In Chinatown you can...

Drink beer after hours, it is served in little green tea cups and comes out of a teapot! I can't recall the name of the place but I thought it was hilarious.

Pedal powered - travelling beer bar
Only in Amsterdam. We gawked at it for so long I only managed to get out my camera at this stage. There are about 10men on that thing, each pedaling and there is one bartender in the middle serving beer. With loud music playing it grabs a lot of attention, very popular with men on stag weekends.

Guinness in Namibia?
Met a friend of Craig's last night who is working in northern Namibia doing research. Something I remember him telling me was that, 'It's bloody hard to get a good pint of Guinness up there.'

He is in town for a month so am sure he will be consuming his fair share before he has to drink Windhoek Beer again.

Also check out Craig's website he's got some great photos of the Amazon and of Namibia and he is the photographer for the cookbook. We are planning to do photos in Sicily in September if all goes to plan...
(pic taken in Derry, Ireland)

Sweety Kriekbier
Kriekbier and Fruli are fresh, fruity, strawberry and raspberry beers – perfect for the approaching summer; although today is freezing. It comes out of the tap/bottle pink which is pleasant and is sweet but not overly sweet.

Again another girly drink – an alternative to the much loved shandy. It is not served in many places so look out for it, it is hard to find information about it online. I am partial to Fruli but tried Kriekbier this weekend and was just as nice. Fruli and Kriekbier are Belgian and when I find more about them I will post again. All I know is that you can get it in a few select places, it tastes great and is nice to hold in the land of yellow and brown beers.

The Volunteer pub at the edge of Regent’s Park serves it and in the midst of all the teams who come to drink pre and post game you can see many females and a few males enjoying the drink. The one in the pic was wrapped so sweetly in such nice paper and was served at the Ground Floor pub on Portobello Road.

The Brits & their beer


They love it and only need this one thing at the pub to have a good time. It is a highly social ritual where everyone goes down to the pub after work for a 'swifty' or a quick pint before heading home. Theo (in pic) even started the swifty club at work a special email for a select few to be invited to these random meetings at the pub after a long day at work. In some cases it turns into 2, 3 4 or 9+ pints but it is all in good fun and no one seems to get out of control - just happy.

The Feathers Pub (where we were on Fri) doesn't serve much food, just some crisps and some meals for those who have not trained their stomachs to survive on the protein and energy from beer alone. Since I am not a Brit I have to sometimes munch on the crisps and get a sneaky sandwich from the deli before the pub. The Guinness drinkers are the ones that claim to be the healthiest from drinking beer, Jed said to me on Friday that he gets all his vitamins and nutrients from his Guinness.

In England men and women alike drink pints, some girly drinkers like Princess K and I drink other drinks or shandys but it is not taboo for a woman to hold a large pint of beer. In Canada, Julia, Mil and I were the odd ones out drinking pints as it is doesn't seem to be as accepted - but men do comment, 'wow you drink beer?' umm..'yes it's actually a shandy!' which is not a common nor do many bars in TO know how to make a proper shandy. I have converted a few friends to drinking shandy so perhaps this summer the shandy team will grow.

Nat's leaving do was a great affair at the pub and it was a great gathering of old work colleagues. Lots of beer was consumed and all had a good time!