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Brian is here for the beer . . . all 44,000 of 'em!
YOU could say Brian Moore likes a pint...
So much so he's downed more than 44,000 different beers - a staggering total which has seen him crowned Britain's champion 'beerticker'.
The 70-year-old has spent almost three decades travelling miles to sip the latest brew before recording it meticulously in the dog-eared pages of a bulging diary.
And now he is the star of quirky Sheffield feature-length film 'Beertickers: Beyond the Ale', which premieres with a one-off screening at The Showroom cinema on Tuesday.
The curious hobby of 'beerticking' - or beer scooping - involves travelling around the country or even abroad to sample new cast conditioned beers and then to record them.
Some just write down the name, brewery and the ABV but others jot down what they think of the beer for posterity.
Brian, of Stannington Road, said he first got into the pastime after he started drinking at The Fat Cat in Kelham Island when it opened almost 30 years ago.
"They started keeping a note of all the beers they were selling," said Brian, who admits he used to spot steam engines before he got into beerticking.
"Then I met some more lads from up and down the country, and it turned out there were loads of beertickers!"
Brian admits he'll "quite readily" drink the same beer twice if it hits the spot - but confesses he can't pick a favourite from the thousands he's downed.
And the retired railway worker and former club steward said he draws the line at lager.
"Never," he vows. "I don't drink lagers, I don't drink shorts, I don't drink wine, I don't drink spirits." But Brian says he is starting to scale down his beerticking hobby "for health reasons" now he has turned 70.
"I used to go out for a drink most nights, and beerticking up and down the country virtually every Thursday, Friday and Saturday with little jaunts round Sheffield as well," said Brian.
Now he is going to devote more time to gardening and spending time with his wife Margaret, 62, and daughter Caroline and her family, who live in Milton Keynes. "I like to get out and about on the allotment. Anything you can eat - vegetables, salads - I will grow. I grow flowers at home. It can be very time consuming!"
In 'Beertickers: Beyond the Ale', Sheffield film-maker Phil Parkin follows a group of beer obsessives on their quest to taste world record-breaking numbers of pale ales, stouts, porters and milds.
Phil hopes the affectionate and funny insight into Sheffield's thriving real ale culture might help the pursuit find a wider audience.
And Brian said he had enjoyed being a part of the film, which follows him as a he catches the bus around Sheffield and beyond heading to pubs and festivals to hunt out fresh brews.
"Phil filmed for around six to eight months, all over Sheffield's beer circuits and at the Great British Beer Festival at Earl's Court in London," said Brian.
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Latest sport. “We went mostly round the ‘Valley of Beer’ in Sheffield - The Fat Cat, The Hillsborough Hotel, The Gardener’s Rest, The Wellington, The Harlequin.”
Phil, 31, whose Quick Feet production company is based round the corner from The Fat Cat, joined the beertickers himself and even set his own target to taste 200 real ales during filming.
Although he didn’t quite fulfil his aim he did meet a host of other colourful characters along the way who also star in the film.
Phil said: “I had long been a lover of real ale and one of the places I liked to go was the Hillsborough Hotel to chat to different people and someone told me about Brian the Champion Beerticker.
“I decided I would have to try and find him - and discovered he lived in Stannington. Through him I found this community of enthusiastic and eccentric beer drinkers which I thought would make a great subject for a film.”
Other characters featured in the film are Mick ‘the Tick’ Baker, Gazza ‘the Scooperman’ Prescot and Dave Unpronounceable, whose surname is actually Szwejkowski. He said the movie was not just about beer but “the whole English mentality of having a hobby”.
The film is launched at The Showroom on Paternoster Row at 8pm next Tuesday, and The Hillsborough Hotel’s brewery Crown has even brewed a special beer, ‘Beyond the Ale’, to support it, which will be available in the pub until Christmas.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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