Another ale question

[wobbegong]

At the end of the day its what you like and not what others think you should like.

Spot on.

[gingerjedi]

To be honest I prefer the bottles, they may not be as good as a perfect cask pint but they are usually more consistent.

From the barrel I've had just as many bad pints as good over the years.

Current fav: Bath Ales : Gem : Our premium amber ale Yum

[d000hg]

I did discover my town (Durham) has a microbrewery which has done a few "real ale festivals". I went to one and it's a slightly over-grandiose name since all they did was open up a few folding chairs inside the brewery itself.

[RichardCranium]

Fresh beer from a good quality microbrewery any day over mass packaged stuff

Yes all bottled are normally sweetened (higher gravity) and pasteurised to survive for the 12 months shelf life but tbh anything after about 6-9 months starts to oxidise and can taste terrible (over pasteurisation also causes this).

"Fresh beer"? That's reading like a press release for Budweiser. It is a marketing expression they made to up to hide their piss-poor industrial mass-production techniques.

Bottle-conditioned ales are not pasteurised. They can continue ageing and improving for years (if brewed so to do).

[Shimano105]

Was a brewer in a previous life before this IT tulip

Fresh beer from a good quality microbrewery anyday over mass packaged stuff

Yes all bottled are normally sweetened (higher gravity) and pasteurised to survive for the 12 months shelf life but tbh anything after about 6-9 months starts to oxidise and can taste terrible (over pasteurisation also causes this).

On top of that there is so much blending done within the processing plants the mass produced brands can contain the leftovers of several other beers - but due to the scale of production they can get away with it. Also families of beers are made meaning brewers brew a batch up at 7% then dilute down to the usual beer bands i.e 5.5%, 4.2% and 3.5% - but at the end of the day its all the same beer. All legit ways of saving money and energy but spoils the thought of traditional beer making

mmmmm need a plan C involving brewing beer again me thinks

Excellent insider info there. I'd join this microbrewery lark as a plan x if I thought there was the remotest possibility of making money out of it. Can't see it though.

[CheeseSlice]

This point is where I disagree with the flowery fairies at CAMRA as they will only let a manufacturer put CAMRA approved or somesuch on the bottle if it is bottle conditioned, i.e. with sediment.

WHS

Bottled conditioned beer doesn't often deliver good results, and even if you try hard to keep the sediment in the bottle you all too often end up with a cloudy glass of ale which doesn't taste very pleasant. I do buy ales in bottles, but usually just go for the non-conditioned stuff which has been processed. The techniques for doing this have been improved vastly over the years and you can get a decent bottle of ale without too much CO2 fizz these days. It is this fizz that personally put me off ale in bottles.

[original PM]

my local pub has been CAMRA pub of the year for the region do 7-8 real ales (changing all the time) and normally have a proper cider or perry (cloudy and not fizzy!)


I mainly drink stella however as I am a heathen

[RichardCranium]

I mainly drink overpriced maize wine however as I am a heathen

FTFY

[original PM]

cheers

still does the trick though!

[CheeseSlice]

I mainly drink stella however as I am a heathen

Two contracts ago I regularly hit the pub on a friday with other contractors. They were mainly drinking stella and peroni and accused me of drinking an old mans drink. This is when I realised that Britain really was brainwashed by the large brewery co's into thinking that they need to drink inexpensive to manufacture lager, and ale was something of the past that only your granddad drinks.

I'm not a CAMRA member, but back in the 80s and 90s CAMRA did a good job at reversing some of that image and fighting the breweries, leading to changes in the law for the pub trade. I think their work is largely done now, and hence their transition to the trainspotter reputation of today (like in that cartoon strip ).