Custom Beers And An Actual Cheese-Cake
My father-in-law and I have the same date of birth, August 30, so it’s not often I get to have my own birthday celebration. In fact Anna says there are more photos of me cutting a cake with her dad than there are of us doing the same, but this year would be different, because he would be overseas and our birthdays fell on a Saturday. Turning 46 isn’t a particularly momentous occasion, but she wanted to make this rare opportunity count so it was time to party!
In the weeks leading up to the date Anna had made a couple of faux pas’ so I kind of had an inkling as to what might unfold, the first being that I got chatting to a guy by the name of Ryan Gomez at my local pub, Kings, and it turns out that he runs a microbrewery that does custom, small-batch beers which to me was fascinating. One of the managers of Kings and a great friend of ours, Ray, knew him and started chatting with him so I continued a conversation with a few other friends, but I noticed something interesting — Anna had pulled up a seat to join Ray and Ryan and they seemed to be getting into a very detailed conversation that lasted quite a significant amount of time. Could something be in the works? The second mistake Anna made was accidentally adding me to a WhatsApp chat group about my birthday so I removed myself from it, however, I still kept getting notifications, but being the gentleman I am I muted it and didn’t look at the messages.
Okay, I was not expecting that!
As seems to be the case now, it took no time at all for the day to come around and the gift I had a minor inkling about was what I received, but it was far better than I had imagined! Anna’s not big into beers, but she doesn’t mind fruity, sour ales and she wanted to be able to take part in the fun so she order a custom raspberry sour for me from Ryan’s microbrewery, Kalasag Brewery, but there was more. There was also a custom label, the brew called ‘Timmy Longlegs Birthday Beer’ and she had decided to use elements of things I love as well as some absolutely terrible photos of me. The background was a basketball court and the logo of my favourite band, but the plan was also to humiliate me a little so she added a terrible photo of me from when we were in Greece in 2008 and I had grown a moustache under the completely incorrect assumption that many people there have them, another bad picture of me in a lederhosen t-shirt at Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany in 2010, and then there was the worst of all and she had to use it four times; a photo my parents took of me on what I think was my first day of school. If that wasn’t enough, to make things even better there was a QR code on the label that led to a Youtube video of friends and family of ours around the world, most of whom were unable to make it wishing me a happy birthday:
That alone would’ve been great, but we were only getting started, as another delivery arrived. Anna knows I don’t really have a sweet-tooth, but I love cheese so instead of a regular birthday cake she got me a proper cheese-cake. That’s right, two different wheels of cheese stacked on top of each other, surrounded by roses made of salami and other meat and fruit-based garnishes. It was only noon and my day was already as good as anyone could’ve wanted.
That little chat group I had been accidentally added to was made to organise a bit of a party, however, Kings had to close for a couple of weeks due to unforeseen circumstances so it was planned for everyone to meet up at another brewery, Brewerkz at Riverside Point. Slowly people arrived, most of them I expected, but others not so much including Craig, a man I haven’t seen in probably at least 12 years, but whose Aussie Bar that I used to go to in order to unwind on a Friday evening after a week of dealing with school kids was responsible for me meeting many of my friends in Singapore. By absolute sheer chance he had seen on Instagram that it was my birthday and where we were hanging out, but what was even more unlikely was that he just happened to be in the country and was staying in a hotel nearby! Upon their arrival everyone received a can of my birthday brew which they sipped discretely owing to the fact that we were in a completely different brewery, but the opinion seemed to be unanimous; that beer was fantastic!
We ordered a ton of food and all just sat around eating and drinking the actual Brewerkz beverages from then on, and then gorging ourselves on cheese while chatting into the night, at one point our dogs being brought down to join us for a bit, and when the pub closed it was back to our place for a few more.
The beer label, the cheese-cake, and our unexpected guest, Craig:
At the end of the day this turned out to be the best birthday I’ve ever had, all organised by the greatest wife possible! A big thank you to everyone who was able to make it, as well as for all of the birthday wishes from those who couldn’t, but we’ve kept a beer aside for each of you for the next time we meet up. Also, if you want your own custom beer or just want to try something different, definitely check out Kalasag Brewery. Cheers again, everyone, you guys are awesome!
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