Beer

**Dave2002** · 28-08-17, 17:44

Originally posted by teamsaint View Post

If beer is a different matter, by extension does that make Stout Dark Matter ?

If we drink that do we also acquire Dark Energy?

**Zucchini** · 28-08-17, 20:18

Originally posted by Dave2002 View Post

If we drink that do we also acquire Dark Energy?

No, you lose energy and fall asleep

**BBMmk2** · 29-08-17, 08:55

Had a couple of nice pints of St Austell Tribute ale last night, with my jamming partner. We are going through some Led Zepp songs. One song I rather like is Carouselambre.

**Richard Barrett** · 29-08-17, 12:03

Originally posted by teamsaint View Post

If beer is a different matter, by extension does that make Stout Dark Matter?

Now I don't mind opening my mouth for a bit of stout now and again, especially in the winter.

**Conchis** · 29-08-17, 12:10

I only started to enjoy drinking beer when I drank it abroad - particularly in Italy and Germany.

English beer I find, frankly, disgusting - it has a warm and cloying taste.

My favourite 'mass market' beers are Birra Moretti, Peroni and San Miguel.

**cloughie** · 29-08-17, 12:43

Originally posted by Conchis View Post

I only started to enjoy drinking beer when I drank it abroad - particularly in Italy and Germany.

English beer I find, frankly, disgusting - it has a warm and cloying taste.*

My favourite 'mass market' beers are Birra Moretti, Peroni and San Miguel.

* which English beers? That is a far too broad and general statement! Try harder to match your tastes.

**Dave2002** · 29-08-17, 17:01

Originally posted by cloughie View Post

* which English beers? That is a far too broad and general statement! Try harder to match your tastes.

Seconded.

Also the sentence could be modified to include some disgusting continental beers. Many are good but some are - subject to taste - horrible.

**Richard Barrett** · 29-08-17, 17:48

This argument though is really about a matter of taste between British style beers (not just English of course) which are generally darker in colour, flat in texture and drunk at room temperature, as opposed to continental style beers which are generally lighter, more effervescent and generally chilled - obviously there are wide differences in quality (and many other differences too) within either of these general varieties, and obviously one can like one kind and not the other (or both, or neither). Or, as in my case, go from one extreme to the other.

**gurnemanz** · 29-08-17, 20:32

I lived in Germany for five years and greatly enjoyed the beer there, mainly Pils but also Weizen. However, I really did miss English ales and will always drink that sort of beer by preference. There is such a variety - as can be sampled at beer festivals and decent ale pubs. In UK I buy bottled German beer to drink at home but almost never drink 'Lager' in a pub.

**Lat-Literal** · 29-08-17, 21:03

Is it possible to speak about British beers as one entity?

Four decades ago, beer was increasingly a supermarket commodity being sold in an up-to-date tin with nostalgia for old urban times. John Smiths with whippets. Chas and Dave's a pint of Courage best. The darkish orange could be as heavy as old industry. In contrast, gaseous lager was deemed by some to be refreshing. Continental or Scandinavian - the modern pint for the ordinary punter and while now extremely dated it has lost none of its cheap package holiday to the Costa Brava role. It is just that in those who are too young to have known the fading glamour of the Victorian boozers in their lowest "heyday", they wear it large in themselves. That is, every bit as much as they are still somehow adorned in their identities with the concrete of Spain. The reason is the Americans and Australians who revived the lager product when it looked like it might start flagging. Come surfing in New York. Yep - it has some el deck chair flock wallpaper appeal. Keg beer was the bitter equivalent in the British pub - a sixties style try at white heat and it too has lasted. I find that strange as it seemed it would be banished as quickly as once was mild. Goodness knows how it has for no one admits that they ever consume it even in public houses where there is "pump" upon "pump" of the stuff.

But the sheep were being separated from the goats as long ago as the early 1980s. Just as following a family row John Smith and Sam Smith, when alive, had gone off in different directions, so it was when it came to cask "real" ale. Sam's people pursued it along with those of various other breweries around the country. John's didn't initially. The distinction between keg and cask was so considerable that it led to half the pubs in any town being ruled out among the discerning while the rest just continued on as before irrespective of brewery approaches. My immediate belief was that real ale was creamy. That was wholly down to Samuel. Later one discovers that that approach is more likely to be about Yorkshire. A proper pint there has a proper head on it. The kegsters actually went overboard on it with the use of a contraption. I accept there were always nuances. Not every Yorkshire pint was so defined. Theakston's Old Peculiar had an individual appearance and taste which combined genuine traditionalism with forward-looking heritage packaging. Youngs in South London veered towards a creamier constituency than Fullers in the West with their traditional brands. The slowcoaches learnt. The one, for example, with a Brentford bee contains honey.

My clearest early memories are of some of the guest ales in the John Bull - Darleys of South Yorkshire, now defunct, Franklins of Sussex, not that we knew it then, and especially Big Lamp in the North East. Given the strength of the latter's Old Genie that clarity is a little counter-intuitive but in each case what was being said was that real ale could have a myriad of tastes and many not at all as one had anticipated. I regard these as having been among the first of a significant trend. One in which the beeriest associations were no longer with the smog in a too canny town but via a bottling of the berries and other fruits of the fields, albeit with near-the-knuckle or even earthy kinds of names so as not considered too girly. These weren't exactly recent developments. When they occurred gender stereotyping wasn't yet considered passe. But nor was the rapid change in the Thatcher era for it all came of age during late Major or Blair. Shall we call it 1997? That would coincide with the dramatic decline of pop music. Golden may just be the key word here. There had for many years been the likes of Exmoor Gold but what, I think, happened was that Britannia eventually decided it was cool on a new invention called alco-pops. Awful, it enabled fourteen year olds to drink strong alcohol that tasted like the fizzy lemonade of their childhoods twelve months before. They were not the most obvious gateway. Many of their biggest fans would not necessarily progress to real ale - some of the very best ales are the weakest 3.8s and 4.2s - but drinks companies immediately caught on to the potentially broader application of all things citrus.

There aren't too many grapefruits in the British countryside but arguably and logically it is this only partially exotic fruit that resembles only a little sun in greying British lives that was what most transformed beer, turning it into something lighter, crisper and very drinkable. Less gassy than lager; interesting enough to trainspotters and other nitpicking hobbyists - they could now be the unpretentious equals of any dinner party wine connoisseurs; and with a potential reach to anyone until they are placed on tablets advising them to avoid citrus paradisi at all cost. None of this is to say that there are no distinctions between us and the Europeans. The Belgians are famed for their fruit beers but Devon or Dorset sunshine is a long way from Grand Place. Ironically the sweetness in a Framboise or a Kriek is such that it would have suited the kind of navvy in the seventies who liked six spoonfuls in his cup of tea. We can and generally do much better here and across the length and breadth. I'm not sure if I can really taste the Scotland in Deuchars but it's so good I'm more than happy to tell myself I do.

(Re my earlier post, I assume now that we all agree that it is impossible to walk into a pub within walking distance and find enough chemistry with anyone to become lifelong friends)

**Dave2002** · 29-08-17, 21:26

Some British beers are bitter - which I believe is partly due to the difference between male and female hops. Some of these are too bitter with a sharp and unpleasant taste, IMO.

OTOH try some beer in Munich. That may taste foul, like "regular" beer with half a bag of Tate and Lyle sugar tipped in - and people actually drink it!

**Colonel Danby** · 29-08-17, 23:56

I'm currently living on the Rhine, quite close to Bingen (and yes I know the works of Hildegard...marvellous stuff!) and Speyer too: the wine is quite exquisite, and the bierstubes: why do they all keep their own products to themselves, and export utter nonsense, like Black Tower and Blue Nun, and indifferent overpriced lager to Britain? I'm sure that they have their reasons...

Originally posted by Stunsworth View Post

If you find yourself on the Rhine just south of Bingen (where Hildegard came from) you may like to drop in at this place in Speyer...

404

http://www.domhof.de/Hausbrauerei.htm

Beer brewed on the premises, and it has a wonderful beer garden. Highly recommended!

**BBMmk2** · 30-08-17, 08:52

Lat-Lit, I think these days, generally speaking, proper friends are a rare commodity in pubs. We may chat etc, but after that? Not really.

**Lat-Literal** · 30-08-17, 12:03

Originally posted by Brassbandmaestro View Post

Lat-Lit, I think these days, generally speaking, proper friends are a rare commodity in pubs. We may chat etc, but after that? Not really.

Yes bbm - I think you are right and like most things in society it is quite a complicated issue.

There are now more single people than partnered people in America and it can't be very different here. But the key distinction is arguably between people who view themselves and others principally from the perspective of past, present and/or future relationships and those who have been more about friendship, shared interests and concepts of community. Unless the former can sideline the most significant aspects of their outlook, there can be an absence of chemistry. People are wary now, whether on their own or in their own partnerships or groups. They tend to see any open conversational approach as an indication that someone is after something more substantial than conversation and a sense of common identification. Often that will be believed to be financial. Almost without realizing it, they have become used to the main discussion between strangers being in the form of everyday light business transactions. Beyond any shop - or Amazon - there is always the unspoken question "why" which is then reinforced by questions in two areas. One involves one's own personal status and the other is about work experience. To say single for years, long term unemployed and originally in Government is a treble whammy. My sense these days is that actually it is the third that is the trigger point for many to leave. They really don't trust Government and may even have reasons to believe that they are somehow being monitored. It is their paranoia and not at all their fault, being entirely shaped by modern culture. It always bemuses me because to my mind all these things in such encounters should be more or less irrelevant.

We discussed some of these matters during our short holiday in Suffolk. The manner in which the pub was originally a club for the non-clubbable. No doubt some people would disagree. I would say more often than not the disagreement would be from women. I hear them talking about their divorces and their grandchildren and how they have found reasonable lives in organised social groups while lamenting that there are hardly any men there. What one assumes in many instances is that their ex-husbands have either thrown themselves fully into their business or golf or latterly retreat. I think for a lot of men such groups just have a feeling of being too similar to school or the workplace or subtle dating agencies. From my own experience, they mostly resemble work away days. The closing of the traditional community pubs and the increasing number of so-called gastronomy pubs have reinforced in the concept of the public house walls around individual tables. The new micro-pubs - maximum seating approximately twelve - may or may not be an answer in that some if not all may well become like those social clubs only more fleeting and concentrated. It is accepted, though, that there was no golden age. One just took understanding of community from wider family's links with their neighbourhoods and placed them into new contexts. So, yes, it was clear to me as a student that while the people I knew well did the work that was required of them they would mainly prefer to keep the campus peripheral. The part that I couldn't take on board - or steadfastly refused to - was that our lives in the city were disconnected from local people. A strong sense of connection mattered to me conceptually perhaps especially in public houses even when it was evident that each "side" did not want to see it in those terms.

Later, I think there was more of a genuine sense of connectivity. To go to a pub near to a concert venue or a football ground was and presumably to some extent still is to be temporarily alongside or in a community of people with similar interests. It more closely resembles neighbourhood and even friendship in the old sense. Arguably when being with friends there and with the addition of song, one doesn't see the stereotypes and even tribes inside such places which belie the sense of common outlook. For example, sport in the here and now is one thing. Knowing a bit of the history is quite another. Two days ago I started to chatting to three blokes in their mid thirties in a local public house. One was a bit dopey and variable in his receptiveness although he was mainly positive. The second was very talkative and keen to emphasize he was a decent guy but in a way that one sensed he possibly felt that he wasn't so. His girlfriend would be wondering where he was. And the third was a modern gangster type who the first two looked up to and while he was just alright with me I saw the power dynamics between them. I wondered whatever happened to any resemblance of group parity. That felt alienating to me. They started to talk about Mayweather. I spoke about that a bit and then mentioned the Skinner documentary on Ali. This was met with stony silence. I just don't think they knew about Ali. Much the same would occur on a walk with a walking group. I would be feeling the romance of the sea, thinking about the history of the broader environment and considering the achievement now in covering some miles. I would be hoping that those accompanying me would be doing likewise. But in all likelihood they would be strolling, working out who might end up going out with who and discussing Celebrity Big Brother.

It just seems weird to me that forums of this nature come closer to any sense of a community of interests than outside environments when face-to-face. Maybe it is about the nature of one's interests. To talk about classical music or world music is probably a complete waste of time with 99% of people in any pub, village or town. In fact, I know it is. I also recognize that a part of of it may be me per se. But actually when I was in the service I knew a lot of very long-term single people with a wide variety of interests and activities and I would say that all of them were sociable or highly sociable. They were good communicators in the main but now seem rare. It goes further too. The mate I was with last week although it seems ages ago now had a fair few girlfriends in his time although he never really settled. That was the time when he would go on holiday alone and walk up to anyone and chat. Now he says he feels more self-conscious. He is far from atypical. In contrast, I feel much less self-conscious with strangers, having originally needed to be in a group of friends to feel in any way motivated, and I can, I think, therefore see more clearly what is going on in society in the round. Actually twenty years ago there was one who he met in a pub who he came close to marrying. He liked her a lot. She asked him. He was mainly certain but on balance said no. Six weeks later he felt he made a terrible decision. Took a plane out to Tenerife, now with engagement ring. He discovered she had got herself married in that short time. Her loving husband ordered him back to Britain immediately if he wanted to stay alive. Maybe it is that sort of thing more than any other which makes communication between any unknowns now almost impossible, however hard one might try. Many people do have hidden agendas.