FABPOW! Fail

The backstage secret is that not all of them work. Yesterday was a good FABPOW! but just last weekend I had a double failure.

Cauliflower cheese is one of my favourite meals (it’s a meal in my house, not just a stodgy, soggy side dish), so it makes sense that I’d want to find a good beer to go with it. Earthy, almost-bitter cauliflower baked in a cheese Jacuzzi of a sauce, a few leeks for sweetness, spiked with mustard and cayenne pepper for oomph and covered with grated cheddar to be browned under a grill leaving charred edges; it’s spoon food, deeply comforting and warming. I often have sausages with it, too, because my mum says that a meal isn’t complete without meat and I was taught to listen to my mum because she always knows best.

But what beer? I wanted to try a couple, one sweet and one bitter. I went with a Westvleteren 8 (oooh, look at me) and a Thornbridge Halcyon (it had been in the fridge for ages, winking at me every time I went in there). The thinking was that the raisin sweetness and earthy, dry finish in the Westvleteren would complement the cheese while finding an affinity with the cauliflower (plus cheese and raisin is a great combo and I love cauliflower and raisins together in a curry). The Halcyon was to see how the fruity bitterness worked given that the cheese (which had an unmissable apricot sweetness to match that of the beer) often works well with highly-hopped beers. The result? The Westvleteren was almost there but not quite and something towards the end seemed to fizzle out and crash rather. The Halcyon’s fruitness was spot-on but the bitterness steam-rolled and flattened everything else.

Failure is good – it helps to see what doesn’t work and why. Try and try again, and all that. After eating it I read a tweet from Adrian suggesting oatmeal stout and suddenly the flashing neon light bulb in my mind’s tastebud flicked on to OBVIOUSLY. Next time I know what I’ll be drinking when eating cauliflower cheese.

The question is: What recent food and beer combos have you had which you thought would work but just didn’t?

Another failed attempt was this Haggis Shit Storm, which was so catastrophically bad that I had to write about it. Image from here.

FABPOW! Hardknott Infra Red with Cajun Salmon, Rice and Peas

“What would you recommend to eat with Infra Red? I've got a bottle in the fridge and want it with dinner!” I asked @HardknottDave, figuring that I’d go to the man who made the beer and see what he suggested (the power and wonder of twitter at its best). Dave replied: “personally I'd go for something rich and spicy like a chilli con carne or rogan josh, spicy red meat and tomato, beef bourginon.” I didn’t fancy any of them so I completely ignored Dave and did something else.

Hardknott Infra Red is a 6.5% oxymoronic IPA (kind of an Imperial Red, or something). In the bottle it pours a great looking amber-edged crimson with a dense layer of fresh custard-coloured foam. It’s fruity and floral straight off with orange blossom and pith, beneath that there’s a little maple syrup, toast and strawberry jam. It’s a glugger of a beer with sweetness at the beginning and a lasting dry kind of bitterness at the end, with orange pith and floral hops, some herby spices and toasted nuts along the way. It’s a really nice drinking beer, really delicious. But what food to have with it?

Step up Cajun salmon with rice and peas. The idea was that the rich salmon would be charred in a cloak of herbs and spices while the rice and peas would be a coconutty counterpart to the heat and hops. The pairing was a cracker! The beer’s inherent sweetness was spot-on with the salmon and spice, the fruity heat in the chilli provided a harmonious finish with the hops, the ‘redness’ of the beer provided a toasty depth which was enough to temper the blackened (read: burnt) spices and not leave an astringency, while the coconut rice had a bridging nuttiness to the beer which loved the hint of jammy sweetness and the fruity hops. FABPOW!

The seasoning was easy to make (although perhaps not strictly Cajun, I’m not sure – I didn’t want it too hot to crash into the hoppiness, so favoured the savoury pepper flavour over the heat...): fresh thyme, dried thyme, loads of black pepper, paprika, smoked paprika, a pinch of all spice, salt, bay leaf, garlic, chilli and cayenne pepper. I put it in a sandwich bag with a little oil and the salmon for 20 minutes before cooking. The rice and peas is also easy: onion, garlic and thyme in a pan, add long grain rice, red kidney beans and cook with equal parts water and coconut milk, plus seasoning.  

Yum. 

The Next Twissup: You Decide!

We’ve done Sheffield (pictured below!) and Burton, now it’s time for the next glorious Twissup. The date will be Saturday 23 October but we haven’t selected the final destination yet, so we’ll throw it open to a vote. The idea is a good pub crawl between two different locations.

Here are the two choices:

Choice 1: Manchester-Huddersfield: We’ve talked about this one for a while. Start in Manchester as it’s easiest for most people to get to, head to the Marble Arch and maybe another stop in town, then to the station for the train to Huddersfield. We stop at a few stations for a beer on the way (on the Rail Ale Trail!), jumping on and off at the best places (this should help). In Huddersfield we have a few more pubs, probably ending at The Grove. Then back to Manchester or stay in Huddersfield.

Choice 2: Leeds-York: North Bar for starters and some other stops at Leeds’ finest, then over to York. Check out Blog O’ Beer and Andy’s post for a peek at what’s there. There’s also Pivo which is run by the same guys as The Sheffield Tap and we might be able to get York Brewery in on it, if we ask nicely. Then people can head home in the evening or stay in either Leeds or York.

What would you prefer?! We’ll go to the one with the most votes. Drop comments in the blog too if you’ve got anything extra to add, or if you don’t mind which one we go to (but still vote!).

We’ve looked at the Twissups for next year too. It’ll be London in February 2011, either the first weekend or the last. After that, probably May, we could do Newcastle, Cambridge or Oxford, maybe Brighton if we can arrange Dark Star/Harveys, whatever isn’t chosen for October, plus there’s Edinburgh for the Great Scottish Beer Festival (end of June), maybe with a stop in Aberdeen the day before or after (BrewDog bar, anyone?). And there’s also the option of an international Twissup - maybe Brussels, Amsterdam, Dublin - perhaps at the end of 2011.

Vote below but only vote if you intend on coming! The winner will be announced next week with all the details and a sign-up form.

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As-Live Tasting: BrewDog/Mikkeller I Hardcore You

8.10pm: Cap popped off and a routine sniff down the bottle neck gets the olfactory gland’s excited attention. This is an As-Live Tasting of BrewDog and Mikkeller's I Hardcore You.

8.12pm: Poured out and photographed, the beer is beside me at the computer and it’s billowing out aromas capable of inducing intense nosegasms.

8.15pm: Swirl, sniff and slurp. A massive pine attack, hop-overload; a jammy depth to it, something like strawberry chewy sweets; a peppery-ness, herbaceous like a forest during the summer after a flash thunderstorm rocks the earth and trees. It’s good looking, red like the very edge of a lick of flame, a thick head slipping down to a lasting lace.  

8.20pm: It should be noted that there’s a programme about Cheryl Cole on in the background so I’m liable to be heavily distracted during this as-live posting.

8.20pm: Somehow the bottle is half-finished. The mega dry-hopped aroma leads the way into the velvety body which bursts of summer fruit and even a hint of vanilla ice cream, then out with a bitterness not too big to clear your sinuses but big enough to claw to your tongue until the next eager mouthful. The balance in this beer rocks. The hops kick off but the sweetness beneath that is enough to calm it down.

8.30pm: The Cheryl programme reaches the adverts so time for a burst of typing... It’s diving down my beer hole in no time at all, dangerously fast in fact, as my head is feeling the distant buzz of booze. At 9.5% this beer is a monster, but it’s a cuddly, lovely monster that makes you want to play with it all afternoon, not run away screaming at its hideousness. Talking of hideous, the label is far from it, and is one of the nicest looking I’ve seen this year – a simple spearmint green, a girl and a boy (the boy looking at a chalice of beer, or perhaps the girl’s boobs; the girl looking into the boy’s eyes – go figure), a tree with an etched I Hardcore You. It’s printed in Danish but it’s somehow understandable to this English-only reader.

8.36pm: I just stood up and the button of my shorts burst off. Seriously. I naturally wailed like a small boy and Lauren promised to sow it back on for me (I’m only writing this as proof to remind Lauren of what she said).

8.40pm: It’s now pertinent to mention Zak Avery. He had this beer last week (I’m behind the times, I know, but I had the beer delivered to my parents house, where, incidentally, my little nephew took a keen interest in the lively box) and reported how to get the best out of this beer, which involves buying a case and burying most of them to stop you drinking them all in one ruinous attempt. It’s pertinent to mention it now because I’ve just opened another bottle (just as my fingers begin to miss the intended targets on the keyboard).

8.47pm: As is the zeitgeist, I’ve asked the internet what they think of this beer. @ThornbridgeKel called it “sublime”, @BeerReviewsAndy says “I love IHY I’ve not got much left”, @swbrewery says “I was really impressed with IHY like a rolling wave of hop heaven-pithy, piney perfection!”

8.50pm: I’m getting a bit dizzy. It’s 9.5% but somehow drinks like a devilish 5.9%-er.

8.53pm: When I first started blogging I got a bit BrewDog-heavy. I felt an affinity to what they were doing and the beers they were making. In the last few months I’ve barely mentioned them because they seem to have released nothing but expensive one-offs of the next strongest beer in the world. What I initially feel in love with with BrewDog was that they were regularly producing new beers, different beers, and interesting beers. I remember my first taste of Chaos Theory and was blown away. I remember my first zeitgeist, Zephyr, 5am Saint. I loved that they got me excited about new beers in the UK. Tokyo* rocked my world, I love Tactical Nuclear Penguin, Sink the Bismark was insane, End of History took it a lot further, maybe too far, certainly too far for my dusty wallet. The thing is, even if I’ve felt a little dispirited with them, I’ve still loved what they’ve done and they’ve kept the UK beer scene interesting in an outrageous kind of way.

9.07pm: That last bit took a long time to write. FYI, for context: The Cheryl programme has finished. Now Big Brother is on (Lauren is in charge of the remote).

9.09pm: I should probably explain what this beer is... It’s a blend of BrewDog’s Hardcore IPA and Mikkeller’s I Beat yoU plus extra dry hopping. It’s a mix of two beers with a little extra. I’ve never had I Beat yoU but I want it now. Hardcore IPA is an intense beast of an IPA so I imagine IBU has an underlying sweetness which somehow seems to balance everything out in this beer: two becoming greater than the sum of their parts.

9.10pm: I just shoved the glass under Lauren’s nose and demanded she provided an opinion: “It smells nice. It smells like summer. Does it smell like summer? I’m not very good at this... There’s a deep flavour I just can’t put my finger on. Is it quite high in alcohol? [I nod while typing]. Yeah. Smells like it. It’s got a lovely thick, rich... Isn’t it? Like, umm, tropical fruits. There’s something else there... Quite fruity. Here, take it back, I’m watching Big Brother.”

9.14pm: The 9.5% is kicking in. I’ve largely lost feeling in my face. It’s a wonder that I’m still typing with relative accuracy and speed.

9.15pm: @BGRTRob just tweeted: “It's a truly wonderful beer.” Touché my friend!

9.25pm: Holy shit, @ThornbridgeKel just said something big: “I think IHY is the new benchmark IIPA for Europe. It rules!” BOOM!

9.26pm: I’m being distracted by Big Brother. There are men dressed as tacos eating chilli which isn’t cool... One of them just hurled almightily.

9.31pm: The beer’s almost done. I’ve got four more bottles left. I might need to bury some of them à la Avery to stop me drinking them all in one go.

9.34pm: I Hardcore You is dangerously brilliant. It’s an arse-kicking IPA, a tongue-numbing assault on the senses, a face-slapping beer that just makes you want to drink more and more. I think it’s better than Hardcore IPA but I don’t know what makes it so complete; whatever it is, I like it (I think the combination of sexy, smooth body and dominant bitterness without overpowering is probably the winner here, plus the intoxicating aroma). Away from the high-impact thrashing of the boozy arms race, this beer puts BrewDog back on track. To BrewDog I offer a thankful man hug. To Mikkeller I offer the highest praise: a high five.

9.41pm: I’m done. In many ways.

10.07pm: Post script: Just said goodnight to Lauren. She said: “You were drunk Friday, Saturday and now Sunday.” I said: “A hat trick.” And now I’m going to read my book, which is currently Chuck Palahnuik’s Snuff. I will post this tomorrow, which, in the correct tense shall be today.

Another Beer Night

This is the (neatly lined-up) aftermath of a beer night from a few months ago (plus a bottle opener, it seems - I guess this was to add artistic effect, or something). I won’t go through every beer we had as the picture should do the hard work for me. Instead I’ll just tell you about the best ones.

Kernel Brewery Export Stout 1890 was the most handsome beer of the evening, a charcoal black and a creamy head. It’s smooth in the mouth, smoky, roasty and delicious – another Kernel cracker.

De Hemel’s Nieuw Ligt Grand Cru 2005 was a real playground of flavours: fruity, boozy, vanilla, pepper, plums, raisins, banana bread and rum. It was fantastically interesting.

AleSmith Speedway Stout was thick, dark and sexy, filled with loads of coffee and chocolate, a real tongue coating dark-beer-lover’s dreams. A wow beer (only bettered by the bourbon-barrel-aged version which is double wow).

Russian River Damnation 23 was another wow beer (cool label blurb too). An oak-aged tripel with so much going on it had three of us talking about it for the duration of the bottle: lots of apricots, pineapple, honey, huge vanilla oak presence which I really liked, stewed apple, roasted oranges, toasted nuts; very smooth bodied, a drying bitterness. It’s the oak that makes this and gives it something cheeky and playful, although there's nothing subtle about it being there. Where can I get more?

We threw a few wild cards in there and some duds too. Surprisingly Utenos did pretty well, unlike the Brodies Mint Choc Chip Stout which we had high hopes for – it neither tasted like chocolate nor mint and was disappointing (if you call a beer by that name then it has to taste ridiculous for it to work, if you ask me. See Saltaire’s Triple Chocoholic).

This lot was demolished between three of us. We did the usual scoring which you can sort of see below. There was a slight theme to this night of 'good beer and shit beer', although that was only very loosely followed... 

Working Title: Pale and Hoppy

The term Mid-Atlantic Pale Ale seems to be bandying around after Gazza proposed the name for hoppy British ales. Mid-Atlantic pale ale... Seriously? It’s almost as bad as Cascadian Dark Ale.

Firstly, mid-Atlantic, unless it’s an ironic name, drops literally in the middle of the sea (and all the way to the sea bed, if you ask me), which couldn’t be further away from a pint if it were halfway to the moon. Secondly, this term seems to be a catch-all for the pale British beers made with lots of hops from America or New Zealand (which is nowhere near the Atlantic), but also including British hops too, I assume, so perhaps it lends too much credit to the US. Thirdly, styles naturally evolve and need to have a fluidity to them and it could be the case that in a few years time these pale and hoppy beers are the normal for the style in the UK. And point four is that it just doesn’t sound very cool.

The name applies to beers brewed with 100% pale malt, highly hopped, well attenuated with a yeast that doesn’t give off many esters or other flavours “to let the hops shine without competition,” coming out somewhere between 3.5% and 8% (5% is best, he says). It’s very pale in the glass and very bitter in the mouth. It’s a mix of British and American influence and it’s a style which I love – there’s something which just works so well in a simple pale ale with lots of fruity hops, especially from the cask – and it’s the style that I most want to drink right now. I also agree with what Gazza is saying and the whole point of the article (it’s firmly a British beer just with American hop influence), but mid-Atlantic? I understand the desire to classify – we all like to stick a label on something so we can understand it (or complain about it if it isn’t right) – but surely we can come up with a more compelling name than that?

Thornbridge Brewery call Kipling a South Pacific Pale Ale and Ashford a New World Brown Ale, which works well for those, but perhaps shouldn't be extended broadly to others. In 500 Beers Zak Avery uses the term International Pale Ale, which would work with this style – it’s International, brewed in one place, taking influence and ingredients from another, but it could then become a dumping ground of a term. What’s wrong with Pale and Hoppy, New World Pale Ale or just Pale Ale, after all, it’s not exactly a new style, it’s just British Pale Ale 2.0 with different hops used in it, a natural progression, the latest fashion. How about Trans-Atlantic or Cross-Atlantic or Anglo-American if there’s a desire to say that this style is somewhere between the UK and the US (which therefore rules out the rest of the world, presumably)...

Mid-Atlantic pale ales... what do you think? Do they need their own classification and if so, what can they be called?

Image from here. I did try and photoshop in a bottle of beer bobbing around in the sea but failed remarkably.

The Origins and Fashions of Style

I’ve been reading a lot about style recently, in particular in relation to Michael Jackson. I’m interested in how they developed, where they came from, who drinks them and how they evolve and change. Thinking about this I was reminded of a post written by Brian Hunt, from Moonlight Brewing Co., on Mario Rubio’s Hoppress blog. Brian wonders what things might have been like if barley was native to the US and not the Middle East. He asks what pilsners would be without Pilsen, what IPA would be without Britain, how different lambics might be now. Instead he supposes that these beers might have originated in the US in what is a wonderful the-US-is-the-centre-of-the-universe type idea, but it’s still an interesting thought:

The World Book of Beer would’ve been written about the delicate beers of Denver, the hoppy ales of Seattle, Steam beers of San Francisco, roasted beers of New York, herbed beers of Ann Arbor, wheat beers of Kansas, Spruce beers of Alaska, sour cherry beers of the Columbia River Valley, Rye beers of Fargo, and on and on.

On the back of this Jon Abernathy posted about indigenous US beer styles – California Common, Pumpkin Ale, Wild Ales, Light Lager, American-prefixed Everythings (an Americanization of established styles by adding loads of American hops) and Imperial Everythings.

Many styles are - at least in their origin - inextricably linked to place, the beers the people there wanted to drink and to the ingredients readily available where they came from: Burton ales and Pilsners are famous because of the local water, lambics get their unique flavour from the airborne yeasts in the Pajottenland region, American IPAs get their huge fruity bitterness by being stuffed with American hops. This then flicks the switch in my mind to the beers styles which are uniquely British - pale ale, mild, bitter, porter, stout and barley wine, among others. Why did these styles develop and last in Britain? What do these styles say about Brits? Every American brewery needs a great IPA to stand out as their flagship beer but what’s the British equivalent that they need in their range? Best bitter, pale ale?

The globalisation of beers and styles, plus the ready availability of different ingredients, means that any beer can now be brewed anywhere. The origin of a style is telling of the time and area it first came from, while the developments it goes through show the current drinking fashions (look at India Pale Ale 200 years ago, then look at it 100 years ago, 50 years ago, then when it was adopted by the US, when North West hops were added freely, then it went Imperial, then Belgium found them, then back in the US it went Black...). It’s easy to look around now and see that we have British lagers, Belgian IPAs, Italian wild beers and American saisons, styles which have evolved and changed to suit different tastes and influences. It’s also good to look back sometimes too, to understand where they came from as there’s often a great story at its core. The origin of a beer style, whether it’s 2,000 years old or just two, is a fascinating insight into people (brewers and drinkers) and place at different times in history. How important is place to a style, old or new? How telling is the fashion when it comes to style? What styles will be next to get the US treatment or even the British touch? London lambic? Sheffield saison? American mild?

Image from CraftBeer.com. This post asks more questions than it answers and that's the point - I think style is a really interesting subject and it's something I'm trying to understand better and wrap my brain around. This is more a train of thought post than anything else.

GBBF Week: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The Good: The beer (obviously); the pork scratchings (obviously); seeing friends, old and new; third measures; the volunteers who deserve a standing ovation each evening; the location (big, brilliant); the speed to enter is incredibly good if you have a ticket; despite the hoards of people, the gallons of beer and mountains of food, it somehow never seems dirty or messy in there; the waves of Cheers which growl around the venue as the days progress.

The Bad: I think water should be freely available and encouraged, perhaps on a free water bar; on Saturday there was no cask US beer left and much of the other beer was sold out by 5pm (good for the festival, not so good for the drinker who can only attend on Saturday); and does anyone really listen to the music? (these are all minor - there's little to complain about, in my opinion)

The Ugly: The gents’ toilets towards the end of the day (a long time queuing followed by standing swaying-shoulder to swaying-shoulder with two other guys, aiming with considerable difficulty into the white hole surrounded by a frog chorus of farts and barely-stifled giggles).

The Best Beers: Portsmouth Brewery Bottle Rocket IPA was my favourite overall beer, a fruity, tangerine-juiced IPA, so deliciously good that it’s got my tongue doing excited somersaults just remembering it; the Portsmouth Oatmeal Stout was also exceptional and the smoothest mouthful of beer of the week; Fyne Ale’s Jarl was the best UK beer I had, its bright flavour blinds its bland 4% peers, firing out fruity hops and pithy bitterness; a passing gulp of Birrificio Italiano Tipopils was excellent and I’m glad I picked up a bottle to bring home; Fuller’s Chiswick and ESB were both in remarkably good condition and reaffirmed to me just how good their beers can be, while the Brewer’s Reserve No.2 showed the other side of Fuller’s, a side worthy of considerable attention (Kelly Ryan writes this great piece about it); Durham’s Hopping Mad, Arbor Beech Blonde, Marble Manchester Bitter, Thornbridge Kipling and Moor’s Revival all really hit the hop spot, vibrant and full-flavoured UK ales; Opa Opa King Oak Milk Stout was a great example of a style I don't drink often enough; a few good lagers were served to me by Tandleman, all excellent and cool with crisp flavours and just what I wanted as a little refresh from the US hops, even if I can’t remember what they were (there was a Zoigl and an unfiltered Kolsch among them...); De Molen’s Tsarina Esra Reserva was ridiculously delicious and dangerously good.

Photo by Jonas Smith

The Other Memorable Beers: Saltaire Triple Chocoholic really is a cocoa lover’s dream; four bottles for 50p each, two unlabelled, one from 1980 and one from 1981, all perfectly drinkable, all showing the results of careful aging, all interesting to try; Revelation Cat’s Single Hop Lambic was unforgettable in a bad way, clashing sour with big, citrus hops; Rogue’s Chipotle Ale had three of us all exclaim ‘smoked paprika’, which, while it may be my favourite spice in the kitchen, is not something I want in my beer (this was one of three bottles which Mark writes about, which had us talking for an hour about beer and food pairings for three out-there beers).

GBBF week is done. It’s a crazy, intense and brilliant week. It’s a time for meeting up with friends and drinking good beers, just because we can. If you went, what was good, what was bad, what was ugly?! The best beer you had was...?

I got the images from the CAMRA website.

The Cheer

A rainbow of people, colours and sounds, all holding glasses filled with golds, blacks and browns. A chatter purrs happily, an ebb and flow of conversation, laughing, rising and falling as you pass through the groups. “Have you tried this one?!” Someone excitedly bursts out thrusting a half of something under his mate’s nose. “What do you want next?” Around a corner drinkers are three deep at the bar, stretched all along, looking up and down, all around, a constant passing back and forth of glasses, money and beer; an empty here, a pint of stout there, a half of pale ale, a fiver, another empty, another half, a couple of quid change. Another corner and the smell of food strikes. Another corner and it opens into a line of bars and a huge seating area, so big you can barely see the other end, a rock star stage in between. People everywhere drink their beers, they talk about their day, their week, the weekends ahead; they gossip, talk about the news, cinema, sport; they talk about what they drank earlier, what they’ve got now, what they’ll order next; they say this is good, this isn’t, this is great, this is incredible, this is insane, this is… All around are the interested eyes of friends in conversation; the glazed-eyes of seven hours of being there; the eager eyes of the newly arrived; the crosshair focus of the poacher eyes of the ticker. And then it starts. It begins later in the day, five hours in, maybe six. The grip loosens, the excitement fails the hand. We don’t hear the shattering tink of glass on hard floor, what we hear is the cheer. The ‘whay’ which grows and spreads throughout, getting louder, building like a wave as everyone joins in, passing it on, the growing smiles and whoops and then the laughter and then back to where we left off, talking about this or that. Then later, nearer the end, it happens more, a constant flow of crash and cheer breaks conversations for a moment to join in - a second to drop everything and shout with the crowd.

That cheer is the uplifting soundtrack to the beer festival. It’s more than laughing at the loose fingers of someone unknown and unseen, it’s about having a chance and a reason to stand up and just cheer and let it all out, to call out because you are having a great time, to express the joy and belonging and spirit of carefree drinking fun that we are all feeling, and to do it in the simplest, most primal of ways. It’s a shared, united ‘cheers’ to our fellow drinkers, a way of chinking your glass with a thousand other merry men. The cheer is not for the broken glass, it’s for the full ones about to be emptied and then refilled - it’s for us. I’ll drop my glass to that.

GBBF Survival Kit

My GBBF Survival Kit contains:

1 x beer list (tick, tick, tick)

1 x notepad (to remind me what I drank and how it tasted)

4 x freshly-sharpened pencils (my tools)

1 x pencil sharpener (in case I blunt the above-mention pencils)

1 x blackberry (to tell twitter what I’m up to; to take pictures; to send sexts on the train home)

2 x big bottles of water (stay hydrated!)

1 x big roll of bubble wrap (safety first for bottle purchases)

1 x pack of milk thistle (love your liver)

1 x pack of paracetamol (the morning after)

3 x bananas (potassium, magnesium, vitamin B6, energy)

2 x packs of salt and vinegar Squares (my guaranteed hangover prevention and relief)

1 x isotonic sports drink (to replace sugars and salts; to give energy)

1 x supermarket-brand Red Bull (stimulation for body and mind)

1 x pack of bacon (essential)

I’m ready. Have I forgotten anything?!

(Notes: The sports drink has been started because I had a lingering bitch of a hangover yesterday and the bacon is Jamie Oliver’s, it looks lovely. Not pictured is the huge wad of cash I’ll be needing to see me through Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday at the festival. For the action plan see here.)