Best of Show

I rise at 8:00 after a good night's kip. I’m getting used to the disco lullaby.

As every morning, I write up notes about yesterday. Not because I’m a diligent little bunny. Because I’m a forgetful fuck. If I wait until I’m home, this trip will just be one long bedtime disco in my memory.

After pottering around in my room for a while, and fiddling with my new phone, I flop downstairs for breakfast at 9:00. Without a great deal of enthusiasm. A standard buffet is so much better. Letting me pretend to be healthy while eating bacon by adding a dash of fruit.

I get an egg and bacon sandwich again. And a milky coffee. Most of the judges are already downstairs judging. I sit by John Palmer and Noelle. We have a pleasant chat. Which is why I do these trips. The social aspects. Meeting people whose eyes don’t glaze over when I blab about 19th-century UK beer taxes. Or are at least polite enough to feign interest.

Waiting for the little shop around the corner to open, I return to my room for a while. Filling the time with fiddling on the internet. I don't have any judging this morning, which is nice. Just Best of Show in the afternoon.

I try to install apps on my new phone. It’s a very frustrating experience. I try to log into my Google account. But it won’t let me, because my phone number is different. I trail through multiple verification levels without ever fucking getting in. I eventually give up.

Modern life can be so fucking rubbish. Why is everything so fucking complicated?

Calm down. I hate getting agitated. Especially when there’s no fucking air-conditioning. I know what can restore me to a state of rest. A rum. A big, fuck-off slug of rum. 

That works. For a while.

Calmed, I pick at my other open sore of worry: the status of my books. Are they out of customs yet? Of course, they fucking aren’t.

At 11:20, I nip down the shop. Where I pick up rum, water and cola. All the essentials. Then return to my room for more internet fiddling. Much less interesting than the filthy-minded amongst you might suppose. I’m just watching crap YouTubes.

Around 13:00, I go downstairs for lunch, sitting with Chris and Mike Hall. It's a bowl of fried rice. Rather dry. I don’t manage to force it all down. I’m starting to long for the ubiquitous buffets of Brazil. Where, at least, you get to choose what you’re eating. Three, four or five carbs.

I roll downstairs afterwards for Best of Show judging. Into the greenhouse. Hoping not to poach in my own sweat.

I'm on the Lager table. We have twelve samples. Which is pretty manageable. I’ve sat on BOS tables with over fifty beers. A fucking nightmare. And why I’ve tended to dodge judging BOS. I’ve literally run away in the past.

Unsurprisingly, as they're all gold medal winners, the twelve beers are pretty decent. We don't have a super-long discussion as we're in fairly general agreement about which are the best beers. An American Light Lager wins. Not my personal favourite, but it was in my top three. An excellent beer and a worthy winner.

I leave the judging room pretty much immediately after we've had the judges' photo taken. It's just too damn hot down here. If I’m going to die of heatstroke, I’d prefer it to be in the comfort and privacy of my own room.

Returning to my room around 15:30, I drink a little rum. Well, quite a lot of rum. I decide to have a bit of a nap.

When I wake up, it's dark. Fuck. We were meant to be getting a bus to the Lardi brewery at 17:30. Bum. I guess I've missed that bus. A bit annoying, as Lardi’s beers, which I sampled at Metropole, are dead good. 

It’s another reminder of how deserved I am of the oldie-people’s special queues. In your early sixties, it’s quite amusing to be given preferential treatment. Given your own delusional self-image of relative youth. When you’re pushing seventy, your knees remind you how very welcome that special treatment is.

Woken and getting peckish, I fetch a taco from the taqueria next door. A beef one. It's pretty good. And only cost a couple of euros. Yum.

After some more leisurely internetting, I turn in just after 22:00. With Colombian rum my slumber companion.