So amidst all the stress about money, and pressure to get stuff ready for the trip to Russia, I’d almost completely forgotten about our four day trip back down to Cornwall again.  Although I’ve now seen it several times before, its sure to be a fun relaxing weekend with some sunshine, good company and of course good liquor.

Going down there as a foursome should be interested, just like old times again.  It has its advantages too, I wasn’t there to pick up the hire car, which means I don’t have to drive.  This is a good and a bad thing, bad because I desperately want to drive an automobile again (even if it is a four door Focus), but good because I’ll compensate by drinking, and catching up on some further reading of a new book or Arrested Development episodes.  I swear, this show gets better every time I watch it.

I’ve taken it upon myself to come up with a challenge for this extended weekend, but this challenge won’t involve the best sub £1,000 replacement vehicle for a UK Police Astra Diesel (ala the latest episode of Top Gear). I’m going to attempt to try every Cornish beer I can find, and write a small set of notes on each, The Great Cornish Beer Review.  This will involve going over my favourites from previous trips down to the foot, such as:

• Tribute Ale - A deliciously smooth brown ale, continuously drinkable all night, available in both Oxford, and the Twickenham Tup (20m from our front door), plus probably many other locations around London.  (Warning: ghastly when warm).
• Sharps Doom Bar - If I remember correctly, this bitter had a deceivingly strong taste to it, not that it’s in anyway a low alcohol beer.

The hardest thing about this of course is, despite my vast vocabulary (riiight), I have a pallete about as sensitive as the calloused palms of a full time grave digger.  Indeed, I think the words are in there, but picking the taste of raspberries from a 20 year old bottle of Shiraz doesn’t come to me naturally, at least not without reading the label.  I know what i like, but why I like Guinness, Tribute, Victoria Bitter and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale even though they’re vastly different types of beer, I don’t really understand.

We’ll see how that goes, anyway.

Tags: beer, england

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 28th, 2008 at 12:10 am and is filed under Drinking Culture, Life, Travel, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.