The Good Life: ultra-spaf Felicity Kendal and bumbling middle class peasant Richard Briers.

This little challenge of ours seems to be taking a rummage through my subconscious because once again I’ve ended up drinking in an unusual place and realising the day after that I was outdoors. I’m like Ray Mears answering the call of the wild, only without a fishing rod and with strong ale.

Last evening I went to my allotment after work to drag some timber around, hoik spadefuls of earth from one patch to another and strenuously do whatever I could do to banish the soul-haunting misery of office life. For eight hours a day I have a window to the entire world right in front of me but I’ve never seen anything that compares to a single moment in the breeze, sun falling over the back of your neck, waist deep in piles and piles of horse shite and mud.

Earlier in the day I’d spent an awkward amount of time stood in the beer aisle of Morrisons weighing up whether to take a bottle down to the allotment. It crossed the two minute barrier in which I’ve normally just picked four bottles at random, and forced me to move to the wine section for a look even though I’d no intention at all of buying wine. I just felt a bit daft staring at beer for more than two minutes without picking anything up. After a moment I circled for a brief disinterested look at the lagers and then back to the beers for strike two. The problem was that the social rules of allotment drinking are as hazy and undefined as whether you’re allowed to jokingly whistle in appreciation of your cousin when she turns up at a party looking the bee’s knees. Is it okay? Does everyone get that your whistle is platonic and not a mating call, or does her husband still feel a flicker of competitiveness kick in? Nobody knows.

Thus it came to pass that I stood for quite some time in that aisle pondering whether cracking open an ale among the turnips would be perfectly fine or if I’d be ostracized like a man who’d battered a sheep to death. There was no definitive moment that swung it either way and made me pick one up – I just started feeling really daft for still being in that aisle and needed to get out of there. A bottle of Holt’s Humdinger was on offer and sounded like the right kind of beer to go with a bit of graft. You know the kind of image I was getting – me, sweating on the farm, earning an honest day’s crust and quenching the thirst of graft with a bottle of beer, and then oh, what’s that on the horizon, is that the farmer’s daughter? She looks pleased to see me, out here in these lonely fields, far from prying eyes…

I came to in the tinned vegetable section and realised if I am ever to have children, I must stop romanticising a world where I am a Victorian farm-hand bit-of-rough to a well-spoken English rose.

Science fact: fresh mint is little-known as a stimulant more potent than amphetamine * caffeine * Kris Akabusi.

Later, down on the allotment, I felt that weight of social expectation in action. It seemed as if I’d smuggled some dangerous contraband on to the plot that I could not reveal. Eventually, after sitting for a while surveying the scene, I took the bottle from the bag, opened it and left it on the floor for a little while. Nothing much happened, but I could feel the eyes on me already. They were all looking at me, weren’t they? The inner dialogue kicked in. “You’ve broken the rules, Richard. You’ve left the pack.”

Shaking my head to wake me from the grip of this silly fear, I took a spade and went to work. I felt as close to a Victorian farm-hand as Michael Winner does but hey, isn’t that what fantasies are for? Every so often when the aches began to kick in I’d stop, have a drink and put the bottle back down, conveniently out of view next to the shed. No point attracting unnecessary attention, surely.

Drinking on the allotment is possible, but I wouldn’t call it something I felt comfortable doing. This forces me to question where I really stand in terms of going along with the group and playing by the social rules that dominate everything we do. Truth be told, I work by exactly the same principles as everyone who has the normal functioning social senses – I pick up what will be frowned upon and decide whether what I want to do is really worth the hassle of dealing with that disapproval from the group. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t – that’s all it boils down to for me rather than needing some character analysis. Having a beer on the allotment was worth it to me, so I went for it, but I wouldn’t start drinking at a festival at 9am while everyone else is having tea – I’d feel uncomfortable.

This leads me nicely back to my old favourite, pubs. I think they work because the social rules expect you to drink in there – everything is understood implicitly so the serious English business of this socialising malarky can begin without hinderence or fear of any awkwardness. And so, I conclude, next time I fancy a Humdinger I’ll finish up at the allotment first and wander over to the pub.

The day: 11.
The drink: Holt’s Humdinger.
The place: my allotment.
Positives: renewed my faith in the great English public house; moved a good amount of earth.
Negatives: forced to confront my value system; beer was barely noticeable; missed the sociable atmosphere of a pub.
Conclusion: drinking while farming will not find me a wife.

allotment · farming · Humdinger · Joseph Holt · peer pressure · social drinking · vegetables · Witton

My drinking so far has taken in solitude and excess, two extremities which I’ve found interesting. It was quite novel appearing to be suicidal and the hazy recollections of being wazzocked on 7% Scottish ale made me laugh the next day, so it’s a thumbs up all round. Unfortunately this means that thinking of something to top these experiences is quite difficult, so it took me having a guest drinker to come up with something new and niche to match them.

To the golf course we go. Five minutes from home but a world away. Terraced houses turn into long lines of trees and homes seem twice as large. This is a typical northern town, crafted at a time when you lived and worked near the mill or you owned the mill and lived on the green hills overlooking the endless terraced streets. Revidge golf course sits at the top of one of these hills, two minutes from my house. Even though the mills are gone, the difference is still distinct.

And so we go back to a place I spent many nights during my youth. Right back at the beginning I drank whatever I could afford, normally either two bottles of red wine for a fiver or whatever cans were on sale. A few years down the line I had money and started to buy drinks I actually liked – two bottles of red wine for a fiver and whatever cans were on sale. The company changed over the years but not much else – I’d quite happily just go out there to sit and have a drink with whoever was around that night.

I went back to the golf course after years away. Nothing has changed. The path down still covers mud, concealed dips, aggressive branches and the house that looks like a millionaire footballer’s. At the bottom you still come out to clear skies and the smell of fresh grass, an expanse of green opening up before you whichever way you look. To the right are the holes where I used to play javelin with the flags and to the left are the men in polo shirts talking about business. Nothing has changed in all these years I’ve been away.

We went to the left, to the steps by the trees lit by the club car park. In the distance is Blackpool Tower, the sea and the sparkling lights of the motorway heading north. In a sudden rush all of this comes back to me. The grass in front of me fills with my friends leaping about, laughing, bottles clinking on the floor. The old tensions come back to me even though I don’t feel them any more – wondering what she thinks about you, wondering if he found you funny, old neuroses bouncing back like balls thrown to the bottom of the sea bed hurling back up to be seen again.

The bottle of lager in my hand feels unfamiliar and I’m with someone who wasn’t there back in the day, but everything else feels the same. The view hasn’t changed and it’s still eerily quiet when you stop talking. The only thing that’s really changed is me. My instincts associate this place at this time of night with a chaotic lifestyle, romantic uncertainty and building up the friendships I still have to this day. But those things don’t feel real any more – they’re just cold memories of being someone else. Drinking here, with a different drink and a different person, feels almost like fraud – trying to latch myself today on to something that belongs in yesterday.

Drinking on the golf course was not an unpleasant experience, but it did feel wrong somehow. It was like watching a cartoon from the 1980s and discovering it was really quite bad – it’s not nice to have your rose-tinted memories tarnished unexpectedly. As much as I love the place, I think it’s somewhere that really belongs in my past.

The day: 10.
The drink: two giant bottles of lager, one mostly thrown across the golf course, and an organic ale.
The place: Revidge golf course.
Positives: enjoyed the view on a pleasant evening.
Negatives: experienced a strange series of flashbacks to a drink-fuelled chaotic youth.
Conclusion: I’m glad I’m not still 19.

Blackburn · golf course · Revidge

Right- let’s cut to the chase here. Wychwood’s Wychcraft is very lovely- it’s nice and refreshing and it tastes of beer. I had a pint today. It was nice. It was refreshing. It tasted of beer. And I had it at the Four in the Hand in Didsbury, which is a nice pub- albeit a bit big and airy.

And it’s got a tank in the car park. Just plonked right there in the corner. No fanfare, no signs, no explanation, no velvet rope around it and a Do Not Climb sign. Just a tank. Plonked right there in the corner. Of the car park.

Be honest, how often have you had the chance to have a beer while sat on a tank? Have you ever? Well, if you haven’t, you have my sympathy. It’s brilliant. I could bang on here for around 800 words about drinking a pint of beer while sat on tank but, to be honest (and in a first for BadPoo), there really isn’t anything whimsical and silly to say about it. And there’s absolutely no connection between the nice pint and the tank I was sat on while I drunk it.

I just had a beer on a tank. Sometimes, life really is worth living. Here’s a picture.

Best. Pint. Ever.

The day: 9
The drink: Wychcraft by Wychwood
The place: A tank, in the car park of the Four in the Hand, Didsbury
Positives: I drunk a pint of beer while sat on a tank
Negatives: I’m not doing it right now

tank · wychcraft · Wychwood

If you head behind St Mary’s Church in the preposterously good beer-mecca that is Kirkby Lonsdale, you’ll come to a scene known as Ruskin’s View. It was famously painted by Turner in 1818, and with good reason as it’s an achingly pretty example of the British countryside playing a blinder.

It got to be known as Ruskin’s View, however, because the Victoria art critic John Ruskin saw Turner’s painting and went to take a look himself. He declared it to be “one of the lovliest views in England” and it subsequently became synonymous with him rather than, say, the bloke who took the time and effort to paint it. I can’t help think that Ruskin’s getting a bit too much of the credit for drawing everyone’s attention to this admittedly gorgeous slice of Cumbria.

Turner's picture, which he simply called Kirkby Lonsdale Churchyard since Ruskin hadn't been born yet

It also means that Kirkby Lonsdale Brewery- as run by the owners of The Orange Tree, the village’s mightiest pub (now they’ve got rid of the smell)- have called their bitter ‘Ruskin’s’ rather than ‘Turner’s’. Despite the painting and everything. Honestly, you really do have to wonder what it takes to get your name on a pump-clip these days.

The opportunity did present itself, though, to try a beer in the exact place it’s named after, looking at the same thing that the bloke from whom the beer gets its’ moniker was also looking at all those years ago. And so an attempt could be made at trying to understand an area of brewing that’s always intrigued me- how do you make a beer taste like it’s name? As well as tasting like, y’know, beer.

Staggeringly, after a month of seemingly solid drizzle (which, typically, began on the very same day that the North West announced a hosepipe ban) it was a beautiful morning as I sat on a bench and looked out over the same vista that had so snared Turner and Ruskin. I had the beer kept close by as it was still early in the day and I didn’t fancy having all the passing dog walkers thinking I was a raging alcoholic communing with nature or, even worse, trying to explain to them the whole 30 days challenge we’ve got going on here.

After perusing the label and taking a few swigs it was intriguing to see that the chaps at Kirby Lonsdale Brewery had decided that the most appropriate way to put a drinker in mind of one of Britain’s most famous views is via a 3.9%, easy drinking bitter with a little bit of spice and a finish that’s longer than the school summer holidays. Even more intriguingly, and as a fine tribute to the brewers art, they’ve absolutely nailed it.

Ruskin's View as photographed by me. The beer tastes like this photo. Sort of.

I’ve slugged back many a pint of Ruskins on my trips to Kirkby Lonsdale (as well as the brewery’s other ales which are readily available throughout the town and highly recommended) but with the morning sun out at the place that gave the beer its’ name everything just seemed to make a little more sense. The little bit of fruit which is somewhere in the mix seemed perfect for a bright day, that spice gave it a little bracing kick which is perfect for a bright August morning and, don’t ask me how, but it just tasted like the vista. I really can’t explain how but it did.

I liked to imagine Ruskin himself gazing at the exact same view with a beer in hand too- possibly pondering how he could hijack it with it’s own name rather than the man who immortalized it on canvas. I imagine Turner himself also with an ale on the go as he painted his picture- though not too many or he’d have got a bit squiffy and not coloured within the lines quite as neatly as he did. And I looked across to the other side of the valley and right there is a stone circle from thousands of years ago, erected for who-knows-what reason (personally, I’ve always subscribed in hope to the idea that it was for the crazy, goat-sacrificing, naked-dancing, virgin-deflowering rituals that we all like to think the ancient British tribes indulged in and which live on today in places such as Burnley town centre on a Saturday night).

Historical research (and by that I mean Wikipedia) tells us that beer has been around possibly since as far back as 9,000 BC and was spread through Europe around 3,500 BC. Though I bet even then there was places where you could only get bloody Tetleys. This means that, as I stared across the countryside with an ale in hand, I was probably doing something that a bloke had been doing over 5 millenia earlier, staring back across the valley by his newly built circle of stones and thinking “if I invented painting, I could go up there and paint the view. Then some other bloke could get it named after him”.

This was unexpected. Historical perspective is rarely the result of a beer, even a really nice one, but by sampling this particular brew, in this particular place, I became crushingly aware of my own historical insignificance. Thousands of years ago, a man in this place had helped build a magnificent stone circle to beguile people through the ages. Turner had sat here and created a beautiful piece of art. Ruskin had come here and with a few words, sealed the view’s place in the hearts of so many. And me? I sat here one morning and drunk a beer.

Ruskin’s View- come for the vista and the beer, stay for the grim sense of personal irrelevance.

The day: 8
The drink: Ruskin’s by Kirkby Lonsdale Brewery, 3.9%
The place: Ruskin’s View, Kirkby Lonsdale
Positives: A beautiful beer and a beautiful place to drink it.  This is as good as life gets…
Negatives: …until the crippling sense of personal underachievement kicks in
Conclusion: Fittingly, one of the best towns to drink beer produces one of the best places to drink one.

Beers · kirkby lonsdale · kirkby lonsdale brewery · ruskin's · ruskin's view

Traquair House Ale. An hour after drinking this, you will start to find Phil Cool funny.

Inadvertently I seem to have adopted a rural theme to my experiments in drinking. First I had my bottle of honey beer as far from civilization as I can get in one day, and now I’ve ended up sampling a bottle of lethal ale next to Lake Ullswater.

This came about quite by chance as I ended up going away for the weekend and had to come up with a plan on the fly. Drinking in isolation had been done, so there was no thought given to sailing out into the lake and sitting on a paddle boat supping. On a walk into Pooley Bridge I considered picking up a can of Stella and walking round the tourist information centre with it, but I wasn’t in the mood for a beating by a rambler. The pubs there are pleasant enough but basically nondescript, so the pints there came and went without incident.

It boiled down to the penumtimate day of my trip away when I picked up the bottle I’d end up having, a Traquair House Ale. At 7.2% it stood out amongst the other overpriced quaint ales in one of those arty deli shops that litter the Lake District – cheese for £8 a block and crackers made of rice, you know the type. Sitting among a bunch of beers which I knew would be utterly bland behind the fancy label was this, the Traquair, one of those that goes with the “less is more” ethos or, if you prefer, you don’t get as much because a half blows your head off.

I can report that this beer does indeed blow your head off. I finally ended up drinking this near the very northern tip of Lake Ullswater, on the shore adjacent to my campsite. I was sober when I got to the lake but I was most distinctly not when I left. For such a potent beer it has a very drinkable smoothness to it after the first bite so it seemed to drain from my plastic wine glass all too quickly (hey, I was camping, okay – no room for a real glass).

Lake Ullswater as the sun goes down. It was either this or the violent ale which made me feel happy.

Aided by a glass of wine as a spectacular sunset went down across the lake, I discovered that the effects of Traquair are time-delayed and thus this beer should be treated as the highest risk offender in the “Lethal Ales” category. It is easy to drink, appears not to affect you particularly for a good hour, but then crashes down upon you like a pissed Geordie staggering into his tent (there were many, many of these at Park Foot). My recollection of the end of this particular evening extends to me throwing my contact lens case across my tent in a rage, taking some peculiarly-angled photos of the people in the tent and finally collapsing prostrate in my jeans, only to awaken shivering and somewhat confused an hour or two later.

While a good night was had by all, my abiding conclusion from this beer experience was that I’m right to avoid beers over 5% whenever possible. As a rule of thumb I avoid them in pubs and this Traquair was a good reminder why. While I might try a half at a beer festival, for drinking by the side of a lake while camping I am merely inviting some seriously poor camera work, potential hypothermia and the loss of my contact lenses.

Lake District · Park Foot · Pooley Bridge · Traquair · Ullswater

Perhaps the oddest cultural movement of the last few years, aside from the popularity of books ‘written’ by Jordan or the encroaching universal sense of impending doom, is the repositioning of cider from hearty drink of rural labourers to an aspirational gourmet product with the metrosexual status previously enjoyed by things like sushi or Toni and Guy.

When you think about this, it’s a smart move by those involved. Booze has, for thousands of years, been defined along gender lines in the way perceptively identified by Al Murray’s Pub Landlord- pint for the fellas, fruit based drink for the ladies. Therefore, all booze was ultimately restricting itself to half the possible market as all women who drunk pints were eyed with the same suspicion as any bloke would be if they were spotted quaffing Bacardi. The No Man’s Land between the two was small and clearly marked ‘Shandy’.

Cider was the one drink ideally placed to appeal to both markets- as it comes in pints for the chaps but has the requisite fruit content which would attract the female drinker. (Before anyone writes in to complain about such crude stereotyping, I’m aware that this is actually nonsense and that plenty of women enjoy nothing more than a nice pint of ale. I mean they’re all weird gender-traitors but they’re out there and I’m aware of them)

So in recent times cider makers have added a few new fruits to their range (Pear! Strawberry! Pear and Strawberry!) and gone in for the kill. Possibly the most successful has been Jacques by Bulmers which comes in two flavours- ‘Fruits des bois’, which is basically French for ‘berries’ and ‘Orchard fruits’ which is English for ‘stuff that grows on trees’.

Some Jacques. Yesterday

Drinks like this are mainly aimed at the summer market so it seemed like the appropriate thing to do would be to try one in a beer garden on a hot August day. Unfortunately, this plan was scuppered by a) it not being a hot August day and b) me still being unsure what the concensus is on whether Jacques is an acceptable drink for a bloke in a Northern pub- especially the one near me where the primary activities within are discussing rugby league, cursing and sweating.

Therefore I decided to go somewhere hot and girly it up to see if this is the drink that could finally break down the gender divide and truly appeal across the sexes. It was time for a nice, steamy bath.

The drink itself is very, very fruity and clearly designed to appeal to anyone who doesn’t like an alcoholic taste in anything they drink. It’s eerily reminiscent of Apple and Blackcurrant Capri Sun which my mum always put in my packed lunch when I was going up and so lending the drink a misty-eyed, nostalgic quality as well. I’ve got to say it was absolutely lovely and, for a while, the sweetness was brilliantly refreshing in hot water.

A bath. Images of me drinking Jacques in a bath are available at www.chunky-bathers.co.uk

Then, the sweetness turned to stickiness which, combined with the dehydrating heat of the bath, unleahsed a kind of oral armageddon on my unsuspecting self. Everything in there was desperately clinging to everything else in a sort of clammy group hug between teeth, tongues and gums. It was fruity in there, sure, but also desperately uncomfortable. Imagine a tense family meal involving a teenage son’s outing that takes place on a strawberry plantation and you’ll kind of get the drift.

I desperately wanted a bitter shandy or a G&T but I soldiered on with the Jacques. The feeling of having a drink in a nice relaxing bath was actually very pleasant- a few of lifes luxuries coming together to make things a little nicer and take my mind off whatever. Unfortunately, as my cares slipped away, was forced to focus entirely on the fact that the fruit cider was trading off refreshing fruity pleasantness for the ability to swallow or produce any saliva whatsoever. An hour or so later I was both completely unwound from the bath and the alcohol as well as delrious with dehydration for pretty much the same reason.

And what of the drink itself? Does it unite the genders in the way that the marketing men clearly hope? Well, a spot of research suggests that there’s no real difference in the ability of men or women to deal with fruity booze sand-blasting all the moisture out of their gobs. Of course, this might just be a consequence of me knocking it back in a steamy bath. If you drink it somewhere that isn’t boiling hot it’s probably lovely.

So, whether or not it appeals to both boys and girls, it’s at least achieved one of it’s aims. It’s the ideal British summer drink.

The day: 6
The drink: Jacques Fruit des Bois
The place: The bath
Positives: Drinking in the bath is actually a nice way to unwind
Negatives: Dear God this stuff makes your mouth get sticky
Conclusion: Ideal drink for British summer, not ideal for hot places.

Bath · Bulmers · Cider · Fruit · Jacques

It’s time to combine drinking and video games, two of my favourite hobbies. The drink in question is that old friend Jennings’ Cumberland ale. The game in question is Mass Effect 2, a game so superbly brilliant, I’m on my second playthrough. I’m in the garage as that’s where my xbox is. It’s the sort of garage that has become part reception room (it has a carpet, or carpets to be accurate) and part storage room. It is however not the sort of garage where anything vaguely mechanical will ever happen. One of those garages. Consisting mainly of a mixture of furniture and warehouse levels of shelving, it’s become the perfect place for relaxing when the weather is bad. It also has a large fridge full of drinks. Time permitting, crap will be sorted and some sort of sofa installed. For now though I will settle for my camp chair with is surprisingly comfortable and the perfect height for the TV.

Seems it’s time to take a break from Mass Effect, I’ve written one paragraph in 90 minutes, this deserves more attention.

Now that I trust the scene is set,  I’ll move onto the beer. There’s not much you need to know about Jennings Brewery other than it’s near Cockermouth in Cumbria and they brew a good range of beer. The bottle gives little away about this drink, there’s barely any usable description, there is however a pleasant picture of a lake. Just to remind us we’re in the Lake District now. Your correspondent is a fan of the Lakes national park, having lived there and sampled many of the local ales and pubs.

Cumberland is a deep, golden beer that sits nicely on the tongue. At 4.0% it’s light enough to be enjoyed at any time of day. Like many ales it’s vastly improved by sitting in a beer garden by a lake or river. It also tastes like soil. I like a beer with hints of earth. You can almost taste the connection to the ground from which it came.  You don’t get that with mainstream lagers. Cumberland is like an old friend, it has a very nice summary taste. It has that right combination or sweetness and bitterness and works in all situations. It’s also available on tap in lots of pubs, not just in Cumbria either. It won’t stop you in your tracks and you could easily argue that it’s too much of a ‘safe’ beer to be worth a look at. For me though this still ticks enough boxes  to be worth a purchase.

As for drinking in the garage? That added nothing to the experience. I’d much rather have been in the shed but Matt already claimed that.

The day: 5
The drink: Jennings Cumberland
The place: The garage
Positives: Beer + Xbox make for many a great night. This beer was also used recently in a steak and ale pie to great success.
Negatives: Drinking in the garage is boring.
Conclusion: Good beer, dull location. Don’t drink in the garage on your own.

Beers · Cumberland · garage · Jennings

Edit. This review has become a comedy of errors. I forgot to make any notes while drinking Marston’s Old Empire apart it being ‘pleasant if a little heavy’. This clearly doesn’t constitute a decent review so it’s Shepherd Neame’s 1698 instead. If you’re wondering why day 4 comes after day 6, it’s because after drafting this review, the drink continued to flow and this was left behind. Apologies.

Let’s set the scene, it’s nearly the middle of August, the rain/sun battle is currently being won by the big ball of gas in the sky, it’s a little breezy. Ideally I’d be by a canal/river/lake but those are a tad too far away. I’ll settle for the soothing sounds of next door’s water feature. Also it’s that sort of early afternoon sun that although still warm, makes it very difficult to see what I’m typing. You get the picture.

On the with drink. First impressions are ok, the bottle proclaims 300 years of brewing since 1698, it’s now 2010. I presume they either took 12 years off (maybe for wars) or they just don’t want to reprint the labels. Either way the bottle is presented with a simple blue label as we all associate Kent with being blue (don’t we?) There’s a lot of love for Kent with this drink, the neck label stating that Faversham is the ‘market town of kings’. So now we know where to find royalty of a Sunday morning. This must be in the way the Altrincham is the market town of footballers. There’s an entire evening’s worth of reading on the back, a bit more than my liking so I’ll save time by mentioning CAMRA says this is REAL ALE. There’s a picture and everything.

Existential crisis over it’s time for tasting. There’s naff all aroma to this, if I plunge my nose right into the glass, I can pick up enough scent to confirm it is in fact a beer. But that’s all. There’s a deep honey/red colour to the drink. Which is nice, it looks like it should contain some flavour.

Hang on, just spotted a label which reads ‘protected geographical indication’. Answers on a postcard.

The deep colour does well to indicate the deep flavours and you can certainly taste the 6.5%. I like a drink I can actually taste but this sits at the back of the throat for a while, it’s very heavy. Hops are added to the mix three times during the brewing process and I think this is at least once too many. There’s a heavy presence of toffee in the taste which makes the drink pretty damn quaffable. This is certainly a session beer. With it’s respectable percentage, it needs to go on the ‘danger beer’ watch list. This is certainly as dangerous as Blonde Witch. You may be thinking this is a review of contradictions, and you’d be right. I like this beer but right now if someone offered me one, I’d decline. Wrong time of year. Ask me in a few months and I’ll bite your hand off.

The day: 4.
The beer: 1698, 500ml, about 6.85% ABV.
The place: Back garden, Merseyside.
Positives: It’s a nice beer for a certain occasion.
Negatives: That certain occasion isn’t a warm Summer evening, the heaviness restricts when this can sensibly be drunk. Certainly a session beer, I’ll definitely come back to this around October but not before, and not when I fancy ‘just the one’.

P.S. I think we should call this challenge the Drinks 30/30. Much snappier.

No tags

The current motto for Hobgoblin is “What’s the matter Lagerboy, afraid you might taste something?”; which roughly translates to “Come and ‘ave a go; if ya think yur ‘ard enuff!”. Fighting talk for a fighting beer; the campaign featuring this slogan was labled as “offensive and agressive”; but then the only people who should be defensive about beer are alcoholics and Guardian readers.

This of course brings me on neatly to the location. Nowhere better to consume this fighting beer than Norath on my alter ego so I headed off to my bar to check out the supply of this heady brew.

Good news; the barmaid had it in! So whilst I waited for the wench to dig out this beverage I reviewed the necessary equipment for fighting dragons.

• 1 mythically enchanted sword, sharp enough to shave with? CHECK!
• 1 set of plate armour able to withstand the hottest dragon fire ? CHECK!
• 1 specially hardened shield; capable of deflecting a dragons feeble attempts to disembowel me? CHECK!
• 1 solidly built helmet with cool wings on? CHECK!
• 1 stein with spill-proof anti-damage dragon killing beer? CHECK!

Obviously I had to test this beer under the harshest of conditions and that meant fighting a dragon. Thankfully I knew of one and buoyed on by the fighting talk on the side of bottle I was easily able to attract the attention of one Waansu; somewhat cranky after just recently been freed from Perah’Celsis’ Laboratory where he was used as a experimental guinea pig.

Don’t worry; he was evil. The fact his horde was full of gold coins and contained many magical items never came into the discussion when my guild choose this target to protect the weak and defenceless of Norath.

Cracking open the bottle to empty into my spill proof stein wasn’t as easy as you might think. Perhaps I should have prepared this beer before attacking the dragon but the dragon’s claws offered a surprisingly efficient alternative to the humble bottle opener.

The first swig held nothing back however at assaulted the taste buds with a rage that told you. It was here and it was going to stay; similar in fact to when I took down one of the wings of Waansu making him unable to fly away. We were both in it for the long haul and no-one would be leaving until a dragon was dead and my beer was finished!

After a while it was easy to settle into the rhythm hack slash duck and swig. Each subsequent swig not as brutal as the first but the flavours were still as strong as my sword arm. This is certainly not a drink for the weak.

There is a certain sense of needing to take a moment every time you take a swig, this beer cannot be ignored and even if you attempt to slake that thirst in the midst of battle it wil drive back home how much flavour it has bring you sharply away from the important matter of dragon killing to the beer itself.

Of course as with everything it must end and as the mighty dragon finally succumbed, I drained my stein in victory before setting about with avengence at its horde.As my guild were recuperating at the bar I returned the empty bottle to the barmaid and proceeded to give my verdict.

The day: 3.
The beer: Hobgobblin Ale, 500ml, about 4.8% ABV.
The place: Norath, Perah’Celsis’ Abominable Laboratory
Positives: Certainly a fighting beer and doesn’t hold back on the flavours; easy to open top even in the midst of battle.
Negatives: Certainly not a quaffing ale for celebration the almost over powering flavours need to be savoured . Does not go well with snacks and there is difficulty in drinking it with a helmet on.
Conclusion: It claims its a fighting beer but in the heat of battle a more refreshing ale is required. Ironically the fighting beer… is best enjoyed in a warm inn room at the fire. A very good beer but a beer which takes all of you to enjoy it.

ale · beer · dragon · eq2 · fighting · norath

Does anyone drink supermarket own-brand booze? I ask because it seems there are certain products where people just aren’t willing to buy the stuff made by the shops themselves, who cobble together their own version of the leading brands and sell them a little bit cheaper. Baked beans, for example are a no-go; as is cereal. This is not to even mention the crimes committed by Asda and Tesco in the name of my beloved chocolate digestives.

And alcohol is another one of those areas where own brand products are to be absolutely avoided unless at gunpoint at the very least. Once, in a week at University close to the end of term and therefore with the student loan already well burnt through, I attempted to take a swing at getting drunk on Tesco bitter. It was beyond awful. One of the people I was with stated that it tasted of nothing. Wrong. It tasted of shame.

But then we come to the Co-op who have taken a different, cleverer turn in this area. Their own brand ales are brewed for them by such folk as Thwaites and Freeminer and are therefore at least attempting to get on the right side of lovely- not entirely successful if Richard’s lonesome experience yesterday is anything to go by. Today, I’m turning my attention to their cider and drinking it in my garden shed.

Here’s why: the Co-Operative has always tried to inhabit the notions of working people joining together in collective endeavours for the benefit of all. And where do men go to do their finest work? In the shed. Their beloved sheds. Women don’t have this association with sheds but the world of cider is making it’s own strides to address issues of gender roles in contemporary society. I’ll get to that in a few days time.

For now though, to the shed and to the drink.

The cider in the shed. Accompanied by genuine sense of homecoming.

Straight off the bat, it’s refreshing- tingly rather that fizzy, a little bit sharp and then a sour kick right at the death. It kind of occupies the middle ground between mass produced ciders and traditional scrumpies- as indicated with it’s strength of 6% which will certainly do the job but is nowhere near the mind-bending potency of the cloudier, flatter stuff. This makes it all the better for sloshing back while sheltering in the garden shed from a minor summer rainstorm which is exactly how I came to be drinking this particular bottle. I’d been dimly aware of approaching rain and decided to get a move on give the lawn a much-needed mow ASAP before it came. However, by the time I’d untangled the extension cord- which had been tidily rolled up with absolute precision by myself a month earlier and had remained utterly untouched since and yet STILL came out resembling something MC Esher would draw while pissed- the clouds had gone that heavy threatening grey shade which is the official colour of August in Britain. I charged around the lawn at speed but was still caught short by the weather- meaning I had to immediately fling the extension cable into the shed (literally undoing all the good work I’d done untangling it moments before) and dive in for cover after it.

This left me sweaty, angry and looking at a lawn which was only cut on one side and therefore appearing to do an impression of Phil Oakey from the Human League. So I cracked open the bottle and then it hit me; don’t ask me how it does it but cider is the taste of male bonhomie and endeavour. By the way, when I say ‘cider’ I mean the proper stuff, not Strongbow which is the taste of truants in a bus shelter.

Somehow the sweetness of the apple and the sourness from the fermentation just gives it the flavour of that collective working spirit I mentioned earlier that so sums up both the Co-op and the garden shed. I pondered this for a while as I drained the bottle and the rain passed before, emboldened by now following in the drinking tradition of good, honest outdoor toil, I set back to finish mowing the rest of the lawn.

Unfortunately, I forgot to consider the fact it had been raining so the wet grass of the lawn clogged up the mower and the fact I’d had a bit of a drink meant that a certain amount of precision was removed from my grass cutting technique. Soon the garden was no longer impersonating Phil Oakey and had instead moved on to a passing resemblance to the lead singer of A Flock of Seagulls.

And so, by drinking this cider in the shed I’d learned two things. I’d learned how this drink, in this place, summed up the spirit of good British graft in the fields. And, after knocking it back, I’d learned why we never really manage to get anything much done anymore.

The day: 2.
The drink: Co-op Tillington Hills Premium Cider, 6%
The place: My garden shed
Positives: Chimed in with the heart of British arable workers and their enduring spirit via a very nice and drinkable cider.
Negatives: My lawn is now a right mess, the extension cable’s all tangled up again.
Conclusion: Drink in a shed  by all means.  Just do the gardening first.

Cider · Co-Op · freeminer · Garden shed · Thwaites