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bottled beer breweries buying beer Generalisations about beer culture

Why so few bottled dark beers?

It’s always interesting to see the old adverts that pubs sometimes use to decorate their walls. A poster for Bateman’s Salem Porter from the early 90s caught our eye this week.

We assumed this beer had been discontinued because we’ve never seen it for sale anywhere, unlike their ubiquitous XXXB and Rosey Nosey Christmas beer. But, no, they still make this multiple award winning cask only beer.

Keen as we are to find it on cask one day, it would also be nice if their bottled range (which we can get very easily in corner shops in our bit of London) included this apparently brilliant beer. Perhaps they could drop one of the three very similar golden ales to make room?

Maybe they feel there’s no market? If so, that’s a shame, because we really believe dark beers (milds, porters, stouts, lagers, whatever) are going to be the next big thing. After all, what’s a cooler looking pint than one that’s pitch black?

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Generalisations about beer culture

When is a pub not a pub?

The Adam and Eve pub in Westminster, London

If you ask most people to define a pub as opposed to a bar, restaurant or club, the conclusion will usually be a statement along the lines of: “It’s hard to say, but I know one when I see one.”

After our irritating experience in the Greenwich Union a couple of weeks back, we’ve been giving this some thought.

Could the defining features of a pub be informality and the dominant presence of beer?

  • Table reservations are one thing: pubs where you have to reserve a table stop feeling like pubs.
  • Food in pubs is a good thing, but table cloths, candlesticks and cutlery laid out when you arrive probably mean you’re in a restaurant.
  • If you’re expected to eat,  then that’s not very pub-like.
  • If there are bouncers then it’s either a bloody rough pub or some kind of club or bar.
  • Dress codes (when actually enforced…) are not very pub-like.
  • If the wine list has had more thought put into it than the beer, it’s probably a 1980s wine bar disguised as a pub.
  • We’re fans of continental-style waiter service, but is it something you’d expect in a pub?

It’s tempting to add that places with more chrome than wood are bars, but that’s entirely superficial.

If you can wander in wearing jeans and trainers and just order a pint at the bar, then it’s a pub, regardless of the decor.

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Generalisations about beer culture pubs

The country pub out of season

tributeandscratchings

When people talk with moist eyes of the English country pub, they’ve usually got somewhere specific in mind — a place which greeted them like old friends; which had an open fire; good food; low ceilings; and fresh, tasty beer. Cosy is the word that usually gets trotted out.

Sadly, not many country pubs live up to that ideal, especially out of season. One pub we visited in Cornwall last week seemed pretty typical of the reality.

We walked into the gloom and were struck by the smell of damp carpet and the chilly feel of the air.

The place was large (with seats for more than 100 people, at a guess) but almost empty. There was just one old man sat at the bar with a dog asleep at his feet. The only light was what made it through the small, dusty windows, and from the flickering mp3 jukebox.

The beer was actually spot on, although it did take a couple of attempts to find a pump clip that wasn’t purely decorative (“Ain’t got that ‘cept in bottles”). The landlord wasn’t unfriendly but nor did he look especially pleased to see us. Why should he? Our £5.20 wasn’t much of a contribution to a miserable winter weekday’s takings.

We sat on damp red velvet seats underneath foxed, curling pictures of local sporting teams and chains of dusty horse brasses for as long as it took us to finish our pints in seemly fashion and escaped into the fresh air.

Not so much cosy as bloody bleak.

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Generalisations about beer culture opinion

The impossibility of objective tasting

morebeers

This is by way of a summary of some thoughts we’ve had in the last year or so, backed up with links to some posts we’ve enjoyed elsewhere on related topics.

1. People’s palates work in different ways, as Wilson at Brewvana points out. For example, Boak’s is calibrated in such a way that anymore than the merest hint of salt in a meal renders it inedible, but she can handle almost as much chili heat as you care to throw at her.

2. Tastes evolve over time. Everyone knows the theory that you become more tolerant of bitter flavours as you enter your twenties. In the case of beer, there’s a similar theory (“Lupulin Threshold Shift“) which suggests we become more tolerant of the presence of hops the more we’re exposed to them, so a beer which tasted crazily hoppy two years ago when you first had it might not seem quite so extreme today.

3. Branding, marketing and other cultural prejudices influence our thinking. The only path to true wisdom is through blind taste testing, and that can really surprise you, as Lars discovered.

4. Context is all important. As long as it’s of reasonably good quality, the first beer you drink on holiday will taste pretty amazing. In fact, scratch the opening caveat: we always enjoy our first Cruzcampo on holiday in Spain, and it’s of very poor quality indeed.

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Generalisations about beer culture

Mysteries of British pub culture #1

Why is it that no-one bats an eyelid at buying a round of drinks for their workmates on a Friday night at £20 a go and yet they blow a fuse if you nick 3p’s-worth of  teabag or a splash of milk in the office?

For those wanting more information about just how generous us Brits are in the pub, here’s a good post from Pete Brown from this time last year.