Most good. well kept real ales - Hook Norton and Elgoods Golden Newt in particular.
Also most locally brewed beers wherever I am in the world. 
Funnily enough, the best pint of Bass I ever had was also in a Derby pub. I don’t know if it’s still brewed just down the road.
Currently sipping a Big Iron - Pedro Ximenez Sherry Fortified Stout from De Moersleutel at 15% ABV, quite something.
Moersleutel are quite the premium brewery and due to recent times increasingly difficult and expensive to bring to the UK!
1 Like
Yes the Bass is still brewed down the road, basically the pint you would buy in a bar. The bottled Bass is apparently brewed in Lancashire.
Hi everyone!
Bought 2 boxes of these for £100 a box. It was a special pre-Christmas offer. Now the 2002 and 2004 sell for £100 each! 
Enjoyed 2002 Christmas Day and 2004 New Year’s Eve!
Ofiaich
1 Like
Favourite beer? What a question. I’ve been drinking real ale for the past sixty years, and if that’s not available (Army, BAOR Germany) I drank Guinness. My favourite beer is from my local microbrewery Goachers of Maidstone (Kent) where I start with a Fine Light, followed by a stout and ending with a Gold Star. At home I drink bottled St.Austell ‘Proper Job’ which is terrific and a mere £2 a bottle from the nearby Co-op.
1 Like
These, along with Proper Job, were my favourites,
They were available in East Yorkshire but now only 2 St Austell beers are available!
2 Likes
Well that’s two more to add to my bucket list. I’ve nor heard of those. I like well hopped beer and Proper Job is that so these two look worth searching for. Lager? Only as a very very last resort. A couple of years ago and a holiday in Rhodes, there was nothing else. Cold, thin, flavourless and completely lacking in hops. Yes I wear a flat cap too 
1 Like
Hi Paul,
These tonight! I like the Shepherd Neame IPA, and the Wold Top Scarborough IPA,
I live in East Yorkshire but haven’t been awarded a flat cap yet!
Ofiaich 
1 Like
I wonder if people like their local beers because they are made with local water, which they are used to.
The first time I went up to the Yorkshire Dales I was in a pub trying the Black Sheep beers. At a nearby table I could hear some locals moaning about the landlord putting on a couple of guest Burton beers. They said they smelled of eggs - a surprise to me as I have lived in East Staffordshire all my life and have drunk a fair sample of them.
That Riggwelter is powerful stuff. A few years ago whilst walking in Wharfedale on a very warm day we stopped off for a drink. I had a pint of the above, Mrs had a half but couldn’t drink it all, I knocked it back. Wow, continuing our walk I felt a little light headed, thinking back what the barman said, you don’t need too much, too right.
1 Like
Thats part of it. Hence Bass in Ireland and US doesn’t taste the same. Yeah, Burton beers stink of rotten eggs.
The egg smell is often attributed to hydrogen sulfide, produced by the yeast. But there are also mercaptans in that Burton Snatch. Often though, too much of a smell is due to production being too fast, and the brewer not letting the beer ferment long enough. Normally CO2 produced during fermentation will reduce the H2S.
I think there is genuine variation in sensitivity for these methylated sulfur compounds in the population. In an early part of my career I researched dimethyl sulfide; its said to be the smell of the sea (its a byproduct of rotting algae). But in a bottle form, its the most noxious substance known. My sense of smell was destroyed for about 3 years after. Its a really bad cabbage smell.
Roll on; Durian fruit. Its said to be the King of Fruits (and the mangoustine, which is delicious, the Queen of Fruits). I gag on it, hotels ban it from rooms. But for some people, its like cat nip, and they can’t get enough of it. Its caused by a volatile chemical. If the Durian is freshly cut, I can tolerate it for about 45 minutes, then obviously the critical ppb concentration is passed, and I’m out. Just like there is a lactose tolerant gene (Europeans only drink cows milk due to a mutation that also confers enhanced innate Vitamin D production), there must be a Durian-tolerance gene.
But for “local water”; Burton beers have their “Burton snatch” odour due to water trickling through gypsum. For over 200 years, other breweries have been “burtonising” beers, adding magnesium sulfate to accentuate the taste of the hops. Its how imitated Pilsner lager is made. I think favouritism towards local brews is a mixture of habit and marketing. The local brewery form many of my years was Home. I think Home Bitter is disgusting, but it was the only beer that my grandad and his stooges would drink (“pint of Home please”).
This smallish brewery has some lovely stuff, this being my current favourite.
Also allows me a very nice drive on the A272 towards Petworth, so definitely a win win!
2 Likes
No to drinking and driving. Hopefully you were driving someone else to the pub to try a beer, and you just took a bottle home.
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the drink driving alcohol limit for drivers is:
- 80 milligrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood (the ‘blood limit’)
- 35 micrograms per 100 millilitres of breath (the ‘breath limit’)
- 107 milligrammes per 100 millilitres of urine (the ‘urine limit’)
Carry on.
I know. Its a disgrace. Should be zero (though in practice, a zero limit is 10mg/100ml). Lower in Scotland, but still too high. England has the highest tolerance for drink driving in Europe, except for Malta, which has the same limits.
Hopefully no one is using these limits as a target to reach.
So you don’t use cruise control then…