Celebrating Friendship with #BeerSaturday

Today I feel like looking back a little bit on the positive side of Covid! The corona virus pandemic has very negatively impacted our lives in many ways and unfortunately, it doesn't seem it will be disappearing anytime soon. In Suriname, we went from being Covid free with 10 cases to a second wave with over 500 cases. As slowly everything tries te reopen and many people are trying to survive, it seems to be a real struggle for people and companies that rely heavily on returning to a normalized situation.

Connecting online

In terms of business, I have partially been lucky, because my company has been able to transform in a way that we have been able to keep working and while we might have lost some business, we have been able to have a steady operations and found new clients through new products we introduced as part of our adaption strategy. However, family business is going through a very rough time and many companies in Suriname, including some of our clients, are really struggling.

A bright spot is that we have seem to be able to connect more and more online. Opportunities that were always there, but often ignored because change is sometime considered time consuming (which, in hindsight, it really isn't), have now all of a sudden became the only way to survive. Some simple examples:

• Before covid, clients would always prefer a personal visit over a video call. Now, video calls are the norm, which really saves a lot of time we'd usually spend in commute.
• Before covid, flexworking from home for us raised a lot of issues because online documentation and working with tools as Slack and Asana or Trello always seemed to be shortlived, because we'd work in the same office and we could simply walk up to each other to ask the question. Now, having not seen part of my team for 3 months, using online communication and project management tools have become the norm.
• I've been trying to set up my office at home for 3 years. In the beginning, I still had to get accustomed to working from home, but with a 2 week full lockdown, giving me no choice but to create a proper workplace at home, I might spend 2 days a week working from home even when the office reopens.
• A long awaited podcast I wanted to start with one of my friends became a fact and we have already recorded a full season of 10 episodes.

Reconnecting with friends

The covid situation also created some time to spend with loved ones and those close to you. I guess I'm really happy for an extra 15 hours a week I got to spend with my kids so far, more time with my wife as well, as all my meetings after 8 PM have been cancelled for the past months (now slowly returning in form of zoom meetings and lectures) and seeing my parents a little more often as well.

Also, realizing the opportunities of online video calls also let to me meeting up with my friends living in other countries more often. With our friend group which I studied with in the Netherlands, we now have regular video call meetings, which makes bonding much more fun than just sending messages. For me living on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, I get to be included more, as previously I was never able to join in when they met up in person.

To Beer we go

Yes.. the intro was a bit long and felt more like an #IAmAlive post than a #BeerSaturday, but this is where the beer comes in. With my Dutch Study Friend group, we created a bi-weekly video call session that would include a short (read: very long) quiz about our student years (prepared by different members of the group every time) and of course, it includes beer.

The beer is partially part of the deal, because if you get a question wrong, you have to drink. And also, if you give the correct answer, you want to drink as well. Basically every session, there are some new types of beer on the table. For this post, I'm focusing on the Saturday edition of the quiz, which included one of the newer beers in our country.

The setting

I decided to set up in the back yard for this edition of the quiz. The view includes a lot of green and in the back and if you have a really sharp eye, you might see a very young coconut tree and mango tree, which is an introduction to a rather fruity beer I picked out.

To make it more suiting, I picked out a specific beer glass as well, which is a limited edition glass, featuring the logo of the local beer 'Parbo Bier' on one side and the 30 Years logo a local bar restaurant 't Vat on the back. This glass was distributed on the 30th Birthday of 't Vat back in 2011.

The Beer

Parbo Bier is a local beer brand in Suriname. It is made in the Surinamese Brewery (Surinaamse Brouwerij), which is a daughter company of the renown Duth beer brand Heineken. Being a Heineken brand, there are a lot of innovations, with Radler beer being one of them. The most popular beer of Parbo Bier is the Dyoggo, a 1 liter bottle of beer, which I will cover as soon as the amount of Covid cases drop and I can go have a beer with fellow Surinamese Hive users.

The lime Radler was the first Radler type beer made by Parbo. The also have a cherry and a Ginger version and as you can now see, also a 0.0% alcohol version. For the Beer lovers who are reading this post hoping for a nice exotic beer and are now upset that I'm featuring lemon juice, I'm sorry 😅.

The choice for this beer was pure convenience. While the quiz takes place at night in the Netherlands, it takes place during the day in Suriname, meaning I still have some responsibilities after the quiz is over (and it never is just 1 beer). Also, it makes an occasional sip of my beer by my son a little less irresponsible (Disclaimer 1: I'm in no way supporting beer use among minors/children. 2: It's 0.0% alcohol, practically, it really is lemon juice..).

The Verdict

Appearance: 7
Taste: 7
Beer-Feel: 4
Style: 8
Aftertaste: 6
Final score: 6.4

When it comes to the appearance, I kinda like it, the design is very fresh and as a proud Surinamese citizen, I like the Surinamese weapon prominently on the front. The reason it is not rated higher is because of the beer head. The beer is relatively soft, meaning the foam dies up a little bit fast, which you can see a bit in the pictures.

The taste was good, the lemon didn't overtake the taste too much, but it might be a little too sweet for the average beer drinker. But hey, Surinamese love sweet drinks. We love sugar in general. As for Beer feel, it does not feel like beer at all. Some 0.0% beer still manage to pull off feeling like you are drinking beer. But, to be honest, to ask that from a 0.0% Lemon Radler might also be a little much to ask.

For the Style, I think it is awesome. Parbo does have a unique style and they managed to pull of the create a beer for a none beer drinker. The aftertaste is a little soft. It doesn't leave a bad aftertaste which with other beers might be the case, but the biggest knock, it doesn't necessarily makes you want second one which you like to have with good drinks in general.

That concludes my #BeerSaturday entry. Learn more about Beer Saturday contest >> here <<.

#lobi

@jeanlucsr