The Fourth Stout of Christmas
BEER: HERCULE
BREWERY: ELLEZELLOISE
ABV: 9%
RATEBEER RATING: 99
UNTAPPD ABUSERS: 3,576
Purchased from Favourite Beers, Cheltenham
Beer opened 7.13pm…
We Are Urusei Yatsura by Urusei Yatsura is on the stereo.
Hercule Stouts pours purple. Holy Shit! I wasn’t expecting that. Is it meant to pour purple? Oh. Hold on. It’s not purple. The Xmas lights have psychedelicized my vision. Yeah, it’s impenetrably dark. Just like a good stout should be. The head that forms is a decent size and the colour of Poirot’s favourite summertime Homburg. It looks good. Hopefully it won’t get upset when I take a swig and mess it up a little.
I don’t think I’ve read any Agatha Christie. One of my primary school teachers, Mrs McNulty, had an impressive collection of books that had been abridged so they were more easily consumed by pre-teen kids. I have a vague memory that one of the books the collection was home to was Death On The Nile. But I don’t believe I read it. In the late 90s I worked in a book shop – James Thin on Southbridge in Edinburgh. It was one of the greatest book shops in the land. It’s now owned by Blackwells. Back then I mostly read John Steinbeck, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and anything by anyone associated with the Beat Generation. I didn’t do crime fiction. The authors who were the shops biggest sellers were JK Rowling and Ian Rankin. I hadn’t read anything by either of them and nor did I want to. But I was dedicated to the cause and reasoned if I was going to sell so many books by the same two authors I should make an attempt to become acquainted with their work. Knots & Crosses was the first of Rankin’s Rebus novels so I figured that should be the book of his that I started with. Everyone in the shop told me I should read Black & Blue. I ignored their advice. I liked Knot & Crosses, despite the fact that Rebus seemed reluctant to think their might be a link between the murders he was investigating and the cryptic letters he was receiving. I was surprised by the quality of Rankin’s writing. I didn’t think people who wrote crime novels could be good writers. I thought they’d be able to spin a good yarn but their prose style would be dull and basic. What a pretentious twat I was. It would be five years before I’d read another Rankin novel.
The nose of Hercule is initially aged vine fruits and chocolate. Mmmm… chocolate covered Christmas cake. Why isn’t that a thing? Or is it a thing? Mmmm… chocolate covered things. There’s also a bit a booze in the mix. A cup of instant decaf that’s been jazzed up with a sizeable glug of brandy. Overall, it’s an aroma that certainly invites you in but not quite one that’ll have you shoving folk out of the road so you can be the first through the door. Much like the rear entrance of a Brussels late-night cabaret club.
Ian Rankin has been my favourite author for the last ten years of my life. He is the only writer whose books I can read through in one go. If your name isn’t Ian Rankin I’ll get part of the way through your book then, whether I’m enjoying it or not, I’ll stick it to the side and start something else. Most books I start will eventually finish. Until then they’ll sit on a bookshelf with a beer mat marking the page that I need to return to. When I say in one go I don’t mean in a continuous 5 or 6 hour splurge. It takes me about a week to read the average-sized Rankin novel. Before the Internet I could get through get a book in a couple of days. But now that it’s so easy to access all sorts of information I find it difficult to read more than a couple pages before I come across something that interests me enough to warrant a little bit of further reading. I sometimes find it odd that while I lived in Edinburgh I only read one Rankin/Rebus novel but since departing the city I’ve read them all and most of them more than once. When I was an Edinburgh Man (myself) I had a flat on the Pleasance. My view was the social club of the Lismore rugby team and beyond that the Salisbury Crags. It was a grand view to take in while munching a croissant or three for breakfast. The Close next to my block of flats featured in one of the Rebus TV shows. (Can’t remember which one.) Some yobs chased another yob down Howden Street. The yob being chased turned into the close then slipped and landed on a pile of bins bags. His pursuers caught him then beat him up. There was never any bin bags he fell. Artistic licence in full effect! I miss Edinburgh. Reading Ian Rankin novels is a pretty decent cure for my homesickness.
The mouth feel of Hercule is smooth but oily. Oddly interesting. The pre-finish is a strangely pleasant burnt taste. Imagine if your advent candle set fire to the tinsel on the Xmas tree then the tree’s lights melted and blew the house’s electrics so you couldn’t cook the Xmas goose and consequently there was nothing to eat except little piles of Xmas tree ash that you wash down with cold coffee. That. That’s the pre-finish. But before you get to the pre-finish the taste is twice-proofed bread that’s been dipped in melted chocolate and liquorice then sprinkled with raisins and currants and sultanas. It’s all fairly satisfying. And it’s certainly a good beer. I can understand why so many people rave about it. But I was always more of a House Of Eliot man (myself).
I bought most of Urusei Yatsura’s early 7″s from Sleeves in Kirkcaldy. Before CDs were invented you’d often have to queue if you wanted inside Sleeves on a Saturday. The decline of vinyl lead to a decline in the number of customers and eventually, like most record shops, Sleeves closed down. But in the mid 90s it still carried a impressive selection of things made out of black plastic. I’m not even sure why I bought my first Yatsura seven incher. I’m pretty certain I hadn’t heard anything by them. I assume I was sucked in by their name and their cool and quirky artwork style. When they released their debut album in 96 I bought it on CD and on sparkly vinyl. For a year or two they were my favourite band. I only made it to one Yatsura gig. It was at The Venue in Edinburgh. The Venue was a shithole but it played host to most of the best bands of 80s, 90s and beyond. It was a fucking great place. I left Edinburgh in 2002. The Venue closed four years later. The Yatsura gig would’ve been in 98 or 99. Fergus had spent most of the evening having a bit of bother with his guitar. Eventually his frustration boiled over and he slammed it onto the stage. The head snapped off. He yanked it free from the strings then lobbed it into the crowd. A guy beside me caught it and stuck it in his pocket. A nice little souvenir. A couple of songs later Fergus asked if he could have his guitar head back. The guy who’d caught it kept his hand in his pocket and his tongue in his mouth. Someone pointed at him and shouted ‘He’s got it!’ The guy bolted out of the fire escape. It was all a bit surreal. I often wonder if I’d caught the guitar head if I’d have bolted out of the fire escape or been decent enough to give it back. I would’ve gave it back. Probably.
… beer finished 7.44pm
Twelve Stouts of Christmas (2014) 