Quarantine Diaries XX
Friday 17th April 2020
It pretty much goes without saying that, for someone as emotionally fragile as I am, a situation as fraught as this is will at times reduce me to tears. Lots of tears. Rivers of tears. Oceans of tears. Well, actually more like duck-ponds of tears, but still a big sloppy watery mess to shed in a short space of time. On Friday there were All The Tears. More bad news meaning I’m basically financially screwed for the foreseeable caused said duck-pond-facilitating rivulets to run uninhibited for hours (with the odd break deriving purely from exhaustion). This is really no way to live. I am utterly psychologically exhausted from bad news, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. Our leaders have let us down, our financial system is fucked and our science feels woefully inadequate. What’s not to cry about?
Or maybe it’s okay to just cry. Maybe we don’t have to be strong every day. Maybe falling apart a bit is a signifier of humanity, a badge of fallibility that denotes the difference between our experience of this horror-show to that of the unflappable and impervious super-rich who seem to be loving this opportunity to show off their new macramé skills while the rest of us contemplate how to survive off one or zero salaries. Maybe my tears are shameful, maybe they are reasonable, maybe it doesn’t matter cos who the fuck is listening any more – everyone has their own shit to deal with. Anyway, Friday was a bloody write-off. At least we still have decent alcohol.
Tupps DDH 20
We picked this up super-fresh on our beerfridge restock at ATX’s most excellent beer emporium Whichcraft and I just couldn’t wait so was very naughty and drank it in the car, but even in transit it was positively dreamy. Retaining the juicy mango kick of its less inspiring series variant (lots of mango, zero chilli), this was a juicy-hopped, chewy gem that reflected the best of this series-superbly balanced and greedy-crushable. We have been following the Tupps DDH series since we arrived into Texas and it’s a fascinating journey – one that continues to inspire us to concentrate our tasting abilities, although it is actually surprisingly easy it is to recall the good ‘uns, even 20 beers in. Working on a series like this is a bold, ambitious project for any brewery, but Tupps have proven themselves more than up to the challenge. There are, of course, ups and downs along the way but there is certainly never the feeling of drinking the same beer over and over, and I am looking forward to whatever mighty end-goal they have in mind – perhaps (code for I would like!) a box set of the best ones with some super-cool merch? I have a strong feeling this one will make a lot of people’s top 5, and it’s certainly a contender for mine.
Craft Beer Amethyst 