Being a beer writer at the moment
is the best time ever.
And in other ways, it just
doesn’t fit me.
When I wrote my long list of
complaints in my “Everything Wrong with Beer at this Moment” post, I hadn’t
even thought prior to tapping those first few words into my computer how
strongly I felt about so much sin and detritus coming from a simple act of
thirst quenching; the simplest act of pleasure.
Yet, here I still am, a late
twenties, mis-diagnosed autistic, depressed, mental health patient who looks for
any link to joy and pleasure he can find. And trust me – I’m always searching
for it.
So I’ll tell you about joy. I’ll
tell you about what it is like to be a pub local for the first time in my life
and the unsubstantiated pleasure that came from that moment that I hadn’t
expected prior to the experience. I’ll tell you about the feeling you can get
that my generation neglect and don’t achieve often enough; something that
doesn’t come with experimenting with every beer brewed in the local area within
the last three hours.
I’ve never been a pub regular.
Yet, on the other hand, I am one to many. Wherever I’ve lived, I’ve always had
bar staff who recognise me, who know my name, who know I like my beer and who
remember me even within weeks of visiting, yet it's always across several establishments. I’ve never been an everyday
barfly. I’ve never had a single home that sees me all the time and knows my
order and inner workings like they seem to do with so many of the older
drinkers. I’ve always felt… young.
Then there was the day. The day
came because the pub I visited is still full of regulars at all times of day.
It came because, despite its poor reputation, it is a pub that communicates and
enjoys the company of its customer. But mostly it came because the pub serves
three cask pumps and only one of them is worth drinking (it is excellent
though.) With those forces combined, for the first time in my life, I entered a
pub with a peer, didn’t utter a single word to a member of staff aside from
“Hello,” put my bag down, took my jacket off, asked how a few people I
recognised were doing and by the time I turned back to the member of bar staff…
there they were.
Two pints.
Two pints of EXACTLY what my
order would have been had I been given chance to utter the words. But I didn’t
need to. The amount due was not even announced as I rummaged in my pockets for
change. We both know the transaction required at this point, but nobody is
holding out their hand expectantly. This is the pub. This is the pub that I
never got chance to experience. In my ten years of chopping and changing drinks
and pub, I’ve never experienced the joy one feels from being part of the crew.
I was welcome. I was a regular. I had MY pub.
In a time when experiencing every
new bar and beer announced via social media hourly is the key to being a part
of this world, I enjoyed my moment of raising a glass to others stood around
the bar with me in this poorly 70’s decorated establishment, with juke box,
pool table and two fruit machines. The ale was magnificent but the company even
better. I enjoyed it that much more. But with all these present day choices, it
was nice just this time to not have one; to be affiliated with your beer of
choice.
Would I ever have that moment in
the “Craft” world? It doesn’t matter at this point. It isn’t an addition to my
realisation that sometimes I would “rather be in the pub.” It's just nice to feel part of something and that is the crux of this beer world.
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