Compliments of the festive season, everyone!
(Yes, whatever anybody tells you, it's still Christmas. My decorations are staying up at least until Twelfth Night, and quite possibly until Candlemas.)
It is, however, a 'new year' which means people like me can definitively announce our favourite beverages from the previous one. Which is exactly what I'm about to do, so strap yourselves in
Are 'Golden Pints' still a thing? Is beer blogging still a thing? Are things being a thing still a thing?
In my case, the answer to all these questions is 'just barely'. If that.
Indeed, it's probably not unreasonable to suggest that I fell somewhat out of love with beer during 2022 - a combination of beers being indifferent and me being clinically depressed.
I haven't blogged a whole lot either and even coming up with a handful of words to describe a beer for an Untappd check-in sometimes feels like too much effort. Again, it's probably the depression for the most part. Mopey old Ben, fishing for pity as usual.
But it's a new year and so I'll try to squeeze something out about my favourite brews of 2022. After all, with all the breweries that have shut up shop lately a positive word about beer might go a long way. Or it might not.
On New Years Day 1996, I sat in the William Morris pub in Merton Abbey Mills, drinking a pint of Draught Bass.
A callow youth with a few months of teenagehood still remaining on the clock, I had no idea that this was the start of something that would stay with me for the next two and a half decades.
It wasn't - don't be disappointed now, internet - a lifelong love of Bass. But it has been a journey through a further 9999 different beers.
The Bass was quickly followed by Gale's Christmas Ale, back when Gale's was actually a brewery in Hampshire, and the following day I enjoyed a Burtonwood James Forshaw, and a Hopback Summer Lightning.
So...
