OOH OOH OOK RA EEN AH

Ok so they didn't make it to the quarter finals of the Euros - and how can I complain since it was England what knocked them out. But they have so far done a damn good job at hosting them. AND serving excellent cheap beer to the visitors. Forget that Carlsberg are a main sponsor. Inside the fanzines there is also Lvivskiy (beer from Lviv) which is an ok lager, but there are SO many other brands: Chernogivsky, Obolon and Slagutovich are the big boys. But there are literally dozens of micros all brewing really tasty mostly unfiltered beer. The John James Hughes brewery in downtown Donetsk is a classic example, with amber ales, pilasters, stouts, Belgian-style at 6 pct, and a yeasty wheaty blondie. Ok they cost more than double what the mass produced locals beers do, but that still brings them in at around 29-30 yah (Ukrainian hrivni) which works out at €3 or currently barely £2.50 a half litre. There are even more in Kiev. I drank dark lager in 32 degrees at the beach on the banks of the Dnipro river. And the Arena entertainment complex on Ploscha Lva Tolstova (Lev Tolstoy Square) has its own micro. Go there. Enjoy. The food is great too: best fruit and veg in Europe, delicious kebabs, jolly little meat or potato ravioli dumplings. NOTHING about the silly BBC Panorama programme was representative of the reality. In 12 days I saw not one racist or homophobic incident. Drank beer with the Nigerians who run the market in Kharkiv, the native Ukrainian Tatars, the Thais who have restaurants in Kiev and a couple of cool Brasilian guys who'd come over to watch the Europeans 'try to play football'. We'll show 'em in 2014. Won't we?