To be fair, as lagers go, Heineken is pretty good IMO.

lager but that’s basically flavoured water with chemicals in it in most cases so doesn’t count as beer,

I think we can all agree that Budweiser is nasty, and the light versions of American beers have all the flavor and body of carbonated water. But dismissing all lagers on that basis is like dismissing all ales because Tetley’s extra cold smoothflow is like drinking refrigerated vomit with a biscuit aftertaste.

, knows the bar staff by name – not sad? 

100% not sad, knowing someone’s name is normal human interaction. You can’t help but know my landlords name, if a stranger walks through the door he holds his hand out for a shake and says ” my names Martin what can I get you”

You’ll have to explain this to me. That lonely bloke sat on the same barstool every night, knows the bar staff by name – not sad? Last time I went into the pub with a lady, we couldn’t hear each other cos of all the local young people SHOUTING to each other a the top of their voices. Pleasure?
Drinking beer in front of my own telly is far less sad and infinitely more pleasurable.

😂 I was about to post similar. Pubs are fine with friends but the epitome of ‘sad’ when you’re alone.*

I’m happy to lounge on my comfortable sofa, watching, reading or listening to my choice of entertainment, wandering occasionally to the fridge. And not paying a fiver* a pint for some poorly kept local beer that I can get from the local supermarket for a fraction of the pub price.

* Swansea prices!

lager but that’s basically flavoured water with chemicals in it in most cases so doesn’t count as beer,

Are you for real fam?

Ale is for those who do not have the sensitivity of palate to appreciate the nuances of good lagers. A bit like folk who never drink tea, only coffee. They need an overpowering taste to compensate for lack of sensitivity. 😉

Chilling does not destroy the taste, it enhances it. The only way I can stomach that hoppy, malty syrup is if it’s nicely chilled.

I like my cold drinks cold and my hot drinks hot. To hell with room temperature drinks!

To be fair, as lagers go, Heineken is pretty good IMO.

TBH I don’t pretend to have a very sophisticated palette, but I didn’t choose it by luck.

They ran a campaign years ago (akin to what Carlsberg are doing now) admitting, not in so many words, they they sold their brand to one of the big Brewers in the UK, the sort of place that bangs out the UK Fosters, UK Carling etc, it’s just ‘generic’ Lager sold using foreign brand for a bit of ‘exclusivity’ (although long gone now). I don’t have a problem with that, but somewhere about the age of 25 I had my first ‘proper’ hangover and by 30 they’d render me useless for 24-48 hours.

With a nudge and a wink the claim was by following the German Beer Purity Law, so only using the basic ingredients of beer and no ‘chemicals’ you’d feel it less in the morning, and for me at least it’s sort of true. I can have a few pints of it in the Pub and be fine the next day, my Quarterly binge drink with my mates is tolerable the next day too. If I drink the stuff that comes with preservatives and the like I feel much worse, and will often find myself feeling pretty rough whilst I’m drinking it too, something doesn’t agree with me anyway.

I like other stuff too, there’s a Rasberry beer that sell in Sainsburys I like one of, and some of the wheat beers too. I’ve been known to enjoy a small glass of Mutzig before now too.

My cousin and his wife have his and hers drinks cabinets by their bed. She was moaning to me that he was drinking vodka out of a mug. Not fussed about drinking vodka in bed ,fussed about a mug.

Good to see that some people still have standards.

100% not sad, knowing someone’s name is normal human interaction. You can’t help but know my landlords name, if a stranger walks through the door he holds his hand out for a shake and says ” my names Martin what can I get you”

Yeah, cos that was the whole point I was making about the bloke who is in the pub nursing a lonely pint every single day of the week. Course it was.

Ale is for those who do not have the sensitivity of palate to appreciate the nuances of good lagers.

Some of us appreciate both. Chilling right down is guaranteed to kill the flavour though. No bad thing for most commercial lagers…

thisisnotaspoon

Subscriber
To be fair, as lagers go, Heineken is pretty good IMO.

Just killed any credibility you had. 😆

Well I usually go in with fam or friends, but perfectly happy to go in alone and sit reading tbh; if that’s sad then drinking on your sofa doesn’t really give much grounds for claiming superiority! But apart from that, why are you going to pubs like this? Are there no good ones left?

Last time I went into the pub with a lady, we couldn’t hear each other cos of all the local young people SHOUTING to each other a the top of their voices. Pleasure?
Drinking beer in front of my own telly is far less sad and infinitely more pleasurable.

And not paying a fiver* a pint for some poorly kept local beer that I can get from the local supermarket for a fraction of the pub price

How about one of these plastic efforts for recreating at home those fun summer nights drinking warm 6% Scruttocks Old Dirigible at certain events, then spending the next day sat on a loo regretting it?

It is interesting that the folk who drink from bottles, cans and cold glasses are drinking the worst beers.

Quality beer needs air and some of the gas removed. Look at how the Germans and the Czechs serve beer to see how those varieties should be drunk.

i like beer from a tulip or a snifter. Each to their own, I suppose

i drink beer out of a wine glass! i know!

Me too. A big red wine glass suits Belgian beers admirably.

Half pint glass for Broon though.

You’ll have to explain this to me. That lonely bloke sat on the same barstool every night, knows the bar staff by name – not sad? Last time I went into the pub with a lady, we couldn’t hear each other cos of all the local young people SHOUTING to each other a the top of their voices. Pleasure?
Drinking beer in front of my own telly is far less sad and infinitely more pleasurable.

Depends where.

I love having a pint in the French House or Cafe Boheme in Soho by myself during the early asfternoon because of all the weird and wonderful old world Londoners I get chatting to. I’ve made two or three good friends this way now, if I had been single I could have gone home with a few good looking women as well.

Don’t knock having a cheeky pint or two by yourself in a pub, it’s only sad if it’s a dead and soulless pub.

I think we can all agree that Budweiser is nasty, and the light versions of American beers have all the flavor and body of carbonated water. But dismissing all lagers on that basis is like dismissing all ales because Tetley’s extra cold smoothflow is like drinking refrigerated vomit with a biscuit aftertaste.

I’ll dismiss all the hipster beer that purports to contain hints of fruit & flowers too. The only flowers in beer should be hops

Good lager

No such thing, lager’s sole purpose is to cool the mouth whilst eating curry. This has the added advantage that you can’t taste the lager that’s doing the quenching

The only flowers in beer should be hops

Hops are a newfangled innovation, brought over by the Belgians in the fifteenth century. A traditionalist such as yourself would surely prefer wormwood for flavouring.

Can’t stand beers in a glass. Beautifully chilled bottle, then pour it into a room temperature glass? Nah man.

Chilling kills the flavour, which is why most commercial lagers are served chilled, to cover up the fact that they’re virtually flavourless. A quality lager should be served just like a properly brewed ale, at cellar temperature, cool, not chilled, that way you get to properly appreciate the wide range of flavours available.
As for all the bollocks about fancy stemmed glasses like the continentals drink from, that’s cafe culture, in a bierhaus you’ll be drinking from litre steins!
Myself, I’ve got a bunch of different glasses, mostly sleeves, but a couple of lovely glass tankards, one a Fullers ESB, the other plain, that I actually paid for from the pub, cos they cost £6 a time to replace, most of the rest have been ‘liberated’ from various drinking establishments where they’ve been left perched on walls or on tables, the others are a Pete’s Wicked Ales glass from a retailer, and a Chris King glass from John’s Bikes in Bath.
I enjoyed a nice glass tankard full of Wickwar Brewery’s Falling Star golden ale with my dinner this evening, and exceptionally tasty it was, too, went very well with the veggie stew.
I have no qualms about drinking from the bottle, but it’s very easy to knock a bottle over, my glass tankards are very heavy, with a thick base, not so easy to knock over.
Like this one:

Drinking in the pub by yourself is fine.
As long as, like the beer, it’s the right pub.

I’m liking ones with newspapers, no phone signal, dogs and other patrons in on their own but you can get a chat with if you’d like. And a decent beer selection mix of classic Brit beers, some old world Europeans and a couple of newer craft beers

To be fair, as lagers go, Heineken is pretty good IMO.

Many years ago I was switched on to Heineken after visiting and taking part in the factory tour in Amsterdam.  As you go round you collect your little half pint samples, poured and scraped the Dutch way and by god if it wasn’t the freshest cleanest lager I’d ever experienced.  The tour guide explained never to drink canned lager as the process and storage of lager in a can detracts from its quality.

Imported Heineken in bottles is what you need to look for, chill to 4 degrees and then pour as per the video on page 1.

Chilling kills the flavour, which is why most commercial lagers are served chilled, to cover up the fact that they’re virtually flavourless.

Not the case at all.

small cartoon cans are all the rage, took me a while to accept but im a convert. especially the ones from aldi and lidl for a quid!

otherwise i have a Northern Whisper goblet style glass that was from the Hemlshore Beer Festival that i like to use a lot.

there are still half a dozen old pint pots in the cupboard that ive acquired over years tho…

Grandad used to work for the brewery going round the pubs to check how they were doing and make sure everything was in order (food and drink). When I was a kid he always used to tell me to never drink beer out of the bottle as they were likely covered in rat wee/poo down in the cellars and the bottle top could get chipped when the cap is removed.

It’s always stuck with me and I think of him whenever I even contemplate drinking out of the bottle.

Even though I will drink wine out of a tumbler (much to the OHs disgust) I do like to enjoy a drink from an “appropriate” glass. I have a stemmed beer glass for nice artisan style beers, a nicely profiled (not pub shape) pint glass for more run of the mill beers, a thatchers stemmed glass for light and sweet ciders and I like to use just a normal straight tumber for normal ciders. If I am drinking with dinner I normally use a smallish tumbler (2/3rd pint size) for a bottled beer. No rigid rules, just drink out of whater feels appropriate as it is part of the whole drinking experience in my mind. And a good head to get the CO2 out is important.

but im a convert. especially the ones from aldi and lidl for a quid!

Aldi and Lidl both do lots of very good quality stuff. Their wine can be excellent. But the little beers are pretty average. IMO of course. 😁

boxelder wrote:
Prefer a smaller glass, regularly topped up, especially fresh beer from the growler at our local proper beer shop.
Like the sweet shop when you were a kid

Ooh, didn’t know that existed – and right opposite the brewery as well. Next time I’m up home they’re getting a visit…

Local pub to me does this:

3 third of a pint glasses on a board. They usually have 6 ales/stout/lager on at any one time so 2 rounds covers them all, gets you nicely warm inside and covers that awkward time between leaving work and getting home too early meaning you need to help cook………..

Great pub and one I’m very happy to frequent on my own, sad it is not – just look at the name:

https://www.laughingfishisfield.com/

Anyway, this thread has inspired me to order some malt and yeast. ESB brew this weekend, should be ready for Christmas.

Not the case at all.

A bit of a chicken/egg scenario.

Lager’s are conditioned in a cold cellar/cave, so naturally would be cold. They also don’t (typically) have hops other than for bittering, and the fermentation is supposed to ensure there are few/no byproducts so there’s less aroma and taste anyway. So the two go hand in hand.

Last time I went into the pub with a lady, we couldn’t hear each other cos of all the local young people SHOUTING to each other a the top of their voices.

Flat roof was it?

The contents of 440ml cans of Heineken are brewed in the UK. 330ml cans are from Amsterdam.

A bit of a chicken/egg scenario

It’s always the egg first.

talking Belgian beers i also have a set of Kwaremont glasses that I like to use.

I was introduced to the beer and the glasses after riding the Flanders sportive. Not only is it on sale everywhere in Oudenaarde grand place but the glass is a classic:

– beer named after one of the famous cobbled climbs: check
– engraving of cyclist riding up a climb on the stem; check
– ABV of beer at 6.6% matches the average gradient of the climb; check
– base of the glass is a cobble design; check
– beer tastes goooood after riding 174km; check

Flat roof was it?

Can’t say I noticed the roof, but I’ll have a look on google if it’s important to you.

[edit] No, it’s pitched.
Not sure what reference I’ve missed, if there was one.

Heineken…. pffft.
Anyhow, I’m drinking some beer at home tonight, just had a 4 kid play date dumped on me. & I have to cook “tea” for three fussy eaters. Aggghhh.

redstripe

Member
2 choices here:

That’s one choice, with two options.

I have a Kwaremont glass and had never thought about it that closely before, so thank you MTB-idle.