Ianâs Polish Beer Review
Editors note: We left the typos in because it reflects my declining typing skills.
Eleven oâclock on a grey middle England saturday night and the window of opportunity to get fucked up and make something of a wasted day is slamming hard. Itâs about to echo across my barren, lonely, concrete-clad weekend when decide finally that something must be done and walk to tesco - tesco in particular because they carry the cheapest god damn drunk known to man - the beer speciale stumpy special; âBier Des Flandres,â if you donât mind. We like to pretend Des is Ned Flandersâ debauched brother, not suitable for a family cartoon, destined to promote cheap Duff ripoffs to the already malnourished fat builders of working class Britain.
Staring at the factory-white-lit rows of poisonous cruelty meat and instant cardboard noodles gives me a dose of the health jitters and I elect to go for the slightly more upmarket two for seven wine deal in our local 'Food and Wine', a dust filled sweatshop from nineteen sixty just around the corner from our shared house in Nottingham student-ville.Â
Itâs a comedy of errors - Iâve drank them out of 2 for 7 wine stock. Panicked, I turn instead to the indecipherably named Polish beers, whoâs percentage I have never been able to work out from the package, casually stuffed to the anonymous spiced meats, and a blog idea is born.
23:30 - âLECHâ 500ml can - percentage unknown
I open the first beer heading out for a smoke with my bleary eyed housemates, talking about lost naughties joke rap act Goldie Looking Chainâs classic âSoap Barâ (âMost soap bar is made in fucking Holland, they make it out of oil, tyres and pollen.â) and squinting to see the stars over the smog and filth polluted city sprawl âskylineâ. It strikes like a club - hoppy, barely fizzy light beer, like Coors light mixed with ale. I head upstairs to start learning a song Iâve been meaning to work on. I donât know if itâs the Lech or the smoke, but after I while my attention drifts and I start writing this blog instead.
00:09 TYSKIE Gronie - 500ml can - 5.5%
Tyskie has gold coloured tin on the top of its can now, so I know it means business. Itâs heavy, with a light but intense fizz. Itâs good. Like a less malty light stout wearing a beer costume. I start to lose interest in the blog idea and meander around the internet trying not to expose myself as a lonely self appointed shit beer expert, and eventually stumble onto a tipsy frightened rabbit on youtube. I feel it. Hard. I think this beer works.
00:49 Okocim Premmium Mocne - 7%
oacim is like a swift kick to the sctorum from a fairground hooker. Itâs a porter with no soul. A beer, lost in an irish bog, with one foot in the wet. I go down stairs and watch the boys playing some dark souls. Slaying dragons. Oacim gives no ground. I sleek back upstairs to my room to listen to emo.
01:35 ZUBRA 1798 - 500ml - alcohol 6% - Browar Dojlidy Bialystock
Zubra has a picture on the front of a buffalo, a hairy buffalo. Itâs green. Like the buffloâs staple diet. Grass. Iâm pn the phone to Darren Doherty, trying to convince me to watch 12 years a slave. He thinks it is the modern equivalent of the cistene chapel. binding human beings together; it is that powerful. theres nothing in your life that is more important than watching that film,Â
2:30 ZYWEC 1856 - 550ml can. Percentage unkown
I start drining tyvec after an hour long phone call with Darren in belfast, I start listening to Frightened Rabbit and Manchester Orchestra. I know Iâm weak now. But I still wont text or phone meg, I hope. I know, Itâs coming time to fess up and realize my age, but I;m battered and bruised and not ready for this. not ready fotr anything. ZYWIEC tastes like any beer. Hieneken without the heritage; carlsberg without the quality control.
Itâs 3:47 SUCH A SYNCHRONICITY as we would lay and learn what each otherâs bodies were for, Iâm a clenshed fist distored in cluthing hopw.
Im tired if it, always riunnung with fists,Â
Nothing beyond this makes sense
