Yesterday was a pretty freaking good day.  A classic. That’s because it involved:

1. a beer tasting in the afternoon. Yup, happened to pop around to the folks at &UNION as they were cracking open some new brews from a microbrewery in Namibia called ‘Camelthorn.’ Yes, I hear your sniggers. The cameltoe jokes are inevitable, especially after a few. One wonders how that goes down in the hard-knock bars in Windhoek? Not that I’ve ever been to a hard-knock bar in Windhoek, but I imagine they’re filled with big, hairy German-speaking locals that ride Harley rip-offs and say the German word for ‘wench’ a lot. Anyways, the beers were okay. Camelthorn Weissbier being the best, and their American Ale (which is a Pale Ale really) also quite tasty. Poor packaging though. Checkout a video on the brewery here.

2. a wine tasting after work. Nothing wrong with that at all. Tasted a few decent wines at Caveau as part of a little ‘bring your own bottle’ gathering they want to do every Tuesday with mates. Very unlike Caveau, since if you (foolishly) decided to bring your own bottle on a normal day, you’d probably get asked – politely, at first – to take it back to the car. However, a few regulars brought bottles and gathered around the main table. What was good? Groot Constantia Shiraz ‘Gouverneurs’ Shiraz 2006 is a cracking wine, that’ll age forever. Veenwouden Syrah 2007 is tasting gangbusters right now. And Hedonist Red 2008 (Syrah Grenache Carignan Viognier) was also a favourite, though the bottle maybe slightly heat-exposed.

3. a catchup dinner with a mate. One that involved far too much wine. In fact, with partners, the four of us consumed 6 bottles and about two kilograms of bacon & asparagus risotto. Then at midnight we strolled up to the Engen where after we consumed 8 cheese “chickenburgers” from Barcelos and a pack of Bugles (those Woolworths ones that are addictive). Anyways, enough about that, the wines we drank were: Deetleefs Familie Brut 2006, a fresh bubbly with nothing too remarkable about it; Hawksmoor ‘Barrel 59′ Syrah 2008, a delicious, ‘chocolatey’ style; Ondine Cabernet Sauvignon 2007, rather nasty stuff; JH Pacas Shiraz 2004*, possibly the worst wine I’ve had in years, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, even Julius Malema, he who berates wine-drinkers; and two bottles of Mapoggo Cab Franc/Cab Sauv/Merlot 2008, a pleasant red that goes down well after four bottles of other wine.

It’s not often I get to do a beer tasting, a wine tasting and a catchup dinner with a good mate of all in one day. Needless to say I needed a Disprin this morning. Well, two really.

* this wine is so bad I actually went and looked up about it online, which you can do at their website if you’re reaaallly bored. Anyway, rather hilariously, they write “After researching into the name “Pacas”, we discovered that it is the name of a rodent found in south and central America…” This is quite apt, since the wine tastes like it was made by rodents in south and central America.