Beer.

I have been drinking beer for about thirty seven years............I could lie & say I was only six when I started but you know better!  What is it with beer? Getting served in pubs underage out with mates, having a laugh, well you couldn't drink lemonade could you, had to be a 'proper' drink. My Dad worked for Whitbread's in the days when they brewed beer so it was always in the house. Infact as he worked for the Diplomatic Sales Division  the beers , lagers I should say, were stronger than you could buy in the UK at the time & I didn't really like it!  I got more of a taste for it I guess & quite liked some of the bitters like Tankard, then I saw this mysterious beer drawn by a hand pump called Ruddles County, wasn't greatly struck on  the flavour but there was something about it.
I read up abit on Real Ales & saw a great quote which goes 'Being a beer lover and living in Britain is like being a wine lover and living in France.' I understood that and decided to explore Real Ale in , what shall we say, alittle more depth.
Most of my friends at the time were just lager louts, one drank lager & lime (yuk!) & another, always striving to be different drank lager and blackcurrant & for a while lager & coke!
Then we discovered The Kings Head on Harrow on the Hill, long since converted into flats sadly, this place had several bars on different levels throughout the old building & down in the depths of the building, the very bowels of this great edifice was the Real Ale bar.  You could pretty well hear the animal howls & strange scratchings as you approached down through the half light of the staircase down ,down ever down to the inner sanctum. It was probably the least furnished bar with just simple tables &  chairs, a video game called 'Frogs' and the bar, nay the high alter itself!  If memory serves they had anything up to a dozen different beers poured straight from the barrel, I suppose it was more of an old fashioned tap room. I first tasted Theakstons 'Old Peculiar' here, at 5.6% it's strong stuff. Had my stag night here, when a stag night was just that-one night! It was my round and everybody wanted something different, a couple of lagers, a Guinness, an ale, a short............I came back with eight pints of Sam Smiths 'Old Brewery Bitter,'  as I recall it all went!
Of course beer is the perfect accompaniment  to any social event & all post dig analysis after archaeological digs takes place in the local pub. It is possible, though I've yet to do it, to have a four course dinner with a different beer for each course as you might wine.
Had a very interesting trip round the Chiltern Brewery  that did a version of this, the last beer we tried was served with fruit cake. It shouldn't have gone but it did! The Hook Norton brewery is an excellent trip if you get the chance, their local pubs are still delivered to by horse drawn delivery wagons.
Tring Brewery beers are amongst my faves. Who can forget the polypin of 'Side pocket for a Toad' that Stan got when we subjected his garden to an archaeological dig a few years ago.
I haven't been to all that many beer festivals  though they are great fun and as the name suggests there is beer in abundance. I took Gary to the Dunstable Beer Festival a few years ago, even found some beers he liked, & he prefers Cider! The Globe used to do a great beer fest but now so many of the beers they get are more amber coloured summer beers I've given their festival up.
 Micro breweries are on the increase and have just added to the wealth of flavours on offer, there's a good one in Leighton Buzzard we visited recently on one of their open days & last year we went on the Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway Beer Festival called the Buzzrail  Ale Trail there was beer in the engine shed, then half way along the track a stop at the Clay Pipe for another selection  and at the quarry terminus of the railway more beer and snacks.
One of the more unusual beers I've tried was made from Tayberries which are a cross between a raspberry & a blackberry, I can't recall its name but it was actually pink in colour! It was a guest beer at the Globe & I was rather taken with it. We were meeting friends to go onwards for a curry & of course I recommended this tayberry beer which few of our number seemed to like.............so their pints was passed to me. The rest of the evening was bit of a tayberry/curry blur but it was a good night I was told!
I'm very keen on the Brewdog range of beers from Scotland  recommended by a grand chap I know called Andrew, there're brilliant beers but again my friends don't seem as keen on them as me!
I do try & support the cause & have , on & off been a member of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). My first membership stint came to an end because of their ties. I brought one, just to show support & bear in mind this is when ties were quite thin. When the kipper tie turned up in the post I couldn't believe it! I bowed our shortly after ,I'd like to join again sometime but now I stick to T shirts.
There's nothing like a nice cool ale on a hot day, finished most of our walks in Sussex when Ella & Julian lived in Eastbourne at a great country pub. I've seen the future & it's beer!