Footballfish

So, England's chances of advancing beyond the group stages in Brazil suffered a predictable setback at the hands of Italy, but nobody seems to be particularly disheartened by the result.

Maybe it's because everyone blithely expects Uruguay and Costa Rica to bend over for us so we can continue the ancient English custom of squeaking through to the quarters and losing on penalties.

But maybe it's just because it was Italy. And people don't really mind losing to Italy. Because they don't mind Italy?

I've long thought that the reason that England struggle in World Cup finals is that while they may be consistently good enough to dispatch the weaker nations, there exists a core of national teams that, for various reasons, are more or less invincible to us, even on their bad days.

And Italy are one of those teams that we're simply incapable of beating. Along with Germany, Brazil, Argentina, France, Spain and Portugal. A somewhat lengthy list, which in itself pretty much explains why we never fucking win anything.

The thing is, if it had been Germany or Argentina or one of those other teams that we never beat no matter how well we play, we'd all be right, royally fucked off about it, but because it's Italy, we just, well, sort of accept it. Così è la vita.

Tap Takeovers - crafty fad or natural successor to the tied house?

Whether you believe that 'craft beer' is a product that can be clearly and reasonably defined, an abstract and flexible concept, or a steaming pile of pretentious poo (and, no, we're not going to resurrect that protracted and painful debate here) it's hard to deny that that the craft movement has given us some great, life-enhancing new things.

Innovation. High prices. Black IPAs. Pop-up bars. Breakfast Stouts. Canned beer that isn't bland and metallic. New and exciting hop varieties with big fuck-off citrus flavours.

All good stuff, apart from the high prices,  and one of the latest, and possibly most significant additions to the 'what have the crafterati ever done for us?' list is the Tap Takeover - another concept imported from the USA that could change the way we drink.

I have very little time for the craftwank debating society, but I know I'd rather be going out for beers in 2014 than in 1999 when the only people who had ever heard of a tap takeover were three bearded Oregonians called Josh. (And, being American, they probably called it a 'Faucet Appropriation' or 'Diaper Sidewalk' or something.)

Ten of your Five a Day

If you read enough articles filed under 'health' you will, eventually, explode in a befuzzled ball of contradiction and confusion, and that's only if you haven't already starved yourself to death through abstemious fear.

According to the papers and newswebs, almost everything is bad for us - there are all studies that prove it'n'shit - and yet, according to someone somewhere else, the very same stuff is good for us. Because there are all studies that prove it'n'shit.

So for years and years, we were all told that fruit juices and smoothies were really healthy, but now that message is the sole preserve of the manufacturers of fruit juices and smoothies. Every other nutritiocunt bangs on about how much sugar is in them and how they're as bad as cola-type drinks, which are, of course, the number one cause of obesity on planet obesity.

The 16 species of Beer Drinker

What are the two things we like most in this world?

That's right. Beer. Beer and...

Venn Diagrams! Everybody loves Venn Diagrams, right?

So, where do you fit in?

Drinking beer out of an Easter Egg

Some people might argue that my blog posts are often a little too long; too verbose; too banging-on-about-shit-for-2000-words etc.

So, in a 'fuck that' sort of a vein, this one is just some photos of me drinking beer from an Easter Egg.

Yeah, I know I could posit that this is 'the future' and that brewers could introduce a range of chocolate egg-conditioned ales, but I won't. It's just some wanky photos'n'shit, but quite possibly a world first.

Oh, and the beer was LBC Oyster Stout, at the Tap East. 

Enjoy.

The more-or-less random guide to beer and music pairing

While the rest of you were lazily completing the London Marathon yesterday, I was crossing a far more important finishing line, with a pint of Conwy Surfin' IPA.

Yep, it's the end of another round of Spoons Bingo, and having ticked off the 50 beers on the Wetherlist I can go back to mostly drinking in normal pubs. Yay!

...and that's 50 out of 50!

It has to be said that I wasn't hugely impressed with the ales this time around and there were one or two really strange flavours in the mix. Mauldon's 'Lemon Adder' tasted like cold lemon tea, while I detected more than a hint of instant gravy granules in Nethergate 'Hell Hound'!

And even more bizzarely, Bateman's 'Springtime Oatmeal Biscuit' reminded me of tempura prawns. No, really.

Or maybe there was just something up with my tastebuds that night?

Anyway, while sitting in the Crosse Keys in the City the other evening, working my way through many of these strange beers and listening to 'sum choonz', I suddenly came up with a brilliant idea.

Or, at least, a brilliant-after-eight-pints-of-strangely-flavoured-biannual-festival-ales idea.

Beer and music pairing.

I mean, how fucking cool is that?

It's grim up North

OK, when I say, 'GO', I want you to think of the top three great cuisines of the world and name them aloud.

In fact, give me the top five. You ready...?

GO!

........

So, what have we here then? French? Sure. Italian? Indian? Japanese? Did somebody clever say Turkish Cypriot? Maybe even American or Mexican?

But I'm guessing nobody gave much thought to the food of Iceland. And that's reasonable, given that it doesn't have much of a reputation on the global platter, and any crumbs of reputation it does have tend to focus on stereotypes of Scandinavian stodge and manky pickled fish.

It wasn't a topic I'd spent a lot of time thinking about either, but I've just got back from Reykjavik where I was able to enjoy - or perhaps 'endure' might be a better word - some traditional Icelandic food, and add some empirical weight to my affirmation of the stereotype.