The Lemon Fool

I used to love Banks's mild...can you still get it in the Black Country?

John

Yes, still available last time I looked - renamed 'Original' I think?

Do Banks's still use the marketing term "Unspoilt by progress". Not quite sure what's happened to Banks's these days anyway. Weren't they taken over by Marstons. My parents local was a Banks's pub. I used to drink mixed (Mild and Bitter). It was the only beer I ever did this with. But they were definitely better combined than by themselves I reckon.

Gotta say I'm not feeling this "modern" beer thing particularly. The idea of traditional beer is a bit of misnomer. There are so many historical trends and variations of beer - very little is actually new. IPA's and Milds were originally strong, porters and stouts came long before pale. The "traditional bitter" was I believe a post WW2 British thing. But it was just another strand in the history of brewing. And sure enough things moved on. Not least that many of the old styles have been revived and developed on.

Colder, fizzer, keg beer. I'm glad you are and others are enjoying it BrummieDave. I'm not gonna fight it. My local CAMRA twitter account is awash with the same thing. And indeed the argument would you rather people drank this or Fosters and Carling is a good one. But for me, for the most part I'm sticking to normal pubs with cask ales.

Yes, Banks's are(were) my local big brewery over in Wolves. They are part of Marston's now, along with Wychwood, Ringwood, Jennings and various others

And that's fine of course, and we can all celebrate the increased focus that beer is getting, and I've no doubt the competition from the new entrants will create winners and losers, as in any competitive market, including the weaker established organisations. I also welcome the increased availability of the more established non-UK brewers in the same style such as Stone, Firestone Walker, Mikkeller etc.

I'm not a slave to the fashion though, and JMN2 referred to the 'Del Monte' aspect of some modern beers. I have no liking for the more 'tropical' brews even from the breweries I mentioned. I find Brewdog Elvis Juice just too fruity for example, and there are many more that are a lot more 'Del Monte' like than that.

As a beer drinker however, I'm just really pleased to have a wider choice, and my post was just in the spirit of the title, capturing what I'd had last night and recording the fact that i enjoyed it.

I'm getting a bit of craft beer fatigue to be honest.
It is a bit like the arrival of punk in 1977 - which was seen as a sweeping away of the bland, complacent Old Guard and the arrival of new exciting independent bands who were 'The Future'
The reality was , of course, that some of the old bands were excellent (and some were self-indulgent and lazy) and some of the Punk bands were absolutely dreadful

And I think that's pretty much what I said (and I purposely avoid the 'C' word )

I do enjoy some of the new stuff, and welcome the choice (and competition) as mentioned, but I'd rather have a decent well-kept cool pint of Chiswick or similar in a beer garden on a summer's eve than some of the new offerings

I think that the proliferation of small breweries in the UK has been a really good thing. It has improved choice and nobody is being forced to drink anything that they don't want to. I love walking into my local and having a choice of six or seven small brewery beers these days vs five years ago when it was Greene King IPA, Speckled Hen or some lager (those are still there btw so I suppose someone must be drinking them still).

To tell you the truth at my weekly poker game, out of the six or seven people playing, I will be the only one not drinking lager! Why I even associate with these heathens is beyond me!

John

Many of these so-called modern beers are available on cask too. I prefer pubs and micropubs especially nowadays with cask ale,
but am now having a Pilsner Uruquell after my Friday run.

I'm skipping the run and going straight to beer...

You must be hyper-fit, and will certainly need a beer after that; skipping is even more exhausting than running!

I need a beer for its anti-viral properties

Vitamins, antioxidants, fibre - it's all there in beer.

Arnold Schwarzenegger: "Milk is for babies. When you grow up you have to drink beer"

When people comment on my youthful looks, I point out that both hops and alcohol are preservatives...

OT - the Bree Louise, which hosted the odd TMF Social in the past, has been served notice for 20 November, it's going to be demolished as part of the HS2 work at Euston.

Hallucigenia wrote:...

OT - the Bree Louise, which hosted the odd TMF Social in the past, has been served notice for 20 November, it's going to be demolished as part of the HS2 work at Euston.

Good riddance! Cask was horrid, one was served a warm flat pint, complained..."it's supposed to be like that".

JMN2 wrote:Good riddance! Cask was horrid, one was served a warm flat pint, complained..."it's supposed to be like that".

When was that? It was North London CAMRA's pub of the year last year, so one would hope that was a while ago.

I must admit, I was a bit underwhelmed with it at the Social years ago - it was Christmas and super-busy with work Xmas do-ers, but I've enjoyed it more since. I think it's benefited from the competition from the Euston Tap, although I was a bit nervous when I was last in there and saw an array of casks on gravity, they seemed to be getting the throughput though.

I have had bad experiences a couple of times, supported by beery blogs from the likes of Tandleman etc IIRC, or some other. There is still a huge problem in general in London when it comes to cellars and keeping the beer cool.

Just had a can of Beavertown Neck Oil, described as a session IPA...yup I could do a few of those in an evening.

John

By the the way, Oakham's Inferno now, one left after this then two Citras. Nothing fancy or exciting, just beers I like to drink, always solid in cask too. Might pop in to The Radius Arms tomorrow, too lazy to cook or go shopping for beers. We'll see how it goes. Would be nice to get some human and social interaction.

Don't forget the Ealing Beer Festival on Thursday in 2 weeks time.