I like beer.
In fact I like beer ever such a lot.
All types of beer.

Over the last few years I have found myself going from trying everything in my local supermarkets to ordering beer online to making friends with specialist shops to having a beer brewed for me and ending up with what appears to be a fast-growing beer centric movement of likeminded people.

I am told by those close to me that I am, in varying degrees, obsessed with and a bit boring about beer.

I think about it a lot. I talk about it too much. I try very hard not to drink it to excess, though I do drink it every day and see it as part of my Five-A-Day healthy diet.

Lately I have started wondering if maybe those close to me are, well, right.
I’ve found myself worrying, yes WORRYING, over which beers to have in the evening.

Every Saturday at 8am you’ll find me in the car collecting my beer for the week.
It’s a subtle blend of Morrisons’ Four-For-A-Fiver deals, Thornbridge from Waitrose, a selection of Brew Dog and the like from Sainsburys and whatever I’ve got hiding from my trips to The Offie for the special stuff.

My day every day goes something like this:

I get up at around 5.30am, creep downstairs, make some fresh coffee and pop the MacBook on in the kitchen.

I’ll go through my emails sending CAMRGB memberships out to those who’ve asked for them, catching up on twitter-feeds, doing any design work that’s waiting for me and slugging black Lavazza.

Around 6.30am I take a cup of tea up to my wife and say good morning to the children.
Then I have a shower and get ready for my day job.

After I’ve had some breakfast and made some lunch I take out the rubbish and the empty bottles from the night before.
While I do this I look at the bottles and remember fondly how good their contents made me feel last night.
I reminisce about the malty notes and the tang of hops.

Then I come face to face with my first problem of the day.
My beer lives on a shelf in our outhouse.
Around 7.30am every morning I go into the outhouse to choose my beer for the following evening.

I always pick a Punk IPA (I have had one every night for just about as long as I can remember) and then I have a look through all the beers I have, reading the labels, matching and contrasting flavours.
I’ll line up three (occasionally four) bottles and, after locking the outhouse door and blowing a kiss to my collection I take my choices to the kitchen.
At this point, as I place those bottles that need chilling in the fridge I panic, yes PANIC, that maybe I’ve made the wrong decision and that maybe that special bottle I was keeping would be excellent with dinner tonight.

Quite often I’ll go back outside and change my choices.
And sometimes I’ll change them again.

Eventually I leave the house and get to work.
My day job’s OK and I have my twitter-feeds for company as well as CAMRGB Member #3 who sits across the room from me.

At around 4.30pm I will find myself thinking about beer and glancing at the clock.
From this point I’m simply counting the minutes to 6pm.

6pm is beer o’clock in my house.

Between 4.30 and 6pm you’ll find me finishing work, driving home, playing with the kids, watering the garden and looking at the fridge and the clock in equal measure.

Once the first beer has been drunk (almost always the Punk IPA – It’s the perfect first drink) I’m settled for the evening.
The kids are in bed and we eat and watch the TV and I take photos of any beers I’ve not tried before.

Yes, I take photos of them.
I admit it.
I make beer porn.

I’m usually early to bed.
About 9.30 ish.

I’ll go to bed and read a book and remember the beer I’ve just drunk and sometimes, occasionally regret my choices and plan to do better tomorrow, and now and then I’ll hold my head and know I shouldn’t have had that extra one that I sneaked back out to the outhouse for at about half past eight.

Then I wake up and the whole thing begins again.