As I don’t have any bricks and mortar yet with 20h33, I’m doing farmers markets and drinks markets at the weekend to supplement the wine dinners I do at different restaurants round London during the weeks. Friday nights I’m down in Covent Garden with a handful of other start up drinks companies. It’s great for someone who likes to try different drinks as we have all kinds of stuff there, from Cambridgeshire grape vodka to UK distilled rum. But usually over half the stalls are focused on beer.
I stopped drinking beer a few years ago. When I got ill I had to give up booze altogether for 6 months and when I got back to the stage of cracking open a couple of wine bottles again, the beer just never followed. I’d grown up with years of drinking flat, poorly made Fosters or Carling from cheap pubs and student bars. It was what I knew and I did not feel like I was missing anything.
So it’s been fun on these Fridays to get a chance to try some of the better stuff. We’ve got these lads called Hiver who make different honey beers, and they usually go down a treat. But my mate Elliot, who’s started up a company called All Good Beer, spends his time working his way round the world of beers picking up the things no one else has noticed exists.
As a proud red head, I was immediately drawn to try the ginger and passion fruit infused “A Passion for Gingers”. Sounds a bit weird, but I can tell you that spice and fruit go great with a medium hot curry. Last week I got to have a go at a Norwegian beer from Fråm near Bergen. Really soft and subtle flavours and it made me hope that the next time I go to visit the inlaws in Norway the only options aren’t going to be ridiculously over priced wine or the brown piss that is Rignes.
If I end up with a beer belly, Elliot, I’m blaming you!
Cheers
