The Sessions #74 Finding Beer Balance

On the first Friday of every month beer bloggers around the world join together for The Sessions ( which are also known as Beer Blogging Friday). There’s no entry fees or membership required, we all just write a blog entry on a pre-determined topic each month.
This month’s Session is hosted by Bryan at This Is Why I’m Drunk. He’s chosen the topic of Finding Beer Balance, which he describes thusly.
“Is beer your vice? Is beer your reward? Does beer really have to be either? Do you find lifestyle balance through work, hobbies, family or maybe even ‘Dry Days’? There are a variety of ways to find balance.

What is beer balance? do I have balance? is beer part of balance? is balance more or less important to a tight rope walker than myself? can a bear balance a can of beer on its nose? why would a bear balance a can of beer on its nose when there is a tight rope walker near by with bad balance who may or may not have just consumed a few beers? this is going nowhere, hang on could this be a lack of balance and what is it to do with beer.

Firstly I have to admit that I have put little to no thought into this post and I’m really just smashing something out while I wait for someone to come and help me transfer my work emails and website to another server. As for balance and beer I don’t really know what that means.

For me balance means not letting any one thing take over your world, be that work, hobbies, yoga, soduku, chainsaw juggling or beer. I always see balance as a set of scales or a seesaw, where the load of stuff on one end balances out the other. Beer is really good a balancing out the bad or annoying shit. Beer balances out a hard day of manual work, a shitty day of dealing with dick heads, or just a plain long day on the phone. Its an excellent full stop at the end of a  work day.

When it comes to a celebration I don’t think beer really comes under the terms of balance for me. It’s a celebration aid, not a balancer.

Anyway what is balance for me? I tend to bring balance to my life by brewing beer, watching bad TV and tinkering with things. Generally kicking my brain into neutral brings me balance.

I am however on the point of facing a bit of a personal tipping point in relation to my balancing activities with my brewing transitioning from a hobby to a business. Just this week I ordered a 30 hl fermenter from China. I like to think right now there is a bloke with a hammer and an angle grinder working on my fermenter.

Anyway this will see one of my balancing activities potentially shift to the other end of the scales. I really don’t know how this will go. As I plan to keep my day job my it will definitely eat into my brain neutral time. Will it still bring me balance? I don’t know. I mean I think it will but it will be different to spending 4 hours int he woolshed with the radio or podcasts on, and its a business so there is the possibility of some financial stress too but it’s still making beer.

Time will tell if it keeps the balance, however beer in general takes a big chunk of my life, in how and where I spend my leisure time, my cash,  my study time, the books I read, the people I spend time with. It’s not all of it, but it is a fair bit. Oh and I do drink the odd beer, but I keep that in balance with some exercise and mostly eating healthy. I tell myself that there is a balance there but I suspect that many health professionals may not support this, still there may be that 1 out of 10 that says “no probs that’s all good and in balance”. Looking forward to meeting that guy.

In the meantime I’ll still maintain my own personal ballance with a beer on the couch watching some bad TV. Sometimes.

Cheers D