This June we had scheduled a journey up north to see the sights of Newcastle with some of our old pals. The weekend of activities had been carefully curated by Steve, our resident Geordie mate, who had planned the following:
- A trip to the Wylam Brewery
- A trip to Bigg Market to watch some fights
- A trip to the River Tyne to see some fog
- A Geordie dining experience featuring stottie cakes* and saveloy dips**
Unfortunately this planned weekend of ‘waye-aye-ing’ was properly scuppered*** by COVID 19, so instead we had to settle for an unsatisfactory evening of banter and booze, conducted via the medium of Zoom. Whilst clearly not as good as a weekend away in the land of coatless Magpie fans, we made best by drinking north-east based boozes – notably quite a few from Allendale Brewery – along with a few diversions.
Here’s what we drank.
(Note: This list is shared across six people. We’re not complete animals…)
Newcastle Brown Ale x2
Allendale Wagtail x2
Allendale Golden Plover
Allendale Wilderness
Allendale Wolf
Allendale Pennine Pale
Little Valley Brewery Withens Pale
World Top Brewery Angler’s Reward
Woodforde’s Norfolk Nog x2
Keltek Brewery Magik
Delirium Tremens
Hobson’s Brewery The Manor
Tynebank Brewery Monument
Hawkshead Brewery Lakeland Gold
Hadrian Border Brewery Grainger Ale
Wainright Altitude
St Peter’s Plum Porter
Kopperberg Mixed fruit cider
Snacks consumed
1 Family bag of kettle chips
1 Sainsburys microwave ‘Heat me and eat me’ kebab
1 Charcoal Brick Cheese (whatever that is)
Now clearly this considerable collection of boozes led to quite a few bad heads the following morning, so it was as good a time as any to test out the selection of O.R.S Hydration tablets, sent to us by the lovely folks at Jams PR.
O.R.S Hydration tablets (we’re reading off the side of the packet for this bit) contain a scientifically balanced formula of electrolytes, glucose and essential minerals to restore the body’s electrolyte balance and reduce tiredness and fatigue – perfect then for fending off the after effects of an evening glugging multiple ales. Regular O.R.S tablets are available in blackcurrant, lemon and strawberry flavours, but we took a shine to the supercharged ‘sport’ version that contain extra electrolytes for our extra bad headaches.
Our pal Cat Dawson (Zoom picture: glassy-eyed, top left) managed to cop a titanic hangover courtesy of a Delirium, consumed with ill-advised gusto during the latter stages of the evening. Unfortunately he had to tough out his monster Belgian hangover without aid from our lovely O.R.S-es, but we will ensure he receives some of our cast-off tablets in good time for next month’s Zoom booze.
The theme?
Belgian beers…
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Get your O.R.S. Hydration Tablets here
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We purchased our beers through online beer aces, Beers of Europe. Get yersen some canny boozes here.
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* Bread rolls, by any other name.
** A phrase you really don’t want showing in your Google search history.
*** Props to Ian Nicholls, General Manager of the Best Western Sure Hotel, who offered us a full refund on our bookings.
[…] regular themed beer drinking sessions with some of our mates via Zoom. Having ticked off the North East, Belgium and Germany our next session was timed to coincide with our regular trip to the cancelled […]