beer – Page 3 – Wis[s]e Words

Let’s drink some beer

Published on July 29, 20121 Comment

It’s sunday, it’s sunny and I got some nice beers here which my parents were kind enough to bring along from Middelburg. First up is the Peelander Framboos beer:

The Peelander Framboos

Well, it certainly looks like raspberry beer and when opening the bottle, smells like it too. Tasting it, you get a strong raspberry flavour as well, with a slightly sour aftertaste and almost no hoppy bitterness. It’s slightly gassy and has some of the cloyingness that I associate with a good raspberry cordial. If you’d buy this expecting a beer similar to a kriek lambic, you’d be dissappointed. Alcohol wise it’s only 4% ABV, so a good drink for a hot summer’s day.

Prestige Premium Pils:

Prestige Premium Pils

Another Peelander product, this is a proper pilsner (5% ABV), nothing more, nothing less. It looks like a glass of Heineken, it smells like Heineken when you open it and it tastes like it too, with that slightly metallic aftertaste proper Heineken has. A perfectly alright pilsner, just a bit dull.

Beer, glorious beer

Published on February 9, 2012Leave a comment

Meanwhile, last weekend, I was busy drinking beer and watching the rugby. I took some pictures and would like to share them with y’all. All the cool ~~middle aged blokes with beards and hats~~ kids are beerblogging, so why not me?

Coopers Extra Stout

How often do you get the chance to drink an Australian stout? Not often, so I had to try it. Coopers Extra Stout, brewed in South Australia is perfectly drinkable, tastes just like any other stout but lacks a bit of oomph once you get through the initial taste. Decent, not spectacular, would drink again if in the vicinity of where it was brewed.

Meantime Chocolate Porter

Gorgeous. I’ve had a few chocolate stouts, but not yet a chocolate porter (if there’s any real difference between a modern stout and a modern porter that is). Unlike many attempts, Meantime‘s porter keeps it’s chocolate undertones throughout the glass, doesn’t overwhelm the beer with the chocolate or vice versa and will be gotten again this weekend if I can.

Alba Scots Pine Ale

The first of four different ales I drunk this weekend, this was the best. A pine ale, which I hadn’t heard of before, but which tasted very nice. According to the label, Alba is a “triple style ale, brewed to a traditional Highland recipe using the sprigs of spruce and pine collected every spring”. How traditional this is, is anybody’s guess as IIRC, the Scottish Highlands haven’t had their pine and spruce coverings all that long. Doesn’t matter for the taste, which is nice and beery going in, with a decided aftertaste of swiss roll (!), which sounds strange but works, especially after the slightly more bitter chocolate porter. Will get more from this one as well.

T.E.A. - Traditional English Ale

Hogsback‘s T.E.A., Traditional English Ale, was recommended by one of the Bierkoning‘s staff, but was a disappointment. A run of the mill ale, which started alright but whose flavour didn’t last; might have been better in a smaller bottle.

Double Dragon Welsh ale

The Welsh Double Dragon ale, which is the same strength as the T.E.A., 4.2%, I got for the Ireland v Wales Six Nations match and it worked, in so far as the Welsh won. Better than the previous ale, still a bit on the bland side for me. Decent enough, but nothing special. Will drink in Wales, will likely not go out of my way for it.

Sunburst Golden Ale

Darkstar’sSunburst on the other hand, a golden ale from Sussex is brilliant. This tasted like an English ale should, not too bitter, but with a slightly nutty aftertaste and which is sustained throughout my drinking it. Would like to drink more of it.

Nut Brown Ale

Speaking of nutty, the last beer of the weekend (actually drunk on a Monday evening) was very nutty, but then this is Samuel Smith‘s nut brown ale, coming all the way from Yorkshire and brewed at what they claim is the oldest brewery there. Lovely taste, eminently drinkable, not very damaging. Will get more of this too.

So in total: seven beers sampled, two or three disappointments, four beers I will shortly get again.

Make booze boring for a safer Britain: support CAMRA

Published on October 21, 2011Leave a comment

Social anthropologist Kate Fox thinks the British are wrong in blaming alcohol for antisocial behaviour and that it’s in fact a cultural thing:

In high doses, alcohol impairs our reaction times, muscle control, co-ordination, short-term memory, perceptual field, cognitive abilities and ability to speak clearly. But it does not cause us selectively to break specific social rules. It does not cause us to say, “Oi, what you lookin’ at?” and start punching each other. Nor does it cause us to say, “Hey babe, fancy a shag?” and start groping each other.

[…]

We become more outspoken, more physically demonstrative, more flirtatious, and, given enough provocation, some (young males in particular) become aggressive. Quite specifically, those who most strongly believe that alcohol causes aggression are the most likely to become aggressive when they think that they have consumed alcohol.

Which means that any attempt to limit booze related antisocial behaviour that focuses on alcohol as the evil spirit motivating this is counterproductive:

The drinkaware website, for example, warns young people that a mere three pints of beer (ie a perfectly normal evening out) “can lead to anti-social, aggressive and violent behaviour”, that “you might start saying things you don’t mean and behaving out of character”, that alcohol is implicated in a high percentage of sexual offences and street crimes, and that the morning after “you may wonder what you did the night before”.

Instead, booze should be made into something a bit boring and stop being used as an excuse for people to be assholes:

I would like to see a complete change of focus, with all alcohol-education and awareness campaigns designed specifically to challenge these beliefs – to get across the message that a) alcohol does not cause disinhibition (aggressive, sexual or otherwise) and that b) even when you are drunk, you are in control of and have total responsibility for your actions and behaviour.

Alcohol education will have achieved its ultimate goal not when young people in this country are afraid of alcohol and avoid it because it is toxic and dangerous, but when they are frankly just a little bit bored by it, when they don’t need to be told not to binge-drink vodka shots, any more than they now need to be told not to swig down 15 double espressos in quick succession.

Which is why we should support CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, because how much more boring can booze be than if it’s drunk by middle aged, science fiction reading bearded folkies?

Bitches Brew

Published on April 5, 2011

Raging Bitch label by Ralph Steadman

Flying Dog Brewery sues the Michigan’s state Liquor Control Commission for banning the sale of its Raging Bitch beer:

The 20th Anniversary India Pale Ale label urges customers, “Remember, enjoying a Raging Bitch, unleashed, untamed, unbridled — and in heat — is pure GONZO.” Ralph Steadman, an illustrator best-known for collaborations with author Hunter S. Thompson, penned the disputed phrase.

The case began in September 2009 when Flying Dog applied to sell “Raging Bitch” beer. The commission denied the request and affirmed its decision on appeal. The commission based its decision on its power to regulate language on the bottle that is “detrimental to the health, safety or welfare of the general public”, the filing said.

I’ve had it — decent enough beer, quite drinkable and certainly not deserving of a ban, especially not a ban because some Mrs. Grundys get offended by a bloody label. And actually, it was the Ralph Steadman labels that first made me notice these beers. Amidst the usually much more staid beer labels of other breweries they stood out. But they stood out because they were interesting, not because they were offensive.

(Via Tom Spurgeon.)

Honey is all right but beeswax is right out

Published on March 19, 20112 Comments

Bottle and glass of St Peters Honey Porter

So I was looking for something to drink during the last day of the Six Nations rugby and amongst others, found this: St Peter’s Honey Porter (dark brown, 4.5 % alcohol by volume). Now I like porters and I like honey flavoured beer, so the combination seemed a natural for me to try. Unfortunately, it turned out a bad idea. Perhaps this particular bottle had gone off somehow because I found it to be undrinkable, like biting into honey flavoured potpourri or beeswax. My first impression was the honey, then came the more disagreeable elements. The mouth feel was like drinking liquid soap, all smooth and cloying without any of the fizziness you expect from beer, while the taste evolved into a mixture of Cadbury’s milk chocolate and perfume, all floral and sweet. Very unpleasant indeed and in the end I poured it down the drain.

If this was how it was supposed, it wasn’t for me, though some people certainly like it.

Much more to my liking was the ordinary porter I drank before this abomination, the Klein Duimpje Porter: Light golden brown in colour, 5.5 % alcohol by volume. Starts off light, with metallic overtones, almost lager like, but becomes more bitter as the bottle progresses and ends at the Kilkenny or Murphy’s Red end of things. Something you could drink all day long without damaging your taste buds.