Beer
Posted on Sunday 01/23/2022 01:40:38
I realise few – if any – of you will have played the Assassin’s Creed series of video games, and will not be interested in a summary of them, but all you need to know here is that one of the characters, Shaun Hastings, is an annoyingly sarcastic and condescending Englishman who is highly pedantic about the correct use of English (“I think you mean ‘whom’, not ‘who’.”).
Naturally I identified with him. He may have only been a secondary character, but he was my alter ego. I admired him. I wanted to be more like him.
One of Shaun’s functions in the games in which he featured (sadly he was dropped from the later ones) was to supply historical information, as each is set in a particular period of history. But in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, which is set in Victorian London, the game’s makers must have decided to have a bit of fun. One of the collectibles in the game is beer bottles, which can be found by checking in pubs around the city, and Shaun was given the task of writing summaries of the various types of beer, which are called Shaun’s Tasting Notes.
It was then I realised that – apart from being annoyingly pedantic about English grammar – he had become Steve.
Bear with me, please. To illustrate my meaning I shall give a couple of examples:
Pours a clear, bilious yellow colour. I’ve never actually seen a colour I’d describe as “bilious” before now, but that’s what Alistair Benedict Brewers seemed to be aiming for, and by God they’ve nailed it. Rotten grain dominates the flavour profile, which is an unusual choice, balanced by a musty funkiness reminiscent of the water that pools at the bottom of a poorly-drained gym shower. And not a nice, clean, modern fitness centre, either; one of those sweaty concrete monstrosities from the 1970s in somewhere like Loughborough, where large men with broken noses gather outside with large dogs to poke fun at patrons leaving in neon gym-wear.
Sons of Adam Irish Stout (Irish Brewers – Dublin Stout):
Presumably named because the ingredients have been sitting about since roughly the days of Enoch. A proper Irish stout should be pitch black, creamy in texture, with rich yet subtle notes of coffee and toasted malt. This tastes like someone watered down a pot of roofing tar, then spiked the whole thing with burning tyres. The mouthfeel is akin to licking a greasy rat, and how I know that is a story I will not be telling you. I shared the sense memory profile with a mate of mine from Cork, and he actually burst into flames. Please don’t send any more data on this one.
Well? Am I wrong? I invite Steve himself to give his opinion. In fairness I feel he should be permitted to make any observations he feels to be pertinent.
Fritz The Bootlegger Says:
I’m certain I’ve used the phrase “burning tires” in a beer review, so I approve. Aside from the shit way of spelling “tires” of course. Bilious is a great word and describes a color perfectly although I don’t think I’ve ever seen a beer that color.
Simon Says:
Ha! I thought the spelling of tyres would result in a transatlantic conflict.
H3OsMama Says:
I forgot how to KCL! WtF? I am so confused. :(
lunamor Says:
Joey and Quent have both played AC. Quent (and my aunt) loved the description of the Sons of Irish Stout!
Simon Says:
Martina: It will all come back to you eventually. The memories may be disturbing however. You should expect to find things out about yourself you find unwelcome. That you are a CIA-trained assassin, for example, and that your name is not Jason Bourne, but David Webb.
Jess: I am glad to hear that your home is not the cultural wasteland I feared it would be.