Perry

After a showery day and frustrating times at work, both Moonface and I needed to go for a stroll in the evening. We left home at eight thirty or so, then walked past the Prison, over the common and its remnant playing fields to the Wellington; about twenty-five minutes of talking and disengagement from the cares of the day.

Daisy served us with a pint of cider each, which we drank in the garden under the leaden clouds of the evening. After we had placed our order, we had spotted that the pub was serving perry, so I decided that it had to be my next drink. It's still very difficult to find perry in pubs,in spite of the resurgence of interest in ciders. They were serving Heck's perry, a single varietal from nears Wells in Somerset, at 6.5%, which is pretty strong. A pint was enough.

I still can't decide whether it's wonderful or the drink from hell, never mind Heck. It's a pale, translucent honey colour, which Moonface described less rhapsodically as like cystitis piss. Chemically, I guess it's a colloid, with lots of pectin & protein in semi-suspension. It's got loads of body and many identifiable flavours. Ones I can identify include cucumber, citrus and malic touches, and of course the traditional pear-drop iso-amyl acetate note. There's no head at all, with hardly any fizz. And the drink slides down so easily, as I guess that I would in a different way should I drink too much of it.

Wonderfully, I had no touch of a headache the morning after, not one bit.


:-p