Hi Guys,

Well I thought I would do another instalment of what I have been up to over here. Being that summer has hit the Northern hemisphere, you get lots of things going on -concerts, festivals, street performers, markets - the lot.

Living in Chelmsford, England, and being so close to a University, there is quite a lot of this going on.

Every year there is a festival called the "Chelmsford Summer Beer Festival". It’s a festival for connoisseurs to go and taste some of the latest and greatest beers and ales on offer. It also appeals to the local drunks and party goers to get drunk very cheaply.

Call it fate or luck, the beer festival is on an old football field (or what we call Soccer field) about 500 meters from my house. Dave and his mates were going to the festival and invited myself, Amy and Ray along, to try some of the local ales.

Amy and I turned up to the festival at around 4.30pm , to find that Dave, Ian and Ted had been basking in the festivities since around 3pm , and were already on their way to drunken shenanigans. Amy and I quickly moved over to get our first beer.

The festival had over 500 beers, ales, wines and ciders on offer. Not knowing where to start, I thought I would get the ales that had cool names.
The first one off the ranks was called " Wrinkly Sams". After downing that, I then decided to go drink for drink with all the rest of the boys. There
was much debate as to what the next drink may be. After much discussion and to and fro-ing we decided that the next drink would have to be "The Summer Virgin". I have to say it went down a treat, and opened the way for some good jokes. Being in England, a lot of the beers served are warm. This whole festival was warm beers, which I still can’t seem to get my head, or my palette around.

5 Summer Virgins

Coming from Australia , we have grown up with drinking cold beer, but overhere , they seem to think that drinking beer at room temperature is the way forward. To me I think it has to be chilled. Could be because the weather isn't so hot over here and they might actually drink the beer to warm themselves up, whereas at home, there is nothing like a cold beer on a hot day. My Dad thinks there's nothing like a few cold beers on a hot day, especially when he's fishing!

It was not long before all the loud yahoo’s and Aussie impressions were coming out and we were all , in polite terms , ….. "royally pissed".

Not only did festival have Beers, Ales, Wines and Ciders on tap , they also had pickled eggs in bottles.

Being completely drunk by this stage , Dave, myself and Karen , went to eatsome of these eggs. I approached the guy behind the counter , and in a drunken slurred voice asked, " have you got any normal boiled eggs" ? His reply was "we don’t do standard eggs here ; only "Extreme Eggs" . It was then that I studied the menu of eggs and saw that he was, indeed, quite correct. The eggs on the menu were more than extreme. The names of some of them were fantastic. After reading what they had to offer , Dave and I decided to go for the eggs called "15 day ring burner". Being drunk , we got the eggs , and downed them in seconds. We then realised that they were THE MOST spiciest eggs we had ever eaten, instantly burning our mouths . I now understand why it was called "15 day ring burner" - at least I found out the hard way the next day! They were ring burners all right. Let me tell you, they made your eyes water too!

It was a good night with lots of funny moments. One would have to be Dave, cutting the rug on the dance floor, doing his best "dry hump" move, to the song "Thriller".

Here’s a list of just some of the drinks we tried throughout the night. The names were very catchy, thus the reason for choosing them , and from what I remember, they tasted pretty good too.

Chockwork Orange

Summer Virgin

Son of a bitch

What the fox’s hat (say it fast, and try ordering that when you are pissed)

Cornish knockers

Storm typhoon

Bumble hole

Wobbly bob

As you could imagine, ordering these drinks was part of the fun , and there were many jokes being thrown about.

It was a really a good night out , and a lot of fun. I 'll be going back there next year to try some of the other great beers and eggs.


Bye for now,

Alex.