...that got cut in two, cause i went over on word-count...
matt b:
>bitter has to be properly looked after and cask conditioned to be nice. round here (leeds) tetley's, black sheep and old peculiar are favs.
Black Sheep is awesome stuff. believe it or not, there are plenty of places the other side of the hills where the Tetley's is kept very well indeed.
although the best Old Peculier i've ever had was down in Cambridge, just the other week,
weird.
matt, what's that bourbon bar type place in town please, in Leeds? a mate told me about it, i've never been, American bar style, sez it's good.
i don't go to Leeds often enough, Beckett's Bank (or whatever it's called) near the station is one of the nicer Wetherspoons anywhere (alright, maybe not saying much but you know what to expect...).
i have
GOT to get me to Hi-Lo's.
stevienixed:
>i find it quite funny americans speak so highly of stella artois as it's considered to be a very common/lo quality beer in my country. the best >pub is in bruges: they have a couple of hundred belgian brewed beers. further down there's a jenever bar. hmmmmm
so you think the Americans rate Stella highly too? yeah, it's the impression i get.
i found a nice little website written by a bloke in Chicago, doing a guide to the best bars.
but he has a sub-site there listing everywhere you can get Stella.
maybe it is a case of - relatively speaking because let's be frank i'm afraid i'd have to plump for Stella over Bud or Pabst or MGD or O'Douls or Old Style or whatever - 'beggars can't be choosers' (there i go again, being a Euro-booster snob about the USA, soz)?
i
did read an opinion on the very helpful Beer Advocate site [
http://www.beeradvocate.com] that Hopleaf on the northside of Chicago (i've still not been but intend to do so soon) has the second best Belgian beer menu in the USA, after Williamsburg's Spuyten Duyvil.
more on Hopleaf here, FWIW
http://www.chicagobarproject.com/Reviews/HopLeaf/Hopleaf.htm
and a little on the Brooklyn bar
http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/food/openings/n_9368/ (shipping in perry's from England is quite impressive)
so you'd rate Bruges above the capital for bars?
i must say, the one time i went to Bruges, i fell in love with the place instantly.
i have heard of A La Becasse in Brussels, the Delirium bar in Brussels (a website says "Boasting 1000 beers it is definately worth a visit and is situated on the Impasse De La Fidélité" - i'm not sure if that number is a typo or what but i want to believe! - oh and the same website mentions that 'La Belgica', a bar on the Algarve, of all places, has a wicked Belgian beer menu).
one of my local Belgian bars back in England - which is a very very good one, to be fair, (12 draught, over a hundred bottles w' rotated stock changes/guests, long menu, all Belgian; sadly they don't offer the Flemish stew anymore as since they extended the bar area or something they stopped the food) has a funny quote on its website where it says "No draft Leffe Blonde, Hoegaarden or the 'S' word guaranteed."
snobby perhaps, but it makes me chuckle.
i think the best Belgian bar in Manchester, if anyone is interested, is quite possibly one called Bar Fringe in the city centre's Northern Quarter. worth a visit if you're ever in the area, it's near the Band on the Wall club (which is currently closed for a refurb, alas).
what is the best one in London then?
they have that moules-marinade/booze chain down south don't they? Belgo or something? never been in one myself, are they any good?
Rambler:
>Best if you go over to Suffolk to drink it; most London pubs ruin any decent beer cos they don't clean their pipes
i have had very nice Adnams in Norfolk but that is next door. i've never drank in Suffolk, i really want to go to Southwold and sup Tally Ho all night.
as for Stella, i know skinny little female friends who over the course of a night will sink ten, eleven pints of the stuff, along with a load of flaming sambucas and the like, and be essentially fine.
however, blokes the land over (perhaps it's a Mike Skinner anxiety of influence thing...) invariably get lairy and/or silly after five...
sorry hope that doesn't sound sexist, but all from observation.
fair play to Luka for pulling me up, but i've been in enough very good London pubs to know that there is sheer quality there. i mean, during the day and everything, i'll have to defer to your gloomy assessment of the night-time scene (it's even worse in the provinces, of course).
i must admit a lot of my old uni mates who are scattered all around the country these days, a lot of them seem to say they prefer the likes of Mcr and Brum to drinking than the Smoke (the compactness is handy, for a start).
i just think that's being churlish.
i love all the big regional cities in England for drinking that's for sure (and out of the smaller ones, i like Nottingham, Cambridge, Norwich, and the like a lot; also you gotta give it up to York and yes believe it or not Hull), but i'd rather have some money and a Tube pass and a free weekday in London than anything.
i dunno.
what do London-based northerners like Rambler or silverdollar think to this question?
i'm extremely intrigued by it.
oh sufi (if you read this far...), is rewch from Stockport or something? you mentioned old tom tales...
i want to pick the brains of our Canuck drinkers later on, so may post later about Canadian beer.