THE ADVENT CALENDAR OF ALCOHOL – 7th December (6%- 7%): Brothers’ Bar Perry
Every kind of intoxicant is for sale illegally or legally at the Glastonbury Festival. The three day home of hippies is the place to get off your tits on speed, acid, whatever microdots or fungus some chancer in a funny hat offers you. I am certainly not advising you to take drugs. Firstly it is illegal and I would not want you to get clamping in leg-irons and shipped out to the Indies. Secondly, if you are at Glastonbury, the strongest intoxicant is actually legal. And it does not come from a “Herbal High” tent.
The Brothers’ Bars are gaudily painted trailer, pumping out nosebleed techno and stand as an alternative to the sanctioned Worker’s Beers Tents. The queues are not quite as deep which may be due to the alcohol on offer. You see the Brothers’ Bar sells perry. Pear Cider. At a happy, sun-friendly, thirst quenching 7% (you can also get a 4.5% version watered down with lemon or strawberry cordial). A pint costs ‘2.50, though for speed purposes you can also buy a two liter bottle for a fiver and top up your cup all afternoon. Tasty, crisp and cool – Brothers’ Bar perry has it all. Did I mention it was loopy juice?
Perhpas it is the sun. Perhpas it is the general air of intoxication. But nothing I have ever drunk has ever got me drunk in the same kind of way as this perry. Certain publog correspondants have had rather violent reactions to too much BB Perry, and these are people who can quite happily stomach ten pint of Ayingerbrau of an evening. It has made me skip (Skip!), sing Beatles songs (Beatles!) and almost enjoy condone the Afro-Celt sound system (AFRO-CELT!). It is a drink for all day, breakfast, lunch and dinner. Though possibly not for the morning after. If you start on Thursday you may not get back on the Perry horse again, but you can ride the bouze wagon until the vans run out – usually Sunday afternoon. The moment the Brothers’ Bar Perry stalls run out is the moment I feel Glastonbury is starting to end.
So who are these Brothers, and why can we not get this Perry anywhere else. Apparently they make the perry just for the festival and sell their entire batch in just three days. This is sound economics. I assume they wander back to their orchards afterwards ready for another year of pear growing and brewing, looking forward to anothe rfew days making people vomit, fall over and worst of all, potentially like the Afro-Celt sound system. Brothers Bar Perry – we salute you.