Clear-out

These were from last summer, and have already been drunk

With Easter fast approaching my wife and I are planning a bit of a clear out at home. She’s got clothes and shoes galore to take down to the charity shop. I’ve got books and some clothes of my own to get shot of, but in the former downstairs airing cupboard, which is awaiting the arrival of the builders for conversion into a ground-floor toilet, are umpteen bottles of beer.

Many of these are left over from Christmas and include a few stronger examples from Christmas 2013. They won’t, of course, be leaving the house, but I’ll still be sorting through them, earmarking those which require consumption either straight away, or within the next few weeks.

I know there are quite a few beers from Fuller’s lurking in the cupboard, including several bottles of 1845 and London Porter, and there are still quite a few bottles brought back from our pre-Christmas trip to Barcelona. The latter will need drinking as soon as possible, but there are also several bottles of  St Bernardus Abt, the odd Trappist beer, (both Chimay and Westmalle), plus some recently acquired Norfolk Nips Barley Wine, brewed on behalf of M&S by Woodfordes of Woodbastwick. Even stronger is a bottle of Imperial Russian Stout from Gadds of Ramsgate, which was bought for consumption over Christmas, but never opened due to the flu-like bug my wife and I both went down with.

I tend to pick beer up when it is on special offer at the supermarket, (buy three for £5), seems to be a favourite promotion in many stores. Alternatively, I bring back bottles from foreign parts. Either way I normally reach a stage where supply exceeds demand (a good thing, surely?), and that is why I sometimes end up with this surplus.

The surplus will start to go down, once I have raked through the accumulated stocks. There are no doubt quite a few goodies lurking there which will be a joy to discover, and an even greater joy to drink. I’m sure that I’m not the only beer lover with treasure hidden in the cupboard, and I’m doubly sure that there are true connoisseurs amongst you with proper cellars, and all that!

Happy hunting!