On Beer

[BEEDEE]

And Budweiser & Miller are popular in Scotland as well, though cannot understand why.

Slainte,
steve

And so is Fosters! Guess it's the rise of the mega brewers and the lack of taste/flavor that satisfies some.

Give me a craft or micro brewed beer any day.

Brian

[george7]

You mean Irish brewed Guinness hasn't been available in America for my entire lifetime??!?!
Edit: I stand corrected.

[Mipi]

OK, I admit. I don't know what is the situation in UK (never been there).

But here in Slovenia I was a member of official beer taster group. We were selecting the best (and worst on our bad luck) beer from small brewers. From time to time I brew my own beer.

So I certainly haw a right to say my opinion at least.

In general beer is often served to much child!!! That doesn't mean it should be warm. Darker the beer is warmer should be when served. Could say that somewhere between 10 and 15 deg. C would be OK. If beer is very cold it has no taste (it's just like cold water).

My opinion is, that big commercial brewers are hiding their bad quality with pushing very low temperature for beer serving. (as I said, no taste at all). Also aroma is very week.


Just try for yourself and you'll suddenly noticed that your "regular" beer taste better or worse when served not so cold. For sure you'll notice some extra aroma and test.


My half cent.

[Jock Scot]

Whilst I am no beer expert, I think cellar temperature would be about right for our beers.I am told that lagers,more popular now, if served from a bottle to a glass come from a chiller.In passing, I can't stand this modern fad of drinking out of bottles. Anyway, in the highlands we don't have pubs as such, so don't look for the "Coach and Horses" or "The White heart" the locals(everyone else too) get their beer from the local hotel. There are just not enough people up here to warrant a "pub".You will have to look further south for one of those.

[PiobBear]

Real beer should be served at 5-8 degrees Celsius/41-46 degrees Fahrenheit; not ice cold. As for non-Guinness products, I've no idea, nor could I care less.

As everyone knows, God originally intended for beer to be black int:

[Standard]

As everyone knows, God originally intended for beer to be black int:

Ah yes, reminds me of a pretty good stout that I have been having lately called the "Smoked Stout" from Dark Horse. It looks like ink when it is being poured out of the bottle, but has a nice smooth taste, not the bitter sharp bite that you are looking for when you see it being poured. int:

[DWFII]

Probably preaching to the choir here but most domestic beers are more of an alcoholic concoction loosely based on some beer formula than actually beer--Miller and Budweiser are prime examples.

Beer and ale are made from barely sprouted barley. The sprouting begins the transformation of the carbohydrates in the grain to maltose...a type of sugar. The sugar feeds the yeast. The yeast converts it to alcohol. If this is done correctly, there will be enough sugar in the form of maltose to complete the fermentation and make beer or ale. At which point, the alcohol content gets high enough to kill the yeast and the fermentation stops. If done correctly, fermentation will stop exactly at the point when there is no more (or very little) available sugar.

If the brewer starts out with a top fermenting yeast, the result will be an ale. Stout is technically an ale. If the brewer uses bottom fermenting yeast, the result will be a lager. Both Pilsner and Bock are lagers.

If there isn't enough maltose present, the brewer must add supplemental sugar usually in the form of sucrose. Excess sucrose in the blood stream is known to deplete B vitamins from body tissues...including the brain. Much of this gets replaced by other nutrients we take in. But excess sucrose in alcohol will strip B vitamins from the brain toot sweet. That's a simple explanation of why we get a hangover. The same phenomenon can be observed in children who indulge to excess around Halloween--they get manic.

Quality beers and Ales use no additional sugar...they don't need it, for one, and, of course, the brewers recognize the debilitating effects. That's why the Germans had/have the Reinheitesgebot--the German Purity laws--that stated that beer could not be made with anything but barley, water and hops. Most good English ales are made the same way although I don't think there is any law governing that...extra sugar is just not needed if the brewer knows his craft.

Budweiser, Miller, and other domestic "light pilsners" skimp on the barley and add rice or corn instead (it's cheaper). But neither rice nor corn supply the necessary nutrients--maltose--for the yeast, and so the brewers are forced to add sucrose. Sucrose is not used as efficiently by the yeast as maltose. There may be some residual sugar (even though you can't taste it) in the beer and, and when digesting sucrose, the yeast produces some by-products that our bodies find mildly toxic.

Try drinking a little bit to excess (just a little bit, mind you) of a domestic beer and compare the physical effects you experience the next day with the same exercise using a good English ale or German Pilsner. Of course you might give yourself (and your body) a couple of days to recover from the effects of the first go-round. The same exercise can be performed the following days/weeks comparing a Margarita (or other sweetened mixed drink) with a good quality single malt.

I think you'll be surprised at how well you feel after drinking the true beers. If nothing else you'll have a good time.

[Mipi]

If the brewer uses bottom fermenting yeast, the result will be a lager. Both Pilsner and Bock are lagers.

True, but temperature must be below 12 deg. C during fermentation, otherwise you'll end up with ale.

int:

[Kerr the Walker]

Here in the States, you can sometimes find brew-pubs that have "cask" beers/ales. Cask brews are kept at cellar temp and hand pulled, ie: no CO2 bottle to pressurize it. In my humble opinion, cask beers/ales taste much better than "regular" draught brews as they're usually brewed on site and in smaller batches.No sacrifice of quality for sake of quantity.

If you can find cask beer/ale, you're in for a treat.

[DWFII]

Here in the States, you can sometimes find brew-pubs that have "cask" beers/ales. [snip] If you can find cask beer/ale, you're in for a treat.

I don't know about other parts of the country but here in the "Highlands" of Central Oregon...not a very heavily populated or built-up area...we now have 5 (?) brewpubs withing a 50 mile radius, including the exemplary Deschutes Brewery, makers of Black Butte Porter.

Life is good.