Drinkers heaven

By Webmaster/Rheolwr y Wefan
May 19 2003

Veteran drinkers Incey Wincey Cider and Alice Beer write an exclusive Welsh Premier alcohol review for www.lofw.tk. In the first part of this review, our daring duo recall trips from Aberystwyth to Carmarthen.

WELSH PREMIER ALCOHOL – THE SEASON IN LIQUID TERMS

With Incey Wincey Cider and Alice Beer

Unlike the majority of Welsh Premier supporters, our sole reason for embarking upon a season of traversing around the Welsh Premier grounds was to sample the fine array of beverages for your consumption. Yes, we have sampled the drinks on offer at every Welsh Premier club and come to a few hasty conclusions as to which clubs offer you more for less, and better quality. My name is Incey and it would have seemed a formidable task to complete on my lonesome, so I was surprised when the WALRUS presented me with a celebrity accomplice, the sexy Watchdog herself, Ms Alice Beer.

Here is a lowdown on our findings:

ABERYSTWYTH TOWN

 
Incey: This seems a very bad place to start. You see, the thing is that I didn’t actually drink here. In fact I left my car at the starting point and only just made it on time to catch the bus, so drinking was well out of the question. However, I made a few notable observations in my sad state of sobriety that I wish to present to you here. We made Aberystwyth earlier than anticipated, and whilst the players went for a stroll along the promenade, we understandably found a welcoming pub on the pier. The sight of our club badges prompted the bar staff to ply us with free food! Wonderful, they obviously knew who I was and what I was doing in Aberystwyth for you couched-up creatures. Free sausage rolls, pasties and some strange green stuff in batter that tasted alarmingly like baked rhododendron. The coke wasn’t bad either.

We arrived soon after in Aberystwyth’s clubhouse, the starting point for our liquidised journey through the Welsh Premier. I ordered a Lemonade. Without ice. Thankfully there was enough water in the lemonade tap to pass for an ice substitute. In fact, after around four mouthfuls I was struggling to taste the lemon, and the ade was evaporating at a rapid rate. I was left with half a pint of mineral water to devour, which made for interesting tasting. I even thought I could detect a hint of lemon at one point but that must have been my overactive imagination.

My comrades, who were there to watch football, were without luck too. The only thing that was on tap was cider, something I’ve only ever seen fourteen year old boys drink in back alleyways and house parties, hoping their parents won’t smell the alcoholic apple on their breath as they stumble home after two bottles, throwing up outside Spar on their way. The lager and bitter pipes were being cleaned out and were pouring out a bizarre purple coloured liquid, which no doubt tasted far nicer than the “Lemonade” I was gulping steadily, with or without bleach additive. The pipes were thankfully cleaned after the match, but we were collectively struggling to find unique tastes in our range of drinks assembled on the table before us. It was like sampling Safeway Flavoured Water all over again, and I never went back there for more either.

  ALICE: I can confirm that Incey ate baked rhododendron and thus his tastebuds were spoiled by the botanic seeds that were clambering up from his digestive system. I learned a lot about botanic diseases from that doctor I was screwing on Watchdog. Oops!

                               AFAN LIDO

Incey: Ah. The mecca of alcohol consumption. Here I did not drive and had the pleasure of my first Welsh Premier alcohol experience. I dived straight into the deep end and ordered a Caffreys. To my surprise, it was pure premium bitter with no water mixed in. Wonderful. And I drank the stuff throughout the night, getting more and more inebriated as the time passed. And time passed. And I can honestly say that either I’d missed my alcohol that badly or this was a really nice pint. Friends with me were drinking lager, as football hooligans do, and they were of the same opinion. A friendly atmosphere to go with it, albeit in a rather odd-shaped clubhouse, but who’s complaining when you can get drunk on a lovely pint? Certainly not me! Drinking outside here, however, is a big no-no. Unless, of course, you enjoy being attacked by a vicious and hostile North Sea wind and frozen solid by driving North Sea rain. Windfarms in the United Arab Emirates get less wind than this place, but that has nothing to do with the alcohol or any alcoholic experiences.

ALICE: Mmm yes. I enjoyed a packet of Beefy Squares, almost as beefy as that doctor from Watchdog.

BANGOR CITY

Incey: Ummm I don’t recall going here.

ALICE: Oh okay then, me neither.

BARRY TOWN

Incey: Aha! Barry! We left early evening for Jenner Park with the intention of visiting a few neighbouring pubs but after being hounded off the streets by an angry mob of 12 year olds we retired to the small but airy clubhouse. I can’t even remember which bitter they sold, but I do remember sitting with a diminished number of fans, the rest of whom had visited the local chippie without dropping a hint to us. Thus we sat facing the stadium drooling over hoards of fish and chips being passed around the privileged few, starving our stomachs and feeling inadequately hungry. The beer made us even more hungry, and as a result we drank by the bucketload. Not to complain, however, for although it was a touch expensive it was passable and, on reflection, rather nice. There wasn’t time to catch many more after the game, however, so we took bottles of Holsten Pils onto the bus home and I can’t really comment because Holsten is Holsten wherever it’s bottled. You know the drill.

ALICE: Medical advice tells you never to drink much alcohol on an empty stomach, and Incey broke that rule. He should hang his head in shame.

CAERSWS

Incey: The clubhouse half a mile from the ground, we began our sojourn in the hotel up the road to watch a Live Premiership football match with our coach driver (don’t worry, he wasn’t drinking too). However, it would be unfair to comment on the beer there because they aren’t exactly affiliated with Welsh football. And they made it very clear by telling us it was a rugby place, but welcomed us with open arms anyhow. Very nice people. Hello to them. Yes. Anyway, Caersws clubhouse sold Tetley Bitter and so vile was it that I drank just the one pint. I liked the clubhouse nonetheless, very spacious and roomy but the lack of big screen meant that we were squinting at the results for half an hour and came out looking like Japanese tourists who’d just spent our entire lives in the Caves of Nasiryah. What a shame then about the ground, which we daringly accessed over a sprinter railtrack, just two minutes before the train passed. My life passed before my eyes, minutes before the hot dog I’d purchased also threatened to reappear. “More beer for the way home,” said we, and so a visit to Spar (the only thing in the village) provided us with Carling Black Label and Salt and Vinegar and Paprika Pringles. A true sportsman’s diet, I’m sure you will agree. This was also the place that I was accused of being a thug for shouting out “you useless donkey” at an opposing defender, a comment which I will now retract having seen many donkeys in the past few weeks, none of which were as useless as the defender on show that day.

ALICE: Donkeys are very caring creatures, and they are prepared to demonstrate their generosity at all costs. Their kindness knows no bounds. It is important to distinguish the difference between kind, caring donkeys and useless tenth-rate defenders, as well as mindless critics in the crowd who know nothing about football.

CARMARTHEN TOWN

Incey: Ahem. I’ve not really been doing much of a job really, because a heavy night on the tiles the previous evening meant that my hangover was far too great to top up on. Thus, the one pint of Orange Squash tentatively sipped was the limit for my liquid intake that day. Thankfully there was more citrus flavour in a largely watered drink than there was in the Lemonade at Aberystwyth, which made for an interesting comparison. I was told that the lager was “ok” but my head was suitably pounding at that point so I didn’t exactly ask to justify that claim. Sorry, folks.

ALICE: Incey drinks far too much for my liking, but his hangover did much to instil a sense of calm in his incendiary personality, and he didn’t upset those farmer types at Carmarthen.

CAERNARFON TOWN

Incey: Okay so Caernarfon should have come before both Caersws and Carmarthen but this is my article so I’ll do what I like. This was possibly the most interesting of the trips because I got to incorporate Connahs Quay Nomads with it. Let us start with Connahs Quay Nomads. I watched possibly the worst football match in human history played on a pitch resembling the Red Sea, with more puddles than an incontinence clinic. It was also raining heavily, bitterly cold, and the shop had run out of everything except hot water, a drink they liked to call tea, despite the lack of visible teabag on offer. They had also run out of hot dogs, but on inspection they did find a burger for me. The burger, however, had evidently been eaten before. We left before the end to head for our lodgings for the night, lodgings that would incorporate a bed I didn’t sleep in for too long. It was a run-of-the-mill hotel but one which sold John Smith’s, a personal tipple of mine. And one which I chose to drink from 9pm to 5am, when I retired to bed blind drunk, managing to crash into fitted wardrobes and anything remotely protruding along the way. A severe inability of my room-mate to even see let alone work the shower taps prompted more heavy crashing into random things, waking next door up and no doubt the whole corridor with them. Thus when the time came to sample drinks at Caernarfon itself, my ever-so-fragile stomach point-blank refused to do so. A bar of Dairy Milk was about as far as it could bear to drag itself through, and even that was nibbled with the utmost care so as not to upset the forces at work on my alcoholic intake. Another pint of Orange Squash was all I could manage as far as liquid was concerned, but even the taste of that was something I chose not to remember. Apologies to all readers on this count.

ALICE: Incey is an alcoholic. Not only that but he fails to eat his full English breakfasts after a heavy night, and spends the rest of the day trying to drink water. Is this the sign of a man you want writing this article? I think not, children.