UEFA 2024 EUROs, Group C
Tuesday 25 June 2024
Played at Köln
England Away Game #157
German Beer Ticks up to #109
We leave Köln this morning. England have won the group. So, we're moving on (back) to Gelsenkirchen for the Round of Sixteen. In my lifetime, tournament group games will NOT be used to eliminate teams. They'll be used just to decide who plays who in the knockouts. A thirty two team EUROs or World Cup, 8 groups of 4, once the groups are done we'll go to a Round of Thirty Two knockout. In every knockout game, the “lower ranked” country will try to take the game into extra time and penalties. The TV ratings will be astronomical with that minnows narrative. And football will have died a bit more.
Anyway. Round of Sixteen.
If you're in K-Town, you're gonna drink K-Beer. Kölsch.
Kölsch has a Protected Geographical Indication. Think Melton Mowbray Pies and Henderson's Relish. To call your beer Kölsch, it must be made within 50k of Köln. And must be brewed according to “the rules”. Let's go with top fermented and cold conditioned.
It's alright. But, can seem a little bland and insipid. Cold, wet, and you can drink a lot of it. There's a ritual to serving it. Done properly, it comes in 20 mil test tube glasses called Stange. The myth is that serving such small measures means the beer in your hand is always fresh and chilled. Barmen are supposed to constantly trawl the room, carrying fresh Stanges in a tray called a Kränz - a Wreath. If they feel you're in need, they whack another down in front of you.
Done properly (which I think is rare these days) it's Beautiful Beer Bollocks. Rather than ordering a beer, you have to order for the beers to stop. We sat down at the bar in;
Brauhaus Reissdorf
Kleiner Griechenmarkt 40, 50676 Köln
The barman used an instinctive seventh sense and whacked this in front of me, unrequested!!!
I'm not expert on who owned what, when. But maybe that Reissdorf was one of the few genuinely independent Kölsch I hoovered. The sign on the brewery gate certainly indicates - one factory, many brands. The Radeburger Gruppe responsible for all that palaver.
Occasionally, you can detect a bit more sweet malt in one Kölsch or another. But, there's not much between ‘em really. I had eight different ‘uns. Helping push my German Beer Ticks up to 109.
They were serving Bitburger Pils in the ground. I didn't bother. Some of someone else's went on me head when Saka scored that disallowed goal. I understand some of the empty pots went at Southgate as he acknowledged the fans. I couldn't really concentrate on that, as I was sat in my seat, checking results, checking England had won the group, and booking my luxury hotel in Gelsenkirchen as Carrier Bag Firm HQ over the weekend.
I've not come on this Blog to particularly defend that England performance. But, I'm rather happy I'm in my own bubble and just moving through the tournament.
“Phil, why the clamour to play Bellingham as a ten? He doesn't really play that position for Real Madrid.”
“Fuck me, does he play for Madrid now…”
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