From what I’ve read and seen today it seems that half of the country is at a standstill, flights and trains cancelled, roads gridlocked and supermarkets stripped of all fresh produce in the belief that we are all DOOMED!!
But did any of you foolish panic buyers stop and think about drink? After all man cannot live by bread alone, or so they say.
Picture the scene, you’ve just been paid it’s three o’clock on a Friday afternoon and work have sent you home early so you don’t freeze to death. You get in the car and are steadily slithering your way home in scene resembling Ice Road Truckers. Out of the corner of you eye you spot something, no it’s not a Polar bear its your favourite local beer shop and it’s still open, serving the nation, stiff upper lip and all that.
All your instincts tell you to keep driving as if you stop you may never get going again, but it’s beer, maybe your last beer before you go to an icy grave and end up looking like Ötzi the Iceman.
Of course you stop, you have to, but what to buy, it may be your last beer ever and this damn snow may never ever stop..?
For me as it’s gonna be cold I want something warming so first on my list would be “Orkney Brewery” “Dark Island Reserve”, I’ve only had it once but it blew my socks off enough for me to rush out and buy two more. (looks out of the window and thinks, “why am I not drinking one now”).
Rich dark and full-bodied it’s a real winter warmer full of boozy fruits and chocolate toffee, there’s a proper full on almost port like thing going on that really stuck in my mind the last time I tasted it. That should keep Jack Frost from nipping at your nose.
Next up something Belgian methinks, my love of their beers just grows and grows so I must have at least one on what is perhaps my final shopping list. I’m going for a “Stille Nacht” by “De Dolle Brouwers“. It’s sweet in an altogether different way to it’s dark rich shopping basket mate above. Here we have caramelised apple, pears, shortbread biscuits and more, it’s a Christmas beer that avoids the stereotypical handfuls of winter spice, loaded instead with candy sugared fruits and bitter hops. A fine choice if I say so myself..
Last up I need something hoppy to cleanse those delicious but sweet indulgent beers off my palate and there is one beer that is currently rocking my world on that front, the wonderful “Hadouken” from “Tiny Rebel“. I tried a bottle a few weeks back and reviewed it here, there and then, I revisited it again last night and it was even better than I remembered, it’s a tropical fruit tsunami in a glass, just what you need to remind you of balmier summer days.
Just three beers I’ve chosen based on recent beers I’ve tasted, there are loads more of course but time is short.
The question remains though, what would you buy and why?
(If the answer is good enough I may even send you a beer)