A Special Birthday Beer: Devil's Peak King's Blockhouse IPA and a Continual and Yearly Story

It has been a yearly tradition for more than 5 years now. Every 6th of April, I buy myself a six-pack of Devil's Peak King's Blockhouse IPA and I bake myself a chocolate cake slathered with dulce de leche.

I pour myself 1 litre of this beer, almost four bottles, and I enjoy it throughout the day. I eat the chocolate cake, I get nauseous from all of the sugar but this is part of the tradition.

Since brewing my own beer, I have drunk more and more bitter IPAs. My palate changed throughout the years so that I prefer IPAs over lagers, smokey whiskies over wine, and black coffees over teas.

Devil's Peak's King's Blockhouse IPA just landed perfectly in this sweet spot. The beer is extremely bitter but with all the floral notes of the dry hopped additions. This is not a beer for the fainthearted; it is not sweet such as the Warlord IPA of Darling Brew. Even though some very heavy IPAs are drinkable by even those that do not enjoy beer (such as my mother who enjoys some Imperial IPAs), this beer is only for those few that enjoy and appreciate an IPA that is bitter for bitter's sake.

So please enjoy this beer and its intimate story along with me as I share it with you.

	A bitter beer is the nectar of only a few. Not everyone enjoys the bitter pleasure of an IPA that does not allow you to taste anything else. It is overwhelming but in that moment of being overwhelmed, something special happens. Your palate completely gives over to the beer's overpowering power.

The funny thing about this beer is that it is available throughout the country. It is an incredibly complex beer, even though it is distributed by a brewery that tries to challenge some of the major league players like SAB-In Bev.

Devil's Peak Brewery is one of the biggest craft breweries in South Africa, and as I mentioned, they try to challenge the big breweries.

Alas, I enjoy this beer once a year. I go overboard a bit, I drink at least 1 litre of this beer on the 6th of April, and I bake a chocolate cake that I slather with dulce de leche. This has become a yearly tradition for me, one that I have not skipped in at least the last 5 years. With my girlfriend has been present in my life for the last 2 years now, she has already bought me cake mixtures and dulce de leche even though I was 1200km away from her. She knows about my tradition and she always helps me realise this tradition.

And this year something very special also happened...

After especially the encouragement of @papilloncharity, I asked my girlfriend @urban.scout's father for his daughter's hand in marriage. Even though we are living in 2024, and we are not engaging in traditions that perpetuate a strange patriarchal system, I felt that the right thing to do was to ask for her father's approval on my birthday. It was the best gift which I could ask for.

After a day filled with too much sugar, and great gifts, I feel so special between the people who love and appreciate me. I could really not ask for a better day.

The 6th of April is not only my birthday, I share this beautiful day with @papilloncharity, but now I will also remember this day for the rest of my life as the day I asked my soulmate's father's approval. It is really a day that does keep on giving gifts.

Sometimes a simple beer can have so many memories and special moments... For the rest of my life, this beer will symbolise my birthday and the day I asked my girlfriend's dad.

A small beer can carry so much significance. A bunch of birthdays, a new memory, the continuation of memories, and the absolute reminder of being human. I am glad that I could share these memories, old and new, with you. I am sure that @papilloncharity will be delighted to hear this news as he has been the number one supporter of our relationship. But with all good memories and moments, there needs to be the bitter ones to balance the sweet. This beer is extremely bitter, but I need to fly back home as well - another bitter thing. Long-distance relationships are not nice.

In any case, I hope that you had a splendid day and that you had a cold beer to celebrate this day.

For now, keep safe.

All of the writings are my own, albeit inspired by the events that transpired today. The photographs are also my own, taken with my Nikon D300.