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Way off topic--beer

SamTHorn said:
I love the Kokanee beer. I used to drink this like water back in high school.
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I dunno--beer made from fish? :)

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Now I want to try a true ale. Does anyone know any good examples of this? Oddly enough once on wikipedia the only one I could find was a Kokanee beer called Kootenay although reading that article Kokanee became Columbia Brewery, the bought by Labatt, ... then InBev (could ya really pick a less appetizing name?) then InBev bought Anhauser Busch.. grr... lol so I don't think this one can count anymore.
 
barythrin said:
Now I want to try a true ale. Does anyone know any good examples of this? Oddly enough once on wikipedia the only one I could find was a Kokanee beer called Kootenay although reading that article Kokanee became Columbia Brewery, the bought by Labatt, ... then InBev (could ya really pick a less appetizing name?) then InBev bought Anhauser Busch.. grr... lol so I don't think this one can count anymore.
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Bass advertises theirs as "The World's First Pale Ale".
They've been at it a long time, and I think they've got the hang of what they're doing.
 
Kokanee beer called Kootenay although reading that article Kokanee became Columbia Brewery, the bought by Labatt, ... t
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Yep, Kokanee would refer to the fish. Kootenay is the next major valley over from me. These are all just catch words of course. Anyway, Kokanee is just another big brewery commercial beer. Nothing of aesthetic interest. I do remember when they started. IIRC the big draw was that they were at 7% whereas the others were 6%. I suppose that represents a 15% saving in drinking effort.
 
Lorne said:
Bass advertises theirs as "The World's First Pale Ale".
They've been at it a long time, and I think they've got the hang of what they're doing.
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AS I said earlier, now owned by Coors. Quite nice when it's nice, but seems to start tasting a bit off very easily. Unfortunately, for me, it also seems to tie my guts in knots after a couple, I don't know why. First, but not neccesarily the best.
 
He likely used the John Bull brand syrup as I did altho I know there were/are other companies in the UK who also made it. I made the various dark, light, bitters, crystal, both Lager and Ale. The big commercial breweries products, except for a few, just weren't as good. Interesting topic.

Lawrence

nige the hippy said:
Having read Micom's post, I thought he might like this book....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brewing-Beers-Those-Amateur-Winemaker/dp/1854861255

it's full of "proper" recipes (dark malt, light malt, crystal, turnips, grapefruit etc), our old workshop technician was an avid home brewer, and swore by it.
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Most of the old canadian breweries are now owned by conglomerates. Molson by Anhauser-Busch Inbev and Labatts by Coors. Since a big proportion of other canadian breweries were owned by Labatts and Molson including Kokanee , a certain blandness is what one would expect, even if the recipes of the former companies are more or less followed.

The micro-breweries and brew-pubs are the way to go. Here is a good site on canadian brews and the lead article is on a new startup who make an ale which has the yeast sediment ion the bottom of bottles. YAYYY !

http://www.canadianbeernews.com/

And another good site which champions home brewing and has a list of most of the world's breweries.

http://www.realbeer.com/edu/health/calories.php

Lawrence
 
Chuck(G) said:
So, for those folks who buy a pony keg, one might as well chill the beer just as it comes out of the tap?

About all I brew is root beer and ginger ale. Real ginger ale is very different from the store-bought stuff--it's fermented, rather than carbonated water with flavorings. Root beer I brew with an extract, yeast and sugar.
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Yup, might as well chill it as it comes out.

Real root beer, sarsaparilla, and ginger ale are wonderful. The fact that they can put those names on what's at the store shows how widespread the ignorance is of reality. Same goes for caramel. :D
 
barythrin said:
Now I want to try a true ale. Does anyone know any good examples of this?
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I make my own using the same yeast I've been using for the past 27 years. I happened to get an especially good yeast on one order from "Beermakers of America" (defunct for about 12 years now, alas), and I've kept one unopened package and one live culture going ever since.

I'm not happy with any of the commercial ales I know of at present. The 6-pack of Bass I bought a few months ago was particularly nasty, more like a bad bitter than a good ale. Next trip to the UK I'm hoping to find something nice that gets exported. I don't have as much time/space/energy for making my own as was once the case, at this point I'm drinking old stock (the product of my super-yeast has a great shelf-life, too). My own preference runs to non-pasteurized and only natural carbonation. I'm willing to compromise on pasteurization, but I won't drink anything clarified. I don't like added carbonation, but I'll tolerate it if all else makes it worthwhile.

If it comes to it, I'll drop ale for now and perhaps go with a local scrumpy that's pretty good--when I'm not drinking my usual: Scotch. ;)
 
Ahh finally, the beer topic!

In the United States, most of our beer really sucks. The cheap "kiddie" beer(which I find disgusting) must be kept as cold as possible. Served warm, you feel like you are drinking pee. Probably about the same taste, but I'm not entirely willing to find out at the moment.

Around here, there is a great beer called "Shiner Bock." It's a good beer from the Spoetzl brewery in Shiner, TX (I think the population is just under 1,000). It's a damn good dark beer, but to me is more on the light end of that spectrum. Shiner makes several other types of beer, none that I have tried yet. It is appartenly distributed in 41 states, but I know when I'm in West Virginia I sure can't find it anywhere. But West of the Mississippi, I've found Yuengling lager to be pretty OK. Drinkable, anyhow. Coors, Budlight, Milwaukee's best, Pabst, etc are all unacceptable beers unless served damn near frozen. But Shiner and Yuengling both were pretty good even warm. But there is something very good about a cold beer. After a hot day of work outside on the car(Hell, who am I kidding? More like WHILE working on the car) there is nothing like a nice cold beer to cool you off.

Has anyone here ever had "Bigfoot Ale?" Its a pretty strong, but drinkable beer. It's supposed to be, in essential, 2 beers in one bottle. As for Canadian beer, I've heard alot of hype(from Canadians) about Molson beer, but I was very dissapointed after drinking it. Not nearly as good as Shiner, or other lagers I've had around the U.S.

--Ryan
 
Yzzerdd said:
Has anyone here ever had "Bigfoot Ale?" Its a pretty strong, but drinkable beer. It's supposed to be, in essential, 2 beers in one bottle.
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Sure, nice hoppy seasonal brew out of one of the larger small breweries in Chico, CA. It changes from year to year--i.e., it's released like wine, when the year's vintage is gone, there isn't any more. 2010's is notable for the 9.64 percent alcohol content. Not everyone's cup of tea. :)

Fortunately for us in the Pacific Northwest, there's a lot of very fine small brewers, so there's always something else to try if you don't like it.
 
Micom 2000 said:
He likely used the John Bull brand syrup as I did altho I know there were/are other companies in the UK who also made it. I made the various dark, light, bitters, crystal, both Lager and Ale. The big commercial breweries products, except for a few, just weren't as good. Interesting topic.

Lawrence
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No the technician had set himself up with a proper mash tun, extraction sieves, agitator & the works. He started with (mostly) grain, no "John Bull" for him! (although I've done a few of the kits, and it's pretty drinkable). That book is full of good recipes.
 
Yzzerdd said:
As for Canadian beer, I've heard alot of hype(from Canadians) about Molson beer, but I was very dissapointed after drinking it. Not nearly as good as Shiner, or other lagers I've had around the U.S.

--Ryan
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Canadian beer (like those brewed by Labatt's and Molson) taste the same as the large American brewery beers (ie: very little taste), there's just a bit more alcohol in the Canadian beers.
It used to be fun watching the American 19 and 20 year olds from Washington state cross the border on Friday nights, and to head to a Canadian pub, where they were all of a sudden of legal drinking age. They'd get absolutely looped drinking just two or three Canadian beers at 6 or 6.5% alcohol by volume.

Fortunately again, there are numerous micro and small brewers in Canada with decent tasting beer.
 
barythrin said:
Where the hell is Terry?! ;-)
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Here I Am, John! Having recently completed my long overdue internet sabbatical, (last one was in 2000, so I guess that makes it more of a deca-batical), thought I'd weigh in on this most important of off-topic topics. Don't have time right now to answer all of the questions in the thread, but I shall address the engineering question above:

I have seen, at various festivals, street fairs, etc., beer booths where they have a device that does indeed cool the beer between the keg and the glass (or paper cup, as it were). It resembles a standard picnic cooler, but with a beer tap hanging off the side. Tubing coming from the keg runs in coils around the inside, and up to the tap. The chest is kept filled with ice, or better yet, 'dry ice' (CO2). I don't know if this counts as 'flash-cooling' or not, but it seems to do a pretty good job, as I've never had any complaints with street beer cooled in this manner on an 80-plus-degree day. I've never looked into purchasing this device tho, as it seems simple enough to build one of my own, should the need for one ever arise.

More later...

--T
 
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Bleep me sideways, Terry's still alive - off topic I've nearly got the computer room useable, On topic - on big boot day, I owe you a beer or two.
Nice to know you hadn't shuffled off the mortal coil!
Will it still work if I send you a PM sometime?
 
Any Terry Yager related posts should probably go in the thread titled Terry Yager, so Chuck(G)'s thread doesn't get highjacked.
 
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