You wouldn’t want a warm beer, would you?

Aah, beer. The shouty, falling-down juice that’s always there for you. It’s the glue that holds everything together: Curry, X-Box, friends and beer. It just wouldn’t work without beer. It’s the magical cement that makes everyone happy. Unless you’re an alcoholic. Or been run down by a drunk driver. Or have severe liver problems. Or have blacked out on a park bench at 3am and woken up with a tramp masturbating next to you.

The only flaw with beer (sorry, beer) is that it has to be cold to be enjoyed properly. This means preparation on a scale comparable with hosting the Olympics. I can’t prepare anything. Actually, that’s a lie, it’s the moment that I step into the kitchen that my mind gets overwhelmed and I can’t cope. Cooking is taking a packet of fish fingers out of the freezer and lobbing them on 200 degrees for twenty minutes, turning half way. Throwing herbs, spices or anything else in causes a mental shutdown. In fact, if the fish fingers need to be on 200 for 20 minutes, and the chips 220 for 25, that’s too much for me. The chips end up not cooked in the middle and a bit soggy and I’m all disappointed and end up just eating crisps.

Anyway, preparing beer. First step is following the Aztecs and building the beer pyramid, in which an entire shelf in the fridge is sacrificed to make a tower of ale. Any food that looks even slightly out of date or manky is thrown out to make more space, while everything else gets squashed into the other shelves, ruining it anyway.

Inevitably, the beer tower will run low later in the evening, which leads to another problem – the new, warmer beer needs to be kept away from the originals so you’re always drinking at optimum coldness. But you’ve already scrunched up everything in the firidge as much as possible. Somehow though, spaces open up all over the place, behind the milk, perilously on top of the butter and rammed sideways in that little tray in the top of the door.

In emergencies, the freezer can be used to speed up the chilling process. However, inevitably one will be forgotten about and left to roll around overnight, exploding and leaving a stale beery odour behind, ruining dinner for weeks. Except the beer battered onion rings. Of course.

Late into the night, this whole process falls apart (even more than previously) and it becomes far easier just to drink it warm. And frankly, that’s all sorts of wrong.

All this could be avoided if they just made room temperature lower. Who do I talk to about that?

Update: Almost a month later, its bothering me that I don’t use the word “Beeramyd” once.