When you have children under the age of five, the festive season takes on a new perspective. Rather than taking on the season through your own eyes you tend to take it on through those of your youngsters. Expectation pre Santa, the big morning, and onward to the close of the year. New Years eve through a kids eyes are amazement and astonishment as brilliant flashes explode through the sky.
There is nothing better, however it also means looking for the smaller pleasures to maintains ones own steam through the season. Beer to which this blog pays homage is one such minor miracle.
A good Chinese Feed is another. Perhaps there should be an entire blog devoted to the ubiquitous feed brought to our wide brown lands from afar.
The misses and i having fed the animals and deprived of living large on the last day of the calendar, sat down to a sumptuous 2 course Chinese take-away. Sang Choy Bow, Chilli Pepper Prawns, and Deep Fried Lemon Chicken (pictured) accompanied with the traditional house special fried lice. Oh how a blog could dissect the special frieds across the denizons of Chinese Australia-wide let alone world-wide.
Now this blog is devoted to beer, and may i say there is no better liquid to dissect the lipids with a more worthy alkaline than a clean crisp lager. Such an amenable drop to a chinese feed. Lest it be forgotten, CUB owe our Chinese forebears greatly for the way they put the Crownie on the map. The first of the boutiques, Crown Lager set itself apart. Sure it still sat in a brown bottle, but it has a gold crown around its crest. Crown Lager identifies itself even sans label as it resides in its own uniquely shaped bottle. And in the days when you could only buy Tooheys New, Flag Ale, Kent Brewery, Dinner Ale, or Resches (all local NSW drops) from your local bottlo or through the taps of your watering hole, you had to go up-market to lay your mits on a Crown. It meant dressing up in your high cut dress shorts with belt, open necked shirt, and long white socks. Giving the missus a night off the dishes and settling back for a drive in your HQ down to the nearest Bowlo for the 6pm sitting at the ‘outsourced’ chinese bistro. For it was only there that Crown – the original boutique – was available.
Unfortunately i had no Crownies on hand to cut these lipids, but as pictured i did have “The Famous Beer of Mauritius ” – Phoenix, to cut through this sap.
back of the ferry 
As always, a unique perspective