Unholy trinity

Tripel whammy: could have done
without this beer-moth

Well if yesterday was bad, today took the absolute piss. The pointlessness of the work I do writ large and plastered all over the full eight and a half hours. Bar a couple of emails, I doubt I've actually written more than 50 words all day. 

The entire time was spent shuffling the odd bit of copy here and there, slightly tweaking design and forwarding stuff to people who really don't care or really shouldn't. Fantastic.

Pints after work never seemed so deserved. But it really made me think about the futility of this. And having heard a story this evening about some of the ridiculous hoops some of the new breweries now have to jump through in terms of food hygiene, I reckon I'm now qualified to talk about that.

All piss-balling about, really. For me, it's not the writing that takes the time, it's the sign-off process that makes Heath Robinson look likehe stumbled upon an efficient, logical way of working. For breweries, as I've discovered this evening, it's the food hygiene hoops they need to jump through should red tape have its way that, quite honestly, would close down more than 75 per cent of them should it be necessary to adhere to.

More about that at some other point, but for the time being, let's say I'm against this kind of thing. It's counter-productive, takes up too much time and will ultimately result in nothing happening of any consequence.

Which is exactly what will happen if I drink this beer and expect something to happen. It's a bloody strong Tripel that I really could do without right now. Nevertheless, it will be drunk. Because it has to be done. Like some kind of beer advent calendar red tape, it's impossible to ignore.

Beer: Tripel
Strength: An unwelcome 8.5%
Smell: Trampled apples and a bakery with a leaky roof
Tasting notes: OK, I'll declare interest here and say I really wasn't looking forward to this. However, just one sip and I'm hooked. Like a 1970s anti-smoking advert, I'm under the spell of the Tripel equivalent of Nick-O-Tine. This is delicious. A barrage of bubbles awaits the unwitting debutant and you think - momentarily - that it's going to be just like every other UK equivalent of a so-called Trappist ale. But no. Because clearly these guys have been adhering neither to the laws of beer nor those of the Food Standards Agency. In short, this is a beer that tastes like it's been made by real people dealing with authentic ingredients under realistic conditions. I couldn't give a monkey's whether they were wearing clinically approved white suits while they made it. This is terrific and, if the food Nazis have their way, a threatened product. Get it while you can.
Session factor: Too strong to be sessionable, nevertheless I'd stock up now for future reference.
Gut reaction: It has an reassurance the like of which can only ever be reliably reproduced by cod liver oil.

Actual beer: Bristol Beer Factory-Arbor-Harbour Brewing La Trippale. Three fantastic breweries coming together to deliver a brilliant beer. Hats off.