use.

This is what Picon bieres should look like. NB- serving in glasses with the names of astronomical phenomena is not strictly necessary

What followed was, as a suitably appropriate sequel to our previous engineering project in the pool, the beer equivalent of Crick and Watson figuring out the structure of DNA. Yet again the gentlemen of the house descended on the task, this time in the kitchen and tried to decipher the exact way to create a drink that only one of them had ever tasted and the flavour of which had been described as ‘like a wet dream about a second cousin’ which, to be frank, wasn’t helping anyone. The label on the back of the Picon bottle seemed to offer some guidance but only a couple of us involved understand any French and neither of us did a GCSE in the language that covered the manufacture of regional beer cocktails.

Did we crack it? Not really. Obviously the secret of nailing a perfect Picon Biere is a closely-guarded secret passed down from father to son in the bars of the Loire Valley. As well as being printed in detail on the back of Picon bottles to be read by anyone with a decent level of French comprehension.

But, by God, trying to nail the recipe was addictive. For a while a kitchen in a French farmhouse turned into a ramshackle version of a British micro-brewery as 4 men battled with a few simple ingredients and measures to craft a perfect drink. Different continental lagers and blonde beers were tried, along with a variety of measures of Picon and every conceivable form of mixing technique. Frankly, that last one got a bit silly and a genuine attempt was made to mix the drink using a food blender. Oddly, this turned out to be one of our best tasting attempts.

But the drink I’d had earlier in the year proved elusive. No matter what we mixed, or how, it didn’t taste like it did sat outside that cafe in the back streets of La Rochelle. And, of course, unless I was back there it never could.

Are the French bad at beer? No, they aren’t. They just don’t have to make it as interesting as ours, because they’ve got much better places to drink it.

The day: 15.
The drink: Picon Biere (sort of)
The place: Near Decartes, France
Positives: Trying to figure the way to make Picon Biere out is as close as drinking has ever got to a spiritual quest for me.
Negatives: Quest ended in ultimate failure.
Conclusion: Everyone should try Picon Biere. But get a French bloke to make it.

biere · France · French beer · lager · picon · picon biere

First of all, the Duvel website is cracking. Well thought out with lots of good videos. There’s a day by day diary of how the drink is brewed, fascinating stuff. 

I considered this for the Drinks 30/30 but Ale in the living room barely qualifies. I’m really going to struggle to beat Matt’s beer on a tank. Unless I can knock back a pint of stout while sky diving or down a tumbler of scotch while rafting the Amazon, Taylor has this wrapped up. It’s not even a particularly exciting living room, there’s a fetching Dali-esque print from a local artist in Spain. The UK version of Law & Order on TV is disappointing, I don’t have anything against Bradley Walsh but he’s no Jerry Orbach. God rest his soul. He put Baby in a corner.

The Beer. At 8.5% it has a mad kick to it. It hangs around the back of the throat for a while. It’s not particularly golden either, it looks like someone washed some straw and this was what was left. I don’t judge a beer on how it looks though, unless it’s purple or blue. It tastes fine, it’s an tricky taste though. It tastes like your normal light golden ale then smacks you round the back the head with no warning. I’d imagine it’s like dating a hot ninja, they entice you in with their pleasant aroma, smooth taste and stories of bare handed chop-sockery and then KAPOW. Judo chop to the back of the head and welcome to a world of pain.

Lets wrap this up quickly so I can get back to Halo Reach. While I’ve no reason to dislike Duval, I just found that there’s far too much happening to make it a nice, casual beer. I seem to have found another beer for which this is neither the time nor place.

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If you have ever written a letter to Tim Wetherspoon (his lesser-known boyband name) please stop reading now, for the coming paragraphs will only antagonise you and prompt you into spending the next three hours sat at your desk penning a furious response, something along the lines of…

Dear Richard,

Myself and my wife have always greatly enjoyed your fine tales, drinking adventures and reasonably priced exploits in drunkenness. However, your recent mockery of Mr Tim Martin by means of illustrating how shit the food his miserable teenage staff make was, I must say, beneath the belt. Myself and my wife have many a time enjoyed Mr Tim Martin’s reasonably priced shit food, washed down with a pleasant drink – often “gratis”!!! In future, please leave this stalwart of great British business out of your so-called “discussions” of comically inedible food.

Regards,

Mr P Dimmond, Nuneaton

You will pass it to your secretary to proof-read, studiously ignoring any suggestions she makes; then you’ll email it to your wife at home, basking in the glowing reply she sends half an hour later. “Susan! Have this in the next post, post haste!” Please, if you don’t like hearing a bad word about your favourite local reasonably priced retailer of food and drink, stop reading now and save yourself that letter.

Over the last decade I’ve seen a lot change in my town, Blackburn, in ways that haven’t been seen in similar nearby towns. Quite a lot of pubs have disappeared and there are a few reasons why: first came the trial of late-night licensing in a few select pubs in the town centre. Blackburn was a guinea pig for this around the turn of the century, so I caught both sides of the scene, before and after the changes. First it was 1am, then 2am and by now it’s 4am. Everybody loved this at first – it was a chance to go out at a normal time and if you fancied, stay out an hour longer! Brilliant. Indeed it was, until the shift began towards people realising they could stay out later, so they could stay at home drinking first and come out later. Net effect: town centre pubs became mostly vacant until 10pm within a few years of this change.

The second cause has been the shift in drinking habits among my generation and the one beneath me. Alcopops and ciders have enabled younger and younger people to begin drinking in their own groups. They tend to favour bars and clubs – what I call anti-pubs – and a shift began around a decade ago that converted some of Blackburn’s old pubs into bars. Virtually instantly, that’s a place off the map for anyone who enjoyed a normal pub. On top of that, the bars don’t open in the day so it’s become a pub desert during the afternoon. It’s only an aside, albeit a sad one, that many of these converted bars are now closed altogether so whole streets have become pub- and bar-free.

The Postal Order: the scourge of real pubs. Courtesy of Cottontown.

And so we come to what I’d suggest is the third cause: yep, you guessed it, JD Wetherspoon. In Blackburn’s case it’s the Postal Order, occupying a grand old building pretty much right in the town centre. The effect when it opened was immediate: queues three or four deep at weekends and busy during the week. As Blackburn has died off, this has died off with it, but the proportional effect is still there: it always has a larger share of the trade than anywhere else in town, even if the total trade is lower. On any given afternoon, if you took all the old men, all the students and all the drunks out of the Postal Order and redistributed them across the town centre, there’d be enough business to keep three or four pubs alive.

That’s the first thing I’ve always vaguely resented the Postal Order for. I’ve always gone in there, had some good times over the years, but at the back of my mind I’d have always been happy to pay an extra 50p to be in a proper pub. Why didn’t I just go to a real pub, of course you’re asking? Well, that’s my point – Wetherspoons played a part in killing them off. If you haven’t been to Blackburn I can’t begin to describe what a desert it is in the town centre for an actual, normal pub. If you’re looking for some dinner and a pint, well, you’ve got two choices – there or O’Neills. That’s it. I resent them for crumbling away the choice of pubs in this town.

The second thing I’ve always been a little bitter about is that the place isn’t even good. It’d be much more palatable if the ultimate mega-pub in the world had shot up and the opposition had died off naturally – but no, the Postal Order has just emerged like a giant turd mound and swallowed everything beneath it. It’s battered, it’s always messy, the staff are so underpaid and overworked they change every week and don’t give a damn. Losing our genuine pubs to this beast is like Mike Tyson losing his arms at the peak of his career to some poxy infection he got from a splinter. One of the standard replies people always give in that apathetic, apologist voice is “well, the food’s alright…” purely to justify that they know they keep going back for the cheap beer. Well, the food is shite and you know it. These two recent experiences, by myself and Alex, made me realise just how little people are willing to accept in the name of a cheap drink. Exhibit A:

I think this is a Japanese innovation, boil-and-eat-in-the-bag.

Come on, Mr P Dimmond from Nuneaton, what is that?! I know you only defend the place because it’s the only pub you feel safe going in these days and your ego needs some assurance, but how many times have you seen shite like this and mentally glazed over the absurdity of it by rationalising that it’s cheap or just repeating the mantra, “the food’s alright”?

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit B:

The most appetising ham, egg and chips you'll ever have fortune to witness, courtesy of Alex.

I think it has become a too well-received piece of wisdom that the food in Wetherspoons “is alright”. It has, in effect, become a byword for saying “the food is shite but I want a cheap beer so I’m still going to go there”. This apathy has ended up with the only pubs I can go to for dinner in this town being a Wetherspoons, an O’Neills and a place that sells toasties to students with house music in the background. Tim Martin, credit to him, has built a successful business upon people’s levels of tolerance: until something is truly absurd and unacceptable, they will tolerate a great deal in the name of a cheap pint.

Perhaps I should have addressed all of this to Tim Wetherspoon himself. Let’s have a try.

Dear Tim,

I have always enjoyed your reasonably priced selection of fine ales, stouts and porters. Being a single man I have no wife to share these with, a fact which often sends me to sleep at night in a sinking pit of gentle weeping, but your occasional “meet the brewer” nights more than make up for this.

However, I must take umbridge with the decimation of my local pub scene at your hands. Like the Stay Puft Man rampaging through the streets of New York, you have wrought devastation in a seemingly carefree manner. I am left wondering if myself and a small bunch of maverick friends must cross streams in your award-winning yet strangely jaded urinals to put a stop to your rampage.

Please cease the expansion of your soulless empire at the earliest opportunity and allow a few real pubs to flourish.

Regards,

Richard

Blackburn · food · Ghostbusters · J D Wetherspoon · Postal Order · pub closures

Oh, so I drank one
It became four
And when I fell on the floor …
…I drank more

We all know Morrissey‘s lyrics are thought provoking, at some times baffling, and occasionally outright racist (in a daft way); but this phrase has always stuck with me as it epitomises the so-called “binge” culture which tends to vilify anyone who considers enjoying themselves on a night out. A culture which looks down on anyone who mentions they like beer or had more than a single bottle or can in an evening. Admitting to being a “bit rough” at work can often land you with counselling sessions, and if you’re not careful loose promotion prospects indefinitely.

Winston Churchil : The Original Boozer

Now the question is does this stop you from succeeding noting you enjoy a tipple or two or three or is it as soon as you sniff the barmaids apron you are doomed to a life of stale vomit and holidaying at her majesty’s pleasure. In Tony Blair’s recent autobiography we see he had a “drinking problem” as he enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine in the evening to unwind. In this country he has been shown as “weak” and parallels have been attempted to be drawn between his political decisions and after he “had a couple”. In other countries if he had admitted the same The French wouldn’t have cared the German’s would have slapped their leather pants and the Russians would think it was wrong if he wasn’t shown to be completely incapable at least once a month.

So what of the beer? Well the beer was a staggeringly overpriced “John Smith’s Bitter”; which is a far cry from the Tesco value beers which you can get for 12p a can; but its actually one you can drink a lot of very easily and get drunk from; unlike the other cheaper alternatives which is more a test of bladder endurance than anything else.

I cannot describe the entire evening, nor do I want to, but I enjoyed many cans of this fine beverage watched a couple of films, enjoyed a pizza and nattered to several of my friends. This is an evening which I have done before and I will most likely do again. It was nothing to shout about, it was a relaxing evening doing relaxing activities I was warm, content had a full stomach and aside from the every increasing need to visit the toilet went off without a hitch.

Had such an evening been no a street corner; in a park with a group of my friends I would have been instantly deemed as a public nuisance and a picture of modern Britain. Do I feel ashamed for breaking my weekly alcohol limit in a single night over the weekend? No; it is part of the fabric of modern life I wasn’t forced into it nor coerced by advertising I simply had a relaxing night in. Had I been in a public house laughing joking, playing pool before staggering home at 2am my picture may have ended up in the paper the next day detailing how we as a society have come off the rails and everyone should remember to eat “five a day”; never have more than a single glass of wine in one sitting and not raise our voice above a whisper past 8pm.

So this beer is dedicated to the hard working folks who work for a living, pay their tax and support society and may need once a week or so to enjoy more than a single alcoholic drink in a sitting; relax with good company and enjoy unhealthy food. Life’s too hard at the best of times, why make it harder? Lean back crack open a cold one and let the beer wash over you so at least for a short time you can forget your boss; forget the commute and leave the dishes in the sink until the following morning.

I never did quite make the floor, but I did reach my happy place where the rest of the world falls away and I remember what’s important to me.

The day: 14.
The drink: John Smith’s Bitter (several).
The place: Home.
Positives: Warm fuzzy feeling inside.
Negatives: Exponential need to visit the toilet.
Conclusion: Done right a few beers at home over the limits relaxes you and allows you to enjoy the company of friends more; you laugh more you cry; it unlocks your soul to the world you have been missing whilst at work.

beer · drunk · happy · home · john smiths · pizza · society · toilet

Lytham, home of posh ladies and buildings with propellors. And a few good pubs.

I know I shouldn’t go, but I might. I know I said I’d stay in, but I won’t. I know I say every week I’ll stay off the beer, but I never do. I know when Saturday comes, I’ll wake up ready to jump on the next train to Lytham and have a look at their beer festival.

Curse you, infernal temptation. My best laid plans always crumble thanks to timing like this. It’s been too long since I’ve done a festival thanks to combination of the usual summer drought and my other holiday plans, not to mention the fact I did them nearly every weekend at the start of the year. It is such cruel timing then to throw Lytham’s beer festival right in my face on the one weekend I swore I’d stay at home and be sensible.

Enough of my cursing, anyway. From Thursday to Saturday this week, it’s the fourth Lytham beer festival. This is a wonderful little seaside town, like a Blackpool without thousands of drunk Glaswegians, chip wrappers and 2p slot machines. Myself and Matt had a day out over there earlier this year and loved the place, so the prospect of a Saturday afternoon by the sea, back at The Taps and the station bar and with a beer festival on top is very difficult to turn down.

It’s coming back into beer festival season and despite my protestations to myself that I will stay at home, I may well see you down at Lytham this Saturday.

Beer festival · Lytham · The Taps

Orthodoxy has historically proven to be a trait of a) Greek Christians and b) people whose genome is so lacking in originality they class Phil Cool as cutting edge, spend their existence working to pay for an achingly formulaic semi-detached home and then die, leaving behind children whose memories of them extend as far as “he never turned up late for work”.

Orthodoxy, then, is not for Badpoo. If the world of beer had a map, it would have more avenues than New York and each one needs exploring. It is a shame that in many beer publications the same avenues are strolled down again and again, like an amiable family walk on a warm Sunday afternoon. Orthodoxy is the immediate impression, and it’s a pity because in its very nature beer has the capacity to take a person to great highs and lows and they are by definition more involving tales than the hoppiness of this week’s summer ale.

To it is, then, to the opticians with a gin.

I’ve had a strange time of late, vacillating wildly from day to day but old enough to know how to stay functional. There might have been a 30 Days, 30 Drinks Day 13: drinking in a dark place post in there somewhere, but those kind of tales don’t generally work out for the best so I stayed silent. Coming out of this stage in a better state of mind, and with a renewed enthusiasm for drinking in absurd places for the amusement of strangers, I went to my opticians appointment at noon today with a can of gin and tonic in hand.

Gin. This photo is here purely for your pleasure.

This was a spur of the moment thing, just like my bottle of Traquair by Ullswater. I told a friend last weekend that I had the urge to drink and write but it didn’t happen and that’s been weighing on my mind ever since, so when I wandered through Tesco killing time today before my appointment, and I saw those discreet cans of spirits that have appeared in the last year or two, a sordid little idea popped into my head. The most enjoyable brand of thought, surely.

I walked into the opticians, a new one to me: characterless, vacant, shoppers walking past the vast glass walls gazing in at the four-eyed fools checking once again just how bad their vision is. I spoke to the receptionist, a sad-sounding girl with a look of resentment in her eyes; who wants to work on a Saturday? An irritating wave of empathy flooded me and I began to regret being there, so I took a seat. These cans of spirits, pre-mixed with some kind of nauseating fizzy drink, are quite discreet so I wasn’t overly troubled with it sat in my hand. It looks like you’re drinking one of those miniscule cans of Coke that you see at childrens parties. Quite comfortable.

By nature I am subtle, quite quiet, somewhat reserved, not fond of attention. This is why sitting in an opticians with a can of gin troubled me quite greatly. I felt a curious blend of exhileration and fear, simultaneously enjoying the absurdity of having a crafty short while having my eyes checked out and utterly dreading what would happen if that poor receptionist challenged me. I don’t know which I enjoyed more: the simple comedy or the thrill of the chase.

That small can stayed with me throughout a battery of eye tests by the first optician I have ever met who doesn’t have the breath of a decaying dog, it stayed with me throughout my tests on a machine which essentially simulated Picard’s fearsome “four lights” scene and it stayed with me as I looked round at frames afterwards. They must have known what I had. I think I did it because of the intrigue of drinking on an allotment; in a strange way, the risk of being caught made something so actually meaningless quite interesting. I would recommend drinking gin in an opticians to people who find everyday life quite predictable and seek a small thrill of a weekend, but not those who think drinking gin while you’re having an eye test is inherently stupid.

The day: 13.
The drink: gin and tonic in a can.
The place: Optical Express.
Positives: felt a wave of excitement I had not in the past few weeks.
Negatives: the constant ponderance of what I would actually say if challenged over my behaviour led me to distraction and detracted from my enjoyment.
Conclusion: I’ll probably get wrong glasses because I was drinking gin during my test.

Blackburn · gin · Optical Express · tonic