What is your favorite BEER!?

[Linegeist]

You lot are giving me a chuffing thirst!!!!!!!

I have to admit, Abbot's a close second to Old Peculier in my little black book of fluids to collapse on. Both nice dark, creamy real ales with enough flavour to double up as lunch if you're pushed for time.

That's a good point about American beer too. Have you ever tried to drink it warm? The damned stuff tastes like vintage battery acid and has an aroma like a Turkish wrestler's jockstrap. No wonder it's served as close to absolute zero as possible. Getting seriously ratfaced on the stuff is right up there with self flagellation and cold showers - I'd rather be rogered roughly with ragged rhubarb ...................

[catman]

OK, definitely hard to pick only only one. As THE mechanic at an independent motorcycle shop, (two man shop) we have great freedom to make choices. One of these choices was to convert the fridge to a kegarator. (still enough room left for lunch stuff) At the end of every day we have a beverage or two, within limits of course. Saves having to stop on the way home. (She Who Must Be Obeyed gets me home in timely fashion, and I get to wash away the days frustrations with the soul cleansing power of barley and hops). So my current favorite is Bells Two Hearted Ale. Past favorites have included Dark Horse double oatmeal stout, (excellent winter beverage), raspberry ale, chocolate stout, double cream stout, Bells Oberon (their summer ale). So we purchase by the barrel, and tend to favor our local micro breweries. Only in the dead of winter when our cash flow is a little limited do we fall back on such as Spudwiser, which DOES have to be cold to be drinkable. The stouts in the winter (warm is OK), ales in the summer, and something different thrown in on occasion to break things up.......Cheers, Catman.

[pmorris4562]

That's a good point about American beer too. Have you ever tried to drink it warm? The damned stuff tastes like vintage battery acid and has an aroma like a Turkish wrestler's jockstrap. No wonder it's served as close to absolute zero as possible. Getting seriously ratfaced on the stuff is right up there with self flagellation and cold showers - I'd rather be rogered roughly with ragged rhubarb ...................

I think American beer gets an unfair bad press over here. I haven't been to the States for about 15 years or so, but even then there were loads of micro breweries serving really nice artisan beers, all be it, slightly cold for our delicate English taste buds.

My brother travels to the states several times a year, and he will not drink anything other than real beer, ever! He raves about American beers, and if it's good enough for him.... . I believe that the glasses in the freezer is now mostly a thing from the past and that the beers are now served nearer to room temp that they used to be. Several supermarket chains over here now carry a small selection of American bottled beers from some of the smaller breweries apparently, and I look forward to trying them. Purely in the spirit of scientific investigation you understand

[therealche]

No you are right, the explosion of small brewers in America has meant it isn't the beer desert it was portrayed as.

Although I do remember being on the IOM many years ago and adopting an American from Portland who was over on his own ( trip of a lifetime, then wrote off his Ducati a month before he was meant to come over, had his ankle in a cast, until he cut it off with a pair of bolt cutters the morning of his flight!) Spectating up at Creg-ny-baa we bought a 4pt carryout from the pub and walked down to find a good spot. He was a little dubious about drinking our warm beer, till he tried it! . He told us that when he went hunting with his friends they would take some generic American beer with them, and after a few hours in the sun " We would have to hold a gun on each other to drink the damn stuff"

And we must remember.... we once brewed Watneys Red Barrel, and whatever battery acid they sold in Party Sevens!

Todays guess at a favourite, Timothy Taylors Landlord, preferably in the Fleece in Otley

[pmorris4562]

Todays guess at a favourite, Timothy Taylors Landlord, preferably in the Fleece in Otley

Yep, Landlord is a worthy brew, up there with the best of them

[Srinath]

If I'm drinking more than a couple, the watery american beer (OK I still like the ice beers anyway) works a lot better.
More than 2 hefe's - my favorite is a waste and an invitation to throw up iMHO.

Cool.
Srinath.

[therealche]

Todays guess at a favourite .......... Hambleton Nightmare Porter

[therealche]

or Kelham Island Pale Rider!

[Linegeist]

Well, I've just downed a couple of HobGoblins (courtesy of herself, who came home in a good mood with a bulging carrier bag ...... she wants something (or she's dinged her car) )

I have to say they slipped down rather well .............. but warm, of course.

I have to admit, my last brush with US beer was in 1978 ................. I did an exchange tour out there the with the British army, and I didn't exactly fall madly in love with the 'any beer as long as it's lager' experience. It tasted all wrong when coming back the other way.

I can see I need to do some up-close testing of the stuff - soon. The creaking sound you may be hearing is that of a rusted mind opening ................. slowly.

[dickl]

My favourite beer???.....well it has to be the one I'm drinking right now! Re the above reference to warm American beer , Roy Harper would probably have compared it with a "Chinese westler's jock strap cooked in chip fat on a greasy day".

[catman]

I have not spent any time investigating the aroma of any jock straps, no matter what their ethnic origin, but I must agree that American lagers are not very pleasing to the palate when warm. The bottom line is this: some beers are meant to be imbibed when warm, and some when cold. I am going to proceed with my mission to sample ALL of them. I don't know if one life time will be enough, yet I shall proceed ahead full steam with an open (if not unclouded) mind.

[therealche]

However I remember buying a slab of Dutch brewed Heineken to stick in my sidecar many many years ago ( Honeymoon in Ireland on a 1951 Sunbeam S8 outfit... and no I haven't had it from new!) It got bounced round Ireland for a week and was drunk warm and was very pleasant. As opposed to the English brewed equivalent which was foul when warm, and not much better drunk cold. In fact it was so nice we bought as many slabs as we were allowed when we came home ( these were the days when duty free was incredibly cheap!). Same with German lagers bought on tours round Europe. Unfortunately some brewers seem to think that because a beer is to be sold so cold you cant taste it, it doesn't matter what it taste like warm!
It's a bit like Guinness and their idea of selling Guinness Extra Cold. They had done the usual market surveys and found that the reason a lot of people weren't drinking Guinness was that they didn't like the taste. So then some marketing guru came up sith the idea of selling it so cold you couldn't tell what it tasted like! I always remember stopping at a small counrty bar in Ireland for a half, and the barmen asked whether I wanted Guinness or Guiness Extra Cold. I told hi I wanted the real stuff and his face broke into a grin "That's just as well, We never wanted the cold stuff but they made us have it. Mind you it doesn't matter, we haven't switched the other cooler on!"

[mdouglas71]

Any free beer is my favorite. If I have a choice, I'll take Dos Equis though.

[Tony the Skin]

Joseph Holts Bitter. Manchester's best. Started drinking it when I was 15 and still love it though these days I drink less than I did in the past. Pride of Pendle is a good pint.

[therealche]

Ah Holts! Remember being taken around a few of their pubs by a mates to mourn the passing of the sub pound pint of mild! Probably the most basic boozers left, and none the worse for it. Do they still brew hogsheads? I know they were the last brewery in the Uk to use them.