egg:
>in fact why not wander by train or with chauffeur along the sussex coast taking in all three, as you will find some excellent real ale along the >way. a driver would be best as you could stop at all the places in between off the a27 like the giants rest and sussex ox.
excellent, excellent. i'll have my man Cookie make up a list and we'll be off
Hastings sounds like a laff, certainly if it's anything like Dover ["six pints of bitter please, because we're northern"].
the heart & hand sounds decent btw minusone
incidentally i have a pal from Bournemouth who is forever complaining about the disgraceful state of near-three-notes pints round his way. mind you, Badger ales are the scoopage of choice in that neck of the woods so it can't be all bad (except when it's blowing up a Force 8 gale at Poole harbour and you're trying to change pubs, sez my correspondent).
loved sufi's visuals post.
it's hard to get African beer in the Mcr pretty much fullstop apart from in restaurants like Out of Africa and the like; there are also only literally three African eating/drinking establishments AFAIK (AFAIK does not count for much in this case, admittedly) in the entire city (there are a lot of Afro-Caribbean eateries and caffs and whatnot). perhaps i should investigate me some
tej or
tella whilst in Chicago, as there are enough Ethiopian scranneries round here.
i do like Singha me, oh yes.
all the really big Asian beer names (in UK high-street terms i mean) i wuv, Tiger, Cobra, especially Tsingtao which i really am loving.
i must say i cannot really get with the Bass programme.
i don't rate it that much, i must be honest, and i've certainly been on the piss in Burton, so i must be missing something. most tastes have to be acquired and i certainly respect Burton's ale histories, so i dunno. it's another one i have chalked down in a mental notebook.
the thing that strikes me as strange(ish) about Bass is it is very popular in the USA, marketed well over here, slick website, etc. (they seem to go for the merrie olde Englande thing).
i've tried it enough times in the USA out of interest and i can honestly say, my prejudices apart (i think!), it doesn't seem to travel very well (well that's stating the obvious, as what Brit-ale does).
so i'm a bit mystified, in all honesty.
just on the America loves it side of things, i mean.
still, i know Anglophilia can be quite a big thing right.
bipedaldave:
>Ahh, beer. Personal expereince seems rather contrary to some people's here, in that I could drink beer all day and not really get too >smashed. Though peeing is an issue. Not to mention the beer shits the next day...
beer trots can be appalling with some bitters, that's for sure
if you drink beer all day you'll not get smashed no, that's right, cause the all-dayer thing comes into effect, and you just boss it.
Montreal is a surprise.
i want to ask if there is a difference in, say, north American and British drinking culture, in terms of speed and whatnot. i was at a Indiana brewpub once and tried three pints of three of their different ales (an IPA at about 6% was the best) over about an hour (i ate lunch too). when i went to order the third drink the waitress made a crack about my double-bagging (or double-handing or something) the beer.
i was all 'nah, just wanting to try your fine wares, and this is normal speed back home'.
i mean, weird huh?!
perhaps that says more about the Midwest than anything else...
bipedaldave:
>Lastly, I knew an engineer who used to work designing malt-houses (i think that's what they're called), the pre-brewery part of the beer >operation. Anyway, he swore that beers like bud and miller genuine draft and such were made with rice instead of barley. Anyone care to >confirm/deny?
Bud certainly has rice added to it, for crunch (i remember reading some piece once where the St Louis baseball team the Cards had their guys squeezing cups of rice for pitching practice to strengthen fists and whatnot but it was a commercial tie-in with Anheuser-Busch) or whatnot and to help the flavour zip along (or so i believe), so perhaps Miller-styles are the same?
i don't know, but wouldn't be surprised.
Budweiser and Miller beers all have that very crisp taste. in fact i just checked the Bud site now (cause i'm sad) and it makes a virtue of their addition of rice to the process ('not all breweries do this' etc.)
so in the case of Bud it's just an addition (there is still barley involved). i dunno about Miller. merely generalising in a very sloppy manner, i wouldn't be surprised, cause like i say i guess MGD and Bud etc. all taste fairly similar, i.e., i mean in that extremely crisp and clean manner.
btw, merely on name alone, Okanagan Springs sounds divine. is that a town in Vancouver Island or something?
one of the Freaky Trigger people called Warsteiner Warstarter the other day, which i'd never heard before. i like it
Stella actually seems esteemed highly in the USA (i'm assuming perhaps similar in Canada?), well in my very limited experience. well a lot more highly than in the UK (Americans who don't know of the wifebeater nickname - given what a 'wifebeater' is in the US - are amused when informed, in my experience) is what i mean.
i mean, it's a competent lager innit with a bit of the ol' self-fulfilling-prophecy in the 'causes balloonery stakes'. out of the big names Krony b is deffo preferable, although i must admit i'd probably strike out for Artois over Carling, Carlsberg, Harp, Fosters, etc.
but that ain't saying much is it?
actually Carling over Stella, not sure about Carlsberg.
as for Harp, it's nice enough but stick to the stouts, Arthur.
perhaps - as i say, this could be my very partial reading - wifebeater's relative critical popularity this side of the pond is down to a general lack of decent continental European lagers outside of specialist brewpubs or German/Belgian-styled bars?
sorry to bang on, but it really does interest me.