Isn’t beer fantastic?

Posted in Old blogger by Twenty Major on May 30th, 2006

I think beer is great. I’m sure many of you who have been reading this site for a while will know already that I’m fond of a pint but every now and then you have to step back a bit to appreciate it.

My main tipple is Guinness. Ron the Barman’s serves the best Guinness in Dublin knocking Mulligans on Poolbeg Street into a close second. It’s just delicious when it’s good. Not at all delicious when it’s not and it doesn’t take much to turn Guinness from a great drink into one that can curdle the contents of your stomach in seconds.

But it’s not just stout that’s worth drinking. A fine ale is always welcome and a good bitter can be just the thing but we don’t get that in Ireland. It’s very much an English thing.

Lager. Common but fantastic as well. Go away to the sunshine in the summer and sample the delights of the meditteranean. A Moretti in Italy or a San Miguel in Spain. What about the delicious refreshing Coronitas you get with a chunk of lime in the top when you come up from the beach and your mouth is full of salt water and sand? Mexicans beer + Mexican food = taste heaven but it really does your ring no good the next day.

Let’s look at Belgium, the most useless country ever - apart from all the brilliant beers they make. They lock monks away in monasteries and tell them Christ will violate them unless they brew beers which are stronger than most wines. And what a collection. I remember passing many an evening in Belgo, which has now closed down sadly, where you could get all sorts of Belgian beers. They would knock the bollix off you.

Germany - man, those fuckers know how to drink beer. “Eine smallen bier, bitte” and they give you a 4 litre jug. Brilliant. And they just sit around in beer gardens eating meat while they drink. Show me the flaw in that plan.

Shame America has never given us a beer worth drinking and they invented ‘Lite beer’ which makes me think they haven’t got a fucking clue. ‘Lite beer’. Jesus. Just stay at home you giant Marys. We’ll have none of that shite here.

Most of us go out of a weekend and drink beer and we take it for granted. We don’t appreciate it for all the brilliant things it does for. It makes us talkative when we are not feeling too sociable, it makes us eat battered sausages when normally we wouldn’t touch them, it gives us confidence and the ability to become a raconteur and story teller so witty that Ustinov himself would curl up and die and it allows ugly people to have sex more often than they should.

So don’t forget when you’re having a beer the next time to say thanks for all that beer has done for you.

I love you beer.