Brazil yet to score shocker...

Twitter Titter #5

davidschneider

I'd say the disarray in the French team dates from the appointment of sports psychologist Paddy O'Shaunessy

and latest news:-

simonmayo

Sky sources: England coach Fabio Capello agrees to tell players of team selection earlier. (via @SkyNewsBreak)

Here's a link to current scenarios in all groups. Especially interesting is the possibility of a coin toss if England score two more goals than the US in their final games.

Cup of Good Hop Match 29:
Brazil 0

Ivory Coast 0

Deaks' 'Barak Obrahma' quip is more entertaining than either brew, and Tusker yet again fails to impress. 'The only big game this will be involved with is the elephant on the label,' says Peter. By this time the lads are very bored of generic Lagerland lager, and this goalless encounter is testament to that. 'Brazil need to have a word with themselves beer-wise, this is a shoddy display,' says James.

Not everyone is complaining about the Vuvuzela

Match 30:
Portugal 1
Mandi 10

North Korea 0

An encounter nearly as flat as Mann's Brown Ale itself. Sagres gets the nod over a 2.8% beer that has recipes written on the side of the bottle. 'It's going to qualify for the last 16, but I can't see Portugal getting much further,' says Stu. Like Ronaldo, there's something a little effeminate about Sagres, whereas Mann's has completely lost the faith of the judges. 'It's giving me the shivers,' says Peter, who can't face drinking any more. 'You've got to wonder who still buys this rubbish.' I suppose we did, but for a very specific reason.

Group G Table

		P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	PTS
1	Portugal	2	2	0	0	3	0	3	6
2	North Korea	2	1	0	1	1	1	0	3
3	Brazil	2	0	1	1	0	1	-1	1
4	Ivory Coast	2	0	1	1	0	2	-2	1

COGH Analysis: Portugal top a poor group and have yet to concede a goal. Brazil, on the other hand have yet to score one and run the very real risk of first round elimination at the hands of North Korea. The Ivorians could spoil their party but will have to perform significantly better than in their previous two matches.

Not so nuts about Brazil...

A fascinating clash of cultures in Group G, with the Iberian influences of Brazil and Portugal going head to head with the totalitarian nuttiness of North Korea and the war-torn morass that has been the recent history of the Ivory Coast. Similarly, in terms of getting hold of the beers, we had no trouble with two (#Bra and #Por), whilst the other two steadfastly refused to surrender. Therefore, we have been forced to field a couple of ringers, which are:-

North Korea
Mann's Brown Ale, 2.8%
'In 2000, North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il announced he wanted a brewery. At the same time, the Ushers Brewery in Trowbridge, Dorset, was put up for sale. A deal was done and within 18 months, the North Korean government had dismantled the brewery, shipped it home to Pyongyang, put it back together again and begun brewing “Taedong River Beer”. As you can’t get Taedong River Beer in the UK, we’ve opted for Mann’s Brown ale, the terrific traditional beer that was once brewed on the same brewing kit. A slightly sweet, malt driven creamy ale with a nutty finish.' thedrinksbusiness.com

Ivory Coast
Tusker, 4.2%
'Tusker is a medium lager, yellow in colour but with little of a head. It is quite crisp and clean and makes an ideal 'Sunday Afternoon' beer. Tusker leaves a satisfactory aftertaste. It tastes quite sweet and fruity. It has much more of a taste to it than many lagers and if you are looking for something different then this is probably worth checking out.' yoodoo.com

Brazil
Brahma, 4.8%
'This beer has a very weak bite, flowery aroma and very pleasant afertaste leaning toward citrus/grape. It almost feels as if your drinking a soda rather then a beer. There is no sickly feeling or gassyness after it goes down, not carbonated at all. I expect a large amount of synthetic ingredient, which is infact a good thing with this beer as they've managed to make it taste very-non generically stale.' thebackpacker.net

Portugal
Sagres, 5.2%
'This pale, lager-type beer is a little bland on the nose, with some mild malty notes. On the palate it is quite smooth and rich-textured, with a decent amount of dry, almost bitter-edged hoppy fruit and decent length, but it is bit too "clean" and under-flavoured for me.' Beernotes.com

Twitter Titter #1

This is a new COGH occasional feature where we pull out the tweets that have made us titter...

Enjoyed @DolphinHotel's 'North Koreans already celebrating their team's 3-0 thrashing of #Bra thanks to 62 goals from Kim Jong-Il.'

Match 13:
Ivory Coast 0

Portugal 2
Castrol 20, Contralto 69

Though we were a bit dismissive about Sagres as a 'holiday beer', it was nonetheless crisp and hoppy. However, this was less entertaining than the 'Tusker Du' comments and the exchange between Stu and Deaks.
D: 'I'm not getting anything off this.'
S: 'Reminds me of my honeymoon.'
D: 'Why? Didn't you get any?'
S: No - I went to Kenya.'
Still, such mirth was not enough to save Tusker from a two-goal turnover.

Key man: Kim Jong-Il
Match 14:
Brazil 0

North Korea 1
Jong-Il 77

Critique reached new lows as Mann's was described as a 'Paraguay wannabe', and 'it's giving me the shivers', and Brahma received a damning 'its what you'd drink on Copacobana Beach when feeling up a girl who was actually a boy.' At this point, Dan asked 'how do you spell deteriorating?' Kinda summed it all up. Low quality, apart from the five-star humour.

Beers 17-22 - here we go, here we go, here we go...

Fully recovered from my brush with the law, I decided to stay closer to home in order to embark on the second half of COGH. A return visit to Trafalgar Wines, Brighton elicited the following purchases:- (n.b. James has bought Netherlands and re-purchased Mexico (Beers 16 & 17), and a post detailing this will doubtless appear in the fullness of time, and the next post will be more arthouse, with pictures of the beers in their natural habitat and exclusive footage where we get up close and personal with the contestants.)

BEER#17 Spain - £2.00

Alhambra Mezquita has an ABV of 7.2% - stacking up yet another COGH beer that is to be treated with maximum respect. Should be a strong contender in the group games.

BEER#18 - Chile - £1.80

The Chileans don't export their beer, and steps will / may be taken to get hold of these rare countries, but in the meantime a little punnery got us as far as Chilli Beer. Ahem... Apologies to purists here - and I doubt it will be the only one during the course of this post.

BEER#19 - USA - £1.99

Apologies to purists for this. Despite appeals to go for a US microbrewery, we've plumbed for Budweiser. Is this an anti-American bias creeping in? Na... it's because this 'can' of Bud has got a picture of the World Cup on it. Sucker.

BEER#20 Slovenia - £2.00

Again, Slovenian beers are like hen's teeth over here, and I've been in enough Eastern European shops lately to be a chicken dentist. Fortunately many UK beers are made with Slovenian hops and Adnams is one such brewer. Broadside is a lovely example of the breed, so I decided to bring it into our kennel of beer. I think that's enough metaphors for now. Could well do better than the actual Slovenian team considering the weak competition in Group C - and no we haven't fixed it. This is scientific don't you know.

Ooh - look at the reflection on that bottle...

BEER#21 - Honduras - £2.40

According to the experts, Honduran beer isn't going on. The man in Trafalgar Wines sadly shook his head and said there hasn't been a World Cup like it - maybe there's a PhD in looking at the best World Cup for COGHing. Maybe not - they'd never get that through the budget cuts. Still, that said, bananas are the top export of Honduras, and I really like Banana Bread Beer. That completes Group G, the second quartet we no longer have to worry about.

BEER#22 - Ivory Coast (again) - £1.79

Bought another bottle of Tusker after Saturday's debacle to represent the highly fancied Ivorians. Yes, my ipod is still dead, and yes - am still fuming about the conduct of the Metropolitan Police on Saturday. Nuff said before I go off on a diatribe...

On a brighter note, we have a new recruit for the latter and most important stages of COGH - the tasting. In a deal reported to be worth approximately ten beers we have enticed top international blogger Danny Last of European Football Weekends. For the uninitiated here he is in multilingual mode:-

Danny will help us record the momentous events and be our illustrious guest taster when the action kicks off in the next couple of weeks. Welcome aboard mate.

Before that happens, we have ten more beers to acquire. Five of these are easy... France, England, Germany, Italy and Denmark (again).

And five fiendish ones... Ghana, Serbia, Cameroon, Slovakia and the dreaded North Korea. Any help / suggestions in rounding up these would be fantastic... In the meantime signing off for now - more than 600 views so far and counting. Thanks for your interest in our noble yet slightly silly quest...

PS

Have I Got Booze for You...

7.15am, just about to set off for a WHOLE DAY beer hunting in London. Watch this space for a full report later...

Right... what a day. EVERY detail of what I have to report is true. This is just as much a political report as a beer blog today, but will try to keep it short and to the point and not a rant...

Got early lift with mate Jason as far as Greenwich, and looked at my dog-eared list of beer specialists, with only the south and west of the capital left to be combed. Got tube to London Bridge and went to Otobeer in Borough Market (v highly recommend). What a find. Lovely guys, couldn't be more help - and there I found:-

1) BEER#11 Greece - Mythos - £2.00
They may be having problems at the moment but it didn't take Archimedes to get a new angle on searching down this lager.




2) BEER#12 - Denmark - Mikkelle Stateside IPA £2.00



More about this one later, when our tale washes over you like the North Sea over the Little Mermaid - or something like that.

3) BEER#13 - Paraguay - £6.00 (yes, six of your English pounds!)



This is American, but stored in Paraguayan wood, which is enough of a link in this magical pystery tour...

4) BEER #14 - South Africa - £2.00



Durban Pale Ale - this is one of those ones that needs to be decanted from the bottle as its got yeast and bits of kids at the bottom of the bottle - intriguing.

5) I also found lovely chaps and a great chat about our quest, with the basic message being that COGH was impossible and that we needed to make some compromises in order to get 32 representatives together. This confirmed our need to find logical, or not so logical replacements for the following because they don't export their beers to the UK:- N Korea, Chile, Ivory Coast, Slovenia, Uruguay and Honduras.

On I went to Elephant and Castle to a South American shop - not a beer in sight. Undettered I went to Brick Lane to check out its exotic wares. Surely this melting pot would hold many glories? Well, it held two.

BEER #15 - Ivory Coast £1.79

Tusker is from Kenya - ok, that's cheating a bit but I've never had it and we've got to have some ringers.

BEER #16 - Algeria - 79p

The biggest selling beer in Algeria is Skol. Yes, that's right. Yuk. Still, bought a can of it so that North Africa can have representation, an inauspicious way to reach the COGH halfway mark.

I then went to Ealing to have a few beers with a mate. With it being such a lovely day the park was the option of choice and Leffe Blonde was the preferred tipple. Oh Belgium, why did you not qualify?


Arguably the best beer in the world, but not in COGH

To cut a long story short, Andy and I were a few bottles down each, causing no bother whatsoever when two Community Support Officers came to harass us. Quite why they picked on us when lots of people were drinking in the park is quite beyond me. To cut a longer story even shorter, despite attempts to just leave the park they pursued us and called for back-up. Jesus Christ - what kind of country is this!

After arguing the toss with all five - five! ****ing police (well, three real ones and two wannabes) I was given an £80 on-the-spot fine - which I have less than no intention of paying.

All this commotion made me late for my lift back to Brighton from Greenwich, and in my haste to get there I stumbled on an escalator and two of the beers (Tusker and Mikkel) smashed in my bag, all over my iPod, which at the time of writing no longer works. What fascist bastards - they've caused COGH to only have 14 rather than 16 beers so far. Nuff said... onwards and upwards next week...

PS