Just relax – and take it slow – with Darling Brew

First published on http://www.westcoastway.co.za 

It’s mad out there. Life can be frustrating, your job time-consuming, your finances stress-inducing, your time never enough.

Come on, it’s time to get out of the rat race – time to take it slow and to ‘go yonder’ to somewhere where you will find ‘peace in the valley’ as Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons sing in their classic song ‘Shape I’m In’.

Even if you can’t re-invent your entire life to have more time to chill, or to read, to absorb your surroundings, to observe and get closer to nature and to appreciate life and all it has to offer… take some to reschedule, create your own long weekend, take a drive out to Darling, spoil yourself.

This is the ethos that Philippa and Kevin Wood of Darling Brew embrace. “Take a moment to slow down,” advises Philippa. “Soak up your surroundings.”

She adds: “Appreciate the vastness of our earth and the incredible sights and sounds nature has to offer. Respect and care for the planet and all its habitants.”

As is sung in ‘Shape I’m in’ – get ‘out of nine lives’, you have already ‘spent seven’; don’t have ‘nowhere to go’ but turn to nature and everything it offers us.

This is precisely what the vision of Darling Brew has been from the start. To create craft beers, in essence slow beers, with unique characteristics and with an inspiring story – of an endangered creature that is honoured and supported through conservation programmes to which Darling Brew contributes – linked to each beer.

Now the next step has been to design a smaller bottle where the shape of the bottle represents the current ‘shape’ of the animals that the beers represent.

A smaller bottle equals declining numbers of endangered animals such as the Geometric Tortoise, the Roan Antelope, the Plains Zebra and the Spotted Hyaena and a loss of habitat is how Kevin Wood explains it.

Think – and live – #takeitslow.

Of course there are other more practical pluses to the 330ml bottle. In the new curvy bottle the four top sellers of Darling Brew – Slow Beer, Bone Crusher, Gypsy Mask and Rogue Pony- have become more affordable and thus more accessible. Research has shown that this is what consumers would like and Darling Brew has complied with the wishes of the consumers.

So – when next you are having a craft beer from Darling Brew to chillax (any teenager will tell you that this means to chill and relax at the same time) with some music, go retro with a song like one of Kevin’s favourites, ‘Shape I’m in’ and also the song that was the inspiration behind the launch of Darling Brew’s new 330ml bottle.

No ‘rumble in the alley’, no musings about ‘how in the world will I get to heaven’ – just taking it slow. Nothing too tumultuous as life has enough of that going around at times.

Learn to go slow – it’s not a ‘crime … (to have) nowhere to go’. Loosen up, reduce your level of stress. Chillaxing makes you more relaxed and gives you a groovy outlook on life.