Never Give Up

Regular visitors will have noticed that I haven't updated recently.
Why?
Disillusionment.
Yup.
I became disillusioned.
I guess every revolutionary becomes downheartened. The truth is that most revolutionarys fail. Most revolutions fail.
But some don't, that is, if the revolutionarys don't give up.

So onward all ye faithful. Onward to the paradise where every bar sells good quality, locally made regional beer on draught and some bit of a selection of classic beers in bottles. Onward to a place where good beer is held in the same regard as good wine. Onward to a time when licensing laws allows the sale of beer wherever wine is sold. Onward to a culture that can drink strong beer in moderation. Onward to a society where all the publicans have vision and imagination and do not control the actions of our government. Onward to when almost all the breweries in the world aren't owned by three multinational companies. Onward to a climate of diversity in beer, when pale yellow, fizzy lager will not be every county's mainstay brew. Onward to when hotels sell quality beer (imagine that!), to when restaurants treat beer menus like wine lists, to a time when the quality of beer served at social occasions matches the quality of the food, wine and spirits. Equality for beer! Honour for beer! Respect for beer!

I need an anthem (replies on an ecard, please)

So, after that revolutionary call that has my blood pumping and my spirits up and given me a future to strive for, I reckon, I can explain my downtrodden feeling of before.

It's very easy to live in a bubble:
I always have a source of good beer from The Abbots Ale House, Cork. I usually only drink in pubs that stock good beer (The Bierhaus, Sin É, The Mutton, The Oval, Cane Lane). Most of my friends have, to varying degrees, a preference for drinking good beer rather than industrial lager. I talk on the internet about beer with beery people. I know people in the industry. I seek out beer when I travel abroad.
I can live, most of the time, in a world where it doesn't matter to me that the vast majority of pubs sell only mainstream beer, supermarkets sell frighteningly large amounts of frighteningly discounted lager, and wealthy people drink fabulously expensive wine and spirits but cans of cheap beer. I can convince myself that it doesn't matter to me. People can do as they wish - I'm all for choice.


But some of the time it does matter to me.
It matters to me when I go to a concert and want a beer. It matters to me when I go to a wedding and want a beer. It matters to me when I stay in a hotel and want a beer. It matters to me when I go to a restaurant and want a beer, when I meet a friend in a regular bar.

I have a friend who drinks vodka and diet coke and pretty much nothing else. Apart from the expense of such drinking habits, I envy him. He can have his drink of choice, pretty well presented, in any bar almost anywhere. The same goes for a Heineken drinker (albiet to a lesser degree due to freshness of keg and flow on line etc.).

The obvious answer is for me to drink vodka and coke or Heineken or Guinness or move to Belgium or Germany but I'm not being difficult when I say that I don't like any of the above drinks. I really don't. I could drink gin and tonic or Bushmills or something but when I go to the pub I happen to like drinking beer - not wine (I love wine with food) or spirits or sweet shots or anything else.

The huge vastness of lack of choice available, outside of my little bubble, got me down, almost made me give up hope.

I analysed my choices.

a. Drink Heineken or Guinness in bars.
b. Drink whiskey or gin in bars.
c. Stop going to bars.
d. Drink water in bars.
e. Stay inside my little beer bubble.
f. Try to keep the revolution alive and influence one person at a time in the hope of encouraging some real choice in the market.

I decided on f. with strategic use of d. at times.

The Beer Revolution is reborn (until it gets tired again)

P.S. This post was more about me than I normally like this blog to be. Forgive my introspective indulgence, please.

My last drink was; Green Spot Irish Whiskey, 40%abv, a small one