Beer And Beer Drinking
- Thread starter luka
- Start date
you
Well-known member
shit forgot to reply to his ages ago - the mate i hooked up with said it was a great pub tea - so consider your recommendation to be independently cross-checked and verified as 'word'.... Ended up at the wellington which had like 12 real local ales on tap - madness - only stayed for 3 before getting dragged out under increasing important of requiring 'eye candy'.....
EDIT - on the subject of beer - albeit negative - I paid 3.75 for a small bottle (like corona size) at Late at Tate today - i felt royally rogered - he didn't even have the heart to look me in the eye - pah, devil take it
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viktorvaughn
Well-known member
Just had a look at the site and you can get mini kegs! amazing
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Our local's an adnams pub. It's quite nice, but a lot of the time after a couple of pints you just really want something that isn't a light to mid brown bitter... it always seems a bit of a waste to have eight ales on (including three guests) and almost no actual variety.
In non-moaning news, we're off to Brugge in a couple of weeks and will be paying due respects to the great belgian brewing tradition...
In non-moaning news, we're off to Brugge in a couple of weeks and will be paying due respects to the great belgian brewing tradition...
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Mmm, that sounds good. Beer here is strange, it's very expensive in bars, at least the nice ones are (Grimbergen Dubbel in the pub around the corner is E3.75 per HALF pint) but very cheap in supermarkets. Even the really strong specialist beers are around a euro a bottle, and stuff like Hoegaarden and Leffe are just over half a euro.
But the bars still seem to be doing a roaring trade, which is good. The rate at which pubs are closing in Britain is a tragedy.
But the bars still seem to be doing a roaring trade, which is good. The rate at which pubs are closing in Britain is a tragedy.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Well that was every bit as good as we expected!
Highlights included Drie Fonteinen Geuze, Rodenbach Grand Cru, St Bernardus 12 (apparently as close as you'll get to Westvleteren 12 without some significant hustle), Viven Porter, Prearis Quadrupel, Boon Kriek, various Gouden Carolus stuff...
One interesting point was getting talking to a local beer geek (he kept telling me how lucky I was to have a girlfriend who appreciates guezes) who had an extremely low opinion of British brewing, possibly based on having tried bottles of IPA. Is this a common view in the rest of the world?
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Still very few British breweries - or too few, at any rate - do bottle-conditioned beers. Even great ales lose something when they're bottled pasteurised, I think. And live bottled beers are the only way to get any drink approaching 'real ale' (I mean British beers, obviously) outside Britain.
So either he's never been here and has only had slightly dead-tasting bottled British beers - or he's been here but for some reason visited pubs where the only cask ale was GK IPA or Worthington's - or he's tasted lots of real ales and thinks they're crap just because they don't taste like Belgian beers, in which case he's a dick, end of. Go to a beer festival or a serious real-ale pub and you can see that British brewing is in rude health, despite the recession and the depredations of the big brewers.
Edit: can't speak for 'the rest of the world' but I know a lot UK beers have a big following among serious ale-ophiles in the States.
So either he's never been here and has only had slightly dead-tasting bottled British beers - or he's been here but for some reason visited pubs where the only cask ale was GK IPA or Worthington's - or he's tasted lots of real ales and thinks they're crap just because they don't taste like Belgian beers, in which case he's a dick, end of. Go to a beer festival or a serious real-ale pub and you can see that British brewing is in rude health, despite the recession and the depredations of the big brewers.
Edit: can't speak for 'the rest of the world' but I know a lot UK beers have a big following among serious ale-ophiles in the States.
you
Well-known member
on par with the nags head in reading - that gets camra awards.... 12 pumps crazy...
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
Very impressed to be able to get bottles of Estrella for a euro apiece in Zaragoza. Pretty pissed for a fiver. That's what I call a good start to a night out, plus the tapas had won some kind of award (allegedly)
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Yeah, I think it's a bit of i) and a little bit of iii). There is an attitude (cf ratebeer, passim) that says that a good beer is one that challenges you to identify notes of avocado and chicory in amongst a rush of blueberries, dark chocolate, and bitter lemon and if that's what you're interested in then I can see how the small miracle that is a perfectly balanced light bitter can pass you by, particularly if it comes after a succession of similar but not quite so well balanced light bitters. So it's not entirely surprising if someone who's used to heavy trappists and quadrupels and the like doesn't immediately grasp that whole side of British beer. But I think the difficulty of exporting the beer - and also of exporting the whole experience - is a big thing as well.