A Funny Wet Week
I’ve had a funny few days as regards my health.
Tursday morning, my INR was 2.1.
On Friday night, I wasn’t sleeping very well and got up at three on Saturday morning. But after a couple of mugs of tea, I was feeling a lot better.
I had my usual Saturday morning breakfast in Leon on Moorgate, but I did get slightly confused with my shopping in Marks & Spencer. I put this down to my eyesight having an off day. Is that normal after two cataract operations?
I slept better on Saturday night! But was this because I went to bed before instead of after Match of the Day and then watched it on Sunday morning.
On Sunday morning, I went out to do a bit of shopping, but it was really just to get out and then it was walking in the pouring rain.
Monday was a quiet day, after breakfast in Leon on Moorgate, I wrote for most of the day. My INR was a bit low at 2.2.
Tuesday morning, it was a repeat of Friday night and I got up at four and had a couple of mugs of tea. It was another breakfast in Leon on Moorgate and a visit to M & S. After I returned, I wrote for most of the day, as it was too wet to go outside.
In the afternoon, I started to get a bit unsteady on my feet and even thought about calling 999. But after two mugs of tea and a can of Adnams, I regained my balance and never fell. My blood pressure was fine and the only unusual thing, was that my left food was quite red. But it does this sometimes.
Wednesday was uneventful and I had lunch with a friend at Cote in Sloane Square.
Today, Thursday my INR is down to 2.
I feel OK, but it does seem, that for some reason my INR has tended to slump during the week.
I just wonder if my leaky skin, just lets water out, which surely must lower the INR.
Does my foot go red, as the red blood corpuscles are too big to get through my skin?
My Alcohol-Free And Gluten-Free Real Ale Has Arrived
I have been drinking Adnams Ghost Ship 0.5% beer for some years now.
It should be noted that as a coeliac, I have to drink gluten-free beer and because I am on Warfarin, I can’t drink much alcohol.
My body has certified the beer as gluten-free, ever since it was released a few years ago.
On Saturday, my first consignment of the new Ghost Ship 0.5% beer arrived, which is properly certified as gluten-free.
This paragraph from this page on Adnams web site describes what they mean by gluten-free.
Ghost Ship is inspired by tall tales of the ghostly ships that haunted the shores of Walberswick. The seeds of these stories were likely sown by smugglers in a plot to keep the Suffolk coast clear. In contrast, Ghost Ship 0.5%’s creative new look invites you in, flying the flag for low-alcohol beer. It has been painted by a talented local artist with a love of that very same coastline. Adnams invested in a de-alcoholiser specifically to craft Ghost Ship 0.5%. This reverse osmosis plant allows the team to brew and ferment Ghost Ship 0.5% like all our other beers and then, at cold temperatures, remove the alcohol. It leaves all the lovely flavours from a full fermentation in the beer, allowing it to sail away with those original characteristics. Our Ghost Ship 0.5% 330ml cans are validated as gluten free. When producing Ghost Ship 0.5%, we use an enzyme to help with filtration when using our de-alcoholiser. This breaks down gluten-type molecules which helps with the process, reducing gluten content to below 20 parts per million (ppm). Only foods that contain 20ppm or less can be labelled as ‘gluten-free.’
I’ll go along with that!
But then I’ve been drinking Adnams Ghost Ship 0.5% beer for at least five years and I’ve never had a reaction.
Do Thunderstorms Cause Strokes?
On Saturday evening, we had a severe thunderstorm in North London.
All day long, I’d been drinking heavily, but as it was only tea and low-alcohol Adnams Ghost Ship 0.5 %, the worst that could happen is an accident on an extra visit to the toilet.
I came to the conclusion though, that most of the fluids was leaving my body through my skin.
Does this lower my INR? I do know that in hot and humid weather, I have difficulty raising it. In the last week or so, it has been hovering around 2.2, but yesterday, it was a very safe 2.7.
But as I test regularly, this may well help to protect me from another stroke.
Typing “Thunderstorms and Strokes” into Google, I found this paper on the National Library of Medicine, which is entitled Relationship Between Weather Conditions And Admissions For Ischemic Stroke And Subarachnoid Hemorrhage.
It is an interesting read.
This was the aim of the study.
To assess impacts of different weather conditions on hospitalizations of patients with ischemic strokes and subarachnoid hemorrhages (SAH) in South Florida.
And this was the conclusion.
Higher number of ischemic stroke and SAH cases can be expected with the daily lowest and highest air pressure, highest air temperature. Presence of hurricanes or tropical storms increased the risk of ischemic stroke but not the SAH. These findings can help to develop preventive health plans for cerebrovascular diseases.
From my own observations on INR for nearly ten years, I certainly believe that INR moves up and down with the weather because of the laws of physics.
Next time a severe thunderstorm is forecast, I will track my INR throughout the day.
Heat And The City
As I do on many Saturdays, I took the bus to Moorgate to have a late breakfast and do some food shopping in the Marks & Spencer department store.
To say it was hot would be an understatement and it must have been over thirty, so I retreated into an air-conditioned restaurant for my brunch, with my son and a friend.
I know that area well and although, I’m normally there on a weekday, I’ve never seen so much display of female flesh, with bare shoulders, cleavage and tummies everywhere. At least some were wearing white, which surely was prudent, but others were suffering in black and other darker colours.
After eating, I did my shopping.
I didn’t need much, but I did need some beer. As I’d miscalculated my consumption in the hot weather, it was a priority.
At home, I generally drink Adnams 0.5% alcohol Ghost Ship, which my body attests to be gluten-free. Normally, the store stocks it, but I couldn’t find any, so I asked an assistant, who was restocking the shelves. She said that they didn’t have any, but they did have the Adnams-brewed M & S own-brand, of which I’ve drunk dozens of bottles and my body also attests is gluten-free. So a couple of bottles, went into my shopping basket.
Interestingly, the assistant was rearranging shelves and it appeared, she was moving zero-alcohol bottles from the floor into the refrigerated end of a large display.
Could the heat be creating a high demand for customers needing to drink something to cool down? And many felt that zero-alcohol beer was acceptable in the heat of the City.
On Monday, I went back to take this picture of the display.
Note the Marks & Spencer own label brewed by Adnams in the middle!
And this was the price label for the beer.
No Alcohol – No Gluten – £1.90 a bottle – What more can a coeliac, who’s on Warfarin after a stroke need?
A Funny Turn On Friday
Thursday, 3rd August
I’d slept with the window open, as I often do and woke up to a very damp bedroom. I suspect, that I’d had a similar incident to the one in My Strange Skin.
I measured my INR at 0800 and it was 2.4.
I had my usual bath and breakfast in Leon on Moorgate.
Afterwards, I just went home and added to this blog.
One thing I noticed was that my left leg was going dead, as I sat on the chair typing. but then that happens regularly. It was similarly to the incident in Saved By A Beer?.
Later I had a tremendous itch in my left foot which I treated with copious amounts of the Body Shop’s Hemp Foot Protector.
Friday, 4th August
I had intended to go to the section of the city wall, that has been put on display at City Wall At Vine Street.
But as I was bumping into people and street furniture, I thought there might be something wrong, so I diverted to the A & E at the Royal London Hospital. I was also dropping my brief-case, when I held it in my left hand.
After various tests, including a CT-Scan, I finally left at 21:30, after they’d found nothing serious.
They measured by INR and they said it was 1.9. As I’d not eaten or drunk, large amounts of food and drink, that would drop my INR, how did it drop by 0.5 in 24 hours?
I went home on the Overground and a bus.
Saturday, 5th August
I wasn’t feeling unwell at all.
I was in all day watching the sport.
I was drinking a lot. Perhaps it was 4-5 mugs of tea and a 500 ml. bottle of Adnams 0.5 % Ghost Ship.
Sunday, 6th August
Very much like Saturday, except that I had lunch with my granddaughter.
I had two bottles of 0.5 % beer.
Monday, 7th August
I measured my INR at 0800 and it was 2.8.
Saved By A Beer?
Last night, I was feeling distinctly unwell. My left foot was itching like mad and I couldn’t walk without hanging onto the furniture.
I decided to take serious action.
- I took off my left sock and plastered it with Body Shop Hemp foot protector, which usually stops the itch.
- I also drunk a bottle of 0.5 %-alcohol Ghost Ship from Adnams.
- The beer went down quickly and cured the unsteadiness.
Twenty minutes later my foot was back to normal.
I really should get hold of this unsteadiness, as I’m sure it’s caused a couple of falls and visits to hospital.
It should be noted that yesterday, I’d been drinking tea all day, as I often do.
Is it just that I get dehydrated very quickly?
Budweiser To Convert Second UK Brewery To Hydrogen
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Engineer.
This is the sub-heading.
Samlesbury Brewery in Lancashire is set to be powered by green hydrogen from 2025, according to new plans announced by owner Budweiser Brewing Group.
This paragraph outlines what will be done at Salmesbury.
The Samlesbury Net Zero project will see the brewery paired with a new hydrogen production facility (HPF), delivered by UK hydrogen services company Protium. Situated adjacent to the brewery, the HPF will provide green hydrogen to meet the thermal demand of the brewing processes, as well as the building’s other heating requirements.
Note.
- A refuelling station for hydrogen-ready HGVs will also be developed as part of the project.
- Heat from the HPF will be recovered and used in Budweiser’s bottling process.
- This is the second project involving Budweiser and Protium, after one at Magor in South Wales.
- Beers produced at the facility include Budweiser, Stella Artois and Corona.
I may have had the odd bottle of Corona in the States, but I’ve generally drunk real ale only since, I started having halves of Adnams with my father at the age of thirteen.
Now, because I’m on Warfarin, I more or less exclusively drink zero-alcohol beers, most of which is Adnams, straight from the brewery.
I’ve yet to find any beer which is less than 0.5 % alcohol, has contained enough gluten to have an effect on my gut.
I have discussed this with experienced brewers and they are not surprised, as the brewing process for zero-alcohol beers doesn’t use much barley.
Conclusion
We need more integrated projects like this, that both decarbonise industrial processes and provide filling stations for hydrogen-powered vehicles.
Suffolk Doesn’t Do Easy!
Many parts of the UK consider Suffolk to be rather sleepy.
I was conceived in the county and have spent at least half my life there.
I have a strong affection from my adopted county, which always seem to punch above its apparent weight.
- All thoroughbred horses have bloodlines that can be traced back to Newmarket, which is a town of 17,000 people in West Suffolk.
- The Battle of Landguard Fort is recorded as the last opposed attack on England, where on the 2nd of July 1667, a much larger Dutch force was repelled by Nathaniel Darrell and his marines.
- The exploits of Ipswich Town over the years are on a par with those of many prominent clubs in much bigger towns and cities.
- Since the 1950’s, the Port of Felixstowe has grown to be the United Kingdom’s busiest container port.
This morning I received a marketing e-mail from Adnams; the Suffolk brewer and this is an extract.
Ghost Ship 0.5% is brewed just like our other beers, so you can count on 150 years of brewing heritage. It was crafted to taste like our best-selling brew, so you can also count on its flavour.
It is always our aim to make great-tasting products, but when creating Ghost Ship 0.5%, the brewing team didn’t simply have to make something delicious, it had to taste like a well-loved and well-known beer. They were dealing with great expectations.
Adnams invested in a de-alcoholiser specifically to make this beer. We could brew in the normal way; adding the lovely fruity flavours you get from a full fermentation, before removing the alcohol. This alters the balance and the mouthfeel of a beer, so it still took months of trials and tinkering to get to where we wanted.
We used all our expertise the finest East Anglian malt and bold American hops to create a low-alcohol beer that tastes frighteningly good. It’s now our second most popular brew, and at 0.5% abv, can be enjoyed whenever and wherever the moment takes you. So, you can get out there, travel that little bit further, and taste just a little bit more.
Note in the last paragraph, that it is now their second most popular brew.
- It tastes just like the halves of bitter, I used to drink around 1960, whilst playing snooker with my father in his club in Felixstowe.
- Adnams has been my preferred beer since then.
- Like all zero-alcohol beers, my coeliac gut doesn’t react to it.
As a regular drinker of this beer, it looks like Suffolk has another success on its hands.
I’ll drink to that!
My First Christmas Snack Supper Of 2022
I saw the first of Marks & Spencer’s gluten-free Turkey Feast Christmas sandwiches in their Finsbury Pavement store today.
Note.
- The only allergens in the sandwich are egg and mustard.
- The cranberry sauce is real, but there appear ti be not enough cranberries to affect my Warfarin-controlled INR.
- Although the Adnams Ghost Ship 0.5 % is labelled as containing gluten, it seems to have no adverse effect on my body.
- I have discussed this with the brewer and they have told me, that there is so little barley in each bottle, that some might find the beer appears to be gluten-free.
I do think it the best humble sandwich, I’ve ever tasted.
Ease Up IPA Goes Gluten Free!
The title of this post, is the same as that of this page on the Adnams web site.
I am now 75 and I have been drinking Adnams beer, almost exclusively since I was thirteen.
My father introduced me to halves of Adnams bitter, whilst playing snooker at Felixstowe Conservative Club.
Part of his logic behind doing this was to teach me to drink alcohol responsibly, like he did and to prevent me ending up like his father, who was a drunk, who died before the age of forty.
The other thing, that my father’s teaching did was give me a preference for good real ale. And especially Adnams!
As I write this, I’m drinking a bottle of their 0.5 % Ghost Ship.
I drink it for three reasons.
- Obviously, I like the taste.
- It is low-alcohol, so it doesn’t affect the action of the Warfarin, that stops me having another stroke.
- I also find, that because the beer is made with low amounts of barley to keep the alcohol low, it doesn’t affect my gut, despite the fact that I’m a coeliac.
I have yet to find a low-alcohol beer, that has had an adverse effect on my body.
But Will Ease Up Be Safe For A Coeliac To Drink?
These paragraphs describe how Ease Up is brewed and the testing of the product.
When producing Ease Up, we now use an enzyme called Clarex® which breaks down gluten-type proteins, reducing gluten content to below 20 parts per million (ppm). Only foods that contain 20ppm or less can be labelled as ‘gluten-free.’ According to Coeliac UK, research shows people diagnosed as coeliac can consume products with gluten present at or less than this level, but customers are advised to consider their own individual tolerances.
Clarex® is added in the fermentation vessel, where it mixes well during a normal, vigorous fermentation. Our beer is tested at the end of fermentation and then, after packaging, it is put on hold while it undergoes a thorough external validation process before it is confirmed gluten free and released. Just look out for the new, updated branding.
Note the phrase about individual tolerances.
Conclusion
It looks like Adnams have produced the ideal real ale to have in your pub, club or house, if you have some coeliac customers, family or friends.
Never did I think, I would ever write about disruptive innovation in the brewing industry.
The Anonymous Widower 