Be Excellent To Each Other

Right, so, it's Christmas, and you've a fucking shitload of beers in.

What is the best way to go about consuming them?

1) Drink your favorites firstest
2) Start off with a favourite, then switch to the other stuffs as you like your favorites
3) Any other strategy.

As Gaywood seems to have found women again, someone else can draw the graphs.

I'm all for option 1, as they might get taken aways.

And, also, recomendobeer for christmas, so we can all try a different beer, and it'll be nice.

4) Only buy your favourites.

I drink very lightly and infrequently, so I only ever stock beers that are my favourites or thereabouts. Beer's too expensive for me to buy stuff I don't have a preference for. So I guess my 'beer strategy' is under category 4.

Duvel, Leffe (blonde or brown), Budweiser Budvar Dark in that order are my favourites. Grolsch Weizen and Franziskaner are also-rans. I recommend Duvel most of all, and would like recommendations for some proper Belgian beers (Hoegaarden was awful when I tried it, unfortunately).

Excellent stuffs, hopefully, we'll come up with the BeeX beer list before the 24th.

Let's move with a purpose, people.

I like Gulden Draak

Number 1.

As you drink more, you become less discerning, and the sub-par/budget stuff tastes more and more acceptable. Whilst conversely, you notice the delicious qualities of your faves less and less. It's why if you drink two bottles of wine at a house party, you drink the nice one first - same principle.

Recommendo Beers!

Bluebird - a delicious ale from the Lake District.
Timothy Taylor's Landlord
Goose Island IPA - A tasty beer from Chicago, makes you sleepy though.
Black Sheep - a fine Northern classic, a rich, brown ale.
Badger's Golden Ale - Light, fruity, summery golden ale.
Sam Smith's Mild - very cheap in Huddersfield at £1.30ish a pint, this dark mild is rather tasty.

And finally a delicious cider should be counted, and that is the creamy, buttery, utterly amazing cloudy cider 'Addlestones'.

Beer tastes like dirt.

I can second the suggestions of Black Sheep, Bluebird and Landlord. And throw into the pot

Wychwood Circle Master
Theakstons Old Peculier
Moorhouses Pendle Witch is very nice.

A proper Belgian Kriek (cherry beer) is absolutely gorgeous.

Guinness can be recommended, but only when in Dublin. In fact, rule of thumb is the closer to the brewery you are, the better.

Bourbon, look no further than Makers Mark. All else is mere pretenders to the throne.

To be fair, I thought that when I was 12, too.

This looks more like number 2 than 1. But anyway, if all the beer was for me Id drink the nice ones first, then after a few move on to the not so nice later when Im too drunk to actually care or taste what I am drinking. If I had to share the beer, then Id drink all my faves first since I bought it!



What, there are people out there who dont like beer? Burn them at the stake I say.

Pendle Witch - used to breath that stuff when I lived in Manchester. God I miss it nearly as much as the Northern Lasses who used to serve me pints of it.

Xmas Beerio - Sainsbury's for the lot:

Poacher's Choice - a dangerous fucker, you DON'T want too many, but one to wash down the Xmas dinner is tidy.
Bombardier Satanic Mills - a stunning porter style tipple, try it as a curveball for Guiness-wanting visitors or with some nice cheeses yourself.
Tanglefoot or Hobgoblin in cans - a good all-round solution for session drinking when you don't need to get up any day soon.
Biere d'Alsace little stubby bottles - for guests your wife invited

Pretty much any of the Badger beers (except that rubbishy Spew Pernly-Shittingstall "inspired" nettle beer, which sucks), Wadworth 6x bottled (although canned is ok) and when that's all run out, a few cans of London Pride.

Ah, that's another variety I'm meaning to try. Belgian beers are ace. Still, the only Kriek I've seen sold locally is the Bacchus Kriek, which is pricey at £2.50 a bottle.

For a brewery with such a large range, I'm boggled as to how they don't release any shit. I've not tried the nettle beer but I'm willing to bet as a niche beer there's some out there'll love it. It's not going to be comparable to the rest really, so I'm not going to compare it.

These are absolutely the dog's bollocks though: http://www.kingstonebrewery.co.uk/

From Tintern, my local Spar stocks their wares. If the local BeeX community fancy a trip there or a session supping their wares at mine, that's doable. Beers named after the hops they're made from is a surprisingly 'ronseal' and pleasant way of buying falling down juice.

It's the only baddun I've encountered. You're right, some people might like it, but for me it was just a slightly fizzy IPA. Might be nice on a summer's afternoon, if nothing else is readily to hand.

3) Pit hand into box full of beers, pull one out at random.

I usually only buy Spitfire, Old Speckled Hen and Abbot ale, so any of those out of a box will please me.

I read the title as 'bears'. Bears are more manly.

Bears will rip your head off, take a dump down your neck and then bugger off to the nearest cave. Bears are bearly, beers are manly. I know what I want come Christmas day!

Missus Droman tried successfully to get me in the spirit this week by buying me some Rosy Nosey and Morrisons own brand Chestnut beer which were both very nice. Me, Myp and bagwaa tried some ale up the road from us the other week called Tickety Boo which was rather good.
oh, those and the old classic Old Speckled Hen.

Favourites/nicest first.

I've invariably got a case of Tennent's in as it's cheap & tastes alright. I'm still figuring out what ales I like so I just buy a few bottles of whatever's in the 3 for £4 that week & try to remember what ones I liked. In related beery news, Innis & Gunn is £1.10 a bottle in Tesco this week (& Captain Morgan rum is a tenner)

4 quid odd in Knott Bar in Manchester. And still worth it. You only have one, or possibly two. Because it is very sweet and very, very easy to drink.

I just don't get the Badger love (steady...). In Costco, you can get a box of 12 Wychwood or 12 Badger for £12+vat, and Wychwood wins every time. I couldn't work out what I didn't like about them (apart from the taste) and then someone mentioned Hugh Fearnly Whittingstall and yep, that hits the nail on the head.

Hawkshead Brewery do some good stuff as well.

Whenever I have beer in, I tend to drink from the lowest abv to the highest. It's a habit I've picked up from my Dad.

Standard beers to have around for me are basically anything by Adnams - Broadside is particularly good for Christmas; it's nice and rich and fruity, but it's a bit strong at 6.5%. I agree with all the suggestions above about Hobgoblin, Black Sheep, and that.

For a real Christmas beer, try and get hold of some Gluhbier. It is pretty much exactly what it sounds like - a beer with fruit, herb and spices, designed to be drunk warm. The taste is not unlike Gluhwein, but a bit more, well, beery.

Belgian beer wise, I used to rely on the recommendations of Jason at the amazing Belgian Belly in Chorlton, Manchester, but I've moved away, and they've closed down, so I find it a bit tricky to figure out whether I'm likely to like something or not now based on the bottle. Sure, I know broadly what a blonde, a dark, a double, tripel, etc will taste like, but there's so much variation within those that it's hard to predict things once you step beyond the Orval/Leffe/Liefmans/Timmermans stuff you get pretty well everywhere - and it's not exactly cheap to experiment either (the £2.50 quoted above is about what I'd expect to pay at the lower end for serious Belgians). That said, going out and blowing twenty five quid on a selection of random Belgians can make for a fun weekend of experimenting.

One thing that's definitely worth trying - if you can find it - is a Geuze. It's a very, very unusual drink, and there's a pretty decent chance you'll hate it when you first try it, but it's worth persisting with. They're incredibly sour, slightly musty smelling things that are almost but not entirely unlike any beer you've ever tasted before. It's made from a mixture of old and young lambics, and it takes several years to brew a batch (meaning that it's usually terrifyingly expensive stuff), but it's often called the Champagne of beers, and I think it's for good reason.

Failing that, try and get a decent Kriek - one based off a lambic, made with real sour cherries, not one based on a witbier with fruit syrup - something like Oude Beersel Kriek or Drie Fonteinen Kriek. Again, a bit of an acquired taste, but they're really lovely palate-cleansing astringently sour/bitter drinks.

I don't really do beer. No hang on, that's not right.

I used to like the Belgian style lagers, but they are getting a little samey to me now, and I find them a little too sweet. Which is weird as I really like sweet things. I love that crabbes (?) ginger beer, and that is really sweet, but then I love ginger. Marble breweries Ginger Marble for you Manchester based people, Marble Beer House, Chorlton is a really nice little pub.

Wrt drinking them at home, I tend to only buy the beers I like now a days, and I am tending more to the lighter ales, like Burning Gold, or St Peter's Organic Ale (which is REALLY nice, btw). I find that these are a lot easier to serve and get a nice pint of out of the bottle.

Can't really argue with any of the beer selections, but I did pick up a few bottles of Budvar Dark by chance last night and very good they were too.

Hobgoblin is still my favourite winter drink, however. Far too heavy for summer, but a real joy when it's dark and cold.

You're right, that's not right.






Chorlton is basically utterly lovely and although I couldn't live in the city again, I really really really miss it.

I moved house four times in five years in Manchester and never left Chorlton, I took any old shithole to stay there. Marble being one of the better pubs from a great bunch... but for a while the Hogshead down High Street was amazing for real ales, was in there every night on the way home from CIS.

Clever Investigators Splurkly?

Clank In Silence?

Christmas beers have been ordered at our house.

This year my dad and I will be drinking Hobgoblin, and I will come to celebrate nearly one entire year of being an ale drinker.

Peroni from the freezer is awesomely cold.

Well caught, Mali.

Co-Operative Insurance Services, alas.

Now supping a bottle of the Badger's Pickled Partridge, which has no business presenting me wih5t so many layers of flavour at only 4.5% It's almost a swiss army knife of an ale, without to much compromise in any direction. I could put a few away before the mess kicks in, as well which is more than I can say for a lot of my favourite ales.

Fair play to criticise Badger ales, they are very much of their region same as MArston's Neame or suchlike, however I defy anyone to write them off before they've tried the whole range- there's more diversity in their catalogue than most and in the right season/meal setting there's likely to be a couple of Badgers for everybody.

Golden Glory is my favourite Badger beer.

Bears.

Oh, also if anyone is in Salisbury, check out the Wyndham Arms. Hopback Breweries (Summer lightning, et al) really good little pub, with really really good beer!

Summer Lightning is absolutely gorgeous. Had that at Bishops Castle Beer Festival and it was perfect.

standard pilsener: jupiler (interbrew)
kriek: Lindemans (my surname, but with an s, so always good to drink with vaguely known)
Amber-coloured for a nice quality beer: palm, or de Koninck
hot summer: paulaner or stephaner weizener..

Get this. My wife doesn't like me drinking anything other than lager, because she hates the smell of ale on my breath. Cheek.

WTF is she doing in the pub? Bitch should be at home.

Any beer from Badger, Bath Ales, Wickwar, Battledown Brewery and some others.

I like Badger beers a lot, but the thing that slightly annoys me is that they dump actual other things in it to get it to taste of the other thing (so adding ginger to make it taste gingery), rather than achieving the taste by subtlly skilled use of hops and that. It's like drinking an alcopop.

Talking of which, Crabbies alcoholic ginger beer is ridiculously drinkable.

The dirty swines!

Try this if you ever get the chance, folks. It is completely heroic.

I must admit that poverty and lush tendencies have made Strongbow Black a staple of late, though. I know, and I'm sorry.

how do you say that is it 'Quack' or 'Crack'?

Quack!

Aspistus Heather Honey

GOGOGOGOGOGO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stick with your WKD then.

Northerners pronounce it 'Quack'

Southerners pronounce it 'Quark'

Brummies pronounce it 'Magic Water'

St Peters Organic Ale is my current fave.

That's lovely is that. Fantastic bottle as well.