The Session May 2025: A Break From The Real

The wonderful beer writer Phil Cook is hosting the May 2025 edition of The Session all the way from Australia so the least we can do is write something. Before I get started, here is the copy-paste of this month’s theme from his website:

“I’d like to take us out of the ‘real world’ for a moment to share the beers and pubs in art and fiction that have grabbed our attention, whether they were sublime, surprising, moving, amusing, somehow significant, or symbolic of something — or awkward and out of place, if you like. Gather your thoughts, or keep an eye out over the next few weeks, and let’s enjoy them together at the end of the month”.

The end of the month is here (in Australia it may in fact already be next month), so here is my contribution to A Break From The Real. Share and enjoy!

I grew up with a teetotal father and an immigrant mother who didn’t drink at all, so alcohol (and certainly beer – wine would occasionally make a limited appearance for Jewish festival rituals) was very much off my radar as a kid. As I moved into my mid-teenage years and those around me were either hitting the park with bizarrely large plastic bottles of blue chemical-laden booze, or being taken to the local for Sunday roasts with their families, I struggled to understand the appeal or cultural significance of drinking, pubs or anything adjacent.

Enter: The Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.

Now, if that means something to you, then you know where this is going. If you’re reading this thinking “gargle blaster isn’t a term, but it should be!” then you’re in for a treat. Let’s start with the usual, though – the encyclopedic definition:

The Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is an alcoholic beverage invented by ex-President of the Galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox, considered by the Guide to be the “Best Drink in Existence.” Its effects are similar to “having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick.”

You can get them at the restaurant at the end of the universe, Milliways, though you have to be careful to manage your consumption responsibly so that you don’t accidentally end up teleporting out of there in Hotblack Desiato’s stuntship.

If you’re still reading after all this, I’ll pull back the curtain now. On my 14th birthday, I was given a copy of the full five books comprising The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams, and it became my bible. It has influenced my writing style, my sense of humour, and more relevant to this particular entry, my appreciation for a good drink. Running throughout every book are tales of various bars, drinks and alcohol-fuelled escapades around the universe, always presented with extraordinary levels of unnecessary detail and left-field metaphors. The above encyclopedic definition comes directly from The Guide itself, and continues in the same vein:

Beeblebrox advised that you should “never drink more than two Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters unless you are a thirty ton mega elephant with bronchial pneumonia.”

Sage advice.

The main characters’ penchant for finding unusual drinks and going to bars gave me my first bit of context as to why it would be a fun thing to do. I took that and ran with it, for many years frequently and tipsily quoting the slice of lemon around a gold brick line to anybody who would listen and nobody who understood what on earth (or off earth – LOL) I was on about. I can confirm I have entered a pub and said “Six pints of bitter. And quickly please, the world’s about to end”. No regrets!

It’s not a coincidence that I use the word ‘guide’ a disproportionate amount in my beer writing output – my subconscious urges me to provide guidance for others on the best places in the universe to find great drinks, just as The Guide does for Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect and rest of the Hitchhiker gang. As a comedic fictional depiction of the joys and absurdities of drunken revelry, it is unrivalled. I do my best to bring the same sort of tone to my output, hoping that people find what they’re looking for while being a bit entertained along the way.

To my great regret, I have never personally come across a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, but I leave you with the exact instructions for mixing one – try at your own peril!

• Take the juice from one bottle of Ol’ Janx Spirit.
• Pour into it one measure of water from the seas of Santraginus V — Oh, that Santraginean seawater! Oh, those Santraginean fish!
• Allow three cubes of Arcturan Mega-gin to melt into the mixture (it must be properly iced or the benzene is lost).
• Allow four litres of Fallian marsh gas to bubble through it, in memory of all those happy hikers who have died of pleasure in the Marshes of Fallia.
• Over the back of a silver spoon float a measure of Qualactin Hypermint extract, redolent of all the heady odours of the dark Qualactin Zones, subtle, sweet and mystic.
• Drop in the tooth of an Algolian Suntiger. Watch it dissolve, spreading the fires of the Algolian Suns deep into the heart of the drink.
• Sprinkle Zamphuor.
• Add an olive.
• Drink… but… very carefully…
  

And always remember: Don’t Panic.