When beer influences collide

I have been reading a fantastic book that my mate Dave lent me - "Man Walks into a Pub: a sociable history of beer" Now I love historical stuff. I especially like obscure history that is funny and random. And if the book is written in a funny way then congratulations, you have just ticked all my boxes, you saucy mare!

Now this book has opened up a brand new perspective for me. I was until recently a product of my youthful exuberances, as I'm sure we all are. I could have become a cider drinker (for fucks sake), but luckily was diverted from that path by youthful excess. Drinking cider all evening from 5 o'clock til coma with a double southern comfort as a chaser between each pint is going to lead you down a one way street to the kerb, where I sat, head bowed and resting on my knees, vomiting through the gap and onto my own footwear. The footwear was a write off, seemingly burned as if my puke was like the blood of one of Giger's aliens.

So cider dropped like a stone off my map (the mere smell STILL has my mind panicking and sending message to my legs to flee). I moved on, and tried bitter. Unfortunately I didnt realise they all taste different, and I accidentally bought the wrong bitter. I think it may have been Tetleys but am not sure, I certainly havent drunk it since. It was so foul that I couldnt even finish it. So ended up drinking lager by accident.

This book has given me a new angle and taught me such an incredible history of brewing. I especially loved the idea of the brew that the hard as nails Picts used to drink - an incredibly strong beer made from fermented heather which is actually hallucinogenic as well as alcoholic! The book has led me to reexamine my beer habits with a view to getting off newfangled chemically lager.

Now at a the same time and from a different source I recently discovered that Guinness (which I drink in tandem with lager) is made from fish. Yes I know this is a strange thing to say, so permit me to qualify. Part of the creation of Guinness is the use of Isinglass - no, not the mythical city in The Lord of the Rings. Also known as "finings", it is made from the swim bladders of fish. I'm sure loads of you know this already, but this frankly putrid ingedient is poured into some ales, stouts and bitters to collect the floating yeast sediments and take them to the bottom where they are filtered out, leaving a nice clear brew. Now as an ethical veggie, I don't want to drink something made from bits of fish. So Guinness is now off my menu choice (and I even wrote to them to advise them of this fact, in the naive hope that a centuries old company might change its practices because of me). Have these fuckers never heard of a goddam sieve to remove particles???????

But anyway - it leaves me in a bloody quandry. I dont want to drink lagers. I cannot ethically allow myself to drink bitters or stouts. So I am left with wine and spirits. All very well except for a couple of things:

SPIRITS -

If I am out drinking spirits with mates in a boozer, I am (A) either going to be sitting about for ages looking at my empty glass while my mates finish their long pints, or (B) I am going to drink much more quickly and end up absolutely slaughtered. Plus the expense!!!

WINE -

Plan B is to drink wine at boozers. But come on - you've spotted the problem already. If all your mates are on beer and you've got a delicate little glass of poncy wine you will be savaged by the crowd. I may as well turn up dressed in lavender and wave about a frilly handerchief. Maybe I need to bring a pewter tankard with me to macho up this most maligned of pub drinks. And maybe a big fucking axe too.