I suppose that will qualify as exotic food for the new comers.

Last edited by RobbieB (2013-01-15 07:07:15)

You got to get a good one sammy the oxford brewery does a good range of ales.

A lot of the craft beers, are indeed, lively homebrews with too much sugar cane. I've drank some winter beers over Christmas, and the theory goes you should drink and savour them like wine, but in the end its beer and you can't take your time drinking it. Beer is for consuming fast.

In saying that, there's nothing quite like a beer buzz when you are in the mood. But alas, the older one gets, the less one can imbibe with impunity. The physical rigours of a full-on pub crawl doesn't appeal to me anymore and the body can't take the pace in drinking more than a few pints and the enjoyment has gone. It's a young man's game.

I find that what I drink depends on where I drink it , who I am with and if I am eating, or not. In an English pub with friends I tend to drink a real ale. I have never drunk wine in a pub. Usually I am driving so I stick to 1 or 2 pints depending on beer strength. Sometimes I drink Guinness or Porter beer as a full-back. In an Irish bar I have the Guinness or equivalent. In a restaurant, or at home with food, it will be wine. I always drink the best bottle I have first in case I am tempted to open a second,third bottle which always seems like a good idea but usually isn't. Over Christmas We all had good quality Port with the Stilton and wife's gingerbread and a late night Whiskey in male company. Finnish koskenkorva or equivalent was drunk with rollmop herrings as a starter to the meals. Quality rather than quantity. My last pub crawl was over 20 years ago and I staggered away from the pub leaving 3 pints of untouched beer on the bar. Definitely a young man's game.

It was starting to get fashionable to be a brewer in the late 90s and so it has continued. Good real ale can't be beat, and I do separate this from the many craft beers that made by farmers and men who have sheds and lock-ups.

The big breweries modus operandi in the UK has always been to take over smaller brewers and shut them down asap.

Now they mess with their publicans until they quit and then they sell the pub onto property developers. Their dystopian future is everyone sitting at home drinking tinnies. Can you still get that dreadful Ice Beer dishwater in the UK, Foster's Ice and the like? A real nasty cheap gimmicky lager.

A good French wine also cannot be beaten, but the problem there is maintaining supply of the good stuff and avoiding the inferior wines that all wine merchants seem to be well stocked with. A mucca of mine lives in Bordeaux and he insists all the locals prefer to drink whisky and spirits, and they really only touch wine with food.