Beer And Beer Drinking

[scottdisco]

oh i should say (dunno if they're reading this thread now)

but very big thanks to matt b for their informative and fascinating guide to Oxford boozing,
please some applause for Triple-M for the Otter love,

and yes i will take you up on your offer egg, and the beach too i think.

and cheers to Pearsall for the shout-out

and i was very interested indeed with red_shift's take on Oxford. there's some bad stuff that's gone down there, fer' sure.
please post on the surrounding villages!

you could probably take this thread and put out your own Good Bar Guide, i rate.

i want to reply to rewch and stelfox later on, if i can, cause that's some good stuff right there.

best go now, tonight i'm going to try and learn a bit about bourbon (beyond Makers Mark, i mean...)

 

[scottdisco]

a quote i just received in an email my brother just sent in the UK.

thought worth mentioning on the beer thread:

'bear in mind my judgement may be clouded by a very flat pint of Abbot Ale, combined with a cheapo red bull imitation called 'red rooster' I just had'

so there we are...

 

[turtles]

so, an interesting conversation with some woman from Turkey the other night in a bar. I ask her why all she's drinking is bottles of Miller Genuine Draft, which wasn't on special or anything, and she says that apparently in Turkey MGD is the big ladies drink. Needless to say I was quite taken aback. She said something about Turkey and the US having close ties politically, but I didn't realize that also transfered over to beer. it's a weird world out there.


and yes, I have now begun doing field research for this thread, seemingly.

 

[scottdisco]

right with you on the field research front

very interesting about the MGD thing, i rather think it's regarded in the UK as a drink for no-one...

on: big Mexican beers, Corona is as popular in the UK with regular punters and fashion victims as it is in the USA, yet i have heard Sol referred to as a ladies drink in the UK by acquaintances (i wouldn't know about such a claim myself, but, yunno, fwiw). i assume Corona is widely drunk in Canada btw?

and i know that Budvar was introduced into the USA (what about Canada?) in 1999 after legal shenanigans w' Budweiser etc so i was temporarily surprised to see the bottle with Czechvar on the front... ...i do now have a fridge full of Texan beer.

 

[carlos]

i do now have a fridge full of Texan beer.

have you tried Lone Star? "the national beer of texas"? it's pretty horrible but people around here drink it cause it is cheap. i have to admit i've drank my share of lone star over the years for that reason alone...

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

best go now, tonight i'm going to try and learn a bit about bourbon (beyond Makers Mark, i mean...)

I received a boxed bottle of Woodford Reserve for my birthday.

On the subject of Maker's Mark, I recently overheard that it's being withdrawn in the UK. Don't know if that's true or not.

 

[scottdisco]

i hope Makers Mark isn't withdrawn in the UK.

the average British supermarket selection of bourbon and American whiskey, im experience, seems to normally just consist of Jim Beam, JD, and Makers. god if they get rid of that they'll have nothing... ...have you broken out the Woodford yet?

i'd love to try some Pappy Van Winkle, just going on the name, to be frank.

i'm afraid the observations i made about my bourbon night on Friday on the whisk(e)y thread cannot really be improved upon...

...Carlos, i was thinking of you!



meant to tell you earlier what i got in the fridge.

i have a few cans of Lone Star, six cans of Pearl, and six bottles of Shiner Bock. i plan to drink them in different sittings, or would you recommend mixing them up?
the Lone Star looks a bit tacky. so i figure only drinking the Pearl with other Pearl, not sullying the Shiner with the Lone Star etc.

the person who gave it me told me the Shiner was the best stuff

 

[carlos]

scott!

shiner is the best of those by far- i think Lone Star has a sort of "ironic" following because it is so tacky and texan- but i don't know that i would recommend it - really. it (and keystone) have been responsible for some of my bigger headache hangovers. pearl is better than lone star but not by much

hope you like the shiner! have some texas barbecue with it if you can find any!

 

[scottdisco]

i've had big (and repeated) platefuls of the most wonderful barbecued brisket off a great ol' Texan chef once or twice - he'd cooked for hundreds of people out in the Pacific many a time with palm leaves and pits and whatnot - so i'll get on that, thanks for the suggestion.

great stuff

the Shiner bottle, with its little description on the back, definitely looks the poshest product.

checking out their site, i'm intruiged by their winter and summer beers.

Lone Star sounds a little like Pabst then. i know in hipster heavy towns (e.g., Portland, OR) it has a cult following among ver kids (there's a punk girl behind the counter at my local independent coffeeshop that sometimes wears a PBR tee-shirt). the Pearl cans are kinda cute.

i'd rate Pabst about a Bud, i.e., nothing to write home about...

 

[carlos]

checking out their site, i'm intruiged by their winter and summer beers.

i don't think i've ever had either one actually- i've just stuck to shiner bock

another texas beer for you to check out is st arnolds

http://www.saintarnold.com/

lawnmower especially is nice

 

[scottdisco]

Carlos, i just had a Lone Star and it reminded me of some bad British shandy.

so no, i wouldn't recommend it, but it wasn't quite awful

i have to recant my insistence that Labatt's Blue is "fucking appalling" btw, given Lone Star is not much better or about as good (as in not very).
fucking appalling is far too strong and should be resolved for the genuinely dire, like that stout in Indiana the other week.

i've heard of those St Arnold people, i think. cheers for all these cool linx and whatnot! anymore, keep 'em coming. in fact, i think i might have heard of lawnmower (not that i've ever tasted it).

aren't they supposed to be one of Texas' 'best' breweries?

might have another Lone Star, it's going down easily...

...the Shiner Bock is staying put, as part of my well-thought-out 'best 'til last' plan

 

[carlos]

st arnold is a pretty good brewery- but even here in houston (and their brewery is in town) you can't always find it in stock at most bars or restaurants or stores- so shiner is more widespread. lone star even more so.

the brewery can be rented out for parties- a friend of a friend had his 30th b-day party there and we were invited. free beer! and some free food and a tour. fun.

 

[scottdisco]

i've had two of the Lone Star now.

the second one was pretty rank, yeah. it does remind me of a shitty shandy (common in the UK, a beer that's watered down with lemonade or similar). actually soup mentioned it earlier in their dissenting post but it also, at different times, reminds me of that pish Hofmeister. but it's over soon enough and that is fair enough. i think i am realising the importance of diplomacy.
a shit beer is Stones, a British bitter. that truly is shite. you seem to encounter it in a lot of crap pubs in Yorkshire still, imxperience. it's the 'Yorkshire bitter'. sorry, off-topic, but i had to say.

two of us did a taste test, they had one of the Shiner which she liked but i'm savouring it and not going to have any (well i had a sip and it was better than the Lone Star). because she'd had a Shiner when she tasted the Lone Star she thought it was disgusting.

the Lone Star did not get the thumbs up in our taste test, suffice to say. of course i'll have the final one before cracking on with the Pearl and bock.

just started browsing the St Arnold site. it really does look fabulous. quite possibly the best in Texas.
it's a shame its product doesn't have a very wide reach. why is that Carlos, do you think? i know micro-breweries and regional brewers can't afford to cast their net very wide for customers, but i'd have thought you'd at least thrive on your own backyard.

oh i liked that the Lone Star can had the anti-litter slogan on it; i think quite a lot of people don't know that's how 'Don't Mess with Texas' started out, and now it's become a much bigger slogan, right? representing something more than just garbage.

a brewery tour sounds like a wonderful idea for a party.
a mate of mine was whisked away to the Hoegaarden brewery for his birthday once. another mate has a mate who works for the Stella people so they went there on a beano.
Hoegaarden's alright so i know which one i prefer...

...yeah St Arnold you appear to rock.

brewpubs in the USA are a good thing, mos def. interesting beer and greasy food is such an excellent combination.

 

[carlos]

just started browsing the St Arnold site. it really does look fabulous. quite possibly the best in Texas.
it's a shame its product doesn't have a very wide reach. why is that Carlos, do you think?

i'm really not sure why that is- but i know plenty of people here who won't touch shiner for whatever reason (stick to bud, miller lite, anything big) and my brother-in-law who is originally from Leon in Mexico told me how over there they joke about Corona- it's made from "peasant piss" and sold to the yanqui up north as a joke

oh i liked that the Lone Star can had the anti-litter slogan on it; i think quite a lot of people don't know that's how 'Don't Mess with Texas' started out, and now it's become a much bigger slogan, right?

i think it was always more than just a littering slogan- but it didn't get the sinister air it has now (doesn't it?) until bush got elected

 

[scottdisco]

the third Lone Star was unremarkable and a pretty poor beer, though i feel the nadir on this batch was definitely #2. it just tasted of some strange bubblegum candy and crappy ale, so not entirely a disaster.

i just gulped down the first Pearl and maybe it's that can, but it was bad, really bad, worse than the Lone Star. it was actually on the road to dire.

hmm.

>my brother-in-law who is originally from Leon in Mexico told me how over there they joke about Corona- it's made from "peasant piss" and >sold to the yanqui up north as a joke

this is quite, quite brilliant.

i am going to be telling everybody this back in Britain!

i've drunk my fair share of Corona (i can only imagine how bloodless the Light version must taste) myself but back home if i ever see most other Mexican beers i'd go for anything else, like a shot, out of interest. Dos Equis is a nice thing, they do a few different blends you can easily get, right?
Tecate, i'd like to try that.
and a Negra Modelo? that one's alright, i don't mind that at all.
of course, those ickle Negra Modelo bottles in the UK are bought, over-priced, in fashionable bars. go figure.

i did once find a lovely little article written by Anthony Dias Blue that was a short introductory guide to Mexican brews, but the site took it off-line.

DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS:
>i think it was always more than just a littering slogan- but it didn't get the sinister air it has now (doesn't it?) until bush got elected

yeah you're on the right track there.

somewhat off-topic Freaky Trigger once blogged about tuica, Romanian plum brandy, 50% proof, twice distilled [http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/pumpkin/2004_07_01_pumpkinpublog_archive.html#109109194397114565], described by a Romanian mate as Sour, sharp & strong enough to make you wanna beat the living lights out of your kids.

i had a fair bit of grappa the other week for the first time in forbloodyevah and, my, that boy can sing...

now i know some people on this thread have already mentioned the likes of Czech fire waters or whatnot, but i was just wondering if anyone knows of any regularly available really strong booze (shops etc)?
i mean, that they could point me towards, purely for research of course.

i've had everclear before. that's 95%.

only swilling bits of it about and a few snifters, gulping down a shot at a time.
it's mad, that stuff.
it hits you for a little while, after it goes down.

some Indiana redneck gave me some at some Texan exile house and told me - this was probably total nonsense to con the gullible Euroweenie but you never know - that everclear is, technically, illegal in Michigan.

mind you, what's the status of absinthe in the USA? ab is illegal in the States, right? that's what American friends say. never thought about it at all, tbh.

 

[rewch]

i'll try & find out the name of the legendary 85% Czech Rum, but a good starting place is Caribbean rums... seem to recall an 80% rum there but funnily enough can't remember what it's called - some variety of Appleton's possibly... it was verging on the hideous though, even with lime & coke (sacrilege i know) a sliver at the bottom of the glass was plenty... one i can remember though is Conquering Lion, only 68% though... whoops 63% (from bottle)

 

[rewch]

never had this, but weighs in at 80%: Original Stroh 80

 

[jenks]

on from the czech rum (which i would heartily recommend - best drunk in a shack in moravia) is some stuff i drunk with a gang of people who lived right on the czech/polish border - they had their own language - ponashimu which was a real hybrid of various linguistic remnants - anyway they drank this stuff called lih - they put equal measures of water, lih and sugar in a saucepan and gently heated so that it was warm - it was all highly ritualised and had to be downed in one (as all these things usually do) - the problem came after 4 of these as the floor moved away from beneath my feet. when i asked for a translation of lih i was told spirit - what spirit i replied - just spirit - i wonder if what i had been drinking was white spirit's wicked cousin?!?

 

[carlos]

hey scott

maybe this site might interest you

http://www.specsonline.com/

it's for Spec's, a huge liquor store about 4 blocks from my house- their website has some info about what they stock- micro brews and such

now you know where to head first if you're ever in houston

 

[Pearsall]

somewhat off-topic Freaky Trigger once blogged about tuica, Romanian plum brandy, 50% proof, twice distilled [http://www.freakytrigger.co.uk/pumpkin/2004_07_01_pumpkinpublog_archive.html#109109194397114565], described by a Romanian mate as Sour, sharp & strong enough to make you wanna beat the living lights out of your kids.

I've had that stuff before, well, it sounds like it. My friend Dan is half-Serb (weirdly, his father is Malaysian - there's a combination!) and his cousin Boyan (who came to London to avoid being sent to fight in Kosovo) used to drink rakia (Serbian plum brandy) all the time. I had some once and it went down easily enough (for being about the same consistency as rubbing alcohol) but for about a half hour after I stopped drinking it my mouth tasted like a hospital. Horrible stuff.