How Do You Drink Yours?

I was walking home from my new writing room the other afternoon - and when I say writing room, I mean the public library in Rothwell - having just finished a commission about ordinary brown beer for Off Licence News. True to form, there were various problems with various breweries getting in touch in time to be included in the article. This was, I would guess, a combination of idleness, disorganisation and breweries employing PR companies who don't seem to know anything about the breweries they PR for. But I digress.

Walking back from my new writing room, feeling happy and tired, I thought I might drop into the pub for a pint. Sadly, all the pubs in Rothwell seem to major in John Smiths cask or Tetley's, and ironically, given that I'd just finished an article on ordinary brown beer, I didn't fancy either. In the end, I went to the supermarket, bought a bottle of Bateman's XXXB, and after ten minutes in an ice bucket (hey, you can't take the ponce out of me, even with ordinary brown beer), I sat and had a reflective glass of beer.

I reflected on the fact that I was having a beer in the middle of the afternoon, and how great it is to have a job and a lifestyle that allows this. Drinking beer for me has always been partly about a delineation of time. If I'm having a beer, then that means I've discharged my duties for the day, and I can relax and fritter away a few units of time in a way that I find relaxing and enjoyable. Reflecting more on it, this makes me sound vaguely like an alcoholic, but so be it. I like to work hard, and I like to have a couple of beers. In my world, this is quite normal.

In times past, before being nearly married, and before parenthood, I'd think nothing of going to a pub on my own with a book, or a newspaper, and while away a couple of hours reading, with a few pints and a comfy armchair. Lately, I'm more likely to stake a claim on the sofa, fire up the netbook, and open a beer. Years ago, when I briefly dabbled with smoking, a roll-up would be like a punctuation point in the day. These days, the paragraphs are longer, and the punctuation is beer. Either a new paragraph in the middle of the afternoon, or the end of a chapter mid-evening. As well as loving the tastes, and not objecting to a little mild intoxication, a beer means I'm having a bit of 'me time'. Please don't think that I use beer in order to get 'me time' - that would be a sign of a problem. But conversely, these days I rarely stay in the pub until closing time - in fact, I can't remember the last time I had a night out where the bar stopped serving.

And so, I'm curious - does this ring any bells with anyone? Is there a point where you think 'ahhh, that's that taken care of, I'll have a beer'? Or do people pop to the pub for a couple after work, and then not drink at home? Or do you generally go home and then go to the pub for 'lasties'? (that used to be my favoured mode). As I ask in the title - how do you drink yours?

In Praise of Ordinary Brown Beer

I've been drinking quite a bit of ordinary brown beer over the last couple of months. It started with a trawl of my local supermarket (Morrisons), with the vague idea of trying to buy beer like a "normal" person does. Morrisons has been doing a "4 for £5.50" promotion on a good chunk of their range for a few months, and I was just curious to see what you could get for your money.

Overall, the standard of ordinary brown beer on the supermarket shelf is pretty good. Nothing I tasted was technically faulty - nothing was skunked, oxidised or infected, it was all good clean fun. There was also plenty of differentiation between these lookalike beers - they might look similar, but they all taste different, and in fact, some of them taste really good. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that there are some classics you can up on the supermarket shelf for very little money.

Bateman's, Hook Norton and Greene King all had distinctive flavour profiles that really set my memory synapses whirring, not in a Proustian sense (there you go, Adrian), but in a way that made me think "God, this ordinary brown beer is not only distinctive and classically English, but actually really tasty".

I quite like ordinary brown beer, made with ordinary malt and hops. I don't think there's any disconnect between liking a pint of ordinary brown beer and liking a glass of concentrated West Coast hop ejaculate (for the avoidance of doubt, I'm using that word as a noun, and also using it as a form of praise). I like mashed potato, and I like really spicy Thai food - they are totally different tastes and textures, but I can still tell the difference between good and bad examples of both. Actually, I'm a sucker for all Thai food, good or bad, but I can definitely make some of the best mashed potato you've ever eaten.

There's a place for everything in the omnivorous drinker's fridge, and actually, liking one can sometimes help you understand why you like the other. Try it - you might like it too.


(TRANSPARENCY STATEMENT: I visited Greene King last year, and they showed me around the brewery, and arranged a tasting of their entire output, including Old 5X and BPA (the constituents of Strong Suffolk Vintage), plus some soon-to-be-released new beers. They sent me away with a couple of dozen freebies, some of which fuelled this post)