At home I use the spare fridge as a place to store my beer. Technically it’s more of a cabinet than a fridge as it’s not actually turned on – I’m too concerned about the environmental effects of running two fridges. Besides, it’s not like I need to anyway. I just choose the beers I want to drink and put them in the fridge in the kitchen – easy.

It’s not the first time the fridge has featured in this blog. It was also the source of the widely-read What’s In the Fridge series (note: it may not actually have been widely read). That series was about discovering those beers hiding in the back of the fridge. This time around, it’s more of a clean-out.

See, this Christmas we’re hosting my rather large family for lunch. So, we’re going to need to use that spare fridge to hold the extra food we’ll require to feed hungry parents and siblings. That means all the beer will have to come out. Having removed it all once or twice before, I can tell you it’s a pain, so I’ve hit upon a better solution.

I’ll drink it all before then.

Well, not all of it, that would just be irresponsible. And unhealthy. But I will be drinking some of it. Since late November I’ve been limiting most of my beer selections to what is in that fridge with a view to ensuring there is less to remove in the week before Christmas.

And, just because I thought it would be fun, I decided to turn it into a week of posts.

The first beer out of the fridge was a Bacchus kriek from a brewery in Belgium. It’s been in the fridge since May – I know this because I bought it from a bottle shop in Sydney on the way back from the airport after a trip to Melbourne for Good Beer Week.

And I bought it because krieks can be tasty and also because of the stupid novelty of the beer coming in a paper wrapper. That wrapper serves as a label, with all the info about the brewery, the alcohol content, and even how much of the beer is cherries (15 per cent, in case you care). By the way, someone actually has the job of hand-wrapping each bottle. Which had to be one of the dullest beer-related jobs ever.

Still on the wrapper, I know there are geeks out there who collect beer labels and this range from Bacchus must piss them off. ‘‘It’s a big piece of paper, how am I supposed to fit that in my scrapbook? It’ll take up way too much space!’’

I guess they put their labels in scrapbooks; I don’t really know because my life is interesting enough to preclude the need to collect beer labels. Or bottle caps, for that matter.

Anyway, this beer wasn’t as good as Boon Kriek, but that beer is phenomenal. This one tastes a bit like cough medicine but that’s because cough medicine is often cherry-flavoured. In the end, it’s quite sweet and cherry-like so this kriek lover was impressed.

Couldn’t drink a six-pack of them though. But I doubt anyone could.