I don't know what you were doing last night but I was watching six episodes of Doctor Who with the boy. The 1978 version. As we watched Sontarans come this close to taking out the Time Lords and marveled at the state of British dental care of thrity years ago, I sipped a Kerst Pater Special Winter Ale from Brouwerij Van den Bossche. It was good - like a cross between a Belgian amber like the one from La Binchoise and a Flandders sour like Duchesse De Bourgogne. But when I looked at the reviews, it was not really in line with what was being described and, on closer look, I noticed the "best before" had been daubed out be a marker. So I have no idea how old this brew was. Except I liked it a lot. Refreshing and malty with plenty of dry fruit like date and fig as well as the balsamic tang. Just the thing for a Friday evening in February and far more appealing than the heavy hand with the spice that went into making the other beer of the evening.

So, did someone along the delivery route that brought the bottle to me know this, did he know that it would go bad so well or was this someone try to slide one past me, not unlike those ultimately defeated Sontarians? [And before you get side tracked with ridiculing my taste in DVDs, remember we are all nerds hereabouts. It's just that we each have our own multi-faceted nerdetry.] The question is this: did I inadvertently shop wisely or was I taken but with an unintended result?