Beer And Beer Drinking

[Sectionfive]

 

[Slothrop]

Have had some quite nice things from Oakham and Buntingford lately.

Also, how do brewdog get away with their incessant hype? I mean, aside from all the super strong beers (and tbf the Tokyo* which is the only one of those that I've tried is quite nice) and beers encased in roadkill. I had a bottle of their 5am Saint last night and it was a nice, well put together red ale, but to read the info on the bottle you'd think that a) it was an act of revolution comparable to Paris '68 in its significance and b) it was the only alternative to creamflow John Smiths...

 

[Mr. Tea]

I guess you can say anything you like about your own products as long as it's not provably untrue, can't you? But yeah, clearly well overhyped. And as for their "postmodern IPA" - deary me. I suppose they dispensed with the hegemonic modernist brewing methodology and introduced a playful jouissance into a decontextualised process of becoming-beer...

I've been coming back to England to see my girlfriend nearly every weekend since I moved away and a little bonus of each trip is having a pint in the Wetherspoons at Stansted Airport on my way home. Had a pint of Harviestoun's Bitter & Twisted last Sunday and OMIGOD it was perfect. Plenty of nice beers over here, of course - but they don't taste like that. And it's 3.8%! There's a lot to be said for being able to brew really tasty beer that doesn't rely on being basically barley wine to have lots of flavour and character.

 

[Immryr]

say what you want about brew dog, their beer is well tasty. who cares about the branding?

 

[viktorvaughn]

The Kernels' Pale Ale is a nice one, lots of citrus hops but the body beneath that th back it up.

I do wish there were more fully flavoured ones around 3.80, i accidently ordered a bottle of IPA a few weeks ago when already drunk and it was about 7% and pushed me over the edge to getting macdonalds on the way home.

 

[luka]

fruity beers are starting to piss me off. dunno if this is a problem anywhere out of aus, but here every pseudo craft beer is fruity and cloying.

 

[luka]

can i have my beer in beer flavour please? thanks.

 

[viktorvaughn]

fruity beers are starting to piss me off. dunno if this is a problem anywhere out of aus, but here every pseudo craft beer is fruity and cloying.

there does seem to be a bias towards very citrusy hops at the mo, and some of those are supposed to lead to passionfruit/mangoy tastes and smells i read somewhere

 

[Mr. Tea]

I like beers that have that fruity/citrussy thing going on without actually containing fruit. Luka, do you mean fruit beers per se? I think they can be nice as long as the fruit isn't overpowering. St. Peter's fruit beers are good examples of ales where the fruit is an adjunct to the basic beer flavour, rather than the main event. I've come to the conclusion that Belgian-type krieks etc. are really just alcopops for beer drinkers. Very sweet, very fruity, don't really taste much a like a beer at all.

 

[luka]

no i dont mean real fruit beers. different thing. what vikto said.

 

[Slothrop]

I like beers that have that fruity/citrussy thing going on without actually containing fruit. Luka, do you mean fruit beers per se? I think they can be nice as long as the fruit isn't overpowering. St. Peter's fruit beers are good examples of ales where the fruit is an adjunct to the basic beer flavour, rather than the main event. I've come to the conclusion that Belgian-type krieks etc. are really just alcopops for beer drinkers. Very sweet, very fruity, don't really taste much a like a beer at all.

Depends a lot on the kriek. Timmemans is very sweet and fruity, but generally the people who do good geuezes seem to make krieks and framboises where the fruit flavour dovetails beautifully into the sour lambic flavour - Cantillon kriek is about as full on sour as most geuezes, Marriage Parfait kriek is a bit sweeter but still beautifully balanced.

 

[luka]

proper lambic beers with no fruit flavour just sour socks and cider flavour are amazing. started this thread talking about them i think.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Ah, I see. The beers with very aromatic hop tendencies tend to smell/taste more flowery than fruity IMO. Caledonian Deuchars IPA is a good one for this. I like them, anyway.

Geuzes are great too, good call. Sour beer shouldn't work but it somehow does.

 

[Slothrop]

I guess you can say anything you like about your own products as long as it's not provably untrue, can't you?

I'm not saying that they should be hauled in front of the ASA, more that you'd expect more people to think that they're self-important pricks.

I don't know, I guess I get a bit pissed off with them because they're implicitly slating lots of of people who do similar things to them but sometimes better. It's like everyone and his dog claiming to have invented dubstep because they made a slow record with a bassline some time in the nineties. Also it's part of this whole "UK craft beer movement" which noone who supports it can come up with a decent definition of, because none of them want to admit that the only concrete thing that distinguishes it from other microbrewed beer is that it's marketed towards 18-25 year old hipsters.

I should probably spend less time worrying about this stuff.

 

[Slothrop]

Ah, I see. The beers with very aromatic hop tendencies tend to smell/taste more flowery than fruity IMO. Caledonian Deuchars IPA is a good one for this. I like them, anyway.

Geuzes are great too, good call. Sour beer shouldn't work but it somehow does.

Seriously, get on the cantillon kriek, it's ace.

I was once advised by someone who knows about these things that downing a glass of geuze on a hot day is a very rewarding experience, particularly if you aren't paying. Apparently the style was originated by Flemish peasants who had an interest in brewing something really refreshing to knock back after a hard day in the fields...

 

[viktorvaughn]

so what exactly is geuze?

 

[Slothrop]

so what exactly is geuze?

Basically beer fermented with natural yeast - kind of the beer equivalent of sourdough.

Specifically, I think geuze is naturally fermented in open vats with no added yeast, then stored for a bit, then combined with other ages of similarly fermented beer, then refermented.

It tends to be very sour, sort of like a mix between very dry cider and very dry champagne with a bit of a musty overtone - a flavour apparently known as 'horse blanket' by people who know about these things. It's kind of an acquired taste, but very addictive.

Flemish reds are another interesting sour beer, although a friend of mine described it as "Haribo sour" in comparison to a geuze...

 

[Mr. Tea]

They're so lively because of the in-bottle fermentation that they're often bottled with a champagne-style cork with a little wire cage around it, just like actual champagne (which is fizzy for the same reason).

So it's basically methode-champenoise beer.

 

[viktorvaughn]

Basically beer fermented with natural yeast - kind of the beer equivalent of sourdough.

Specifically, I think geuze is naturally fermented in open vats with no added yeast, then stored for a bit, then combined with other ages of similarly fermented beer, then refermented.

It tends to be very sour, sort of like a mix between very dry cider and very dry champagne with a bit of a musty overtone - a flavour apparently known as 'horse blanket' by people who know about these things. It's kind of an acquired taste, but very addictive.

Flemish reds are another interesting sour beer, although a friend of mine described it as "Haribo sour" in comparison to a geuze...

ok sounds pretty interesting, i think i've actually had one of these once in Brussels. i remember the comparison to champagne - the flemish red sounds pretty interesting. i remember perhaps not loving it massively, acquired taste and all that (some proper cider is like that - almost rotten overtones, worcester sauce, very funky, not in the cool sense)

if i was rich i'd have the sickest beer collection and pick personal choices for guests, it would be amazing

 

[Slothrop]

We go to a pub that runs on nearly that principle and it's bloody excellent.