Bengal Lancer and Walt Disney World

One day I'll invest in a decent camera

Bengal Lancer is a relatively new India Pale Ale brewed by Fullers. I've had the cask version a few times and have always enjoyed its distinctive, rather understated hoppy taste. It's quite a fine example of a IPA although at 5% you have to be careful with it. I recently enjoyed the bottled version for the first time. It's brewed slightly stronger at 5.3% although the flavour remains unchanged. The subtle hops are there and there's a rather pleasant if faint spiciness to the finish. A fine ale and well worth a tipple in both cask and bottle form.

One thing Bengal Lancer has going for it is a pretty cool name. As I'm a little bit pathetic I sometimes like to think up names for ale, especially if it involves a really terrible pun. I must warn you now that I'm going to go into a long, slightly pointless story. I can't promise you'll get any worth out of it. But you may as well read on as I doubt you have anything better to do.

Hooray for Disney!
Faces blurred to protect the innocent.

The best ale name I ever thought up was at the Epcot theme park in Walt Disney World. At the back of Epcot Disney have faithfully recreated eleven countries of the world. They're really just oversize, three dimensional tourist brochures to get confused Americans to visit each country for real, but they are fun. My favourite area is the cafe in the Moroccan pavilion. Forget Space Mountain or the Tower of Terror, there's nothing more entertaining than watching confused Americans work out how to pronounce “schwarma” and then work out what the hell a “sch-a-mar” is. Most of them give up and end up going to the French or German pavilion next door. Disney should just admit defeat and call it "Slicey spicy meats in sauce" to avoid the hassle.

To be fair although Americans get a bad rap for not knowing about anything outside their own country or even their own state, world ignorance is rife in the UK as well. I was once at the top of the Blackpool Tower. Behind me I heard a lady explain to her hubby how it looked a bit like the Eiffel Tower. He responded in that blissfully ignorant way that only stupid people can pull off “Eiffel Tower, that in Blackpool?” Sadly the police didn't immediately show up, say “I'm sorry” and then euthanise the poor bugger for the good of the country. All I could do was shake my head and tut slightly, safe in the knowledge that the Eifell Tower is actually in Paris, Las Vegas.

Getting back to the original subject of my greatest ever ale name, every country in the World Showcase has a bar serving the local brews. Sadly I couldn't indulge as I was driving. It was however amusing watching downtrodden parents deal with the problem of being sunburnt, harassed and on the edge of bankruptcy by getting absolutely rat arsed. As I got to the China pavilion the best ale name I had ever thought up was born. I figured that if Disney ever imported a ruby red beer brewed in China, they could call it Mulan Rouge.

There you go. Three paragraphs to get to probably the worst pun you've ever read. I apologise profusely and can promise you the next entry will actually be informative and possibly even humorous. It's all about the Derbyshire Ale Festival at The Bricklayers Arms so please do read it when I actually get round to typing it up and putting it online! Thanks.