Categories
Blogging and writing opinion

Beer blogging attitude spectrum

This diagram shows types of bloggers arranged along a positive to negative spectrum.

Categories
beer and food Germany Snacks to beer

Schnitzels We Have Known

Half-eaten schnitzel in a German brewpub

EXT. RESTAURANT TERRACE, PASSAU. DAY

AUSTRIAN TOURIST
Waiter — the ‘Wiener’ Schnitzel on your menu — is that really veal? [Sneering] Or just pork?

WAITER
[highly affronted]
Veal, sir. If it was merely in the Viennese style, we would certainly have said so.

We usually eat so many schnitzels on our trips to Germany that, by the time we leave, the mere thought of a buttery fried breadcrumb makes us feel sick.

We ordered and regretted the Käse Schnitzel at Brauerei Fässla in Bamberg — the size of a frisbee and with a kilo of Cheddar melted on top.

We wondered at a restaurant called Schnitzel Time! (in Augsburg, we think) which offered something like fifty variations, including a ‘Hawaiian’. (Yes, that’s right — with tinned pineapple.)

We scheduled our afternoon pauses to coincide with a TV show whose title we never worked out but the gist of which was: “It’s 10 AM and Fritz has arrived at the restaurant to prepare a hundred schnitzels for the lunch and evening service. Meanwhile, across town, staff at Die Goldene Gans are having a crisis — the daily delivery of breadcrumbs hasn’t arrived!”

We bought a schnitzel hammer at the Galeria Kaufhof in Cologne because, somehow, a German meat tenderiser just seemed more appropriate.

Last night, we had Schnitzel Wiener Art for tea. We butterflied and hammered flat pork tenderloin, dipped it first in flour, then in egg, and finally in Panko breadcrumbs, before frying in butter with a splash of sunflower oil. As we ate it, we wished, not for the first time, that a trip to Germany was on the cards in the foreseeable future

Categories
real ale

Too Much Hard Work

There are some beers you never really get to know beyond a first impression — those you find on your travels, or select from a Bible-sized menu in a craft beer bar. One night stands. You label them good or bad, or maybe mark them out of ten.

Others, not always through choice, you get to know well, drinking them week after week, year after year. After enough pints, you begin to get a feeling for what they’re like at their best and the confidence to say: “It isn’t meant to taste this way.”

You cease thinking of those beers as good or bad; instead, you talk about whether they’re reliable, temperamental, “on good form at the moment”.

Some, you come to trust — seven out of ten pints of Beer X will be good — while others, you give up on. Like a bad-tempered acquaintance who’s only fun once in a blue moon, you decide they’re just too much hard work.

P.S. The Keeling Theory of Beery Haircuts is relevant here.

Categories
Generalisations about beer culture pubs

No Riff Raff

Something was odd about the pub we found ourselves in on Saturday evening, but it took us a few minutes to work out what: the landlord was wearing a shirt and tie.

We’ve been served in pubs by unshaven, bleary-eyed chaps in their slippers; teenagers in corporate polo shirts; or, y’know, normal people in normal clothes. But it was the first time we’ve seen a shirt and tie on a landlord for as long as we can remember.

Reading between the lines, we realised that we were in what, until recently, had been a rough pub, now under new management. The tie was an attempt — a reasonably successful one — to set the tone.

Turning around a really rough ‘Murderer’s Arms’-type boozer is a tough job. The most successful attempt we’ve ever seen was in Walthamstow. There, the Nags Head [sic] closed for several months while it was fumigated and refurbished. When it re-opened, there was jazz playing, zebra-pattern tablecloths and a carousel of olives.

Short of putting up a sign saying “NO RIFF RAFF” (or the only slightly more subtle “NO WORK CLOTHES”) these little signals are a publican’s most powerful way of choosing their clientele.

We define a rough pub as one where, as a bare minimum, you get stared at menacingly. Our favourite pubs are those where no-one pays us any attention at all.

Categories
Blogging and writing opinion

Honesty is Everything

The rights and wrongs of beer blogging and writing, though an example of the worst kind of navel-gazing, is a subject that fascinates us and, as Andy Crouch has kicked this conversation off, we can’t resist joining in.

We’re not qualified to pronounce on ethics, here’s how we feel about a few specific issues.

  • There’s nothing wrong with having an agenda, but don’t make us guess what it is. (Retailers, brewers, campaigners and PR people write interesting stuff!)
  • There’s nothing wrong with blogs carrying ads as long as they’re obviously ads. Helping spam-merchants and search-engine optimisers by ‘seeding’ content: not cool.
  • If you want to give your beer writing away for free, that’s fine with us. If you want to get paid for it, write something that warrants it. As we said on Twitter recently, for us, that means offering some or all of: a unique voice; information we can’t easily find elsewhere; real insight; a new angle; authority.
  • There’s nothing wrong with bloggers accepting or even asking for free beer but, if you’re getting freebies, be open about it and let us decide whether we want to put any store in your reviews. If you don’t disclose it, we’ll work it out eventually and despise you.
  • Some beer writers get good information from their relationships with brewers and breweries, and that’s great. Namedropping is annoying; and if you start to sound like you work in their PR department, we won’t trust what you have to say about anything else.
  • If you are being sponsored by a brewery to attend an event at which the guest speakers are from the sponsoring brewery and you find yourself sat next to the brewery’s PR person drinking free bottles of that brewery’s beer, do try to resist sounding like you’ve been brainwashed: “I had not previously liked Duff beer but after the helicopter ride and cake, I realised what a great brand it is. Hail Duff.”

We get occasional freebies but have yet to ask for any. We don’t carry ads because… we don’t, and why is none of your business. We have met a few brewers now but wouldn’t say any of them were our chums. Evan Rail sent us a free copy of Why Beer Matters (linked above).

UPDATED 09:13 with links to examples of beer writing we’d pay for.