HO HO freakin' HO.

Christmas Day, 2008.

Christmas Eve, 2008.

Christmas supper table, a Heine longneck, and as usual good food and good company. A quiet intimate Christmas Supper.

Saturday 13th December, around 5pm

Two glasses of Serramalte (and a caipirinha) to accompany a rather splendid churrasco on a baking Saturday afternoon. Once again, good food and wonderful friends.

My original plan was to buy a barrel of Abadessa Export, and rent a draught beer dispensing machine, however, I wasn't to know that the whole of Porto Alegre would be partying that weekend and drinking draught beer. I called around and, with the exception of one place - who wanted R$80 for the rent of their machine - all were rented out. I settled for doing a deal with my local corner shop grocery store and bought up a crate of 24 600ml Serramalte bottles, complete with the said beer inside. This, supplemented with three 1 litre bottles of Uruguayan Zillertal, of which a German friend assures me is a vastly superior to the original Austrian beverage (the latter being equated to Guaíba River water on a February day) and Jenny's Caipirinhas, slaked the collective thirst of: 1 New Zealander, 1 Spaniard, 1 Saff Africin, 1 Chigagoeanne, 1 Hollander, 1 Englishman, 1 Welshman (no Scotsman to make up the joke) and 4 Brazilians. A truly international event.
We all got pissed.

Marty Feldman's bugger'd off and I've had a life saving operation to uhm, well, to er...save my life.
Here's a Baden Baden 1999 Bitter Ale, blazes if I know why they call it 1999, can't read the small print. Follow the "produtos" link and choose "1999", it says:

"A perfect partner for risotos and white and red meat. (dammit, doesn't mention grilled cheese or red-peppered spicy sausage).

Inspired by the high quality, traditional and renown English Ales, 1999 is unmistakable. Its slightly bitter taste and fruty aroma are remarkable. Its reddish colour also (don't look at me, I'm just tranlsating what they wrote).

Produced from specially (I added that 'coz they didn't have any adverb here, and it NEEDS one!) selected malts and hops and from the purest waters of the Campos do Jordão, this beer has been produced through a slow and careful process of maturation that guarantees all its flavour"

Exellent, but WHY THE DIVIL'S IT CALLED 1999??

In case you're wondering about the squashy yellowy thing on the plate, it's not an omlette, it's an experiment that went wrong, but didn't turn out too badly. I bought "quejo coalho" which is grillin'/barbecue cheese, popped it into my doughnut grill-pan and instead of it turning out nicely grilled, browned and crunchy around the edges, the whole thing just oozed through the grill into the pan and formed a blobby mass. Still, I scraped it out and ate it, delicious!

SPECIAL SAMHAIN EDITION!

31st October 2008, Samhain.











First I invited Marty Feldman around for a glass of Abadessa Export.






















Then I got stabbed in the chest whilst clutching a glass of Heineken (longneck)

TERROR!

Tuesday 21st October 2008, around 8pm

Is this a still from a Horror B movie or WHAT??

I'm just back from a 10km run and thought a glass of chilled Heineken would go down rather well.

Maybe we should just concentrate on the Glass of Beer (sexy thighs uh?)

Saturday 20th September, Farroupilha Revolution Day. I got a 20 litre barrel of Abadessa's export, barbecue and great friends to celebrate! On the menu pork ribs, chicken hearts, alcatre, tatu. I made tahini and blue cheese dips, there was caipirinhas, good music, good people and altogether a great afternoon.

Friday 19th September, Heineken longneck and sunset at 18:13. I'm at home alone

Sunday 7th September, Independence Day, around 2pm. I'm celebrating alone with a few glasses of Serramalte and some Jigs and Reels practice.

Some lonely evening a few weeks ago, can't remember the beer.

A glass of heineken on my new patio table before the barbie begins, hence everything's clean.

Same Sunday aftenoon some weeks ago, barbecue restaurant, Brahma Extra, because they didn't have anything better. The glass is almost empty because only then I remembered to take the photo.

Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago.

Bohemia 600ml, cheapo glasses, plastic brahma bar table and chairs, a Sunday afternoon in the park, Zé do Passaporte bar. Crappy Beer and deco notwithstanding, it was a marvelous afternoon because of the company, my dear friend Hêlo, whose arm is quite visible here.

Father's Day, 10th August, Sunday.
Here's a glass of Bavaria Premium, same batch as yesterday. Barbie on the terrace with my son (it being Dad's day an that). That's a slab of dead pig's ribs on the cutting board.

Yes, yes, I know, it's not a glass but it gets a picture here anyway. This pint pewter tankard was given to me 22 years ago as a going away gift when I left Northern Ireland the first time. The lady has polished tits where I rest my thumb. Saturday, 9th August, a great barbecue with great friends. The beer is a regular Bavaria Premium long neck, 355ml bottle.

Wednesday, 6th August around 8pm. Another ator??? Home alone, Dickens, Walter Scott, Jules Verne, George Eliot and a mug of Abadessa's Emigrator Doppel Bock, 7.2% (and a pink Corvette Convertable???).

Sunday early evening around 8pm. This is the third can of an "-ator" series of strong lagers that I found in the supermarket from Amsterdam Beers, the first was Explorator at 6.8%, then comes Navigator, 8.4%, both of which I drank yesterday, then comes this lovely, Maximator, I wonder if they do a Masturb-. As for the glass, Y Ddraig Goch, The Red Dragon, a symbol, nay, The Flag of Cymru.

Saturday, 2nd August, around 18.00
Sunset through a glass of Eisenbahn Pale Ale, bit fuzzy because I think I didn't have the camera on macro mode .



















I think the flash went off for this one.

Stella Artois (or as we used to call it "Stella Tortoise"), draught at "Pubway" (copy of Subway?? or just a variation of "No Way"?), Saturday, 2nd August, lunchtime with Fran. These are probably the only glasses I've seen marked with the measurement (a mere 250 ml in this case), so you know yer getting THAT much beer and not 100ml of beer and 300 ml of foam. (hmm pretty difficult in a 250ml glass)

Friday, 1st August, around 8pm.

Unfortunately I guess because of bad lighting this Baden Baden Strong Red Ale turned out a nasty sludgy brown colour in the picture.









This one looks a bit healthier from a different angle. The glass is a heavy based thick mug that I had engraved with the ZZ Top Eliminator album cover and my old army nickname, Nev, about 20 years ago. On this occasion I'm watching "Bucket List" on dvd and eating pizza with my boy, Fran

A Pint of Guinness, from a "widget" can. The glass is a sleever pint glass with the Prince of Wales 3 feathers motive which the pompous fart wants to keep for himself nowadays, well he can keep it and stuff it. We'll keep the feathers and change the German "I Serve" motive for Twll Din Pob Sais.
This is another night alone with another improvised ploughman's lunch, this with cold pork ribs, the same block of Gorgonzola, lasts a while this stuff, and the ubiquitous baguettes. Listening to Leonard Cohen.



The Guinness was followed by a glass of Eisenbahn's Strong Golden Ale, 8.5% alc. very drinkable.

Phwoarr! What a creamy head (sounds a bit rude). This is yet another Serramalte (see previous post) from Sunday lunch session.


An afternoon marked with good food, good drink and excellent company.
















This young lady, probably of ethnic Brazilian origin judging from her looks, is the niece of great friends, but as this blog is "A Glass of Beer" and not "An Ethnic Brazilian Girl", here we're interested in the three of the former, two Polar Bocks and another Serramalte. Bock is very popular in winter here, but despite the great marketing as a winter beer, the Gaúchos still insist on serving the bottles ice cold and in a thermal isolation tube. We asked for the bottles to be taken out of the tubes and left to stand on the table for a while.

Sunday, 27th July in a small barbie restaurant, bugger'd if I can remember the name, good food, good beer, EXCELLENT company, fine people, my bestest of friends.

For some arsey about facey reason that I'll have to sort out later, the order of these pics isn't what I'd like it to be so I have to start kind of achronologically, with this one which is a Serramalte, another of the drinkable commercial beers, here we are trying to read my future in the patterns of foam, according the this foam, I'm going to be a millionaire by the time I'm 35 ! (Shlitz, 10 years too late), erm... meet a tall dark stranger? Hopefully of the female persuasion.

Bastards made me put this one up. Angelita is the name of a wonderful, beautiful lady with whom I was involved for 3 years or so, we finished recently, hell I miss her, but life goes on. Now I just get reminded of her in cans of olive oil. That's about the 3rd or 5th (or 7th but hell, who's counting?) Serramalte.










This is the FIRST one, I did say it was achronological, I think that means out of time order. We're still pretty sober here, the beginning of a Sunday afternoon prolonged eating and drinking orgy.

Another Heine from the same batch as yesterday. I'm sitting in my "cage" the closed off (with iron bars for security) balcony, with an improvised ploughman's lunch of a block of Gorgonzola cheese, sliced salted pork and a baguette. It's around sunset, but there are some dark approaching clouds so there won't be a spectacular sunset this evening, actually it's early, sunset around 18.15 in the winter. I'm listening to Cat Stevens's "Tea for the Tillerman". Still alone.

This is just a common Heineken "longneck", (350ml bottle, why the dicken's they call 'em longnecks, I don't know). Friday 26 July, around 8pm, home alone. Heine is my favourite of the commercial beers. On this occasion I'm feeling a little sad because I'd just finished a two month relationship with a nice lady, I'm missing her company and the hot sex.