:beers: The Beer Topic
-
@izzion said in The Beer Topic:
Well, if that leads to IPA consumption, there goes my excuse for drinking soap.
-
Thanks for reminding me I had a different beer yesterday
-
@Luhmann wow, it's beer colored. Sorry, not making fun, I'm from the U.S.
-
A decent beer should have at least 4 funny letters in the name
-
@Applied-Mediocrity said in The Beer Topic:
A decent beer should have at least 4 funny letters in the name
What it should not have though is cherries on the label. Nor any cherry-related names.
-
@LaoC said in The Beer Topic:
cherries
There are also some Belgian beers with cherries.
I remember when I was somewhere in Belgian province in a restaurant, I wanted to try some local beer. Fortunately, the waiter warned me of my choice, and I could choose a more "normal" local beer.
-
@BernieTheBernie the cherry beers aren't terrible, but the raspberry and strawberry beers are much better.
-
@LaoC said in The Beer Topic:
What it should not have though is cherries on the label. Nor any cherry-related names.
Silence, infidel!
Filed under: stuff that makes life bearable
-
@MrL You're really not helping your case here.
Now, if you'd put those pictures instead, that would be a different story:
Filed under: hipster beard not included
-
@remi said in The Beer Topic:
@MrL You're really not helping your case here.
Now, if you'd put those pictures instead, that would be a different story:
Filed under: hipster beard not included
I don't think there actually is a case I'm trying to push. But anyway - I'm not an expert on lambics by any stretch of imagination. Out of the handful I tried all non-cherry were foul, and among cherry ones Lindemans was the best. Which is good, because it's the only one easily available in Poland, AFAIK.
What is kind of interesting is that I don't really like cherries and avoid them in desserts, chocolate, pies, etc. But Kriek I can't get anough if it happens to be on tap.
-
@BernieTheBernie said in The Beer Topic:
@LaoC said in The Beer Topic:
cherries
There are also some Belgian beers with cherries.
I remember when I was somewhere in Belgian province in a restaurant, I wanted to try some local beer. Fortunately, the waiter warned me of my choice, and I could choose a more "normal" local beer.Yeah the Belgians have some really good stuff, but that cherry shit is not among it.
@MrL said in The Beer Topic:
@LaoC said in The Beer Topic:
What it should not have though is cherries on the label. Nor any cherry-related names.
Silence, infidel!
Filed under: stuff that makes life bearable
OK, it's got alcohol, that's something. Probably beats Erofeev's "Bitch's Guts" at least in taste if not in effect.
-
Status: Sitting smugly content I've set off this little slap fight. I got some more yesterday, actually
But it's got only three funny letters (and appropriately so).
-
@MrL said in The Beer Topic:
cherries [....] Kriek
probably because krieken are not kersen and thus not cherries ... most stuff you mention is made with sweet cherries (kersen) but the beer is made with sour cherries or krieken.
that brought me to Ginjinha ... not a beer but if you ever find yourself in Lisboa get yourself the real stuff from one of the small shops around the National Theater to get totally wasted by eating the sour cherries that are found in every Ginja bottle.
-
@MrL said in The Beer Topic:
I'm not an expert on lambics by any stretch of imagination. Out of the handful I tried all non-cherry were foul, and among cherry ones Lindemans was the best.
Yeah, almost all lambic-based beers are... something of an acquired taste, let's say. I don't know anyone who ever tasted one thinking "I'll try this beer" and liked it (some people did like it on first taste, but they were warned beforehand to not expect anything they'd usually expect from a beer!). Consequently, the most commonly found are those that are somewhat syrupy (compared to the more "extreme" ones) as that makes them closer to what most people know and like, and these are often poo-poohed by beer snobs () as not being the "true" ones.
Which is good, because it's the only one easily available in Poland, AFAIK.
Same here. In fact I'd say it's probably the only brand that's widely exported. Which adds to the snobbery: any hipster will tell you that you simply cannot like a brand that's widely available.
(some of it being that to stay widely accepted a brand cannot rely on being a niche product only, so of course a widely successful brand is always going to be somewhat milder and watered down -- whether it just makes them more palatable, or is seen as treason, depends on the size of your hipster's beard)
-
@Applied-Mediocrity said in The Beer Topic:
Status: Sitting smugly content I've set off this little slap fight. I got some more yesterday, actually
Some 30 years ago, I naively visited the Baltic states, thinking of several weeks of holidays there... Since those times,
Elbonia
is in my mind a Balitc state....
In the restaurants - if there was one to be found in a town at all, and if it did not have some sign telling us "sanitarine" or "ne dirbame" (which both mean something like "closed"), and you actually achieved to get in, well, then you could try to order food and drinks. Often a hard task, because of enormously loud american music, the waiter not speaking any western language, me hardly knowing russian (which they did not want to hear either) etc wtf.
Anyway, then the waiter arrives at your desk proudly presenting a can of beer imported from some western country. Proudly opens the can in front of you, and then pours it into your glass.
Yeah, Elbonians used to be very proud when they could offer some western import products.
And now you show us local Latvian cherry beer? What happened to your import pride?
-
@BernieTheBernie said in The Beer Topic:
What happened to your import pride?
Three decades of most of said imports actually being from Poland (or worse)
-
@Applied-Mediocrity "Nie rozumiem po-polsku" - that used to be the typical answer of locals when I asked them "Do you speak English?" "Sprechen Sie deutsch?" "Spreekt U Nederlands?" "Habla espanol?"
And, I guess, American beer is actually worse than Polish...
-
@BernieTheBernie said in The Beer Topic:
I guess, American beer is actually worse than Polish...
it's definitely not as polished!
-
@BernieTheBernie Seriously, it was a very weird time. I kind of want to remember it as something good, because it was my childhood, but now that I look back to it, the naivety and ass-kissing is plain sickening.
The idolization of everything western comes from the Soviet days. Everybody knew that what was made locally was utter shit. You couldn't legally get anything from the West, but sure as fuck there was smuggling going on. And the difference was plain as day. IOW, USSR had industry cranking up numbers, but what wasn't plain Party Plan accounting fuckery, was usually garbage.
Conversely, USSR actually did export some stuff (even to the West), and these "export versions" were objectively better, even competitive. And those with "blat" could get their hands on the stuff without it ever leaving the factory.
But when the markets opened... the more clever fuckers procured cheap shit from Poland , even going as far as embossing or engraving "Made in Germany" (or whatever old country) and becoming importers of big name brands such as Bosch, Ariel, Audi etc. when in fact they had none. And people bought it up. And then... well, then gradually (or suddenly, depending on the product) the realization of truth hit.
-
@BernieTheBernie said in The Beer Topic:
And, I guess, American beer is actually worse than Polish...
Depends on what you mean by beer.
Craft is on a very high level - independent brewery is exploding for quite some time now and doesn't seem to slow down.
But 'popular' beer? Same mass produced pilsner/lager piss like everywhere else in EU.
Which maybe is better than US beer, I dunno.
-
@MrL said in The Beer Topic:
independent brewery is exploding for quite some time now and doesn't seem to slow down
You don't need to add nitroglycerine when brewing.
-
@dkf said in The Beer Topic:
@MrL said in The Beer Topic:
independent brewery is exploding for quite some time now and doesn't seem to slow down
You don't need to add nitroglycerine when brewing.
It helps create that flushed complexion of the professional drinker or sildenafil user though.
-
-
-
@dkf said in The Beer Topic:
You don't need to add nitroglycerine when brewing.
Wow, tell me you don't know anything about craft brewing without saying you don't know anything about craft brewing. I bet your beers are conflagratory at best.
-
For producing beer, you need hop. Now, hop can be grown hydroponically indoors:
-
@BernieTheBernie I'm just surprised that this is new
-
@hungrier Hm. Hop has large big roots which it uses to cope with the winter. That could be an issue with hydroponics.
-
@BernieTheBernie Maybe. I don't know anything about growing hops
-
@hungrier I suspect that there is a scale issue as well. I'm not sure that hop by itself is high-worth enough to warrant going through all that effort. After all, it's still a very minor ingredient (mass/volume/cost-wise, but obviously not flavour-wise!) in beer, so I'm not sure if there really was a need/will to do that before (see e.g. this page that puts it at 1% of total cost!). Though obviously the idea of growing hops more or less everywhere, and getting up to 4 harvests per year is probably attractive to hop growers.
-
@remi said in The Beer Topic:
Though obviously the idea of growing hops more or less everywhere, and getting up to 4 harvests per year is probably attractive to hop growers.
Yeah, maybe. Now you have infrastructure that has to be paid for. I can't imagine that hops are that lucrative, but that's just talking out of my ass.
-
@remi said in The Beer Topic:
@hungrier I suspect that there is a scale issue as well. I'm not sure that hop by itself is high-worth enough to warrant going through all that effort. After all, it's still a very minor ingredient (mass/volume/cost-wise, but obviously not flavour-wise!) in beer, so I'm not sure if there really was a need/will to do that before (see e.g. this page that puts it at 1% of total cost!). Though obviously the idea of growing hops more or less everywhere, and getting up to 4 harvests per year is probably attractive to hop growers.
I can think of two reasons:
- Only female flowers are used, and they must not be pollinated unless you want to ruin them. Hop plants generally grow only female or male flowers. Growing them indoors would reduce the chance of accidental pollination by gusts of wind from some rare seedling (male plants are culled from commercial fields, but apparently a rare plant can have both and mess up the crop).
- Hop shoots are a bit of an expensive culinary fad the last few years. They're terribly expensive because normally they only show up at the start of the season, must be collected close to the ground, and have to be carefully handpicked out from the usual flowering stems. Growing them indoors could mean you pull them out of cold storage to start shoots at any time of the year, and you can raise the hydroponics system a bit off the ground to make picking easier (they do the same thing for strawberries and tomatoes nowadays).
-
@JBert said in The Beer Topic:
I can think of two reasons:
- Only female flowers are used [...]
Yeah but that falls back to my point about cost/RoI. In theory, yes, there are clearly some advantages to growing them in an entirely controlled environment, but I am not sure how much additional values it brings, nor whether that additional value is worth it. Which is my answer (pulled out of my ass, I'll grant you) to the original question of "why wasn't this done before?"
(for some sort of comparison, we don't grow wheat or barley in hydroponics, probably not because it's not feasible, but because it's just not worth it given the price/effort)
- Hop shoots are a bit of an expensive culinary fad the last few years. They're terribly expensive
Uh, TIL. Though the price might be misleading. If the shoot is anything like the flower, they're incredibly light so 1 kg is a huge volume (when I recently picked wild hops for a homebrew, I picked about the volume of a football, I'd say, and it was something like 100-150 g, no more). Still, at that price...
From TFA:
Some say that eating a handful of hop shoots is akin to eating a hedgerow, while others consider it to be βkale-like with a faint nuttinessβ.
So yummy. Some people...
Our consensus is that hop shoots are very unique indeed, with flavors of peas, beans, asparagus,β¦
Great. So why don't you just go and eat peas, beans, asparagus instead, for a tiny fraction of the price...?
-
@BernieTheBernie said in The Beer Topic:
For producing beer
modern beer
in ye old times Gruut was the thing
-
@remi said in The Beer Topic:
getting up to 4 harvests per year is probably attractive to hop growers
Beyond that, there are not many areas specialized in growing hop. When the harvest is bad in one area, you get a price hike already.
-
@BernieTheBernie Sure, but is the value of the crop high-enough to cover the cost of this hydroponics culture, including during the good years? Again, this is just to try and answer the "why hasn't this been done before?" question. There are obvious agronomic benefits to this culture, but it is not obvious to me that the economic benefits are there.
Also, for at least some of the hops, the quality/region of origin matters, so some brewers might be reluctant, or need some convincing, to use hops that aren't grown in the traditional manner/region. Of course, it's likely that most of the hops are actually used in mass-produced
lagerpiss (despite those using far less hops than anything else, but the sheer volume is so large!), where these are probably secondary concerns.
-
@remi You may be right. TFA does not give much reason for why it is something special, just
This crop is in high demand worldwide but its quality and quantity are strongly affected by climate and other variants.
And it is just part of their "workplace" feature, showing what kind of work people with a university degree in science (mostly life science) are doing outside of university jobs. So, the product here is not the main topic of TFA.
-
@HardwareGeek said in The Official Status Thread:
@Zerosquare Beer is definitely not gluten free. Barley is full of gluten, and wheat beer even more so. I have seen beer made from sorghum, which is gluten free, but it's still beer, so .
Try this one (after you pronounce it right )
It's kind of awful. And smells of
elderberrieselderflowers. I'm told the yeast used is gluten-free, though.E: Its trademark is Pagan Brews, so I guess that rules it out
-
@Applied-Mediocrity said in The Beer Topic:
@HardwareGeek said in The Official Status Thread:
@Zerosquare Beer is definitely not gluten free. Barley is full of gluten, and wheat beer even more so. I have seen beer made from sorghum, which is gluten free, but it's still beer, so .
Try this one (after you pronounce it right )
It's kind of awful. And smells of
elderberrieselderflowers. I'm told the yeast used is gluten-free, though.E: Its trademark is Pagan Brews, so I guess that rules it out
2.7%? Who sells water as beer? That's fraud.
-
-
@MrL Mead is not beer, so technically my post is off-topic
-
@Applied-Mediocrity Mead? 2.7%?
Give me a moment to fetch the szabla, I'll pay the brewers a visit.
-
@Applied-Mediocrity said in The Beer Topic:
Mead is not beer
But still aunt wiki tells us:
The alcoholic content ranges from about 3.5% ABV to more than 20%.
So your Lubbyeties Plooshkawka Medinsh is
Mead Light
perhaps?
-
@BernieTheBernie said in The Beer Topic:
@Applied-Mediocrity said in The Beer Topic:
Mead is not beer
But still aunt wiki tells us:
The alcoholic content ranges from about 3.5% ABV to more than 20%.
So your Lubbyeties Plooshkawka Medinsh is
Mead Light
perhaps?I'm guessing that the 2.7% must be a taxman's percentage?
-
@BernieTheBernie said in The Beer Topic:
@Applied-Mediocrity said in The Beer Topic:
Mead is not beer
But still aunt wiki tells us:
The alcoholic content ranges from about 3.5% ABV to more than 20%.
So your Lubbyeties Plooshkawka Medinsh is
Mead Light
perhaps?I'm guessing the drink in question is what we call "mead beer" around these parts, which is exactly what it sounds like - although the example in question apparently involves sex in a canoe.
Even the most wretched sort of proper mead starts at 3 parts water to 1 part wort and around 12% ABV. They are best avoided.
The drinkable stuff starts a 2 water to 1 wort @ 14% ABV or so. As should be obvious from the foregoing, proper mead is more similar to wine than it is to beer.
-
@GOG said in The Beer Topic:
involves sex in a canoe
Good thing I picked this one then. Among other things I also can't swim very well
-
@Applied-Mediocrity So you like living on the edge?
-
@GOG I rather prefer Firefox
-
Back on topic!
After Weyn-beer, yeah this funny pants has a last name of wine but is so makes beer, it's back to Omer.
-
@MrL said in The Beer Topic:
@admiral_p said in The Beer Topic:
@mrl see you in five years.
Heh, sure.
It has been 5 years. How do you feel about IPAs now @MrL ?