The (Real) Ale at Home Thread

[Numbers]

Yeah, they're not subtle. We had a couple of glasses of Trippel Staminee and were hammered. Didn't realise it was 13.5%. Lovely stuff though. All served with cheese, salami and mustard. Get in.

Sounds glorious.

 

[ChrisFilter]

Sounds glorious.

It really was. Ever been to Bruges? Well worth a trip.

How are you mate? Long time no see!

 

[Placid Casual27]

Last night I had a beer from The Kernel Brewery in SE1.

Honestly one of the nicest beers of my whole life.

They're in that Maltby Street thing down Bermondsey. Ridiculously nice beer

 

[Espresso]

Bruges nearly killed me. I had to vom in the middle of a busy street the day after the night before on belgian lagers

I think you have discovered that reason for the whole "Can you think of anyone who is a world famous Belgian?" question
The answer is supposed to be no and it's meant to imply that Belgians are a dull and uninspiring lot with no get up and go. But the real reason there are no famous Belgians outside of Belgium is that they're far all too busy drinking their beautiful beers to be bothered with the outside world.
I wish I was Belgian.

Edit to add
Oh yes. Beers at home. I've got some Frank's Ginger BEer on the go just now. It's one of those Swedish Kopparberg ones and is about a million times better than that Crabbies version that's never off the telly. I shall round off the evening with some Marston's Oyster Stout. Very partial to that, just now.

 

[Onket]

Last night I had a beer from The Kernel Brewery in SE1.

Honestly one of the nicest beers of my whole life.

They're in that Maltby Street thing down Bermondsey. Ridiculously nice beer

Did they used to sell that in The Foundry, Old St?

 

[Onket]

"Can you think of anyone who is a world famous Belgian?"

 

[Yetman]

This is my fave tipple at the mo, though its fairly expensive and only available in one shop in the UK (which my mate owns handily enough)

Another mate (same family) works for Duvel, hence them getting it in. He brought me this for my wedding present, 40% beer

 

[ChrisFilter]

Is the top bottle a special version of Duvel or something? 'Cos everywhere sells Duvel.

 

[Garek]

Last night I had a beer from The Kernel Brewery in SE1.

Honestly one of the nicest beers of my whole life.

They're in that Maltby Street thing down Bermondsey. Ridiculously nice beer

Been nice if they did some normal strength porter! Just had a look at what they are going to have in shop this Saturday and it is all rather strong.

 

[Onket]

After all that, does my picture not even show up?!

 

[ExtraRefined]

oh yeah i know that one.
what i really want is 3 litre plastic bottle of ale that just says "bitter" on the label, for about £1.50, that you have at picnics and it goes warm and frothy in the sun. all the supermarkets seem to have stopped doing them,.

At 3.5% ABV the tax alone would be £2.33, so that's not likely. If you got it down to 2.8% so it fitted in the low strength band, it would still be 93p in tax.

Of course if you homebrew you can knock out 4% beer for about 12p a pint

 

[ExtraRefined]

Is the top bottle a special version of Duvel or something? 'Cos everywhere sells Duvel.

It's this I think

http://belgianbeershrimper.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/162-duvel-groen/

 

[Onket]

http://www.camrgb.org/

and

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/18346

 

[Onket]

500ml bottles of that Savanna Dry (5.5%) for a quid currently in Morrisons.

 

[blairsh]

Had a pint of Inception on Friday night, Abbeydale brewery session ale is my take. Mate who lives in the real ale pub end of town said it was becoming the ale of choice amongst such pubs. Was niiice and only 4.1%

 

[Onket]

You'll be wanting the other thread, blairsh- http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/the-real-ale-thread.1373/page-15

 

[Onket]

Spitfire at a pound a bottle in Morrisons at the moment.

 

[fractionMan]

I've got a bottle of youngs london gold in front of me. It's nice and all, but pretty unmemorable tbh. 3 for 5 in budgens.

For proper beer, morrisons do the best deals by far.

 

[Onket]

Morrisons-

Bank's Bitter (500ML 3.8%) for £1.
Thoroughbred Gold (500ML 3.7%) for £1.

And the Thoroughbred Gold, although it won't get you pissed too quick, is actually a very nice drop.

Some of the normal prices these days are appalling. £1.99 for Timothy Taylor's Landlord, anyone? It's a nice ale but at only 4.1% £1.99 is a bit steep really. Why is it called 'Strong Pale Ale'?

 

[Onket]

Also noticed they are doing-

Henry's Original IPA (500ML 3.8%)

Wadworth's.

£1.

 

[ExtraRefined]

IPA
3.8%

Pick one

 

[Onket]

I'll pick one of the ones that is £1, thanks.

 

[ExtraRefined]

I'll pick one of the ones that is £1, thanks.

Nothing wrong with 3.8% beer, but when it calls itself IPA it can fuck off. That's disrespecting an important and storied name.

 

[Onket]

I'm interested in hearing more from you about this.

Wiki only says "The term IPA is common in the United Kingdom for low-gravity beers, for example Greene King IPA and Charles Wells Eagle IPA. IPAs with an abv of 4% or lower have been brewed in Britain since at least the 1920s."

 

[ExtraRefined]

I'm interested in hearing more from you about this.

Wiki only says "The term IPA is common in the United Kingdom for low-gravity beers, for example Greene King IPA and Charles Wells Eagle IPA. IPAs with an abv of 4% or lower have been brewed in Britain since at least the 1920s."

IPAs as you'll know from that article, were high in alcohol (by modern standards) and high in hops. It was a distinct style, and in the eyes of most brewers, epsecially in the US, it still is. Using the name for an ordinary bitter, even if it's been happening for years, is stupid. Anyone who knows their beer styles will expect an IPA to taste like Worthington White Shield, or Fullers Bengal Lancer, or Brewdog Punk IPA. Low gravity, low hop bitterness "IPA"s don't taste like this, because they're not IPAs. They're ordinary bitters, a perfectly good, and completely different style.

 

[Onket]

I didn't know that.

I expect you're fighting an uphill battle though.

 

[Onket]

Out of interest, what is 'high by modern standards'? I had an IPA that was about 9% last year, is it that sort of thing?

 

[Dan U]

bought a selection of these for some visitors the other day. not seen them in supermarkets but are in a lot of the village shops round my way/a couple of independent off licenses.

http://www.hepworthbrewery.co.uk/Bottledbeer.html

Prospect is a nice pint

They are doing 4 bottles for a tenner in local shops

Also bought a couple of bottles of this, went down well.
http://dorkingbrewery.com/db-number-one-bottle.html

 

[ExtraRefined]

Out of interest, what is 'high by modern standards'? I had an IPA that was about 9% last year, is it that sort of thing?

Typically about 6%. That's pretty middle of the road for beer strength prior to WW1, when it dropped enormously.

The 8% plus IPAs are a modern American development, and are usually identified as Double IPA or Imperial IPA. The Americans have also come up with the slightly odd idea of Black IPAs. What really links all of them together is high hop rates.

There's loads of detail on IPA history at Zythophile, written by one of the best scholars of British brewing history

http://zythophile.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/ipa-the-executive-summary/

 

[ringo]

IPAs as you'll know from that article, were high in alcohol (by modern standards) and high in hops. It was a distinct style, and in the eyes of most brewers, epsecially in the US, it still is. Using the name for an ordinary bitter, even if it's been happening for years, is stupid. Anyone who knows their beer styles will expect an IPA to taste like Worthington White Shield, or Fullers Bengal Lancer, or Brewdog Punk IPA. Low gravity, low hop bitterness "IPA"s don't taste like this, because they're not IPAs. They're ordinary bitters, a perfectly good, and completely different style.

INteresting, I prefer IPA's, but was wondering why some seem quite different.

My headache this morning was courtesy of