Had a few pints yesterday in the splendid Masons Arms in Teddington. It is a proper old freehouse with four ales and a German lager on. It had lots of old drinking paraphernalia, including an old Woody Allen Smirnoff advert, but it was clean and not one of those dusty old places.
I had Downtown Quadhop. Then Kissingate Stroyteller from Crawley http://www.kissingate.co.uk/Ales%20.html ( not as good as Quadhop) and finally draft Rothaus German lager.
I will be back to the Masons Arms.
I have rediscovered mild. Almost an anti-beer. Defiantly unfashionable anyway. John Willie Lees. There used to be a pub in Manchester, but I think the IRA blew it up.
Excellent with a simple sandwich like cheese and pickle.
We use to see the English actor Ricky Tomlinson out in Liverpool pubs with a carry-out of a dozen or so cans of mild whilst his mates would be buying the draft stuff at the bar.
Mild was the first drink I use to have when I first started going to pubs, didn't take me long to move over to lager though. Everywhere sold mild then, but it wasn't long before it was taken off the taps, all those stories of slops being fed back into the mild cask. It was an urban myth I guess.
One of the worst hangovers I ever had was on J.W. Lees harvest ale at an upper-sixth quiz night just before my 18th birthday. At a wapping 9.5% a risky brew to be drinking as a session ale on tap.
Looking back on my drinking days from the new perspective of enforced sobriety, I wonder if its all been worth it. Hell, yes! Happy days mate, the best of times and they will never be repeated. I have mere acquiantances now, back then I had friends and it lasted an age.
Last edited by The_Shooman (2011-08-28 19:32:26)
Last edited by The_Shooman (2011-08-28 19:38:26)
Well, I got the green light from the doctor today, liver functioning is back to normal and the fatty liver is already in recovery. Obviously, as the missus wasn't with me, I asked the important question, can I have a drink and how much?
The doctor started off saying I can have one, once a week. Then changed tact and said I can have a drink, but if I start drinking '4, 5, 6 drinks' then I will have the problem return. So that means I can have three drinks each of beer on Friday and Saturday night in my estimation without any problem.
I walked out and thought why not get some beer because I can? Then I thought, steady lad, wait to you want a drink, not just because you need or can have it.
And so ends the lesson for Hepcat, drink only in extreme moderation, for despite a genetic inherentancy of tough Irish navigators and dockers, even you are mortal and you are now middle-aged with all that responsibilities this entails for looking after one's health. The belief that I can live forever is gone. But the strength in that I have earned all the grey and lines remains and gives sustenance for the adventures ahead.
Buckwheat juice
Kelp juice
(l often call buckwheat juice `f*ckwheat juice').
Last edited by The_Shooman (2011-09-12 07:01:34)
Is that the flax that makes linseed oil?
I have unpleasant memories of cod liver oil from circa 1969. My female cousins were forced to take it as a supplement. Their diet would probably have consisted otherwise of boiled beef and carrots, steak and kidney pud, oxtail etc. etc. No wonder we pasty-faced Brits wanted to get to the Land of Plenty - even taking Rolf Harris into consideration.
Strapping, if not bonny. Probably found gainful employment as pit ponies in the Derbyshire/Notts coalfields.
At a perfect coincidence that definitly proofs a higher being I today received a package containing several beautys, three of them out of Brooklyn, longnecked, dark, and strong. They go by the inspiring names of Local 1, Local 2 and Brooklyner Schneider and proof that the US surprisingly produce beer that earns this name ..... if they use malts and hops from se Huns. Joyful reason for celebration are my new personal record and new hospital record of 11,5 cm of bodyfat over lumbar spine administering PDA. Rejoice!!!
Last edited by Maximilien de Robespierre (2011-09-12 22:20:47)