September...

[El Gordo]

Off to China and Moscow in the next two weeks. Sadly reports of a Guinness shortage in Shenzhen suggest a period of enforced beerlessness, although I have to transit via Hong Kong, where both full-bloodied hashing and black nectar abound.

Let me check with my mate James, who lives in that neck of the woods. He is China's leading beer monster.

Pity the poor Icelanders. Until 1989, beer was illegal , and when it was finally allowed, a maximum alcohol level of 2% was imposed.

This seems to have been relaxed now, and the native Viking Beer is over 5%. However, you need to take out a second mortgage to finance a decent session, which made it an excellent time to rein back on the beer consumption. Aye, the Viking went untasted.

Back to the real stuff, ESB is indeed a great beer though not a brew I can manage any quantity of. From what I can recall of my beer-drinking days, the standard procedure in a Fuller's pub was a few pints of London Pride followed by an E-esh-B for the road. It's not so much the alcoholic strength of it as its richness. It's just too soupy for me to handle in any quantity. Grand beer though.