MEET THE BEER BLOKES

“ You can’t always be young, but you can always be immature.”

John ( Dr. Lager )

If one were to sit down and list every male cliche you could think of the list would probably consist of:

* likes sport

* likes beer

* likes nudity (preferably female)

The danger of this type of labelling is that it doesn't allow for the myriad of small differences and personality traits that combine to make us the unique characters we are. Stereotypifying males is a dangerous, inaccurate and belittling practise that serves no purpose other than to portray the male sex as a drunken bunch of breast ogling yobbos who enjoy parking their butts in front of the TV for hours at a time watching re-runs of the 1981 Australia v India One Day International. It just makes me angry...

Oh! By the way, I'm John. I like:

* sport;

* beer; and

* nudity.

Pete ( Professor Pilsner )

Born the day after John, Peter spent his early childhood years playing in parks, riding bikes and drawing cartoons. A love of backyard cricket was nurtured by childhood schoolmate, John who, as year 8 captain allowed the budding off spinner to bowl in an interschool match. Having waited patiently for three overs for a ball to land either on the pitch or in the batsmans’ half of the pitch, John wisely decided to continue the friendship but not the sporting partnership. Peter hopes that John will show similar patience in home brewing.

The Bible tells the story of Paul’s epiphany on the road to Damascus, when a bright light blinded the young man, causing him to fall from his horse after which he awoke with a new sense of purpose. As a teenager, Peter discovered beer in much the same way. In good Christian tradition he regularly re-enacted the Bible story by allowing himself to be blind-ed, but getting straight back on the horse.

As he matured he realised that moderation was not an altogether bad way to go about drinking, a philosophy which , in later years, led to a new appreciation for beer and the sudden realisation that many years had been wasted by skolling VB from the can. Except for the momentous and life-changing event in January 1986 when the space shuttle tragically exploded after lift-off. It was on the Australia Day long weekend preceding this tragedy that Peter and John led a team of intrepid beer drinkers on a mission to assemble one years worth of VB cans into a two metre high statue of Ned Kelly. The local daily newspaper, The Sun, took photos and assured us that, owing to a slow news week, the picture would most likely grace the front page of Australia’s highest selling daily. Over night the shuttle went down, we were bumped to page 4 and eight
young men learned a valuable lesson; journalists rarely tell the truth, but beer never lies.

After many years in the Pub and restaurant business, Peter began planning and hosting Beer Dinners in restaurants so as to share the love of beer and food matching to a wider, appreciative audience. This also led to a personal quest, beginning at the end of 1999, to buy, drink and document in tasting notes, every beer available in Australia. He is happy to concede that this may be an ongoing and possibly never ending adventure.

Married with three girls he looks forward to seeing them all grow up and marry nice boys who like beer. Not his wife, obviously, as she has already done so.