Pete Brown: What a year!
I have a confession to make: I'm writing this column while still under the influence of alcohol, after having exceeded the government's definition of what constitutes a binge.
Guess what? I didn't hurt anyone, didn't offend anyone, didn't get into a fight, didn't throw up or break anything. And while I should probably give my liver a couple of days off, I think I'll be OK health-wise.
I was with 180 other people, most of whom were also binge-drinkers for the night. As far as I know, there were no arrests or hospital admissions.
The event was the British Guild of Beer Writers' annual bash, and I was named Beer Writer of the Year (partly because I can still form sentences while hungover, like now). It was a huge honour - doubly so because the gong has just been renamed in memory of the legendary Michael "not the gloved one" Jackson.
In this, my last column of 2009, I was asked to look back over the year and maybe look forward to 2010. Writing it in the shadow of the award makes it that much easier.
Because when you look at the year's headlines: yet more duty hikes, continued recession, record numbers of pub closures, record fall in beer consumption, the march of the neo-prohibitionists and the continued and universal demonisation of drinkers in the media, the increasing shift to the off-trade, the threat of ever more red tape and regulation, the spat between the regional brewers and the micros, the spat between BrewDog and the Portman Group, the spat between CAMRA and British lager brewers, the spat between CAMRA and the pubcos, the spat between the Fair Pinters and the pubcos, the spat between the Fair Pinters and the British Beer & Pub Association the spat between the Fair Pinters and the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group, the spat between the Fair Pinters and a recently discovered Amazonian tribe who've had no previous contact with western civilisation, the spat between… oh, you get the idea.
When you look back over those headlines, you could be forgiven for saying: "What's the point? Why don't we all just pack up and go home, stopping off at Tesco on the way to pick up a slab of Stella and a bottle of wine?"
And then you go to the Beer Writers' dinner and you see a record attendance - again - and scores of people who weren't there a year or two before, who probably weren't even aware of a Guild of Beer Writers two years ago (my non-beery friends still snigger if I mention the Guild) and you have to ask yourself: why are all these people so keen to write about beer and pubs?
Why do they devote so much time and energy to it in return for - if you're lucky - remuneration that makes the minimum wage look like a banker's bonus? Why are there so many new ones, and why are they choosing to start writing about beer and pubs now?
I hope the answers to those questions are obvious to you. They are to me.
In September I was giving a tutored tasting at the Abergavenny Food Festival. Halfway through, a very drunk man came in and sat next to my wife. "WHO'S THIS?" he bellowed in her ear.
When she told him, he nodded and said "Ah yes, I read him in The Publican. He's RUBBISH!" and proceeded to try to banish me by making crucifix signs.
It's an honour and a privilege to be allowed to sound off about what's on my mind. I've enjoyed this first year a great deal, and hope next year to upset enough of you to make it interesting, while pleasing enough of you to keep my job.
There's going to be a lot more to sound off about.
But last night I heard a brewer start a sentence with the words "Last year, when it was really bad…" and realised some of what we've endured is now slipping into the past tense.
Have a great Christmas. And you know what? Just once, when you're surrounded by your loved ones and want to celebrate the fact, please drink irresponsibly.
