Category: La Ronda

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Blogging and writing La Ronda pubs

La Ronda – New year's beer resolutions

beermugs

Espanol.

This month’s “round” is paid for by Andres of Culturilla Cervecera, and it’s a follow-up to a previous question on building and maintaining a good beer culture. He asks us what our resolutions for 2009 are to help further the cause.

Apart from the obvious answer (“drink more beer”), we do have a number of beer-related resolutions;

1. Try to persuade our local to rotate the range of beer a bit.
Our local pub has got a great atmosphere, friendly staff, and the beer it does serve is usually in good condition. We’re usually there at least once a week for all these reasons. We’ve often thought that it would be perfect if they took advantage of having five handpumps and being a genuine free house to have at least one pump offering something different each week. So our first resolution is to talk to the landlady about it.

2. Organise a cheese and beer tasting
We’ve wanted to have a go at this ever since seeing Garrett Oliver do one at BeerExposed. Could be a fun way of getting some of our friends interested in beer? After all, everyone loves cheese.

3. Go on more beer expeditions
There are lots of great pubs in London, some of them in the suburbs. There are also many great beer destinations that are within a short train ride. We always have fun when we go exploring, so we’re going to do that some more. At least one a month.

P.S. Jeff Pickthall has an interesting resolution — to provide almost instant reviews EVERY beer he drinks via modern technology. Anyone else got any beer-related resolutions?

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Deberes de español La Ronda

La Ronda: Propósitos de Año Nuevo

beermugs

English

Este mes a la Ronda invita Andres de Culturilla Cervecera. Pregunta (en el contexto de construir y mantener una cultura de cerveza) “¿Cuales son vuestro propósitos cerveceros para este año 2009?”

Aparte de la respuesta obvia ( “beber más cerveza”), tenemos los siguientes propósitos cerveceros para 2009:

1. Convencer a los dueños de nuestro local para que ofrezcan una selección que cambia un poco…

Nuestro “local” tiene un ambiente agradable, gente amable, y la cerveza que se sirve generalmente está en buen estado. Bebemos allí al menos una vez por semana por todas estas razones. Pero pensamos que sería perfecto si ofrecieran algo diferente cada semana. Tienen cinco grifos (para “real ale”), pero normalmente sirven exactamente las mismas cinco cervezas. En nuestra opinion, tienen una oportunidad para promover más microcervecerías. Por lo tanto, nuestro primer propósito es conocer los dueños…

2. Organizar una cata de queso y cerveza

Garrett Oliver nos inspiró cuando lo vimos en BeerExposed. Nos parece un buen modo de evangelizar y demonstrar la variedad de cerveza. Y a todo el mundo le encanta el queso.

3. Cazar cerveza en otros lugares

Hay un montón de gran bares en Londres, algunos de ellos en los suburbios. También hay ciudades con buenos pubs y cerveza que no están lejos por el tren. Siempre nos divertimos cuando exploramos, así que vamos a hacerlo un poco más. Al menos una al mes.

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Generalisations about beer culture Germany La Ronda

How do you maintain a good beer culture?

En Español

La Ronda (the Spanish speaking version of the Session) takes on a weighty philosophical topic, with Jorge Mario of Columbia asking:

How do you construct, consolidate and maintain a good beer culture?

I’m going to define a good beer culture as one where there are lots of different breweries, and where there is a good range of beers available. In other words, there should be choice for the consumer. Spain has a great bar culture, but I would be being kind if I said there was a great beer culture there.

The question of creating a beer culture from scratch is a fascinating one, but I don’t feel I know enough to comment. (Perhaps some US bloggers could help?). But here’s a few suggestions for what you need to maintain a good beer culture.

Pride is good, but palate is better

It’s good to be proud of your brewing heritage. But it’s important to be proud for the right reasons — does it taste good? The Germans are very proud of their beer, but this usually translates to being proud of drinking your local beer, just because it’s local. When the big corporations take over local Germany breweries, they almost always keep the names and the brand identity.

Whereas I get the impression in Belgium that people are proud of the fact that Belgium produces such a weird and wonderful range of beer, and this must surely help maintain the hundreds of breweries that you find in this tiny country.

Get organised — grass-roots campaigning

You can’t really talk about the British beer scene without mentioning CAMRA. We have our little moans from time to time, but there’s no denying that CAMRA saved cask ale. In doing this, they have promoted a culture of supporting small breweries and offering choice to the consumer.

The focus of CAMRA on real ale can make for a “four-legs-good, two-legs-bad” mentality at times — all real ale must be good, and all “unreal” ale is bad. Then again, a narrow, well-defined focus makes for an effective campaign.

Support your local decent pub

This one is obvious really, but the easiest to put into action – if you have a good pub that is committed to offering a range of beers, support it! The UK would not be able to support the hundreds of breweries it does without all those pubs creating the demand, so get down to your local and start boozing!

Boak

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Deberes de español La Ronda

¿Cómo mantener una verdadera cultura cervecera?

English version

Jorge Mario, de Columbia, ha preguntado:

¿Cómo construir, consolidar y mantener una verdadera cultura cervecera?

Voy a definir una verdadera cultura cervecera como una, donde hay un montón de diferentes fábricas de cerveza, y donde hay una buena variedad de cervezas disponibles. En otras palabras, debe haber elección para el consumidor. España tiene una gran cultura de cervecerias y bares, pero no es decir que hay una verdadera cultura cervecera allí.

Continue reading “¿Cómo mantener una verdadera cultura cervecera?”

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bottled beer La Ronda

A virtual tasting for beer-beginners

Versión en español

Delirium, over at “De Cervezas y otras cosas”, has set a very interesting topic for this month’s “round” (the Session for Spanish-speaking beer-bloggers). It was so thought-provoking that we thought we’d post it in English as well.

The challenge was to come up with a “virtual” tasting session aimed at people who are not beer lovers. We had to pick between five and eight beers that we would put forward, avoiding obscure microbreweries, and explain why we’d selected them.

We like to beervangelise from time to time, so it’s a question we’ve thought about a lot in the past. After much pondering, we finally came up with some definite proposals, which we put forward here.

Continue reading “A virtual tasting for beer-beginners”