The Salient Points about Beer

This column on budget beers prompted a letter to the editor suggesting I could not handle the strength of Flame beer:

Sometimes an exasperated student will lean back in their chair, close their state-of-the-art laptop, take out their iPod nano earplugs, put their designer sunglasses on top of their head, take a big swig of V, move their pack of cigarettes, adjust their label t-shirts, put their box-fresh trainers up on the table and say:

“Look Neil, I’m just a poor student. I really can’t afford all these hoity-toity beers you keep recommending. Those are for rich people who take showers and stuff…”

So, I decided to put Tui to the test against nine competing beers which all sell for under $15 a dozen.

Then, appropiately, Belgian Beers:

I suspect that no one in New Zealand celebrates July 21 quite as much as I do. By the time this column is published, I will have personally celebrated Nationale Feestdag 2007 four times. It is unlikely even the August Belgian Consuls have done as much commemorating as I have - which is probably just as well if they want to keep their diplomatic credentials.

Finally, I invented a drinking game:

One of the most popular genres is “drink when”. As the name suggests, when something particular happens, a person has to drink a designated amount. These games can involve very little drinking (“drink every time a politician answers the question directly”) or a lot of drinking (“drink every time a woman sighs when Dan Carter is on screen”).