There she gose

Feathered friend: Bianca proves way classier
than her Eastender namesake

After a long, hard day at the coalface of writing case studies for new models of care in the National Health Service (no, it's not privatisation. Really), there's nothing I feel I deserve more than a damn good beer. 

Today has been one of those slogs with which I suspect Sisyphus was all-too familiar. Wading through massive Excel files of interview transcripts, scouring 160-page pdfs of project reports and poring over tables and tables of statistics to build a 600-word case study you know is going to be pulled apart by lesser copy writers is pretty soul-destroying and incredibly thirsty work.

OK, it's not like I've been breaking rocks in a chain gang or anything, but throw in more Southern Rail incompetence and cattle-truck London Overground carriages for the journey home and I'm just about done in.

Thankfully, barring one or two things, I've pretty much completed the Christmas shopping and am not yet broaching the subject of packing to move house, so all that remains of the day is to kick back, flip the cap off a nicely chilled bottle and enjoy a relaxing evening in.

Tomorrow promises more of the same, but as it's the work's Christmas meal, there's only half a day of it before slightly forced merriment takes over. I'm quite looking forward to it, to be honest. There's the prospect of an irritable colleague receiving a distinctly unwanted present in the Secret Santa, which will amuse at least two or three of us no end. Well, if he didn't complain about it so vociferously, it wouldn't happen.

I've a feeling tomorrow's update might be a bit late and incoherent if last year's do is anything to go by. Tune in then to find out.

Beer: Omnipollo Bianca
Strength: An uncomfortable but not unwelcome 6%
Smell: Suspiciously like a yoghurt and mango sandwich.
Tasting notes: I'll get to that in a minute. Once this massive head has calmed down a bit. I poured this with great care and attention to detail, but sadly the carbonation levels mean the glass is half beer, half head. And there's still some left in the bottle, about which I'm not overly pleased. Oh well, sometimes you've got to risk a tickled nose to get to the sweet liquid, eh? And boy does this reward that endeavour. It starts out like crystallised, sugared, intoxicating citrus fruits that envelop the tongue in their full-bodied lusty embrace. Though the tang is never far away, it's beautifully offset by an unctuous feel that coats your entire palate thanks to its frothing effervesence. And just as it's about to lay down the funk and ruin the experience, an army of lemon-wielding bubbles beats a rapid retreat to the back of your tongue and sets down its salty, acidic weapons in an act of unnecessarily violent surrender.
Session factor: International Space Station high. I'd willingly drink this by the bucketful.
Arbitrary score: 514,121