Favourite Beers?
Oh, don't get me started. I actually brew my own from time to time and that is pretty good, seeing as its source is Woodfords of Norfolk. When I lived in Somerset, my favourite pint was Butcombe. I think they still make it, but it is a small brewery. Time after time I come back to Ruddles County. Fraoch is also an occasional favourite.
Batemans has undergone a transformation since the days when even the Lincolnshire locals drank Watneys Red Barrel in preference. Harviestoun Bitter and Twisted gets an honourable mention, as does Black Isle and Arran. Greene King IPA and Wells Bombardier are never refused.
German beer is chemical free, according to Mark Knopfler and the Reinheitsgebot and Becks is always something you can drink and not feel as if you have had a bad drug trip and so is Perroni Nastro Azzurro, which is sort of de rigeur with a pizza at Pizza Express.
Thank goodness we are no longer in the bad old days of the sixties when all you could get was brown gassed up piss.
Have I missed any great ales out?
6 comments:
Beer, beer. You sound like Homer Simpson.
Maybe I'm jealous because there are no good Scottish beers. In the past, I have enjoyed a good bitter in Oxford. Now, just as I never have a cooked breakfast except on holiday, I never drink beer here at home. On holiday, I happily drink German beers, but my favourites are the Belgian beers, especially those brewed by monks.
Augustiner-Bräu, München.
So good you can't stop. You can drink eight litres of it in them giant Grosses Bier FaBs under the vaulted ceilings of the Augustiner Halle itself as long as you're either a Bavarian or a Weegie.
Then, in a fine old Munich tradition you throw all the empty FaBs you've been keeping under the table as you go along at the heads of your new Freunds on the bench acrosss the hall and they do they same back.
Great stuff.
Bambardier, London Pride, Riggwelter, Bishop's Finger, Landlord, Old Speckled Hen, Theakston's Old Peculier and Bitter, Sam Smiths' Old Brewery Bitter.
Riggwelter is good for its name. In Yorkshire, if a sheep is riggweltered, it is on its back and unable to get up. Know the feeling.
To Richard's list I would add Black Sheep (Riggwelter younger brother), Abbot Ale (and IPA), Wells Brewery Banana bread Beer" (honestly!) and Brakspears.
Girls do drink beer - trust me, although I can't speak for any friends of Dorothy.
Strike out Ruddles. It was once brewed in Oakham but the company was taken over and production moved to Southampton. So whatever it was, it's not the same now.
When I lived in London almost 40 years ago I'd walk past 5 or 6 pubs to drink a pint of Youngs. It was so thick you had to chew it before you could swallow it. Two pints and your cheeks were glowing. Seven pints were just about possible in one session, but eight was beyond my capacity.
A few months later I moved to Northampton. On a night out with friends from London we had the misfortune of having to drink Watneys Red. I had fifteen pints and was still coherent (if a little gassy)The local beer was so bad I gave up drinking it in the end.
These days the micro breweries are doing a great job. In Kettering the pubs all stock Potbelly, brewed by an old school mate of my son. My wife's cousins have resurrected the Phipps name and are brewing some great beer in Northampton.
It's not all gas and alcopops I'm glad to say.
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