It has been a dodgy last four weeks…
…for the Three Lions I mean.
A team so packed with talent that they were all able to play out of position for all seven matches, and still bulldoze their way into the Euro 24 Cup Final, where they were narrowly defeated again.
Wait, are you sure?
As a lifelong England and West Ham United sufferer supporter, the Cask Whisperer has come to expect the calamitous and marvel over the fortuitous.
Rose-colored glasses? Nah, that would be the rugby.
Let’s face it, the games were ugly and the early divisional results underwhelming, but those few beautiful moments (the goals, the drama, the penalties) were absolutely amazing to experience, especially if you happened to be parked at the bar or sitting in the terraces in the middle room at Jones Wood Foundry at the time.
I was parked at the JWF bar for those first three divisional games, and actually enjoyed the camaraderie (misery likes company) and the accompanying pints of cask; it really was just like standing at the back of the West Enclosure at Upton Park back in the day, but with much better beer.
Coming into those games we were the best team in the tournament (everybody said so) and it was definitely coming home!
Coming out of those games, we had somehow topped our group with our dour defensive approach and tacky-tacky midfield, and some lucky results in the other divisions; hey, we were still in and had the “easiest” route to the final.
It might have still come home, once we exploded into action in the knockout stages.
For the round-of-16 game, I was crammed into the JWF middle room with what appeared to be several hundred other like-minded souls; well, maybe twenty (you know, fire regulations) but it sounded like several hundred when we spawned out that brilliant last-minute equalizer and extra-time finisher.
I had a seat, which I occasionally shared with my neighbor, and I had several more fine pints of cask.
What I didn’t have was an easy path to the bathroom; that extra-time period was not particularly comfortable…
For two minutes of the game England were adequate.
It’s coming home!
Because, why not.
Even the gods were on our side.
Onward to the quarter finals and Switzerland, the toughest team we would face so far.
No JWF this time, no fellow Brits this time; I would be lucky to even get to see the game.
The quarter-final just happened to occur on a day when I would be helping to set up a party for 60-80 folks in a clubhouse in Deerfield Beach FL.
But there was a TV in the room, and I was able to figure out how to use it and tune it to the match.
No sound of course, but better than nowt.
I didn’t get to see much of the first half (didn’t miss anything), just the occasional glance over when I was in that part of the club room.
Things improved after half-time; well, for me they did.
I was assigned to watch over my 6-year-old granddaughter and was able to stand in the empty part of the room with one eye on my charge and the other on the box.
England were playing like England again, but fortunately Switzerland were also playing like England, so the game crawled on to its inevitable conclusion, extra-time and then penalties. Oh Joy.
I had been existing on Coke and Ginger Ale up to that point but figured that I had to have a beer in my hand for the ugly part, so went and grabbed myself a can of Michelob Ultra (are they still in business?) from the ice chest.
And so, for about ten minutes England played like Italy, or Spain, or Germany, and nailed all five penalties (has that ever happened before?).
And it was coming home!
And so was I, for the semi-final.
By train.
A slow train that would get me back to NYC in time to watch the game, as long as it arrived less than four hours late.
It got back in record time, only two and a half hours late, but I decided not to go to JWF to watch the game as my missus and granddaughter were due to arrive (by air, sensibly) around half-time, and I knew that they would need help getting home from the airport.
So, I “watched” the game from my phone, as I have watched many West Ham games, refreshing the BBC live reporting screen for a couple of hours.
No beer.
I mean I had some cans and bottles in the house, but I was just too busy watching over my granddaughter and my phone to even think about popping one.
Oy, I suspect that will be my routine over the next month, until she has to get back to Texas in early August to return to school.
But you wont be hearing any complaints from me; besides, she will be tagging along on some of my adventures if the weather cooperates.
But not the Euro 24 final; that was standing room only for us intrepid and forever hopeful supporters.
There was only one place that I wanted to go and watch England rise from the ashes of victory, and mock us once again.
I would be standing at the JWF bar, with pint(s) in hand and my back to the barroom wall, ready to leap into the air with every goal and punch my fist with every save.
The atmosphere was great, with everybody expecting great things from the underdog best team in the tournament.
Seriously though, there was a distinct lack of anxiety in the air, and when the inevitable happened, there was no crying into the beer.
The game may not have been a classic, but the experience was.
It didn’t come home.
The media has been calling it 58 years of agony before the game kicked off; I guess it will be 60 years before it finally comes home.
I looked around the rooms at Jones Wood Foundry before leaving for home, and looked at the faces and ages of all of the folks present, and realized that I was probably the only person at the venue who had actually managed to watch England win a major trophy.
I still remember it, sitting on the floor at a friends house with my back to the couch and a bottle of Tizer (or maybe Vimto) in my hand and several empty bags of cheese and onion crisps on my lap; they made us suffer too, before crushing it in extra-time.
So now come the hard weeks with no football on the box until the Premier League kicks off again next month, and no Internationals until the World Cup qualifiers kick off later this year; both West Ham and England will be starting anew with a new manager in charge.
We also have a couple of months before any cask ale events return, and this oppressive heat will probably continue throughout the summer, so long crawls may not be on my calendar for the near future …
… but I will give it a shot.
Scorecard w/e 07/16/24
In the past week, The Cask Whisperer has enjoyed the following casks:
- Strong Rope Aurora 24 Blonde Ale @ Jones Wood Foundry
- Gun Hill Crusader Corn Lager @ Jones Wood Foundry
- Old Glenham Weavers Pale Ale @ Jones Wood Foundry
Upcoming Cask Events (Festivals and Otherwise)
9/7/2024: Noah Webster House Real Ale Harvest Festival, West Hartford CT
11/8/2024: Two Roads Cask Fest at Area 2, Stratford CT
11/9/2024: 20th Annual Blue Point Cask Ale Festival, Patchogue NY
Upcoming Random NYC Casks
7/19/2024: Strong Rope Helles Bock at Strong Rope Red Hook at 5pm.
NYC Cask Venues
Known Operational/Active Beer Engines
- Jones Wood Foundry (x2)
- Fifth Hammer
- Wild East
- The Shakespeare (x3)
- Cask Bar & Kitchen
- Drop-off Service
Occasional Pins (worth a follow on Instagram)
- Strong Rope
- KCBC
- Tørst
- Blind Tiger Ale House
- Threes Brewing
- Brouwerij Lane
This Post Has 4 Comments
We’re tapping a cask of our Helles Bock this Friday at Red Hook to celebrate this taproom’s 3rd anniversary! Probably in the afternoon but definitely by 5pm.
Cheers John.
Any chance it will still be there on Saturday, and you will be open to the public?
I would say there’s a good chance and yes we’re open to the public Saturday. Jason and a couple others will be at Kills Boro for Pizza Party and I’ll be in Cape May (hopefully stealing over to Cricket Club for a Seeds Cask…).
Cool, enjoy the Cricket Club.
I am going to try to get out to Red Hook on Saturday, weather permitting.