Vinegar Tits
Two things have happened mid-week, the first being on Tuesday when we went over to Heath near Wakefield to see BearNoiz and Vale.
He had arranged to meet Avon and invited us along, as he has been staying in Manchester for a while at Vale's place. He had intended to call in on Leeds as he made his way back from York where he was getting a computer repaired but on Tuesday night they still hadn't finished with it. I had never met Vale before and he was quite quiet, although BearNoiz is someone who can dominate a conversation and this is largely what happened. We hadn't seen Bear for years so it was great to meet up again as we sat in Avon's local, the King's Arms, to reminisce. The food was very good - I had the burger which was perhaps a little dry but the chunky chips were fantastic - and the ale equally pleasant while we spent a good few hours having a chat. The pub quiz was going on simultaneously but we declined to take part, largely because Bear had to head off early to go back to Manchester and we had to leave around 9:30pm. The quiz was odd, being a Family Fortunes type affair, and some of the answers were quite strange. This was particularly the case for the 'top five things found in a supermarket that are a slang term for breasts' question which had fried eggs and vinegar tits as answers four and five. Due to this insanity, it was probably good we didn't enter as there was no way we were going to win it, with the winning score being 44/50. In the end, we stayed about three hours and even though it was a very rushed affair in terms of arranging it - with it being 4:10pm before it was even mooted - it was great seeing Bear again, as well as Avon in a far more sober setting than he usually is at the meet.
Thursday was a work night out as our Spanish editor has been in Leeds throughout the week. I felt obligated to go because of this but I'm glad I did as it was at Headrow House and although expensive, they did have a nice range of beer on offer. It was good touching base with my colleagues and meeting some of them for the first time, particularly one of our tech guys called Ian who had lived in Colombia for four years and like me had a huge love of craft beer. We ended up speaking for about two hours before he needed to leave and I headed up to Shuffledog to see Lou, who I knew was working. After three pints of pretty high strength beer I was a little worse for wear, although apparently I was hiding it well as she told me. In the bar I met a nice guy called Albert who works in the York bar and was interested to hear my thoughts on the other bars upon learning I have been to 26 of them. This saw me stay until my final bus, having a couple of thirds along the way, not aiding my inebriation. The problem was I had eaten too little, so it was affecting me far more strongly than it would otherwise have done. By the by it was a good night and I ended it by saying that it doesn't really matter all BrewDog bars are similar as very few people go touring around them like we do, plus it's the beer that is important. With that I headed off, picking up a blackberry beer brewed with lactic acid along the way, before dropping off at ASDA to get a sandwich before stumbling home.