The best beer you can drink at home right now…. is a beer in the bath.

Deep into the traditional British season of ‘second winter’ there are few pleasures greater than that of sinking into a nice hot bath, with your bottled beer of choice balanced precariously on the rim. 

For me, that would be a chilled bottle of Westmalle Dubbel. I can almost hear the clattering of clutched pearls from belgian beer fans as I tell you that I do intend my lovely, dark, trappist beer to be coming straight out of the fridge, and that I will be drinking it directly from the source. I know, drinking belgian beer not only without the correct glassware, but with no glassware at all, sacrilege! Well, Belgophiles, if you are willing to put your disdain for me to one side for the next 200 words or so, then I promise to refrain from calling it Westy Dubs for the remainder of our brief time together.

There is a method to my madness, or blasphemy, depending on your views. Whilst i do possess a Westmalle glass, to successfully balance such a top heavy receptacle on the rim of my bath, until the time that the bubbles have dissipated, and my toes turned to prunes, would be to assign myself a task of such excess, that it would make Icarus himself blush. 

The most important factor in determining a beer’s suitability to bath drinking is its capacity to be enjoyed at a range of temperatures. This is why my bottle of Westmalle is coming directly from my fridge. I may even partake in a sip or two whilst it is chilled, but the beer is at its best about 10 minutes into my bath, when the steam has settled nicely onto the brown glass. As I peer up at the bottle, I can tell exactly when my drink has reached optimal drinking temperature by the constellation of beads forming on the glass’ surface. Through the mist I heed the siren’s call and shortly after I have carefully returned the bottle to its perch, as the last notes of silky caramel dissipate on my tongue, I close my eyes and disappear beneath the bubbles, content.