Mainly Apples

Image by Denis Collette…!!! via Flickr

It’s known amongst family and friends that I can’t stand beer in any of its forms (stout, ale, bitter, mild, larger etc). I think it’s the taste. For starters I’ve got a relatively sweet tooth, so by definition anything called bitter is not going to appeal to me. I have tried, but after a couple of mouthfuls I just know that the impending mess from the projectile vomit is not worth the effort when there are plenty of other reality altering fluids available. I can drink vodka till it comes out my nose and frequently do, but that’s another story.

Despite my dislike of such things I do go to our local beer festival, which is not as weird as it first sounds. There’s a ‘normal’ bar there, so I can stand and sip my vodka and mixer of choice whilst watching my friends crumble into incoherence as the last pint of Bishop’s Nobbrot or Whapweasel slams through their shuddering synapses. This year though, the bar was closed: Calamity; no vodka. No nothing, other than what was in the gloomy looking barrels piled up behind the make shift bench across the back of the church hall.

There was an entrance fee, for the life of my I can’t remember what it was, but you got a pint pot with the date and event printed on the side, so you can look back fondly on the event, reminiscing about the huge blankness where your memory used to be. And you got to purchase some tickets which you traded for beer at the back. Oh and a program listing all the beers, which you could tick off as you worked your way through them: All very civilised, all very English.

But what was I going to drink? I stood there pondering for some time, long enough for my friends to return with various coloured inebriants, which they held up to the light and eyed warily. They were shared around, everybody had a sip of everybody elses. I found they either made my toes curl or one eye go into spasm and my saliva glands slam shut. On flicking through the program once more I spied a small suspicious section labelled ‘ciders’. Crivens, I’d not drunk cider since I was about 14, and even then I think it was mixed with lemonade. These were manly, organic, 7%+ ciders. Was that good or bad? My friends all pulled a face at the idea, but something made from apples had to be sweeter than the oaty, barley, hoppy bitter things they were all standing around chewing.

You got to use own glass all night, the one they’d given you as you walked in and it had been established early on, that if you went for a pint and you had a pint pot, then you got a pint. This is not only stating the bleeding obvious but could also lumber you with a whole pint of something that sounded glorious in the even program but actually tasted like Satan’s Piss. Better to get a half, (and half price) and go back for more if you really liked it. And because these were hand poured from the barrels, you usually ended up with 2/3 or 3/4 of a pint, so you got more bang for your buck. In these credit crunch times, it made perfect sense. It all seemed like a win-win situation: Till your legs fell off.

I tried each of the ciders. The first one was surprisingly refreshing, slightly cloudy, tasted like tin and smelt of pickled onions. And to be honest the others didn’t get any better, one was akin to licking a battery. Having tried them all I settled on the 8% organic one, as by that time I didn’t care. It was a surprisingly clear, golden liquid, the colour of mead or some Norse Goddess’s pubic hair. It’s taste was hard to describe, it didn’t taste like mead for sure. It had cleansing, acrid, napalm like affect. It seemed to dilute the light in the room but that could have been the fumes coming off it. It wasn’t long before I realised that my lower jaw and eyes had somehow become slightly dislocated and were inhabiting a small but subtly different space time continuum to the rest of me. It was a bit like an out of body experience with all the fun taken out. I felt like I had to grip the floor with my toes so I didn’t fall off.

All of this was being compounded by the thumping beat and wailing brass section of a band playing 1920’s 1930’s jazz. Nice. What was nice was the blessed silence that erupted when we staggered outside. The biting, bone gouging wind was now merely fresh as we had donned our invisible yet surprisingly warm alcfrl coats. It was time to leave, one of my friends was quite concerned and wanted to confirm that his legs still worked, the others mute with glee as they had reached double figures: Enough for any mortal. So we ambled back into town and slumped in a corner of a student bar, to sip on something refreshing, sweet, mass produced and non-confrontational.