Re: Watered down Budweiser? : Sun Mar 03, 2013 10:55 am  

Stealth Comic wrote:

I live in Keighley and I have to admit I find it pretty frustrating when somebody orders a Carling instead of a pint of some of the fantastic locally brewed stuff we have around here.

Heard you the first time.
I live 9 miles down the road from you and very popular round here are beers we import from your locale .
I refer, of course, to the tried and tested range of Taylor's beers.

Re: Watered down Budweiser? : Sun Mar 03, 2013 11:33 am  

wigan_rlfc wrote:

In your early 20's, single, on a Saturday night you don't really want to be spending full night surrounded by beards and beer-bellies if you know what I mean.

TBF though the second-stage drinking journey to which the young-uns refer is very little to do at all with the question of enjoyment of drink, and very much to do with going to the place where a large proportion of the required gender will also be, with a view to intercourse therewith, and getting in a state as quickly and as cheaply as possible, method not important. And also taking into account that on the odd occasion, alcoholic beverages just might not be the only mood-altering substances in use.

The what might be described, in deer terms, as rutting pubs and clubs want to serve you in ten seconds, at as high a profit margin and low pisspoor quality product as possible, and have equally as little interest in their bar staff fannying around taking the time to pull a decent pint, as you would have in savouring one.

Their customers are pretty oblivious to the prices, the products or anything else other than this is where everybody goes, so they have to go there too. I understand this, we all did it.

Having a decent real ale is fantastic, but it's not better than getting laid. The nearest pubs come to a demographic where both activities are catered for would probably be Wetherspoons, but only to a very limited extent.

Re: Watered down Budweiser? : Sun Mar 03, 2013 11:49 am  

El Barbudo wrote:

Heard you the first time.
I live 9 miles down the road from you and very popular round here are beers we import from your locale .
I refer, of course, to the tried and tested range of Taylor's beers.

Timothy Taylor's set the bar very high, proper "beer for men of the north" as their wagons proudly display.

Lots of good smaller breweries around like Goose Eye, Naylor's and Old Bear.

A little further afield, some of the stuff coming out of Saltaire is fantastic.

[Wanderer]

Re: Watered down Budweiser? : Sun Mar 03, 2013 11:54 am  

Was in Leeds on Friday evening and had a Naylors (Black & Tan) and a Saltaire (Hazelnut Coffee Porter), both excellent drinks.

Re: Watered down Budweiser? : Sun Mar 03, 2013 11:56 am  

Stealth Comic wrote:

Timothy Taylor's set the bar very high, proper "beer for men of the north" as their wagons proudly display.

Lots of good smaller breweries around like Goose Eye, Naylor's and Old Bear.

A little further afield, some of the stuff coming out of Saltaire is fantastic.

Do you want me to tell the story about the Goose Eye pub again

Re: Watered down Budweiser? : Sun Mar 03, 2013 12:08 pm  

Ferocious Aardvark wrote:

The what might be described, in deer terms, as rutting pubs and clubs want to serve you in ten seconds, at as high a profit margin and low pisspoor quality product as possible, and have equally as little interest in their bar staff fannying around taking the time to pull a decent pint, as you would have in savouring one.

An attitude started in 1984.

I can be precise with the date as its the year that I moved back from Newcastle to Leeds and my last contract in Newcastle was the refurbishment of a quayside warehouse into a Tetleys pub, an act that was remarkable for several reasons...

1. Tetleys were almost unheard of in the North East at the time, I only knew of one Tetleys pub on Tyneside and that was The Queen Vic in Felling and that my friends, is another, completely different story

2. Opening a pub on the Newcastle Quayside was considered to be an act of madness at the time for the Quayside was an area of abandoned semi derelict warehouses from an era of several decades prior, if you went on the quayside of a Saturday night in 1984 then you were either looking for a prostitute or committing suicide, or both, probably in that order actually.

3. There's probably other reasons...

Anyway, at the first site meeting the architects came up from Leeds and were subjected to a lot of Geordie piss-taking about how much money they were wasting on this project, and then they explained why it was that they had leased this five-storey, but very narrow frontage, warehouse.

The design of the place was such that it was laid out for the punters to come in through the front door, be shepherded upstairs to one of four differently themed floors, served, and then ushered down the back stairs and outside, preferably being relieved of the maximum amount of money possible in as quick a time as possibly and then disposed of, the architect actually used the words "Old men who sit in pubs with one pint all night are no use to us at all".

And they had another surprise on launch night, when the bars were fitted out by their own contractors they wouldn't tell anyone what beer was being served, it was a big surprise, a new beer for Tetleys and one that would change the drinking habits of the North East, we got an invite to the opening night.

The surprise was that it was the first Tetleys pub to serve Castlemaine XXXX.

The day the beer died - October 1984.

Re: Watered down Budweiser? : Sun Mar 03, 2013 7:08 pm  

My brother did the "ale train" from Leeds to Marsden on Saturday with his workmates. He loved it as you stop off at real ale pubs on route (he works at the Coors brewery at Tadcaster).

Anybody else done this?

Re: Watered down Budweiser? : Sun Mar 03, 2013 10:26 pm  

I went out to see a band last week in the company of my regular drinking partner, a Geordie who goes by the name of Sparky, an irrelevant fact that adds nothing to this tale other than to explain why we were drinking Newcastle Brown.

He walks up to the bar, looks up and down for a hand pump, sighs, and orders a couple of bottles of Newcastle. The barman picks two up, opens them and puts them in front of us. Sparky looks at the barman, the barman looks back expectantly. Sparky asks for a couple of glasses. Shocked, the barman grabs a couple of pint glasses. Sparky puts him right, and asks for a pair of half glasses.
The barman then utters the immortal line....

"Would you like ice?"

You couldn't make it up.

Re: Watered down Budweiser? : Mon Mar 04, 2013 6:52 am  

Marcus Notsquare wrote:

Remember when perry was renamed pear cider? I knew a couple of guys who drank it, until I pointed out we used to call it Babycham.

To traditionalists, the terms "perry" and "pear cider" are not interchangeable.

Perry is made from perry pears, these contain high amounts of sorbitol - a natural sweetener that doesn't convert to alcohol.

Pear cider is usually made from concentrated (dessert) pear juice, although up to 25% apple juice is also included. A real perry has a natural sweetness but sorbitol also has other properties, giving rise to the saying: “Perry goes down like velvet, round like thunder and out like lightning.”

[John_D]

Re: Watered down Budweiser? : Mon Mar 04, 2013 9:12 am  

duke street 10 wrote:

My brother did the "ale train" from Leeds to Marsden on Saturday with his workmates. He loved it as you stop off at real ale pubs on route (he works at the Coors brewery at Tadcaster).

Anybody else done this?

Many times. It's suffering due to it's own popularity though. It's utter chaos March through to October.
Indeed, did a few stops last weekend. One table in Riverhead Brewery Tap in Marsden had a bunch of 7 lads sat round it all supping lager, which is kind of missing the point.