No, its "Chow", he has a dog.

Bud and Bud light cost $1.15 a bottle where I work..I wouldn't dream of paying more than that.

Dally in made up story shock.

If people can't tell the difference between a cask and a keg then their beer has been served too cold. Put a line of bitters in front of me and I'll tell you which is the keg one, I can promise you that - I've done it before (In reverse of Dallys story, a couple of times I've had a Smiths or Boddies bought in error. You can easily tell the difference)

No problem with that just those who can't.

The annoying part is when you say that you think Smiths of Boddies is nice, at which point you're talked down to like a tramp in the street.

People eat or drink what they like. Others may consider it bland or unadventurous, but keep schtum and let everyone enjoy their ale, regardless of what it is.

I like it when you go into a pub where you ask for a bitter and it's hand pumped and the cheapest beer there (apart from the mild). I won't buy 'guest' beers anymore because depending on how well it's kept it can taste awful. If the normal bitter is a nitro keg one I'm usually happy enough with that because at least you know what you are getting. I'm not a fan of the real ales that are made to purposley taste distinct. Or the ones that a brewed to be strong. Give me one at around 3.6 - 4% anyday.

Had it in Germany and Austria. Very nice. Wouldn't buy it over here though. The experience wouldn't be the same.

Not every pub seems to have an interest in, or maybe an ability to, consistently serve high quality real ale. This isn't hard. but it's not easy either, you do need some idea, and you do need to have an interest. Nothing does more damage to the image of real ale than pubs which purport to stock it, but can't keep it properly, and consequently serve wildly inconsistent stuff, often sour rubbish.

Any decent real ale pub will be very happy to pull you a mouthful to try before you buy, for beers new to me, I do this all the time. You shouldn't have to buy a full glass of something you might not like, and its great customer relations too.


I understand what you mean, though (though there are landlords that incredibly manage to serve poor pints of even nitroe, somehow!!) - the reason you know what you are getting, in general, is because the product is dead as a dodo. As bereft of life as Python's parrot. First sterilised, then pasturised, and then the killed beer is mixed with a concoction of various gases, to give it back a fake appearance of being alive.


The thing is, [ievery[/i real ale tastes distinct. It even varies in taste from the really fresh, when the first pint is pulled, to the end of life after 2 or 3 days since as a living food, it slowly changes and eventually "goes off". I understand why people like consistency, I often do myself, and have my own favourites, but the thing would be to have your real ale of choice as your regular tipple. There are plenty at all strengths. But that is the thing about real ale, it isn't that it tastes "distinct", it is that it TASTES, it is several steps up the taste ladder from nitrokeg which is bland and featureless; indeed it is invariably served over-cooled to mask the lack of taste and appeal to lager drinkers where colder is better.

The fact is that beer is stuff suspended in water. Water is not tasteless, but the main taste is the stuff. The nitrokeg process filters out much of the stuff when they chill the beer to almost freezing point, which produces a chill haze, which they then pump through filters which remove the haze, as well as all yeast, bacteria and thereby much of the taste. And less tasty stuff is put in, in the first place; for example, using cheaper feed-grade barley instead of hops. So objectively, it has to be less tasty.

A few years ago, when I was living in Staffs, I looked after a friend's pub while she was on holiday. A barmpot barman put a keg of Caffrey's on the John Smith's pump, I only noticed when the Caffrey's ran out. Rather than bugger around swapping everything back over again and to keep the stock "right", I simply put the John Smith's on the Caffrey's pump. Not one person noticed.

I think I may be going through a bit of a mid-life crisis. For somebody who has drank Stella for the last thirty years, and may I say, a considerable amount of it, I've suddenly got into the Bombardier that my landlord has had recently installed. Been enjoying it as well. And incidentally, it's a bloody lot easier to neck a couple of gallon of that in an all day sesh than a couple of gallons of Artois.

When your regular crowd of mates includes a person who has worked in a major brewery laboratory for the whole of his working life, it can be a pain in the bum to walk into a random pub anywhere and be told by him that the Tetleys is off, when you can't taste anything wrong with it, he'll then go on to tell you how old it is and which part of the country it was brewed in (these days).

On the other hand when in a real ale pub we'll stand him at the bar to taste all of the samplers and pick the best one for us all - thats when he's useful.


PS - something in beer and wine kicks off migraine in me, every time, without fail, I therefore do not touch alcoholic drinks, but I love a "proper" beer and will often risk one, or even if I'm dicing with death, two pints.

We shouldn't be talking about ale at this time in the morning. I've suddenly become all thirsty. Not to worry. Three hours and Les will be unlocking the office front doors.

Snobbery happens all the time.
There was a thread a while back and we got snobbery over coffee shops and coffee itself.
I'm not having a go at anyone BTW as I have been guilty of it my self in the past.
I build my own PC's (No qualifications all self taught). In the past I have been know to pipe up with 'Why have you bought that graphics card? It's poor you should have bought this one. Or that CPU is awful'
Does it get annoying? Hell yes but as I say most of us do it now and again.

Even if it does take you 33 minutes to get served.


Still bitter.

I hate snobbery too! it reminds me of my dear trainer when i was an apprentice and still wet behind the ears. he once invited me to his house for a 'drink', when he called off at the shops for a 24 box of carling. i thought wow thats alot between us. got to his house where he turned his gas fire on. it was mid summer. he then opened all 24 cans and lay them in front of the fire for 20 minutes where he then showed me around the house, came back, nd then started to drink all the cans to himself warm and flat.... i had a cup of tea. true legend of the drinking world.

You quickly learn which pubs keep a decent cellar and which don't. One pub in town is terrible, despite it's fancy claims. One a gentle lob of a stone away from it makes no claims and concentrates on the beer. That is where I go.


Fair enough, but you also know you're getting ice-cold, flavourless (at best) crap. If you're happy with that, fine. I'm not.
I agree with your point, to an extent, about beers made specifically to be different. I'm no fan of strong beers made solely for the reason of being strong. If it's strength comes as a result of the way it's made, i.e. with flavour in mind, fine. Same with the heat in curries. Also, I'm fed up of the current trend to very light, over-hopped beers which everyone seems to be making. Whatever happened to a nut-brown ale? But not everyone is the same and long may that continue.

I'm not sure why some people keep revolving the issue of "snobbery". What has this got to do with it?

If a person, friend or stranger, tries to help you to sample a better and tastier product, surely that's a good thing?

Most drinkers of nitrokeg have no idea about the diference between what they are drinking and how it's produced, and what they could be drinking. If you are so precious and touchy that you don't want any friendly advice and conversation about the subject you're indulging in, then so be it, but why get all on the defensive? Many thousands of people have eventually recognised the facts, and that is why among all beers only cask ale is increasing in sales, craft breweries are burgeoning, and CAMRA has record membership.

The facts that (a) some people might be like Dally's imaginary mate, and (b) not all real ale sold is of a high standard, doesn't detract from the fact that nitrokeg is an inferior, bland, tasteless (comparatively), overchilled concoction of sterile liquid mixed with a cocktail of gases. If someone points this out to you, it's almost always because they want to spread the good word. "Snobbery" has nothing to do with it; a "snob" is a person who believes that their tastes are superior to those of other people. I don't, I actually know that real ale is superior to nitrokeg, and I've givven a potted explanation of exactly why that is. Dally, or anybody, could make the same discovery if they chose to do so and nobody who has gone on and done it that I know of has ever looked back. We just want to share our experience, as well as (in my case at least) seeing each extra pint of real ale sold as a poke in the eye for the big, profit-driven multinational mass-producers of pap masquerading as a quality drink.

I like that story.
I lke it a lot.

Reminds me of my mates old man on our old council estate.
Used to brew his own lager in the cupboard under his stairs.
Plenty of sugar in so it was super strength and always made sure me and his lad had a couple of pints before we set off for school.

Nail on the head.

Amongst which is Guinness.
How people can venerate such pap is beyond me.
Even the slow inefficient serving method is held up as some sort of bloody worship.

Still a world record, Norris McWhirter, everything.

Spot on... and the reason that people drink this muck is because of all the hype and mass advertising brainwashing that goes on. The suits tell you it tastes good and is macho, and the gullible believe it. Let the taste buds do the talking!

Served as cold as possible to reduce the risk of tasting anything.
Got more into my stouts and porters lately. A whole world of fun to be had, even if it's goes against JerryChicken's mantra of "never drink owt you can't see through".

Incidentally, on the back of my increased appreciation for and consumption of rum, I got accused of turning into you t'other night.

I was in Dublin once, a few years back, and drinking in company which included a guy who'd previously worked a long time at Guinness. Now I'd heard that the Guinness over there could be a different proposition, but not really given it much thought. We were in O'Donoghue's, which is some place. But I digress. I tasted the stuff, and it was bloody lovely. Went through some that weekend, I can tell you. Amazing drink. At one point I asked Gerry if he could shed any light on why it was a different drink altogether, and he explained that everything they ship out is first sterilised, but the stuff they supplied to the nearby outlets wasn't, as there was no point, as it didn't last long enough and so, it was the real deal, living, breathing beer.

Which does reinforce the point I was making.

Brother dotcom, over on Southstander, is also a convert to the cause.

I don't know how far your career in rum drinking has progressed but a rough rule of thumb is that if it's made on a French-speaking island, it's probably made from fresh cane juice rather than molasses.
Imparts a slight "grassy" flavour to the finish.
My favourites are from Martinique ( I have visited (or peered through the gates to see if I could visit) every distillery on that beautiul island), Guadaloupe or Marie Galante.
They call cane-juice rum "Rhum Agricole", and it's usually (maybe always) a single-estate bottling and as close to a "single-malt" in the rum world as you're going to get.
It's even got Apellation Controllee status ... unique outside the French mainland.
Molasses rum gets the moniker "Rhum industrielle".

I recently discovered "Masters of Malt" online.
They do tiny sample-size bottles of rum (as well as the usual Scotch whisky), it's a bit expensive per cubic centimetre ... but a way of trying a larger number.