Wholly smoke

This post is a contribution to The Session #119, hosted by Alec at Mostly About Beer. The topic is 'Discomfort beer' - "which/what kind of beers took you out of your comfort zones. Beers you weren’t sure whether you didn’t like, or whether you just needed to adjust to."

I’m not just saying this to brag about the supremacy of my palate – I’ve rarely felt out of my comfort zone with beer, and hardly ever have to work hard to enjoy it. I’ve always enjoyed the taste – as a youngster, my grandpa would occasionally slip me a tiny portion from his stubby green lager bottles, and besides the ego boost that came from swapping Ribena for a grown-up’s drink, it was always delicious to me. Bitterness was probably the main appeal – my other favourite thirst quencher as a child was straight tonic water, which makes a lot of adults wince.

There are styles that test your perception of what beer is – acidic and sour flavours in beer took some getting used to, for example. But there is only one traumatic incident that really sticks out in my mind, and it’s the closest I’ve ever come to spitting out a mouthful of beer.

The brew in question was Flue Faker, a smoked lager from Camden Town, sampled at The Craft Beer Co. in Brighton some years ago – thank God I asked for a taster first. I don’t remember it tasting of bacon, the common descriptor for the niche lager sub-genre known as rauchbier. I just remember it tasting disgusting and wrong. “Urgh! No!” I exclaimed to the blank-faced barman, unable to disguise my horror.

I’m not sure how I went from this unpleasant experience to continually pestering my girlfriend about visiting Bamberg, home of the rauchbier style.  I’d read about the beer in books by Michael Jackson and Mark Dredge in the meantime, putting it in some context, which probably encouraged me to persevere and learn to like it. In fact, rauchbier is probably the ultimate discomfort beer. In Jeff Alworth’s The Beer Bible, Schlenkerla boss Matthias Trum says;

“At the first sip, the smoke flavour is extremely dominant on your palate. If you’re new to this taste, you will notice nothing but the smoked flavour. Only as you go through your first two or three pints does the smokiness step back in perception and then the malty notes come out, the bitterness, the smoothness.”

On my visit to the Schlenkerla pub, I do remember remarking that their famous marzen was a brilliant lager underneath the smoke, and this aspect is probably worthy of further contemplation. However, I love that smoky flavour – that’s the appeal of the beer, not a challenge to be overcome. As such, it’s rare that I’ll ever drink more than one rauchbier on the trot. So, I decided to do just that, and procured three bottles of Schlenkerla marzen.

Even on the first mouthful of the first glass, I realised that the intensity of the smoke didn’t hit me in the way it used to. I’ve heard of a ‘lupulin threshold shift’, the idea that we build up a ‘tolerance’ to hop bitterness, and perhaps there’s something similar going on here with smoked malt. I think I’ve drunk this beer often enough that I’m just used to it, which slightly undermines the idea behind this ‘experiment’. Not to say it isn’t smoky – it certainly is. I’d say it tastes like bacon, but as I haven’t eaten bacon in over a decade, I’ll say it tastes like bacon flavoured WheatCrunchies. The bitterness is notable from the outset, something like the slightly acrid malt-derived bitterness you sometimes get in stouts and porters.

Around a quarter of the way into the second glass, the smoke flavour has really faded. It registers mainly as a background savoury flavour, with occasional bursts of bonfire and meat on the palate. I’m starting to notice a bready malt quality too, which in combination with the bitterness suggests slightly burnt wholemeal toast. As interesting as it is to draw out the backgrounds elements of the bee, for me the most exciting moments are still those flashes of smoke.

By the final glass, the prickly carbonation is starting to irritate, putting an obstacle in the way of the smoothness Matthias Trum suggests is waiting beneath the smoke. It feels like it should be silky, but that fizz jabs at my tongue. I’ve never had a problem with the carbonation in bottles before, but the accumulative effect is distracting. The traditional gravity-tapped serving method would solve this problem, of course. Towards the end, I’m beginning to notice a woody, tannic element. Further complexity clearly awaits, and I’d probably have opened a fourth bottle if I’d had one. Who knew that a beer style I first found so challenging would prove so sessionable?

The interesting thing about all this is that, now that I’m past the discomfort stage, I miss it. It’s like watching a difficult film for the second or third time – I’m always jealous of those experiencing it fresh. Those who are new to rauchbier shouldn’t hold their nose and joylessly gulp down the first few pints, waiting for the smoke to fade – they should revel in the discomfort and enjoy the challenge.

My Bamberg onion

Bamberg might be getting a lot of things right, but vegetarian food isn't necessarily one of them. Actually, that’s not really true – finding good veggie fare in Bamberg was no problem at all when I visited, but the traditional dishes you’ll find served in the brewery taverns are as carnivorous as they come. I begrudge nobody their mountains of gravy-soaked pork, you understand, and was particularly envious of those getting to sample a speciality of the Schlenkerla pub, the Bamberg Onion. As it turns out, Bamberg is notorious for its onions as well as its beer, and in this dish an onion is stuffed with lots and lots of smoky meat and served with a gravy made from rauchbier and the drippings – the recipe can be found here. Quite understandably, a vegetarian version did not appear on the menu, so I started to think about how I could create such a thing at home.

How does one go about constructing a meat-free equivalent of a dish that revolves around pork, smoked pork, and a little smoked bacon for good measure? The answer was to fall back on the old vegetarian staples of mushrooms and cheese. Mushrooms bring a vaguely meaty depth of flavour, and cheese is, you know, delicious. In order to replicate the smokiness, I opted for smoked applewood, and decided to cook the mushrooms in Schlenkerla rauchbier. I sautéed them at a high heat until they took on a caramel colour and their liquids started to evaporate, then threw in around 100ml of beer, a teaspoon of smoked garlic powder and some smoked sea salt and cooked briskly until the liquid had mostly reduced. These mushrooms, even on their own, were a bit of a revelation, and something I’ll be cooking again. Leftovers made a sublime grilled cheese sandwich the next day.

I didn't have a genuine Bamberg onion at hand, of course, so went for the biggest Spanish one I could find. Spooning the middle section out was no fun at all. If I had to do it again, I’d seriously considering donning swimming goggles for this stage. I chopped these parts finely and fried them off, then added them to the mushrooms, before stuffing this mixture alternatively with grated cheese until the onion was bulging. I roasted this for about 45 minutes, occasionally topping up the water in the bottom of the dish whilst making a quick sauce out of vegetable stock and beer, thickened with a little flour and simmered in a frying pan. The sauce was simple but tasty, and the dish didn't need much anyway. The final touch was a smoked applewood crisp, tucked between the onion 'lid' and the main body where normally a slice of smoked bacon would rest.

I served it with mashed potato and some steamed veg, washed down with the remaining beer. It was delicious. That onion is no mere vessel – all of its sweetness is revealed, but it retains some texture and bite at the same time, and the filling was full of smoky umami flavour. It may insult Franconian tradition. It may sound unappealing to meat eaters drawn to the deeply porky original. It may have taken all afternoon. I don’t care. It’s my Bamberg onion and it made me happy.

Golden pints 2015

After a couple of day's worth of extremely gruelling battles with Microsoft Word's "jazzy" formatting of my text - only resolved by typing the whole thing out again - I present my first ever Golden Pints round-up.

Best UK cask beer
The one cask beer that really knocked me out was Cloudwater's Special Edition IPA. Reportedly made with 22kg of hops per litre and yet surprisingly mellow drinking, this is the perfect example of the kind of 'tropical fruit juice IPA' that Mark Dredge identifies here. It may not be a style usually identified with cask, but this format is brilliantly suited to the beer, rounding out the hops and accentuating the juiciness. You know when you take a first sip of a beer and realise you'll always remember that moment? This was one of those.
Honourable mentions - Dark Star's American Pale Ale was a cask staple throughout the year - an important beer for me which continues to impress. Brighton Bier's cask offerings were a pleasure, too - they've become extremely accomplished at cramming juicy hop flavour into beers of moderate strength.

Best UK keg beer
Burning Sky's saison l'ete is a beautifully judged beer - tart and complex yet clean and refreshing, endlessly interesting but never hard work. Their seasonal saisons have always been good, but they're seemingly better year on year.
Honourable mentions - Other keg beers that stopped me in my tracks this year included Magic Rock's Cannonball and Siren's Life's a Peach peach cream IPA.

Best UK bottled beer
This category should go to a beer that actually benefits from the bottled format, rather than one that I only tasted in a bottle at home or that was only released in bottles but might have been even better on draught. Another shout out to Burning Sky, then, for their Vatted Porter. Quite ordinary when I tried it from keg, possibly because it was served far too cold, but the bottle was something else entirely - a beer whose mysterious flavours you chase with every sip, somehow eluding you and demanding another taste.
Honourable mentions - the second of BrewDog's Born to Die bottles, released in November, was one of the year's best overall beers - so fresh and vital.

Best UK canned beer
Fourpure Pils has almost constantly been in my fridge throughout 2015. I loved its assertive hop character and bitterness at first, but I swear it changed throughout the course of the year, becoming cleaner, less bitter and more floral with noble hops than before, and even better for it. I'm all for cans in principle, but the quality is still hugely variable - some beers I know to be excellent have really disappointed in this form. A beer that's consistently good in canned form is all the more commendable.
Honourable mentions - the aroma of tropical fruit on popping the tab on Vocations' Heart and Soul session IPA is inviting, and the flavour delivers, too. One of the best session-strength beers of the year.

Best overseas draught
I was lucky enough to travel a lot this year, and there are many contenders, but Schlenkerla Marzen straight from the barrel at their Bamberg pub is unbeatable.
Honourable mentions - I think about the house pils at Berlin's Eschenbrau brewpub shockingly often; its creamy body, bitterness and savoury depth of flavour, the gorgeous, tight, fluffy head which tastes of lemon pith. I'd give anything to have a litre in front of my right now.

Best overseas bottled beer
I loved 2015's Duvel Tripel Hop, this year with Equinox. When fresh, it was vibrant with lemon and hemp, and a little age allowed for a harmonious union with the classic Duvel taste.
Honourable mentions - Birrificio Sorrento's Syrentum - another beer that makes a virtue of the bottled format - made a lasting impression on my summer holiday this year. I tend to daydream about it a lot.

Best overseas canned beer
I can't think of any spectacular examples, but canned US IPAs seem to reach these shores in better shape than their bottled equivalents. Westbrook IPA, Oskar Blues' Pinner and Ska's Modus Hoperandi all vastly exceeded my expectations in the can.

Best collaboration brew
I only tried Magic Rock and Siren's MRS Brown in a bottle as the keg version was (understandably) prohibitively expensive, but it was a stunning beer. For an idea that sounds wacky on paper (bourbon-barrel aged imperial brown ale with pecan, maple syrup and vanilla), it all came together beautifully. Sipping a glass of this beer is a fun experience, exploring the flavours as they slowly reveal themselves one by one. Considering the attention paid to scandalously rare, imported barrel-aged stouts, by rights everyone should have been losing their shit over MRS Brown.

Best overall beer
Of those mentioned so far, it would be the Cloudwater cask IPA. But in truth, their DIPA was the best beer of any kind I tasted in 2015. Achievements like this suggest a shortening of the gap between the UK and the US, and it's extremely exciting.

Best branding, pump clip or bottle label
Something about the design for Thornbridge and Brouwerij 't IJ's American Wheat Ale is irresistible to me. Luckily, the beer is also very good. I loved the simplicity and elegance of the original Chorlton branding, and it's a shame they've now changed it. I also have to mention Hopvana from Guinea Pigs!, which I drank in Seville. Confronted with a fridge full of unfamiliar Spanish beers, I chose this purely because of the audaciously goofy label and ended up loving the beer.

Best UK brewery
Something tells me Cloudwater will be doing well out of this year's Golden Pints. The beers are excellent, the seasonal approach is original and really works, and they're making exactly the kinds of beers I want to drink, to the point where it's almost like they're reading my mind. UK hopped lager, cream ale, hopfenweisse, brown ale - these are all styles I wish more breweries were attempting.
Honourable mentions - The aformentioned Chorlton would have been my choice for brewery opening of the year, but I just checked and they actually opened in November 2014. Still, they've had a great run. Sour beers were a persistent trend throughout this year, but nobody took such an interesting and creative approach as Chorlton. The Woodruff Berliner weisse is a great example - a simple idea, but ingenious, and a great beer. They're also doing interesting stuff with yeast strains salvaged from DDR-era Berliner weisse bottles and canning their beers. I can't wait to see what they come out with in 2016.

Pub/bar of the year
I've always loved the Evening Star in Brighton, but throughout this year it's become the pub I visit the most. The beer list is always great, even better now that they've installed more keg lines, and the atmosphere is uniquely interesting whilst always hospitable and friendly. A proper pub serving a variety of great beer.
Honourable mentions - Visting Kulminator in Antwerp was a highlight of my beery year, even if I was unfortunately pushed for time. Just sitting in the cluttered bar, flicking through the jaw-dropping beer list and sipping on a draught Avec les bons veux was pretty much beer perfection.

Supermarket of the year
Marks & Spencers. Some of their new 'craft' range is god-awful, but some are excellent, especially where Adnams are involved, and they're the only supermarket stocking a good range of British craft beer. Yes, we all prefer to buy our beer from independents, but supermarket beers were an important step in my discovery of great beer, and I'm sure there are shoppers stumbling across Buxton and Fourpure in M&S and embarking on a wonderful beery journey.

Independent retailer of the year
It's still Trafalgar Wines and it always will be. They always have what I'm looking for, the prices are the best in the city and you've got to love the sheer unpretentiousness of the place - it's all about the beer here.

Online retailer of the year
I've only ever used Beers of Europe - it's good enough that I've never wanted to try anywhere else. The website can be a pain to navigate, but the range of (especially German and Belgian) beers is excellent, the delivery costs are reasonable and they get your order to you in no time.

Best beer book or magazine
Obviously it wasn't released this year, but Michael Jackson's Beer Companion has been constantly by my side this year, always an inspiration. The Best Beer in the World by Mark Dredge did come out this year, and was a great read from another writer who has been a massive inspiration to me. A far more interesting book than it sounds, its really the antidote to the proliferation of 'best beer' list books - a thoughtful meditation on what makes a beer great, giving equal attention to the Orval monastery and the 'proudly macro' Budweiser facility in St. Louis.

Best beer blog
I've lost many hours of my life to Ron Pattinson's Shut Up About Barclay Perkins this year. This stuff should be required reading for anyone with an interest in beer, even if many of the details in the table he's so fond of go right over my head.
Honourable mentions - Chris Hall writes eloquently and seriously about beer without veering into Pseud's Corner territory. Mark Johnson's output has been funny, insightful and affecting.

Simon Johnson award for Best Beer Twitterer
Twatty Beer Doodles, for a (very funny) taste of reality whenever the beer world takes itself too seriously.

The best beery advent calendar

Beer advent calendars are all over Twitter this year - it seems there's scarcely a small brewery or mail-order bottle shop that hasn't put one together, not to mention the bloggers working their way through them. The more restrained amongst them, such as the Beer O'Clock Show, won't start until the 20th, and open a bottle for each of the 12 days of Christmas. Some ambitious writers are well under way with a 24 bottle run - notably Mark Johnson, who has collected an impressive collection of all festive seasonals to work through (and, incidentally, these posts are a master class in tasting notes - superbly written).

I was lucky enough to enjoy a beer advent calendar last year. I didn't buy it, or assemble it myself - Sidony put it together for me. After a couple of months of all but swearing off beer so that I could actually afford to buy Christmas presents, the revelation of this collection was a practically religious moment. Here it is;

And it was a very tastefully selected calendar, too - all my favourite beers, some I had yet to try, and finishing up with some special bottles as the big day drew closer. Amazing as this was, I suggested that this year, we opted for more conventional calendars (I had also put together a gift-based calendar for Sidony last year). But there was still a surprise in store for me.

In January, we visited Bamberg. One of the many wonderful things about Bamberg, aside from the beer, is its love of tacky tourist merchandise. At the Schlenkerla tavern, the two tendencies collide in a merchandise stall in what looks like a converted broom cupboard selling everything from mini-kegs of Marzen to branded tote bags. On the 1st December, I was presented with this;

"Recognise that building?", Sidony asked. "Looks a bit like the Schlenkerla pub", I thought, but didn't say out loud. Except it is the Schlenkerla pub, and those masters of marketing have produced this pretty advent calendar with a tastefully illustrated Bamberg scene behind each door. I may not be able to drink it, but I'm still convinced that this is the best beery advent calendar doing the rounds this year.

Thornbridge vs. Schlenkerla: Battle of the Bocks

I’ve often thought that one of the Thornbridge brewery’s strongest suits is their respectful approach to beer styles, along with an interest in slightly more esoteric or niche styles less often attempted by other UK brewers. A copy of Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion and access to Thornbridge beers can teach a novice beer drinker an awful lot – I know, because I learnt a lot this way myself. Craft Beer Co. in Brighton seems to have at least two of their brews on at any one time and so as I read about, for example, kolsch beer, I was able to sample Tzara – surely the next best thing to a visit to Cologne, and way more satisfying than any imported bottle. Similarly, my first taste of Bière de Garde orginated not in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, but in the Peak District. When my dad returned from a trip to France with a couple of bottles of Dyuck Jenlain Ambrée, I was amazed at how true to style the Thornbridge example, still fresh in my mind, had been.

Considering this, I recently realised I had a bottle of both Thornbridge’s Bamberg and Schnlenkerla’s Urbock in my cupboard. This, I thought, could offer an opportunity to see just how well Thornbridge’s beers hold up in comparison to the classics of their style. And so, I decided to taste the two beers side-by-side. Now, I want to make it clear from the get-go that this is purely a bit of fun. There are many reasons why a comparison of this kind isn’t totally fair, not least the fact that strong smoked beer is kind of a palate scorcher. But the beers are both smoked bocks, with similar ABVs (6.5% for Schlenkerla, 6% for Thornbridge), and Thornbridge are acknowledging the influence of (if not inviting comparison to) Schlenkerla by naming their version after the city that famously houses that brewery. Still, the following is not intended to be anything other than a light-hearted experiment; apart from anything else, the tasting itself was really fun to do.

To help me with this venture, I enlisted the help of my other half, Sidony, who took me to Bamberg earlier in the year and became a Schlenkerla devotee in the process. We began by pouring each bottle into two glasses, after which I attempted a blind taste-test by closing my eyes and asking Sidony to hand me a glass without telling me which of the beers it contained. An unscientific element came into play immediately, however; whilst pouring, the aroma of the Thornbridge beer hit me very strongly. After smelling the two glasses, I predicted the one with the most intense, ham-like aroma was Thornbridge, but my guess was based on this prior information rather than a true blind test. The glass with the more powerful aroma unsurprisingly tasted stronger and smokier, too, and this glass actually turned out to be Schlenkerla.

Schlenkerla’s Urbock is, in every sense, a bigger version of their classic marzen. The meaty smokiness is just as strong, but more nuanced – flavours I haven’t detected in the marzen are apparent here, such as tobacco, oak, liquorice and certain herbal notes, and once the smoke subsides, there’s a poke of citrus sharpness. The elevated ABV is evident and, together with a fuller body and pleasantly oily mouthfeel, this slips down easily and leaves a warmth in the chest. Sidony uses an analogy rarely called upon in the beer world – make-up. There are many types of primer (something that is applied pre make up application). Some are gels & creams that often hit the skin and dry down almost immediately, making whatever comes after it apply roughly, whilst others have a more silicone feeling to them, which lets anything come after it glide on. Drinking the beer is a similarly seamless sensation; it's smooth and silky, slippery, easy drinking.

In comparison, Thornbridge’s Bamberg seems a little puny. To again acknowledge the flaw in this test, it is a little mean to taste this after such an intense beer as the Schlenkerla bock. I rinsed my mouth out with plenty of water in order to best compare them, but my palate was undoubtedly affected by the previous beer’s smoke. The smokiness is far milder here, but Bamberg also seems to me like a much cleaner (if stronger than average) lager than your typical rich, warming bock. The body is noticeably thinner, with more carbonation, and the colour resembles a Vienna lager, far lighter than Schlenkerla’s dark copper. Sidony doesn’t like it at all – for her, it neither warms nor refreshes and it’s neither a summer nor a winter beer. I’m much keener; admittedly, after Schlenkerla, it barely tastes like a smoked beer anymore, but then I think I’d enjoy an unsmoked version just as much, because for me it’s a robust but crisp lager. I’d prefer a slightly lower alcohol content, though, because I don’t feel the boosted ABV brings anything to the beer; the body is no fuller than your average lager, and you don’t get that tingling booze warmth.

As I said at the beginning, this was purely intended as a fun little experiment, and there’s no slight on Thornbridge intended – they remain one of the UK breweries I most admire, and to say that any brewery makes a smoked beer that doesn’t quite measure up to Schlenkerla is truly no insult. Apart from anything else, I really enjoyed Bamberg in its own right, and fully intend on trying it again on its own to appreciate it properly.

Bamberg Beer Blog pt.1

I’ve wanted to visit Bamberg long before a Schlenkerla rauchbier had ever touched my lips. How could you go wrong with a trip to a picturesque German town crawling with breweries? And, as I began to pick out bacon-like smoke as an enjoyable element of certain dark beers, when I eventually did try a bottle of Schlenkerla’s marzen, I found myself firmly on the fanboy side of this divisive beer. My girlfriend, Sidony, never seemed too enamoured with the idea, though, and I got used to hearing answers along the lines of “we are not going to bloody Bamberg!” whenever I brought it up. Imagine my surprise, then, when she gave me a handmade guide book this Christmas, containing all the details of a trip to Bamberg she’d booked without me knowing, to take place in just a few weeks’ time. I was blown away, and without doubt this is the greatest gift I have ever received.

The space between Christmas and our beery holiday was full of agonising anticipation, but soon enough we were on our way. A problem emerges shortly after our arrival at Nuremberg airport; an inspector on the very plush train we’re on doesn’t like the look of our ticket. We’ve unknowingly boarded a luxurious direct train instead of the stopping service our ticket entitles us to. Nervous at the prospect of a hefty fine before we’ve even arrived at our destination, we plead innocence. “Where is your home?” he asks. When we tell him we’re English, he gives us a look of recognition. “I was waiting for the next one”, he says and, bowing somewhat sarcastically, bids us “good evening.” This incident establishes something of a theme of the whole trip; blundering tourists (us/me) draw attention to themselves by not understanding how anything works. We spent so much of our time here trying to figure out how or where to order a beer, opening the door to a tavern’s kitchen when trying to find the bar, or just simply baffling the locals by our mere presence. But this is all part of the fun, makes it more of an adventure, confirming that removing yourself from your comfort zone can be an exhilarating experience, even if you’re essentially just going to the pub.

There’s a welcoming bottle of Schlenkerla waiting for us in the apartment we’re staying in, and the lady who owns it gives us directions to the tavern, just a few minutes’ walk. A rowdy but friendly crowd drinking on the street outside tells us we’re in the right place and, stepping inside, we find a beautifully shady, high-beamed building teeming with people, everyone holding a glass of the same near-black brew. There are no free seats, so we head for what I understand to be the ‘schwemm’, a kind of covered courtyard where beer is served through a small hatch and often drunk standing up. With quite some anticipation, I join the small queue leading towards the hatch. Only the famous marzen beer is available here, tapped directly from traditional wooden barrels via gravity. This suits me, a confirmed rauchbier fan, down to the ground, but Sidony is sceptical about smoked beer – I’d previously reassured her that she could have the helles, which picks up a little smoky flavour but isn’t brewed with smoked malt. She’ll have to go for the full on rauchbier experience instead.

I order two glasses and, as expected, it’s a revelation, with a depth of flavour that no bottle at home could ever hope to achieve. Whilst I’ve never thought of rauchbier as an endlessly drinkable beer, I polish my glass off in no time, perhaps encouraged by the speed at which the beer is poured and the transaction completed. I love the initial hit of notorious bacon flavour, but continue drinking and the intensity of the blended Frazzles notes fade, and what remains is a remarkable dark lager. This is, without doubt, the greatest beer experience of my life so far, and proof that travelling for beer is worth it – it’ll never taste better than it does here, and the buzz in the tavern as the queue in the schwemm grows, practically pinning us to the wall, is intoxicating. If I had to go home in the morning having only visited Schenkerla, I’d still say it was worth it. And a rauchbier naysayer is converted – Sidony loves it, too.

Continuing the clueless tourist theme of the trip, I make a horrendous blunder when it’s time to order my second beer. A sign on the wall advertises two items; one is a glass of marzen, at €2.60, and the other is something called ‘glasspfand’ at €2. Not speaking German, I don’t know what this word means but, being a dickhead, I decide it’s a seasonal beer and try to order it. It is, in fact, the deposit that you pay on your glass. I’m saved from total embarrassment by the barman simply plonking two glasses of marzen down without listening to what I was saying anyway, but I feel like a total prick and vow not to be so cocky in future. 

To be continued...