Beer Pilgrimage Leg One: Complete!

Last night, being our last night in the Stourport area, our hosts wanted to take us out for a nice meal. If you know anything about England and its history as a dyeing empire then you know they have marvelous Indian food. So even though my hosts are Persian, they asked if I liked Indian food, not really remembering that I lived in Chennai at least for a bit. After a few months away from India, I got over my aversion to Indian food. I think the 3x a day curry got to me after 6 months straight. Luckily, that has passed, and I'm more than happy to indulge in ethnic delights from all over the world. We drove nearly an hour to a very tiny town named Lye (honestly). It reminded me of Devon Avenue in Chicago. Everything on this one stretch of road was Indian, Pakistani, Bengali, and some restaurants were even BYOB. Apparently, we'd been directed to the best restaurant on the strip. Even at 9PM on a Wednesday, they were packed and a party of 6 had a long wait (over half an hour). So they told us (and I'm not even kidding) "There is a great pub just down the way." So we set off for predinner drinks. Upon seeing the cask ale selection (10) I got very excited, but more exciting was the Goose Island IPA bottle in the fridge! I lost it, I got so excited and started exclaiming how I could actually give a demonstration to my hosts about how hoppy american beer really is. To those of you who actually drink American beers, and IPAs in particular you might know that Goose Island wins a lot of awards as an "english style ipa." Anyway, before I got ahead of myself, I saw a selection of 10 cask ales. They were all from a brewery name Sadler's. On the left was a stout, and down the line, malty, malty, malty, malty, and blammo! Right in the middle, a beer called "Hop Bomb." I seriously lost it. I ordered that straight away, and then took care of ordering the rest of the drinks for my hosts. It was the holy grail of english beer for me. Hoppy like and american ipa, cask conditioned, and served cold. Cask ales here in england are served a lot colder than they are in the states. I understand why americans THINK that brits serve their beers warm and flat, but that's just a mistake in the way we serve them in the states. My beer was frothy and cold and full of hops on the tongue and nose. Stupendous! I freakin' loved it. I passed it around for all my hosts to smell, and they all agreed it smelled "lovely" and "like flowers." I took a brief moment (I tried to contain my excitement) and explained why, in fact, it did smell like flowers. Then I had to do it, I went and bought the Goose Island IPA in england. The bartender told me that it was her brother's and her favorite beer. I was absolutely chuffed to bits. I passed that one around as well, and everyone agreed again that it was a beautiful beer. Thank you Goose Island for making an "English style" beer that the brits understand.

So there you have it, leg one of beer pilgrimage complete! I found cold, hoppy, cask conditioned english ipa in england.

By the way, the Indian food was also excellent and Nasim managed to smuggle the bottle of IPA to the restaurant. Wouldn't you know it, India Pale Ale, pairs well with Indian food.