Thursday, November 27, 2008

A Very Nice Break


I like a beer. You’re probably the same, yourself. It may even be the reason you visit this blog. Well, admit it, it’s the beer AND the boobies, isn’t it?

I look forward to a beer at the end of the day – lunch time if it’s a weekend – and some occasions bring greater anticipation than others. The occasion, for me, is as much a part of the ‘beer experience’ as the style or standard of the beer itself. The occasion can lift a good beer into the realms of ‘the special’ and a really good beer can take on mystical proportions when the galaxies align, the atmosphere is right and the company is loyal and loved.

One of those special occasions is holidays. When you are the nominal head of a family of girls, this can be a daunting task. Not just for the logistics of booking the accommodation and the flights and the car to the airport and the hire car at the other end and the car seats for the little ones ... because Mrs Pilsner pretty much organises all that guff. No, it’s daunting because it’s difficult to think of activities to do that will excite and amuse me and not bore the socks of four girls aged three to for... older than thirty. Thirty-nine..ish. And a bit.

You don’t really get asked if you would like to go a sporting event while on holidays when you are the only boy in the crew. You don’t get offers like “We’re off to the craft fair-and-girly-knitting-things festival, why don’t we drop you off at a nice pub and we’ll pick you up on the way back?” Rather you get “Stop drinking beers, we need you to take us to the shops because we need new holiday sandals and then we’re all off to the petting zoo and after that we’ll all have some nice jam and scones at a quaint tea rooms and don’t even think about sneaking those beers into the bag because I need the space for wildflower picking!!” Well, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea.

I look forward to holidays because the beer is enjoyed in a more relaxed frame of mind. No work the next day, both parents available for care-giving duties, nowhere we have to be the next day – that sort of relaxed. The added bonus is, in a place like Tasmania, I get to drink beers that I would not otherwise have ready access to, if at all. The bonus-bonus is that in Tasmania I have three brewing operations that I can visit while I’m there. And I did. And I will tell you about my adventures in each of them in future posts.

My point for now is this; enjoy the beer you have right now and consider the occasion in which you find yourself enjoying it. While I’m not saying that an ordinary or even below average beer will taste BETTER under the right circumstances, I am suggesting that a good beer will go down even better. Have a beer and let me know what you think.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

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