#rob tod

When you become a parent, there’s a few things that everyone feels the need to tell you. They tell you that the day your child is born will be the most special day of your life. They tell you that you’ll be overcome with emotion as the centre of your world shifts from inside your own head to the screaming creature in front of you. And they tell you that you’ll be tired.

They’re right, I guess. But they don’t tell you a lot of other stuff. They don’t tell you about how your hands will shake as you order a taxi in the middle of the night, even when you’d already put the number on speed dial. They don’t tell you about how the deliriously unsuitable talk radio conversation the driver has on at full volume (“Can you beat cancer with mind over matter?”) will stay burned into your consciousness for weeks to come. They don’t tell you about how labour might unspool from night, into day, and back again. They don’t tell you about the unmerciless, unyielding rigidity of the hospital-issue chairs, and the impossibility of sleeping on them. They don’t tell you about the shift changes, the comings and goings, the passive-aggressive mutinies of midwives and doctors, the alarms, the check-ups, the paperwork, the relentless light. About the room filling with people, things suddenly happening, the monitors blipping, reassuring voices, a sudden cry. They don’t tell you about the panic of trying to hold a wriggling, still damp baby, when you’ve never even held a baby before.

They don’t tell you that you might be in the hospital for another week. They don’t tell you about cannulas, and blood tests, and twice-daily trips to the fourth floor, making weak eye contact and half smiles with other sad parents in the same boat. About numbers without context, graphs without meaning, about light tests and incubators, eye-masks and formula, 3am updates interrupted by pagers. About sleep deprivation caused by other people’s babies, by cleaners and technicians, by machine whirrings and squeaking wheels and clanging bins. They don’t tell you about how awful the food will be. About waiting in the carpark in your slippers in the January drizzle for a lukewarm pizza to be delivered and how it will taste like the best meal in the world. About finding some kind of comfort in a small franchise of a cafe chain that sells passable coffee and surprisingly decent muffins. About finally being discharged and realising you have no idea how the straps on the car seat work, even though you practiced putting it into a car and everything.

They don’t tell you about coming home and realising that everything is the same as before except for the small box in the corner where she’s asleep. They don’t tell you about coming home and realising that nothing is the same as before, all thanks to the small box in the corner where she’s awake and crying. They don’t tell you about the trial and error, about how all the books were worthless, about how you live on your nerves to survive, about how you never have a hand free, can’t even hold a book, can barely change the TV channel, about how you’ll stand in the kitchen in the middle of the night, somewhere between despair and elation, and watch the foxes roaming the weed-clogged garden. They don’t tell you about how your mouth will fill with ulcers and your legs will ache with swaying and your arms will strain with the cradling. They don’t tell you about how she’ll look at you and her eyes will seem to focus and your heart will just stop. About how you’ll forget the lyrics to every song you’ve ever thought you’ll try to sing to her. About how sometimes when you’re holding her up she’ll rest her hands on yours, not on purpose, but it will almost seem like it, and it will be wonderful. About how her hand can barely wrap around your little finger.

It is, frankly, a lot to take in. Normal life sloughs away from you as you shift through this hourless time - work, friends, hobbies, all fade into the background behind the urgency of the bundle of instincts wrapped in a onesie you’re trying to keep alive. Even drinking, that wonderful, centering pastime, becomes hard to do. But at some point, you have to wet the baby’s head. The question is, what could possibly live up to it?

In the end, I went for something I’d had in the cellar (well, cupboard), for a while - an elegantly corked and caged bottle of Allagash Curieux. This beer was born of an accident - an American tripel that was going to go to waste after their usual bottle delivery was held up in customs following the chaos and confusion of the September 11th attacks. Without bottles to empty their fermenters into, the beer was set for the drain, until they decided to decant it into a brace of Jim Beam bourbon barrels that were sat around the brewery. After one of the barrels exploded, and Allagash founder Rob Tod took the brave move of tasting the foamy mess dripping from the ceiling, they realised they’d stumbled on something - and thankfully for the rest of us, they put it on sale.

I bought it a couple of year back in the States, on the back of the recommendation of Will Gordon, who claimed it as his favourite beer. I’m not going to make the same assertion, but it’s certainly good enough to live up to a special occasion. They tell you that it will be a traditional tripel, with clove and banana that general fiery sweetness. They tell you that it will be overlaid with that bourbon barrel aged sweetness - a smudge of vanilla and a peppering of coconut. And they tell you that it works. But they don’t tell you about how it works - how the strength of the base beer is tempered by the candied oak, how a fug of old leather cracks through the light, prickly spice, and the whole thing is like lightly toasted granola, but so much better than that sounds. They don’t tell you about the supreme balance, the gentle poise, the happy accident that ended up with this, a flipped coin that has somehow landed exactly on its side.