Tag: beer

Good idea

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Tonight’s plan for a beer and curry night seems to have been one of the better decisions I have made of late. At the time of writing, we’re 60mm deeper in water than we were this morning, and it’s dark and grey and stormy out there, with no signs of letting up any time soon.

It’s already added 87,704,000,000 litres to our dams in the last week.
No big issue with that – I might need to water my lawn in December.

Anyway, the good news is that with a beer expert…

I didn’t know what the word for this was, so I asked Google.

Beerologist, libationist, beer devotee, wert guru, beer maven, beer expert, hophead, pisspot, a tippler, a grog artist, a boozer, a beer buff, a slops surveyor, an ale addict, a hops handler, a quaffer, and the chairman of the brewed.

I was looking for a technical, official term, but I got given this. Unhelpful.

Anyway, as I was saying, the good news is that with a beer expert a pisspot coming over this evening, I have got some different beers in to taste – mostly local, but some from Germany, and one from Belgium – and I have cooked up two moerse curries: a lentil and butternut korma and a great-smelling, masala-style chicken dish. There’s naan, there’s achtar (mango, obvs) and there’s homemade raita with fresh mint plucked from the garden before things out there got scary.

We’ll light the fire up (spoiler – it’s already lit) and play pool, listen to the latest tunes from the hit parade, and enjoy some heartwarming food and company.

Tomorrow might be a little iffy, but let’s deal with that if and when we need to, because tonight promises to be a lot of fun.

Not drinking, but it always makes sense to be prepared

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I’m trying to cut back on fun unhealthier things in life at the moment as the long road to post-Covid fitness continues. One of those things is beer, because it’s hard enough work to get the calories, inches and kilos off without the additional challenge of beer exacerbating those numbers.

But I might want to go back to beer (after all, who wouldn’t?) at any given time, and so I’ll just remind you all of this post. Because nothing in this world comes for free and increasingly, lots of stuff in this world costs a lot more than it used to:

So please forgive me for earning a bit of pocket money when I can.

Day 34 – Stash news

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Yesterday: another day of lockdown, another day of not touching The Stash.

Well done, me.

The Stash is the household alcohol supply – specifically my half of it. We’re not permitted to buy alcohol here during the lockdown, so it’s a case of making what you have, last.

My wife and I generally drink different stuff, so we can effectively divide the adult drinks into hers (gin, white wine, cider) and mine (brandy, red wine, beer). And we’re lucky in that I saw the lockdown coming and stocked up a bit before it hit us. We’re still ok for drinks at the moment, but it is a one-way street, because there’s going to be nothing new coming in for really quite some time.

I’ve realised that I have taken something of a scientific approach: subconsciously analysing my drinking habits, while (equally subconsciously) grading the drinks I have left. Some sort of informal scale has been drawn up mentally, and I refer to it often.

An aside: it’s interesting (to me, at least) that one starts drinking the decent brandy first, leaving the rough stuff til desperation strikes, while the “everyday” wine takes a hammering long before you contemplate the nice stuff hidden at the back of the cupboard under the stairs.

My first worry is beer though. I like beer and there’s not too much left. And so, by the laws of scarcity, every single one becomes more valuable: something special, not to be wasted. Add that to their already inflated value on the subconscious grading scale, and you can see that they need to be looked after.

Problem is that the first one each evening goes down like the proverbial homesick mole. Whoosh.

There’s a South African expression:

‘n boer maak ‘n plan

Literally, “a farmer makes a plan”: something about the indefatigable nature of the Afrikaans farmer, sure, but with an element of “necessity is the mother of invention” as well.

My invention is to replace my first beer with a cheap brandy and coke. Yes, the cheap brandy (I’m using Olaf Bergh, named after the noise you make after drinking three of them) is part of The Stash, but it’s a very minor part – way down the list from the heady heights of Castle Milk Stout. And it’s backed up by more cheap(ish) brandy in the form of two unopened bottles of Klipdrift Premium still safely sequestered.

It’s not great, but since it goes down like a fat kid on a see-saw anyway, there’s not too much afterburn. Immediate thirst quenched.

Not only does this mean that I don’t wastefully use up a first beer, it also means that I can’t have a second beer either – simply because I haven’t had a first. And thus The Stash remains in (relatively) good repair. Brandy and coke certainly wouldn’t be my first choice of beverage in any other situation, but if I were in fact a boer, it might well be, and that little bit of synchronicity makes me happy.

Tonight is pub quiz night and so I will require some actual beer, but that initial hit will once again be from Olaf, the previously unsung superhero of the lockdown.

Please join me in raising a glass to him this evening. What you fill it with is up to you.

The battle continues…

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The battle between the allied forces of my diet and my exercise, and my love of beer continues to rage on around my midriff. On the plus side, I’ve been exercising pretty regularly: just about every day to some degree.
Sadly, the high temperatures and my lack of will power has led to some erosion of the benefits of that exercise, in that I have enjoyed some (or more) beers next to the pool, with dinner or – in one particular case – next to the pool with dinner over the last week or so.

It could be worse. I could be drinking and not exercising. Or, if you choose to look at it another way, exercising and not drinking. And so while I’m not necessarily getting all that I could be from my runs or gym visits, I’m happy enough. Everything in moderation. Including, it would seem, progress on my fitness.

But there is progress. A few centimetres here, a couple of kilos there. I’m getting there (slowly). And the great news is that the bits that were the most hurty before Christmas are not the bits that are (temporarily) hurting after my exertions.

This morning’s 5km was my fastest of the year: indeed, looking back, (surprisingly) my fastest since 1st September last year. Evidently, things are on the mend.

Even if I won’t be able to stand up once I finish writing this post.

Ja. I’m a bit stuck. Could someone get me a beer, please?

Hello? Anyone?