Behind Chug and Grub
My name is Russell. I'm 20 this year, and I'm the guy behind Chug and Grub. Pictured beside me is my old man.
I started out when I was younger drinking cheap wine. I thought that I'd slowly develop a taste for wine by drinking it regularly. At that time, on the student budget I had, I was stuck with New World wines - Barefoot, Long Flat, the Wolf Blass Eaglehawk, Brown Brothers, and the like. Contrary to my belief, I never did fall in love with those wines, and I still struggle to push them down my throat.
I must have felt like the coolest kid at that time, opening a bottle of wine in the middle of the night (usually cab sav, cos it sounds the coolest), and drinking it with my mum's stash of Godiva chocolate (which I later learnt is a great injustice to both the wine AND the chocolate - an awful pairing). Oh, but there's an exception to the rule - I found that Long Flat does an acceptable Moscato - it's one of the rare gems that come out of cheap buys - it is smooth, the alcohol is well hidden, the fruit and acid are well balanced - its as fruity as it is sweet and it only costs $17.
Many Moscatos try to hard to imitate the aromatics of Gewurztraminers and smell like peaches/lychees, but this one is true to the grape and just smells like grape - which by the way is how a Moscato should smell like.
Mind you - up till this point, all I've tried consciously was Australian wine.
I knew a lot of people liked wines - and for crying out loud, I couldn't figure out why. I mean, wine tasted awful to me at that time!
I was only really opened up to wine when I found a wine I really liked on the recommendation of someone dear. It was my first French bottle - a nice old 4th growth Bordeaux red - I was blown away by the complexities in the wine. Figs, jam, coffee in the nose and a nice gamey taste full of umami hit me; I will never forget the final astringent squeeze on the tongue during the finish that I have come to associate with St. Julien wines. I've had many St. Julien beauties from many different years and every single one of them has managed to blow me away. In order, I've drank the Chateau Branaire-Ducru (Duluc-Ducru), both first and second wines of many different years, Chateau Lagrange (first and second wines), Chateau Talbot.
Then I realized why people fall in love with wine - because there are genuinely good wines out there!
The purpose of this blog is to demystify the wine/beer culture that is propagated by people who want to seem smarter than they really are.
And really, the same can go for beer as well. (hehe, see what I did there?)
I could effortlessly draw a parallel between the wine and beer journeys that I've had.
For beer, I started on my journey an even longer time ago, when I was even younger than when I started out with wine, but I only just really got into it. I used to drink back at the back of the block (back then, mostly Belgian and German beers) - I liked them because they were not hoppy at that time and very friendly and drinkable. But to be honest, if you asked me to point out the differences between those beers and Tiger, I wouldn't be able to tell you. Honestly. Back then, it was all chug.
But I drank because it was cool - again, it was a silly thing to do. But I did it anyway.
Right now, I'm getting started on my beer journey and I'm learning along the way just like all of you guys who are reading this page right now. I'll be applying my wine knowledge to describe the beers that I've tasted so that I can give you guys fresh perspective. Of course, to keep the content here fresh and sparkling (like beer on draft, heh), I will be putting in reviews of not just chug, but grub as well.
So, prost, and bon apetit!