Three more beers from the 1001 Beers You Must Taste Before You Die book (The Beer Bible) were crossed off the list earlier this week. On Friday Tara had to call at the Brazilian Embassy to drop off her documentation for her visa, so we arranged to meet at Kings Cross Station on Thursday evening. Tara was travelling by train from York and got in at 7, I came by tube from Ickenham and got to Kings Cross ten minutes later. Guess what time we met each other, twenty minutes later! Not blaming anybody, but it wasn’t Tara‘s fault!
After dropping our stuff off at the hotel, we went off in search of food. Eventually we came across The Balfour Italian Restaurant and well worth the walk it was too! Not only did we have excellent food, starting with an amazing Shrimp and Avocado Bruschetta, I noticed that there was London Pride (4.7%) on the drinks menu, which I felt sure was in The Beer Bible, so I had fine beer as well!
According to The Beer Bible, London Pride was officially launched in 1959 on St George’s Day, but apparently there’a recipe for the beer dating back to the 19th century, or possibly earlier.
So that was beer number 5 off the list. The following morning we walked back to Kings Cross to drop our cases off and while we were there we came across Platform 9 3/4 from the Harry Potter series.
Needless to say there was a Harry Potter shop nearby, so of course Tara had to pay a visit. Whilst there she tried the various wands and she picked one out (or did it pick her out?) and it turned out to be Voldemort‘s. Read into that what you will!
We had an awesome breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien (by the way that’s a French website, let it not be said this blog is not informative!)at St Pancras station. As we were walking round St Pancras and looking at the various destinations of the Eurostar, we both instantaneously decided that our honeymoon would be in France. So I’d best brush up on my French!
After moseying around St Pancras for a while, we hit the underground again and headed towards the Park Lane area. We had a bit of time to kill before Tara’s appointment at the Brazilian Embassy, so we went in search of a beer. Not wanting to take out a second mortgage we gave The Grosvenor a miss and came across The Audley Pub.
And it was in The Audley that I came across two more beers from The Bible. I had a pint of Tribute (4.2%), brewed by St Austell Brewery. Tribute was originally called Daylight Robbery, named after the first total eclipse of the sun visible in Britain for 72 years in August 1999. Cornwall was the place to be as that was where totality was achieved. (History, French, Astronomy, does this blog give value for money or what?).
The other beer we had was Doom Bar (4.0%) by Sharp’s Brewery. Apparently it is named after an infamous sandbank at the mouth of the Camel Estuary in North Cornwall, to quote from the brewery website “Sailors respect the Doom Bar knowing it to be unforgiving if met with haste or arrogance” remind you of anyone?
And that was beers 6 and 7 off the list!
Once we’d downed our beers, it was onto what we thought was the Brazilian Embassy, but in fact was the Residence of the Brazilian Consulate, not the same building! There then entailed a swift trek across central London to find the embassy. Tara was taking no prisoners pulling her suitcase, so I’d like to apologise to the old bloke who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, I’m sure he’s getting used to the crutches by now!
Anyway we arrived at the Brazilian Embassy only ten minutes late and were out of there in less than thirty minutes, so all in all a successful trip. Visa all set to be processed and three beers ticked off the list!
