Beer And Beer Drinking

[rewch]

mmmm... otter ale, thb (aaah), foreign (i.e. caribbean & nigerian) guinness, old tom, all the ales over the years, dragon stout, old peculier, old soporific, porter, mild, tej, tella (& araki), mbege, tusker, export (kenyan), yanjing, tsing tao, hue, halida, red back, steinlager, sam adams &c. &c. aaah beer...

hurrah this thread is most enlightening & clearly subscribed to by the enlightened... have been exceptionally busy & mostly hardworking & have been unable to get involved until now...

firstly the stella issue... i find that i can drink it no problem... up to ten or so without too much issue (varies according to circumstances obviously) but the next morning chronic, chronic & unavoidable vomiting... this began four or five years ago & tends to manifest at any volume over four... even if i feel fine at bedtime... this goes for kronie & any other strong lager, but not bitter or stout (or spirits for that matter)... i subscribe to the chemical theory & possibly some sort of hyper-dehydration manifestation... the only time anything similar has happened is with champagne & weddings, so reckon something to do with irritation of stomach lining by bubbles... however non-scientific speculation... bound to be some studies somewhere

used to be a big fan of so-called winter warmers... old tom was number one on my list for a long time

...never had it in a bottle though!!!... had very peculiar properties with any sort of volume... enabled a dimensional portal where anything was possible - sort of random mode where hiding under tables in chinese restaurants became somehow entirely acceptable while simultaneously avoiding the impression of inebriation... this function enhanced by some peak district hallucinogens, which leads me on to old soporific... weighing in at a staggering 14% a mate challenged me to down a pint (oh dear) which i somehow achieved which prompted the extraordinary sensation of coming up on alcohol... very much to be avoided i'd say...

yanjing is very nice & very much along the lines of tsing tao...brought to china by the german protestant missionaries who settled in the town of tsing tao & introduced their brewing techniques...the chinese (at least the northern chinese) love beer & indeed, any other form of alcoholic liquid - notable experience was getting pissed with old chinese man & his wife on long train journey sharing capfuls of er gou ter, the original firewater, though there are czech rums that outfire it getting up to 85% - in fact can we have a rum thread please...food & drink forum a must i'd say

there is also a fine african beer made in real micro-breweries (i.e. at home called mbege - a maize beer it comes in a large flower pot, the waitress takes a sip of your pint (gallon?) first to show it isn't poisoned & it looks like vomit - bloody good though & sufi & i might have had the odd night out on it)

have had many delightful micro-brewery experiences in america...keep it up
favourite beer used to be royal oak (dorset brewer i think), but all the pubs i used to get it in stopped...& then i discovered cider...had a run-in with this recently

... eek! (accompanied by incessant giggling)

 

[rewch]

cider

are we allowed to talk about cider?

 

[luka]

no.

 

[mind_philip]

What about Malt Whisky?

 

[egg]

as for egg and Bishop's Finger, god that's so lovely. Bishop's Finger is just quality, there's no other word for it. the Shepherd Neame brewery is actually very well thought of up my way (north-west, like Simon). i used to work for the RAC in Manchester and a sales colleague was responsible for the breakdown motor insurance for the Neame fleet of vehicles.
we were all well excited about that one

shout yer a pint of best Finger at the Blue (W)Anchor in Hastings when you are next down this way.

you may wish to follow local tradition afterwards and have a piss on the lovely beach.

 

[luka]

start a different thread innit.

a malt whiskey one or a malt whiskey and cider one.

 

[scottdisco]

real quick

Phil, you get my msg mate?

hiya

there are too many contributors to big up on this thread i just want to say for now someone start a whisky and cider/perry thread.

i don't know how to start new threads

PWEASE!

 

[mind_philip]

luke you fascist pig-dog

 

[stelfox]

however did i miss this thread.
scott, i knew i liked you but this has totally confirmed it.
you're a man after my own heart beer-wise.
(quick point before i get going: as bitter is way less gassy than lager, you may do well to get into it, luke. it goes great guns with good cheese, too.)
anyway, i used to work in a place voted the best pub in britain in my youth with at least 20 top-dollar cask-conditioned beers on at any one time, 8 of which served on gravity (straight out of the barrel, no pump or anything) in a refrigerated tap room, so i got well spoilt. it's in norfolk and had a very good relationship with adnams, so their beers were always outstandingly kept, from best bitter, to broadside, to old ale (perhaps the finest winter pint going).
you can't really beat adnams best as a benchmark session bitter, especially if it's properly fresh, with that slight effervesence that tingles on the tongue and really crisp, hoppy taste.
however there are many, many more that i like a lot.

Standard Bitters/Best Bitter

Robinson's Best
Woodforde's Wherry
Fuller's Chiswick

Strong Bitters

Bateman's XXXB
Fullers ESB
Abbot (only when kept well, otherwise it's pretty grim)
Gales HSB
Burton Ale (as with Abbot but a tremendous drink if it's looked after properly)


Light Bitters

Hop Back Summer Lightning (when fresh this looks like lager and even has a slight fizz. it's awesome, lemony and wicked)
Kelham Island Pale Rider (as above but a bit sweeter)

Dark/Old Ales

Youngs Chocolate Stout
Woodforde's Norfolk Nog

I love Dragon Stout (had four of them watching telly last nigt, as it happens) and, living in east london, it's easy to get hold of. tastes much nicer than nigerian guinness and is only about 8%. all of the eastern european beers flooding into east london are pretty good, but my fave so far was called zgurtyis or something like that. almost had a white-beer kinda taste to it. i just wish they'd import some of the russian dark lagers, too.

I'm not a major fan of draught lager but whenever i'm in canada i always really enjoy keiths nova scotia ipa, which is one, to all intents and purposes.

 

[stelfox]

btw, have any of you ever drunk this:

it's nuts; like fizzy marmite!

 

[Rambler]

Yum!

 

[luka]

next time i see you dave we'll go somehwere that serves good bitter and i will try a pint. don't be offended if i don't finish it though/

 

[soup]

Luka - What have you done?

yeah well its beer innit, nothing critical and only cursory mentions of other intoxicants withought brands.
How do you seperate the relationship between intoxication and taste?
Before you start bigging up particular brands why do you give them preference? Why do you like them? Sworth remembering that Hoftmeister was once the uk's biggest selling beer - why? - It was piss.
You're starting to define yaselves by the difference of beer - please.
You drink beer generally because the volume to alcohol ratio allows you to get up in the mornin it is entrenched in the social fabric cos of this. This thread is like a lads luv-in. Give it up.

 

[egg]

This thread is like a lads luv-in. Give it up.

dissensus is a lads' luv-in! ain't nowt wrong with that either! is discussin beer/defining yourself by brand different from doing the same with music?

nice bit of controversy, luvly!

 

[turtles]

Hohoho, only thing better than a beer thread is a controversial beer thread!

is discussin beer/defining yourself by brand different from doing the same with music?

agreed. we like beer (and music) and enjoy discussing beer (and music).

as for why people drink beer, the inebriation factor is definitely important, but as you might have gleaned from this thread, TASTE is also very important. i'm not sure why, but beer falls into the same category of things like cheese, wine and whiskey where it is possible to notice and appreciate very fine differences in tastes (as opposed to say, various cola versions). So intoxication + subtly of taste = a fine thing worth obsessing about.

Anyway, i thought we were getting into some interesting brand-analysis stuff with our discussion of differences of opinion re: Stella Artois in north america vs. uk. I don't think we're all totally unaware of beer branding strategies.


aaahahahaha, i love this thread even more now.

 

[soup]

is discussin beer/defining yourself by brand different from doing the same with music?

2 questions there and I'm finding it hard to seperatate them (liklle bit drunk ) But yeah, it is different. The level of criticism is higher within, say some of the music threads on this forum and the wholesale reification of brands of beer on this thread. I think that if those same critical faculties applied to something like beer. something which is quite everyday could net great rewards for us all. But instead everybody piles in. Yeah, "I lkie beer"....great

 

[luka]

the starting point of the thread was me not liking beer. if people want to talk about beer let them talk about beer. let off some steam, then they can talk about german music in the eighties or new neo-con strategies or the ukraine or cheese or whatever poncey subject takes their fancy. i can tell you now there's no one here with lad credentials, these cissys would get lauighed out of any romford mega pub as soon as they walked in the door!

 

[fldsfslmn]

dissensus is a lads' luv-in! ain't nowt wrong with that either! is discussin beer/defining yourself by brand different from doing the same with music?

nice bit of controversy, luvly!

"Sharp distinctions like those between A and B films, or between short stories published in magazines in different price segments, do not so much reflect real differences as assist in the classification, organization, and identification of consumers. Something is provided for everyone so that no one can escape; differences are hammered home and propagated. The hierarchy of serial qualities purveyed to the public serves only to quantify it more completely. Everyone is supposed to behave spontaneously according to a "level" determined by indices and to select the category of mass product manufactured for their type. On the charts of research organizations, indistinguishable from those of political propaganda, consumers are divided up as statistical material into red, green, and blue areas according to income group."

--Horkeimer & Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment

Still, it tastes good. I'm off to the beer store this very second.

 

[scottdisco]

> these cissys would get lauighed out of any romford mega pub as soon as they walked in the door!

speak for yourself Luka...

'nuff respect to soup for breaking up our cosy consensus here, there's indeed nowt like a little controversy to stir the pot, and also for their Sardinian cheese quest. good luck!

i am glad the Canuck adventurers are here as i must gather native opinions on Canuck beer soon and would be interested to hear your views on some written opinions of certain Canadian brews i came across the other day (i have a 'beer calendar', notes on 365 bottled varieties, an American production so rather too many from the Great Satan, but you can't have everything now - anyway there are {a mere} five Canadian beers mentioned and i'll post some choice quotes and get your views, if that's OK).

for now, i will make a few observations, if i may (thanks):

- i enjoyed a Rolling Rock bottle the other Friday (it went down, and was the first beer i'd had for a week or two or three). i am at a loss to describe taste, but it did quench a thirst. i suppose this is American macros in action. later on i ate some American comfort food. that was tasty.
- i had two bottles of Guinness original, one of which was appalling, the other merely bad. but they were old, i think. the first one nearly made me gag.
- i had a lot of Labatt's Blue and i discovered that - hey! - when chilled, the blandness becomes, well, i drank it. so that is quite good. so big up your chest, Labatts. it was a remarkable experience. i mean, i hope i don't have to drink it again, but in being so competently clean it was at least less unpleasant than a decidely bad bottled stout...
- i went to one of the two outlets that Indiana's Mishawaka Brewing Company operates, The Pub near Notre Dame college town South Bend (the other tied outlet is the Brew Co itself; The Pub i think i prefer because the Brew Co just sells their beers, whereas The Pub sells hard stuff too).
there's a beer list below
http://www.mishawakabrewingcompany.com/Beers_MBC.html

started with the Transit of Venus.
that was bad. the bumf on their menu notes how the Venus is aggressively hopped to ensure a taste largely free from bitterness.
well it was actually a very bitter pint, and not at all nice.
quite disappointing really, the second half went down easily enough (but this at least partly just to clear space for the next drink on a very crowded table-top).
very grainy, gritty, nice appearance, quite golden. but i wouldn't recommend it. i'd never had it before.

then onto the Founders Stout. this was an awful pint, it was just swill. there's really nothing more to add. i got about three quarters/four-fifths down (pompous and bloody-minded Protestant ethic i suppose) and gave up.

i best continue on the next post cause there's that whole word-count thing innit?

 

[scottdisco]

in defence of the MBC i suppose i should say i believe their 'high-end' beer (see list above in link if arsed) is the Four Horseman Irish Ale, a red ale that won silver at the GABF in 1994. which i've never had. and i didn't try the speciality beer either (i've tried four of their beers at the Brew Co., and four at The Pub).
that said, their current speciality is another stout. soooo...

anyway, what next.

oh yeah, i had their IPA (which i had previously rated well at the MBC). well this was the best thing i drank that day and i do like me IPA's a lot, but i can't recall anything to say about it. it was nowhere near as good as i remember at the Brew Co itself, but it lifted the spirits a little after the harshness of the Transit and the unforgiveably poor Founders. back on the subject of IPA's, it can sometimes take me a little while to 'get them', so i don't know.

i've had their Lake Effect Pale Ale before, which was nothing special. the Raspberry Wheat Ale was sampled and - well - what can i say.
it seemed to me, frankly and i know i sound like a smartarse here, like someone had got a pot of shandy and put some cordial in it, mixed in very well, like no separation, but it was not a brilliant fruit beer or anything, nope.

there's a quote in a recent edition of the rag one of my local CAMRA branches puts out, and the pubgoer concerned, discussing a new opening, writes There’s also Belle Vue Kriek for those who like what in my opinion is these days little better than alcoholic cherryade.
funny, wise and true, and i kind of got this opinion about their Raspberry Wheat, on this showing at least, anyway.

sorry to be so negative but yo my BLT was superb and they did something with garlic and cheese and some spices on their fries before they cooked them, like, twice over, so for food 'twas good

the only other Indiana brewpub, whilst i'm on the subject of Hoosiers (go Purdue!), i've ever been to
is
the Lafayette Brewing Co.
[beer list at http://www.lafayettebrewingco.com/ales.html]

that's nice, and worth checking out if ever near.
definitely more impressed with that - over admittedly repeat visits - than the MBC.
there we go...