If we drop the duty on cask-based real ale to zero and so encourage the drinking population back into pubs where they can share heat and light, we will have reduced CO2, reduced energy usage at home, cut driving, and made a lot of people very happy and more connected with their local community. Sounds like a plan.
Why on earth characterize real ale as “traditionally flat and tepid”? There’s also nothing snobbish about appreciating the quality and variety of real ale available nowadays – it’s simply a matter of trying it, enjoying it and then trying as many different ales as possible, which i do with great enthusiasm. None of them are “flat and tepid”, and if they are, i return them to the bar for a replacement.
What was produced “traditionally” wasn’t what we now recognise as real ale. Sure, there may be some similarities in production methods and the way they’re ‘kept’ but the end product is a world away from the centuries-old stuff that was the mainstay of people’s liquid intake (at very low ABV) due to the disease-ridden water usually available; especially before the introduction of tea, which has anti-bacterial properties and is given credit for helping the mass populations in the 19th century slums from succumbing to water-bourne illnesses.
I feel desperately sad for those still quaffing lager. It’s the equivalent of drinking Liebraumilch instead of a decent Merlot or Malbec. So, the import of this article is well-meant, just poor in its exposition.
And by the way, i don’t have a beer gut despite my best efforts!
Hear hear!
Glad to say we have many excellent small breweries here in Shropshire and the Welsh borders producing some superb beers. Speaking as a consumer that is.
Cheers
There are those who think that if beer doesn’t freeze your tonsils as it goes down it’s tepid. I have sent beer back because it’s too cold; I like to be able to taste the the beer. I associate freezing cold beer with the first time I drank a beer in the USA, where (at that time) it was better that way as the taste was so bad.
You’re absolutely correct and that’s the only way that US cooking lager can be quaffed. My preference is to drink pale lagers such as hells or pilsners at fridge temperature, but not ice cold; dunkels, bitters and other ales should be a couple of degrees warmer to bring out the flavour.
Alphonse Pfarti
1 year ago
Worryingly, some of CAMRA’s recent missives seem to have nods to wokery in them. I hope the beer-gutted beardies can hold their line!
But I should cheer up really, as it’s Friday and nearly beer-o-clock. Good health to you all!
Last edited 1 year ago by Alphonse Pfarti
laurence scaduto
1 year ago
It’s a popular boy-ish (and girl-ish, too?) fantasy to wake up one morning to a world turned upside-down and backwards. Sailing ships and horse drawn buggies…and real ale!
Now let’s see how the grown-ups react if/when it actually happens.
One thing is pretty much guaranteed: there will always be beer.
Aaron James
1 year ago
” And among the unintended costs of the rising energy prices brought about by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a threat to Britain’s millennia-old social lubricant: beer.”
sigh,,,, and inflation and the largest wealth transfer in history, from working people to the ultra wealthy, was brought about by covid…..
I see why the writer shows hobbits, he believes in simple fairy tails handed to him by the MSM – oh, thats right, he is MSM…., so remember Putin took your beer……although, not making that fertilizer, that the CO2 is a byproduct of, means global Famine – but that is Putin’s fault, same as your Pension becoming worthless and people living on them will soon be eating cat-food sandwiches because that is all they can afford – again because of Putin…so when you are eating your stale cat-food sandwich, and no beer to wash it down – remember it is all – like everything that is wrong is, all Putin’s fault – and nothing to do with your governemnt or the Global Elites, or the huge Hedge Funds, or banks and Brokerage houses…
The CBC blamed the high cost of food in Canada on extreme weather events (ie global warming) and Putin. Trudeau borrowing money and pumping it into the economy for 7 years (well before Covid), shutting down our economy and paying people not to work, taxing energy, and blocking unvaccinated truckers at the border had nothing to do with it.
Peter Johnson
1 year ago
I used to make my own beer. It would be fermented in a barrel and then bottled. It was really fizzy from natural carbonation. So I guess I don’t understand why you need CO2 injectors to have fizzy beer.
Hardee Hodges
1 year ago
“traditionally flat and tepid” – Not what a decent shop would offer. The traditional ales proffer full flavors over the nominal bland lager similar to some IPAs. They are live beers still producing their own carbonation if treated well. Treated well means they can’t take shipping well without ending up with that awful flatness of a bad shop. But the bottlers need to team up with those CO2 capture companies. Rather than produce the gas from fuels, can’t the stuff be captured and sold to brewers?
Brendan O'Leary
1 year ago
These shocks are only unexpected if you were one of those dim types who thought we could easily do without “fossil fuels”, which term helpfully keeps them ignorant of the wide applications of hydrocarbons.
Or if you thought the only economic problem was distribution of wealth, and never understood the how and why of wealth creation.
If we drop the duty on cask-based real ale to zero and so encourage the drinking population back into pubs where they can share heat and light, we will have reduced CO2, reduced energy usage at home, cut driving, and made a lot of people very happy and more connected with their local community. Sounds like a plan.
Gets my vote.
Why on earth characterize real ale as “traditionally flat and tepid”? There’s also nothing snobbish about appreciating the quality and variety of real ale available nowadays – it’s simply a matter of trying it, enjoying it and then trying as many different ales as possible, which i do with great enthusiasm. None of them are “flat and tepid”, and if they are, i return them to the bar for a replacement.
What was produced “traditionally” wasn’t what we now recognise as real ale. Sure, there may be some similarities in production methods and the way they’re ‘kept’ but the end product is a world away from the centuries-old stuff that was the mainstay of people’s liquid intake (at very low ABV) due to the disease-ridden water usually available; especially before the introduction of tea, which has anti-bacterial properties and is given credit for helping the mass populations in the 19th century slums from succumbing to water-bourne illnesses.
I feel desperately sad for those still quaffing lager. It’s the equivalent of drinking Liebraumilch instead of a decent Merlot or Malbec. So, the import of this article is well-meant, just poor in its exposition.
And by the way, i don’t have a beer gut despite my best efforts!
Hear hear!
Glad to say we have many excellent small breweries here in Shropshire and the Welsh borders producing some superb beers. Speaking as a consumer that is.
Cheers
Indeed. My son-in-law hails from Ludlow and he had a cask of Ludlow Gold brought up for his wedding last year which i duly enjoyed!
All by yourself? Good effort, Sir!
There are those who think that if beer doesn’t freeze your tonsils as it goes down it’s tepid. I have sent beer back because it’s too cold; I like to be able to taste the the beer. I associate freezing cold beer with the first time I drank a beer in the USA, where (at that time) it was better that way as the taste was so bad.
You’re absolutely correct and that’s the only way that US cooking lager can be quaffed. My preference is to drink pale lagers such as hells or pilsners at fridge temperature, but not ice cold; dunkels, bitters and other ales should be a couple of degrees warmer to bring out the flavour.
Worryingly, some of CAMRA’s recent missives seem to have nods to wokery in them. I hope the beer-gutted beardies can hold their line!
But I should cheer up really, as it’s Friday and nearly beer-o-clock. Good health to you all!
It’s a popular boy-ish (and girl-ish, too?) fantasy to wake up one morning to a world turned upside-down and backwards. Sailing ships and horse drawn buggies…and real ale!
Now let’s see how the grown-ups react if/when it actually happens.
One thing is pretty much guaranteed: there will always be beer.
” And among the unintended costs of the rising energy prices brought about by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a threat to Britain’s millennia-old social lubricant: beer.”
sigh,,,, and inflation and the largest wealth transfer in history, from working people to the ultra wealthy, was brought about by covid…..
I see why the writer shows hobbits, he believes in simple fairy tails handed to him by the MSM – oh, thats right, he is MSM…., so remember Putin took your beer……although, not making that fertilizer, that the CO2 is a byproduct of, means global Famine – but that is Putin’s fault, same as your Pension becoming worthless and people living on them will soon be eating cat-food sandwiches because that is all they can afford – again because of Putin…so when you are eating your stale cat-food sandwich, and no beer to wash it down – remember it is all – like everything that is wrong is, all Putin’s fault – and nothing to do with your governemnt or the Global Elites, or the huge Hedge Funds, or banks and Brokerage houses…
The CBC blamed the high cost of food in Canada on extreme weather events (ie global warming) and Putin. Trudeau borrowing money and pumping it into the economy for 7 years (well before Covid), shutting down our economy and paying people not to work, taxing energy, and blocking unvaccinated truckers at the border had nothing to do with it.
I used to make my own beer. It would be fermented in a barrel and then bottled. It was really fizzy from natural carbonation. So I guess I don’t understand why you need CO2 injectors to have fizzy beer.
“traditionally flat and tepid” – Not what a decent shop would offer. The traditional ales proffer full flavors over the nominal bland lager similar to some IPAs. They are live beers still producing their own carbonation if treated well. Treated well means they can’t take shipping well without ending up with that awful flatness of a bad shop.
But the bottlers need to team up with those CO2 capture companies. Rather than produce the gas from fuels, can’t the stuff be captured and sold to brewers?
These shocks are only unexpected if you were one of those dim types who thought we could easily do without “fossil fuels”, which term helpfully keeps them ignorant of the wide applications of hydrocarbons.
Or if you thought the only economic problem was distribution of wealth, and never understood the how and why of wealth creation.