Best Brewers

[peterson 0]

Another list thing, this time top 50 brewers

 

http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/24/pf/goodlife/best_beer/index.htm?cnn=yes

 

AleSmith Brewing Co. ?

 

USA, Belgium,....

[smellyfeet 0]

Is beer that good in the US, or is that just a ready-by-US-peeps website?

[Plucky 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by smellyfeet:
Is beer that good in the US, or is that just a ready-by-US-peeps website?

the article did say mostly Americans voted.

I like this quote: "In the end, the survey showed that, like politics, all beer is local"

See, in the western US, we fight about beers between states or regions (probably like wine in Europe). My friends and I from the US Pacific Northwest, argue about the best brewery on a certain stretch of the Oregon Coast.

The whole microbrew thing took off in the US big around about 1992. A lot of the breweries have learned to turn out a great product. They are tweaking European recipes in so many different directions that something good is bound to come from it!

I've had the great opportunity to drink beers from all around the world. I don't know if I'd say the US has the best, but damn, the breweries in the west nowdays put out some fine products.

I have to put this dig in - Japan beers leave a lot to be desired......

[indosnm 0]

What??? No FOSTERS!

[soubriquet 0]

Fosters? That's an anagram for frosted horse piss, isn't it?

 

Make mine a pint of Sam Smith's, please.

[damian 0]

Fosters isn't proper beer, but damn, its popular here in London. Many local tough lads drink a concoction called a Fosters Top: a fosters beer (with no head) topped off with a bubbly sweet shot of LEMONADE. Great drink, hey guys.

 

I can only stomach heavy smelly English beer when I am near a coal burner in winter, other than that it is not for my taste. I am a fan of German and Belgian beer, although not nearly an experienced speaker. But I will speak all the same:

 

Belgian: I like Duvel, plus i like the glass it comes in and I really like the head. It is 8.5% so not for a big session, but it tastes great!

 

 

German: I like schneider weisse, the dark Bavarian brew with a head that is almost better than the beer.

 

 

There are many others. But both of these beers are pretty mainstream and can be poured lovingly by the happy drinker directly from a bottle at the bar into a glass designed for a great beer.

 

The Flask in Highgate has a great range of non-local brews.

 

(this is a REAL STORY: I was in a bar near work last week and jokingly ordered a schneider weisse, knowing that they only had warm wife beater, english pints and fosters. Another person was paying and I returned to the table after ordering a local beer, but only after having said "schneider weisse!" several times 'cause it sounds real german. When he brought all the beers to the table there was one drink left over: a shmirnoff ice. Well, it sounds like schneider weisse and to an English barmaid it was the closest thing her mind could cope with. We laughed for 10 minutes [we = 1 convict (me), a pom, a kraut and a swede]

[spook 0]

BPC, I’m also a fan of German and Belgian brews. In Germany, beer is classified and taxed as a food, as a result a big bottle of it costs about 60cents in the supermarket. After the debacle that was my attempt at a season in Austria last year, my girl and I spent a month romping around Germany drinking the many fine brews there.

A top drink my Cornish mates like is a turbo-shandy – which is half a pint of lager topped upo with a Smirnoff black ice. That stuff is like rocket fuel – pretty strong and super sugary, it really gets proceedings going (although not always in a good way).

[sakebomb 0]

I didn't mind Löwenbrau, a German beer (although I think it is also a mainstream beer). Am a little bit biased as I was invited to a beer tasting through a restuarant I worked at. Terrible situation- we had to drink about 6 different beers that were the market equivelent from other companies before trying the Löwenbrau. Got to drink as much as we liked and got a decent meal as well!! Ahhh memories.

[indosnm 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by soubriquet:
Fosters? That's an anagram for frosted horse piss, isn't it?

yes it is, note the sarcasm.

34, now that forster sponsors the WCT thats all they got!
But after a day of surfing almost any beer tastes good.. even Bintang

[69 5]

Barman: "Would you like some beer with your head, sir?"

 

Sucker: "Just a bit please".

 

Barman: "Here you go"

 

[soubriquet 0]

Nice one 69, gave me a good laugh.

 

I was serious about the Sam Smiths, then when I checked the site, it was second UK beer after Fullers. Both great beers, so check out what you can get locally.

 

Cheers

[damian 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by 69:
[QB] Barman: "Would you like some beer with your head, sir?"

Sucker: "Just a bit please".

Barman: "Here you go"

Sucker??! Give me a break 69, ya clown. Although, funny you should make that all too England joke... in ignorance. The Duval glass holds a full stubbie bottle plus the ample and vital head. Head is a vital part of a beer. It is an old topic for me so I wont go into it, but suffice to say that my sense of manliness is not threatened by a beer glass that isn't filled to the brim with turgid beer with not more than three bubbles of head on top. All well and good to pour a traditional English beer that way, but not ALL beers should be poured that way.

Besides, Duval doesn't come on draught anyway. So the barman has got no role in it. I can't believe you would call someone a 'sucker' just because they aren't getting their 'monies worth'. There is a concept known as ‘quality of experience’ that often supersedes quantity of experience.

The same bar that I mentioned above has a sign on the wall that refers to beers poured from the tap:

"if your beer has too much head then please tell the barman and they will top it up for you".

I asked the barwoman if it was a joke, she rolled his eyes and said sadly, it was not. My buddy and I told her to stick a healthy one on our glasses of Bavarian Paulaner as she poured from the tap. She said it was a refreshing attitude. She was also the cutest girl I have seen in London in several weeks... A rare sight for sore eyes in horsey town.



It seems most people drink to get pissed and nothing else. After all, it is about getting right pissed as fast as you can before the pubs of the land shut simultaneously at 10pm, innit.

69, I bet you are one of those guys that chortles every time they roll out the all to pedestrian male line of "eating's cheating".

Indo I agree with you, at an afternoon bbq after a morning surf, any good cold beer does the trick. In fact, I wouldn’t want anything other than a thirsty mans beer like VB or Fosters.

There is the right beer for every moment in life, every setting. That is what makes beer so unique amongst drinks.

[Yuki's Passion 1]

 Quote:

Originally posted by soubriquet:
Fosters? That's an anagram for frosted horse piss, isn't it?

Make mine a pint of Sam Smith's, please.

I thought that was Queensland's XXXX (P-I-S-S)? No?

Sammy Smiths is an amazing beer. Never had one on tap here in Japan though

[Yuki's Passion 1]

BTW,

 

Anybody in Kansai know a place that has good micro-brews in the area?? Id love to have a good pint of something. Tell me and Ill buy ya one

[69 5]

I won't copy all your rant, but suffice to say all I can say is.... SUCKER!

 

(And why the brit references? I'm not from there.)

[indosnm 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by Yamakashi:

I thought that was Queensland's XXXX (P-I-S-S)? No?


Yes, anything from Queensland is. But remember all those red necks up there working on the land all day long... anything would taste good to them too!

[soubriquet 0]

I'll sit with BPC on this. There's no such thing as bad beer, just some are better than others.

[Ocean11 0]

I'm afraid a head like that would drive me nuts.

 

I don't mind little glasses of good beer at all - I drank lots of them in Germany, with moderate head, with no ill effects. But with a bigger head, just waiting to get some liquid in your mouth as all the bubbles adhere to your upper stubble, and you suck, and suck, and suck, is something that has never qualified as a quality experience to me. I bet 69 didn't mean it that way, but head like that would turn anybody into a sucker.

 

Each to his own, but Potato, can you perhaps put the appeal of that froth into words? I'm really curious...

[damian 0]

Head is the most sensitive of topics and everyone has an opinion, most of the time strong. My appeal:

 

1. a quality head tastes and feels good. I am not a Guinness drinker, but head plays a huge roll in that beer. It is part of the beer. The head on some German beers is crisp and light, I love that. The head on a schneider weisse is kind of creamy and it is unusual for me to like such head, but I do like this particular one. Standard beers (everything from Fosters to Bud to Stella) should have minimal head. But there MUST be one of about 1cm. Any less and the beer looses gas too fast and it also loses its aesthetic appeal.

 

2. Aesthetics: head looks nice. It looks fantastic on Guinness, it look crisp and tall on a narrow and long pils glass, it looks white and refreshing on a grubby glass of so called working man's beer (stella, bud, fosters etc). It looks great on the glass of Adman's that I get at my local each weekend. They pump the beer out by pulling on one of those traditional beer pulling lever taps (all Brits know the type. Although the head is not substantial, it is still overflowing the glass and settling down as the beer hits the bar. It looks like a beer smoothie. t loooks delicious!

 

Head is vital and all beers have the appropriate head. A Duval sized head on a Millers beer in a standard beer glass would be an annoyance and earn the barman some lip. But a Miller style head on a glass of pils would ruin the beer experience.

 

Also, that silly looking Duval glass is designed to create head like that. It is also designed to make drinking the actual beer quite easy. You hardly have to negotiate the head at all. You should have seen the look on my mate face when I bought him one of them and said 'get that up ya'. His girlfriend had the squirms as well, and she doesn't even drink beer.

 

There are so many ways to drink beer, they should all be celebrated so long as they are done correctly.

 

The head situations I like the least:

 

a. that fake cream like head they put on Japanese izakaya and yakiniku beers.

b. an English pint full the absolute brim with a European beer and no head at all.... when that style of beer requires some head. Spit on a full glass of apple juice comes to mind.

c. non-English beer served at English beer temperatures. I recently saw a bar that didn't have a fridge! Fridges are to Australians what a rice cooker is to a Nihonjin.

 

I never realised I loved the world of beer so much.

[scouser 4]

 Quote:

There's no such thing as bad beer

Not sure I'd agree on that one, (still trying to think of the name...)

[2pints-mate 0]

To continue the conversation....

 

Barman: "Would you like some beer with your head, sir?"

 

Sucker: "Just a bit please".

 

Barman: "You want the most expensive one as well don't you...."

 

Sucker: "Yes of course. And a poncy glass that looks good and lets people know what I'm drinking. Taste don't matter mate".

 

Barman: "Thought as much. Wads of cash please".

 

[damian 0]

Dear oh dear. ...rolly eyes...

 

Just look at your avatar. Need I say more.

 

Go and chase a girl/horse. Pom.

[2pints-mate 0]

 

I forgot the setting for the conversation.

 

Setting:

Pretentious bar somewhere in the capital full of professionals and expats totally wrapped up in their own pretentiousness but totally blind to it.

 

Avatar = not actually me.

[damian 0]

The venue where I drink my pretentious beers the Flask in Highgate. They do an excellent beer pie and also a top bbq.

 

At the risk of being defensive, I don't think it is pretentious to drink different varieties of beer out of different shaped glasses that increase the specific characteristic of that beer.

 

Imagine if every girl you met was 'romanced' in the missionary position:

 

"Get of your knees Las! None of those fancy pretentious Euro sexual positions for us". Get my point? Well, beer is the same.

 

Next I will be hearing of dour Englishmen drinking champagne out of pints

 

(apparently true story: an old London city FX dealer that I know claims that one of his guys years ago went out for a liquid lunch and made a bet that he could drink a full pint of port. He did it and was quite sick. Only in England... and quite likely Australia).

[js 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by British Potato Council:
Many local tough lads drink a concoction called a Fosters Top: a fosters beer (with no head) topped off with a bubbly sweet shot of LEMONADE. Great drink, hey guys.

In Oz that's historically called a 'shandie'(sp) - a drink served on hot days to kids and women folk!! (Yeah it tasts nice, but oh so girlie!)

Best brewer I've come across was a Microbrewery in Queenstown, NZ - they make great stuff that put four of us well under the weather. It was that good we all went back three days in a row!

As for Fosters - no Aussie would drink that crap. How it stays viable beats the shite outta me - must be subsidised by the company's other beers, and maybe government contract.

Head on a beer? Only as thick as a coaster - I want beer, not froth. Nuff said.

Port? Mmmmmm, a popular B/C after dinner drink - wish I had the proverbial dollar for every litre I've lost the cap off ... together with Tokay and Muscat - all equally good nightcaps.