The first taste isn’t necessarily the sweetest…

Posted by on Sep 18, 2012 in Beer Travel, French Beer | No Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I was passed on the way to work by a coachload of school kids, beating the windows and gesturing frantically as they did so. It looked like they were off on some kind of foreign trip, with the earnest teachers sitting up front, staring into the middle distance as they attempted to ignore the chaos in the seats behind. I used to love school trips – freedom from classrooms, plenty of scope to muck about, and (of course) a chance to find that holy grail of the early teenage years – alcohol.

Cast your mind back to the heady summer of 1991. The first Gulf War had just begun. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were fragmenting. Nintendo were about to launch a small grey box called a SNES into the world (Italian plumbers with a certain name would never have a joke-free phone call again). At the same time, a battered bus was arriving into Paris from Preston – many years before a direct service twinned those shimmering cities of light.

School trips to France were the ultimate in excitement to kids of our generation (unless you count text-based adventure games on the Commodore C64). Not because we all shared a love of the French language. We didn’t have a burning desire to study the history of this proud European nation, either. No, the main focus of crossing the Channel was that everyone knew in France they let children drink.

But how to go about it? Surrounded by eagle-eyed teachers, our opportunities were limited. At 15, there was no way we could saunter out of the one-star hotel and head to a local bar – we were curfewed within an inch of our human rights. And anyway, we all knew that the French only allowed restriction-free tweenage boozing with meals. So, mealtime it had to be. Rocking up at a local, cheap, steak n’ frites joint, we spied our prize – small bottles of Carlsberg. Time to strike!

Except, of course, we were far too scared. The first few up took their trays, asked for their ‘bifteck’ and shuffled along, past the chilled drinks cabinet, to the till. Shame filled the eyes as they returned to their seats. Eventually, it took a brave soul to linger in the right place, quickly swap a Fanta for a beer, and skim the tray to the till, a handful of Francs in the trembling hand. We all stared. The woman at the register, barely older than we were, took the money without comment.

We were in! As the teachers had all sat on their own table as far away from us as possible, we had a clear route to the treasure. I’ve not bought a crème caramel and four lagers since that day, but it was the ultimate goal. We quickly stashed those little green bottles in every free pocket of our shellsuits (thankfully, they had plenty), and clinked our way back to the hotel. Only there, in the safety of our adult-free rooms, did we realise the shocking truth about the taste of warm Carlsberg…

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