- 1973: All keg beer is crap
- 1983: All real ale produced by the national brewers is crap
- 1993: All real ale produced by the bigger independent brewers is crap
- 2003: All real ale produced by any independent family brewer is crap
- 2008: All real ale produced by long-established micro brewers is crap
- 2013: All real ale not produced under a railway arch by a man with an ironic moustache is crap
4 days ago
is part of the "British pub experience" just the thought of going to a place where you can be anti-social and do not really care what you are drinking as long as it is described as beer?
ReplyDeleteHarking back to 3 weeks in Oregon, every bar had a wider selection of beers than any comparable establishment in the UK; there were remarkably few people people going outside to smoke; you were served at table rather than having to go to the bar, and provided with a menu listing the beers on tap together with tasting notes and details of alcohol content and IBU.
Admittedly, the Oregon experience takes the mystery out of what you might be about to taste. Lovers of "old-time" boozers might not like that.....I prefer it.
Give me a keg-only Sam Smith's boozer with frayed bench seating and geezers standing at the bar any day...
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on this one Mudgie
ReplyDeleteIt was just a brain fart - but I reckon it contains a large grain of truth.
ReplyDeleteI'll also be joining you at the Sam Smith's boozer.
ReplyDeleteWell, there'll be some good crack with all the elderly drunks ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe Oregon experience described by Graeme is about bars, not pubs. Last night I went to my local - not a scruffy dive, by the way - and not having arranged to meet anyone in advance. I chatted briefly to some people I know at the bar while getting served. I then moved down the bar to have a few words with another group I know. I finally found a seat and was joined by another group of friends. I also at some point had a discussion with the licensee and her friends about the latest GBG.
ReplyDeleteYou wouldn't get this social experience in the bar in Oregon that Graeme described. It has nothing to do with being a lover of an old time boozer; waiter service to the table with beers on a menu won't encourage the kind of socialising that is the hallmark of a good night out in the pub. In fact, if you walked into that bar on spec as I did in my local last night, you'd probably spend the evening on your own.
good points RedNev...however, a lot of these bars wee real neighbourhood places. So there were lots of men with odd facial hair roaming around, chatting up the staff and the seated people, just socialising in a friendly way. it was like a 21st century version of a pub. And the beards/goatees were enough to get you bottled in a classic british boozer.
ReplyDelete2014: Carlsberg Export awarded champion beer of Britian
ReplyDeleteI have to say I go in a wide variety of pubs including some fairly down-to-earth boozers and have never come anywhere near to being bottled - I simply don't recognise that scenario. Pubs in general are pretty tolerant places in my experience.
ReplyDelete"You wouldn't get this social experience in the bar in Oregon"
ReplyDeleteWell no, because you don't know large numbers of people in Oregon.
I've seen plenty of evidence that this type of social experience happens in bars in the US though. What do you think "Cheers" was based on? Its not unique to Britain.
I enjoy cask, and I'll have a pint or two of lager, preferably Sam Smiths Pure Brewed Organic Lager, but some of the 'craft' lagers and beers I've drunk lately have been better than than many widely-available cask beers. How times change.
ReplyDeleteThey do exist outside of the UK. When ski bumming around Canada in 2000, I spent quite a while based in Canmore near Banff - home to http://www.thegrizzlypaw.com/ This was the closest I've come to a pub type experience where there were obviously locals. The main difference was though that they didn't stop for long.
ReplyDeleteOhh and they obviously done well in the 10 years since I was last there (visited again) as they brewery used to be a small room behind the bar. Now it's got it's own building by the looks of it. But all keg and possibly a slightly worrying view of how things in the UK could turn out because good as their beer was compared to the other offerings, it was no way as flavoursome as many cask beers.
ReplyDeletePYO: "Cheers" is probably as typical of American bars as the Rovers return or Queen Vic are of British pubs.
ReplyDeleteIf you read the experience in my local that I described, and it wasn't an exceptional night, you are unlikely get that if you enter, sit at a table, choose a beer from a menu and are served by a waiter. Do all bars in the USA have waiter service to table and menus? I've no idea, but that was the kind of place I was referring to.
I've been in many different US bars of many different varieties ( I used to live there), and some are like that, some are not. There is as much variety as there are of UK pubs.
ReplyDelete