Sitting on our patio late Sunday I decide to open a beer. It’s a Nort and was abandoned recently by a supposed friend. Like an unwanted but inarguably ugly dog it’s been hiding in the beer fridge, all forlorn and problematic and somehow demanding my attention.

Easing off the top there’s no Christmas Day sizzle or birthday effervescence. Just grim functionality, like programming a Betamax VCR in 1984. It’s unceremonious.

The label is Scandinavian assertive and not casually idiomatic. It demands the drinker, “Enjoy More.” Enjoy more what I wonder. Bing Crosby albums or possibly Gilligan’s Island reruns? Seems a bit pushy.

In the bottom half of the label (there’s probably a technical term for this that the Gruen folk could doubtless tell me) it confidently declares the contents to be, “RERFRESHING ALE.” Well, I’ll be the judge of that I think. See, I’ve already started arguing with my beer and this is generally a harbinger of personal doom. Never a good idea on a Sunday.

I next learn that my beverage is “100% crafted.” Now, I’m pretty sure this is porky pies. Crafted by a kindly old grandpa in his rustic shed? Or spewed up on an automated and soulless conveyor belt in a post-apocalyptic industrial estate?

I think we both know the answer to this.

Spinning the bottle around provides further critical reading opportunity. Who knew that beer could be so educational, so enlightening? If I reflect sufficiently on this, I may concoct a taxonomy for future generations to apply to their drinking pursuits.    

Then I see that my ale is, “plant based.”

Ah.

This is great news for I had become weary of all the meat based beer I’d been happily consuming. All the sausage-centred lager and the steak-derived stout. Not to mention the pork pilsner (could be an adult film, produced in Hamburg).

As I type I wonder about the genius that would be a schnitzel-based beer. Imagine the time we could save! Just fire up the nutri-bullet and stick it all in together! Hot or cold, winter or summer! Yum.

So, how was the beer? Peering at the label again I note that Nort anagrams to Rotn.

Yes, this has been a decidedly rotten episode. Linguistically, spiritually, alcoholically.

I don’t know what it costs or where you buy it. If a mate leaves one in your fridge, tip in on some weeds you want dead and claim the ten cents refund.