Blast from the Past

Today I had a glass of beer with my light lunch of brie and apples.

I have some difficulty in finding small bottles of beer and try to grab one when I see it. They have some fascinating names - and a wide variety of alcohol content; I showed one bottle to TBSITW and she said "Did you notice that that one was 8%?" Well, of course I hadn't, but now I look more carefully.

Today's was Brew Dog Punk IPA.

And then the memories came flooding back.

Of when I was a student nurse and then a staff nurse and spent most of my social life with other nurses, rather younger than me.

The drink 'du jour' was beer, in pint glasses, straight glass, none of those half pints or fancy glasses with handles. I remember Theakston's Old Peculiar was much sought after, however IPA, or India Pale Ale was what was most commonly available,

You could add, as our tastes matured, 'real ale' most of it being 80/-.

And then we progressed to making our own in 5 gallon buckets, initially with beer kits from Boots or someplace, then moving on to acquiring real ingredients. I remember a great shop in the old village of Corstorphine, Edinburgh which sold wonderful ingredients.

Home made wine was absolutely dire, even for cooking, but we were poor then and had to get our alcohol somewhere! However, home brew beer was excellent and we acquired proper bottles and stoppers.

The last memory of drinking beer was when I went in for diving (sub aqua) and I used to get back to the clubhouse with a very dry mouth from breathing in all that compressed air. A pint of 70/- went down almost as fast as I can type it!

After that I mostly gave up as a 'beer belly' is not so named for nothing.

Nowadays I have only an occasional glass on a hot day. In Scotland these days are few and far between.....