Picking on Brits a Bit

[karam]

It just occurred to me that Brits probably like stout beers to cover up the taste of soap on their mugs.

London Porter and Tetley's Bitter are great!

Also, wanted to support my former home (the UK) from naysayers which got me tired for years: ALE is not "warm beer", it makes more sense and tastes better drank at slightly chilled temperatures. Same goes for stouts and Weisbier. Lagers on the other hand I agree taste better ice cold. That ridiculous rumour of the Brits drinking warm beer is just culinary illiteracy

 

[cosmicfolklore]

London Porter and Tetley's Bitter are great!

Also, wanted to support my former home (the UK) from naysayers which got me tired for years: ALE is not "warm beer", it makes more sense and tastes better drank at slightly chilled temperatures. Same goes for stouts and Weisbier. Lagers on the other hand I agree taste better ice cold. That ridiculous rumour of the Brits drinking warm beer is just culinary illiteracy

Don't matter to me none... I make fun of all beers, haha.

 

[Kobold]

Guinness ain't bad if you get it cold enough that you can't taste it.

I’m glad someone said it. Guinness sucks.

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

Years ago when I was a big beer drinker... There was a soccer training clinic in my small town. I reckon they've been trying to push soccer on us for a while.

Me and my drinking buddies were at our usual beer store, and bumped into the Scottish guy running the soccer thing. He asked us where he could go to have a few beers, and we told him that there weren't many good choices in town, and invited him to come over and drink with us.

He came on over and started going on about how he could drink our beer (Natural Light) all day and night and not even get buzzed. Man, we had a good time that night, but old boy passed out in his chair on the porch. We had to carry his ass inside and put him on the couch, when the party was over.

He woke up early and disapeared before we ever got to talk to him. Haha

I think Americans and Europeans have different expectations for beer... Most people around here want watered down beer, so they can drink a couple dozen of them. It ain't so much about flavor for us. Lots of big time American beer drinkers aren't concerned in the least bit about flavor.

 

[MisterBadger]

I’m glad someone said it. Guinness sucks.

RIGHT. Your Budweiser (to misappropriate the name of a perfectly decent Czech lager from Budvar ought to be a crime against humanity in international law) both looks and tastes like I imagine the contents of a pub urinal would be, and has about the same alcohol content. It would not surprise me at all if the brewery in St Louis had the staff urinals connected directly to a tank in the bottling plant, cutting out the need for mash tuns and fermenting vats. Guiness is for grownups who know better and can't be imposed on.

 

[MisterBadger]

Years ago when I was a big beer drinker... There was a soccer training clinic in my small town. I reckon they've been trying to push soccer on us for a while.

Me and my drinking buddies were at our usual beer store, and bumped into the Scottish guy running the soccer thing. He asked us where he could go to have a few beers, and we told him that there weren't many good choices in town, and invited him to come over and drink with us.

He came on over and started going on about how he could drink our beer (Natural Light) all day and night and not even get buzzed. Man, we had a good time that night, but old boy passed out in his chair on the porch. We had to carry his ass inside and put him on the couch when the party was over..

He woke up early and disapeared before we ever got to talk to him. Haha

I think Americans and Europeans have different expectations for beer... Most people around here want watered down beer, so they can drink a couple dozen of them. It ain't so much about flavor for us. Lots of big time American beer drinkers aren't concerned in the least bit about flavor.

I have had the pleasure of drinking several excellent beers produced by New England microbreweries that put some British equivalents to shame. That braggart Scotsman probably got slipped a Mickey Finn (because your Natural Light wouldn't have put his lights out on its own - it's only 4.2% ABV), and I reckon he deserved it. But in general, I'd guess that the general US expectation of beer is still only very slowly recovering from the Prohibition days.

As for Soccer/Association football, I can understand the general lack of interest over there, and have little sympathy for anyone trying to sell it to you. Rugby football, on the other hand, resembles your game a lot more and is no less interesting. But we don't wear armour to play our game, as you do.

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

I have had the pleasure of drinking several excellent beers produced by New England microbreweries that put some British equivalents to shame. That braggart Scotsman probably got slipped a Mickey Finn (because your Natural Light wouldn't have put his lights out on its own - it's only 4.2% ABV), and I reckon he deserved it. But in general, I'd guess that the general US expectation of beer is still only very slowly recovering from the Prohibition days.

As for Soccer/Association football, I can understand the general lack of interest over there, and have little sympathy for anyone trying to sell it to you. Rugby football, on the other hand, resembles your game a lot more and is no less interesting. But we don't wear armour to play our game, as you do.

Yeah we have a market for some fancier beers, but the majority of the beer market for probably the watery stuff.

We may have had some brown party liquor being passed around that night too.

 

[karam]

I think Americans and Europeans have different expectations for beer... Most people around here want watered down beer, so they can drink a couple dozen of them. It ain't so much about flavor for us. Lots of big time American beer drinkers aren't concerned in the least bit about flavor.

A nice light, icy cold lager in a hot day is pure pleasure - even something like Corona or Coors or Budweiser - not everything needs to be a full meal in a glass like Guinness (which is amazing for me, by the way!). But what if you can get both the buzz and the taste?

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Yeah we have a market for some fancier beers, but the majority of the beer market for probably the watery stuff.

Bud Light seems to remain the highest selling beer in Alabama, followed by PBR.
But, microbreweries are popping up everywhere in Alabama. We even have one in my town. But, there is at least one microbrewery in every town I drive through now. So, IPAs are rivaling the major beers as a whole.
I’ve tried, but I just can’t bring myself to drink any of them.

 

[Elric]

A nice light, icy cold lager in a hot day is pure pleasure - even something like Corona or Coors or Budweiser - not everything needs to be a full meal in a glass like Guinness (which is amazing for me, by the way!). But what if you can get both the buzz and the taste?

Ironically, Guinness Draught has less calories than Corona Extra. 125 vs 148

 

[MisterBadger]

Bud Light seems to remain the highest selling beer in Alabama, followed by PBR.
But, microbreweries are popping up everywhere in Alabama. We even have one in my town. But, there is at least one microbrewery in every town I drive through now. So, IPAs are rivaling the major beers as a whole.
I’ve tried, but I just can’t bring myself to drink any of them.

What the kids think is IPA these days, is nothing like a proper India Pale Ale: that stuff was originally brewed to mature in barrels on shipboard during the 6-8 weeks it took a sailing ship to get from Britain to India before the opening of the Suez Canal. It was brewed very strong, very heavily hopped and robust enough to stand the heat and the turbulence of the long sea voyage, and was very much prized at home as well as in the Colonies. The travesty that is marketed to us now is simply some average-strength beer in which they've shovelled in the hops but used citrus-tasting hybrids make you think it's second hand and someone's kidneys can't handle real lemonade.These days I avoid buying an IPA that isn't from a long-established brewery because if I want a grapefruit shandy (which I don't), I'll order one.

 

[fireground_piper]

You guys and your fancy beer. If it's under 40 proof, is it even worth drinking?

 

[karam]

The travesty that is marketed to us now is simply some average-strength beer in which they've shovelled in the hops but used citrus-tasting hybrids make you think it's second hand and someone's kidneys can't handle real lemonade. These days I avoid buying an IPA that isn't from a long-established brewery because if I want a grapefruit shandy (which I don't), I'll order one.

Yeah I agree that many microbreweries seem to not get it, they seem to think that making something that's 1 part hops to 0.5 part beer is some sort of "old world" or edgy brewing.

I have a Moretti in the fridge right now and wondering if I should crack it open... It's a lager but has some body to it.

 

[MisterBadger]

And I've never seen a Brit put on underwear, or for that matter wash underwear. Do Brits even wear underwear? If so, do they wash them?

It requires a far lesser degree of intimacy to fry eggs in front of someone else, than to change - and even more so, wash - one's underwear. Also, whether in someone home's or in a place of public resort such as a cafe, fried eggs are far more frequently and easily seen that people's underwear. Going out for breakfast and watching the other tables, is also an activity that attracts no censure, whereas haunting a launderette to watch the customers and take note of their nether garments, or taking an undue interest in other folks' underwear as it dries outside, is a far riskier business and could even get one arrested. You're not being scientific here, @woodsroad: I think you may be only playing this for laughs.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

 

[JoburgB2]

I quite like Guinness. And so it seems do millions of others. The brewery cannot keep up with soaring demand, according to today’s news.

 

[Kobold]

Well if millions of people like something then it’s just got to be good.

 

[woodsroad]

I haven’t kept up on this thread, so bear with me if my observations are dated.

As a former homebrewer and beer snob, I’ve noticed a parallel between beer, food and tobacco. Whereas most people just want fat, sugar, alcohol and other carbs in their stomach and nicotine in their brain without being challenged by flavor and aroma, a smaller percentage of the public eat, drink and smoke for the broader experience of a panoply of sensual delights.

The great British beer writer and critic Michael Jackson once told me “Why drink three “light” beers when you can have one really good one”. My answer at the time was “Why have one really good beer when you could have six?”

 

[bullet08]

As a formal ASM with a hard core backpacking troop, soaps are something we rarely used. Unless they are biodegradable. Even then, we didn't trust how it will interact with the environment. So, the standard procedure was to wash all the dishes with just water, and we drink the wash water. We called sumping. Now, me being me, I taught outdoor washing machine. A gallon Ziploc bag, and a frisbee. Turn the bag inside out. Slide the frisbee in the inside out bag. Eat off that setup. Once done, carefully remove the bag, turn the bag right side in, squeeze the air out, and pack it out. You just have to lick your spoon carefully.

What does that have to do with Britain? Baden-Powell was a British. Boy Scout started in Britain under his leadership based on American Indian Scouting. If he was alive, he would appreciate the outdoor washing machine.

 

[woodsroad]

Back when I did a lot of canoe lake tripping, we ate out of the mess kit pot, rinsed it in the lake with a scrubby. It was a feast for the little fishies. I figued that if a moose could shit in the lake, a few scraps of food wasn’t having a negative impact.

I never understood how you could drive your car for hours or days to a remote location, pack up all your manufactured clothes and gear that had been produced in a third world shithole, shipped half way around the globe, then obsess over your impact on the environment.