Lord P wouldn’t touch alcohol until we did a tour of Weston’s and we persuaded him to try Stowford Press. He was hooked!
We tend to do a detour when we go down to Wells and call in at Thatchers to stock up.
Darllenwr also likes Symonds, which is on tap at our favourite pub/restaurant in Hereford.
They used to have Doom Bar on tap, before it became so popular. At the moment, it’s been replaced by Jemima’s Pitchfork, a Welsh beer, which is more bitter than Doom, so whilst Darllenwr likes it, I’m not so keen.
I skipped breakfast one day and spent the morning walking on a trail. We returned to town about lunchtime, we stopped off for pizza and I noted they had added hard cider to their menu. Let's just say it has been a long time since I have felt that loopie that fast. Mr. Image had to drive the rest of the way home. Lesson learned to not drink down hard cider on an empty stomach on a hot day when you are thirsty. It did taste very nice.
@Priscilla there are few things more refreshing on a hot day IMHO than Thatcher's Dry, which as far as I'm aware only exists as a draught and isn't sold in bottles. Technically, though, it's keg and not real. It's also clear to look at.
I got some critically glares and mutterings from some of the toothless habitués of one local near here for ordering what they regarded as a poncey cider rather than the sour green cloudy stuff with bits floating in it that they were drinking.
Speaking from experience, sour green cloudy cider with bits floating in can be a very effective laxative.
I recall one of those "inside the factory" programs focused on Bulmer's. Absolutely nothing they showed me made me want to drink their product; indeed the opposite. They dilute the apple juice down with water, then add sugar (Wrong! Cider should be made from undiluted unadulterated apple juice. This is pure profiteering, putting a cheap product (sugar) in place of an expensive one (apple juice)). They capture the CO2 from the fermentation, carbon filter out the apple scent from it and then use it to artificially recarbonate the end product. (Wrong. Either do a secondary fermentation and keep the natural CO2 with the product, as is done with Champagne, or, as is actually traditional, leave it uncarbonated. And if you are going to do this bizarre capture and repressurise thing, why take the apple smell out of the CO2?!? Especially when the end result is going to be lacking apple character because you've cheated by using sugar water in place of part of your apple juice).
Gregg Wallace seemed impressed by the gleaming metal and bottle filling machines but I was left thinking (a) I won't bother with Bulmers (not that I think I would anyway) as it's cheaply made fizzy alcopop, not cider, and (b) what Gregg Wallace knows about cider could be written in 24 point type on the back of a postage stamp.
Gregg Wallace seemed impressed by the gleaming metal and bottle filling machines but I was left thinking (a) I won't bother with Bulmers (not that I think I would anyway) as it's cheaply made fizzy alcopop, not cider, and (b) what Gregg Wallace knows about cider could be written in 24 point type on the back of a postage stamp.
🤣
At Thatchers, you can take your own containers and buy draught cider. It amuses/horrifies me to see (presumably) locals turn up with gallon containers to be filled with cider which has a warning that it should be drunk within 7 days.
“DRUNK” is probably the word!
Gregg Wallace seemed impressed by the gleaming metal and bottle filling machines but I was left thinking (a) I won't bother with Bulmers (not that I think I would anyway) as it's cheaply made fizzy alcopop, not cider, and (b) what Gregg Wallace knows about cider could be written in 24 point type on the back of a postage stamp.
🤣
At Thatchers, you can take your own containers and buy draught cider. It amuses/horrifies me to see (presumably) locals turn up with gallon containers to be filled with cider which has a warning that it should be drunk within 7 days.
“DRUNK” is probably the word!
Gallon is only eight pints. That's easily got through in a couple of nights.
At Thatchers, you can take your own containers and buy draught cider. It amuses/horrifies me to see (presumably) locals turn up with gallon containers to be filled with cider which has a warning that it should be drunk within 7 days.
There is a place at Pontrilas (between Abergavenny and Hereford) where you can do that. Most Welsh cider has disappointed me, but theirs is wonderful!
My son got married in Devon about 10 years ago. The night before, a few of us went to the village inn for a drink. I asked for cider and was disappointed to be offered a standard branded product. I asked if they had anything local; the landlord said, "Yes", went to an unmarked cask I could see in the back room, and served me. It was possibly the best cider I've ever tasted and not expensive although, looking back, I do wonder about its legality!
Gregg Wallace seemed impressed by the gleaming metal and bottle filling machines but I was left thinking (a) I won't bother with Bulmers (not that I think I would anyway) as it's cheaply made fizzy alcopop, not cider, and (b) what Gregg Wallace knows about cider could be written in 24 point type on the back of a postage stamp.
Like a lot of companies (not just alcohol) the rot set in when the family started to take a back seat, then accelerated when they were taken over in 2003. It's been value engineered to within an inch of its life to make sure not a penny is wasted in the production.
What they (initially Scottish and Newcastle) were buying were the brands more than anything.
Thursdays tend to be cider'n'gammon night. Designated bottle is some Breton cider a friend gave us: looks still and cloudy.
The one holiday I spent in Brittany - some forty mumble years ago - I was too young and innocent to really appreciate the local product. Though I must have drunk some, since I came home with one of the traditional shallow earthenware cups.
Breton cider is lovely. There is (or was) a good restaurant in Richmond (London) which served excellent crepes and had a selection of Breton and Norman ciders.
[quote="betjemaniac;c-436734"
Like a lot of companies (not just alcohol) the rot set in when the family started to take a back seat, then accelerated when they were taken over in 2003. It's been value engineered to within an inch of its life to make sure not a penny is wasted in the production.
What they (initially Scottish and Newcastle) were buying were the brands more than anything.
[/quote] I fear that this may also be true of Aspall's cider (now owned by Coors). I used to love it when we lived in Suffolk and it was local ... haven't tried it recently, it may be OK!
Breton cider is lovely. There is (or was) a good restaurant in Richmond (London) which served excellent crepes and had a selection of Breton and Norman ciders.
My experience of cider in Brittany was that it was as thin as piss and about as worth drinking. It's possible that I was just unlucky in my choices of establishment, and that I kept finding the Breton equivalent of "pubs" that specialize in selling fizzy yellow drinks to teenagers, but I was not at all impressed.
When I did a chunk of the Camino I really got to enjoy Spanish cider. I like the yeastiness and dryness of it. I disliked the insistence of the bartenders on pouring for me, pouring in pharmaceutical increments, and pouring in their time. Yes, it's quite a show, explained as aerating the cider, but if you must pour for me, give me enough and more frequently. Amount and frequency were not enough for this thirsty pilgrim. (All that walking, all that praying, all that contemplation - thirsty work!)
The US in general is barely aware of cider. A company has sprung up (or expanded its market) called Angry Orchard. I've tried its Crisp Apple but likely it's sweeter than people with more wide experience would enjoy. I like sweet so I like it. I may end up trying their Rose (made from pink fleshed apples) or Green Apple.
Here in Oregon we have quite a number of cideries, and even pubs that feature cider as the main tipple. Angry Orchard is the Budweiser of cider. I recommend Wandering Aengus if you can find it.
during the mashing process, sparging is essentially rinsing the mash through with different (additional) water
Having always looked askance at anything more complicated than the tinned beer kits (which I've made for years) lockdown boredom got me into full grain brewing from scratch.
It's (relatively) expensive* to assemble all the required kit - but actually when offset against what I've not spent in the pub or going out anywhere in the last 18 months (beyond the supermarket) there were suddenly the funds available to give it a go and it passes the time!
*several hundred pounds total over a couple of months, not ridiculously expensive given a lack of other things to spend money on, but in the past always competing with other things.
I like brewing milds (being a child of the West Midlands now living somewhere pubs don't sell them) and lower alcohol things. About 3% max is my aim - it's difficult to get much under 4/2/4.7/5% in a pub at the moment.
We ve been in Scotland about three years now and not yet set foot in a pub .
Had you told me years previously that would be the case, I would have laughed in your face.
But…….🤷♀️
I've been in to eat, but not just for a drink. I *really* miss it, I'm one of those dreadful locals that stands at the bar (not every night of the week you understand, but usually at least once a week for 2-3 pints).
Out here in the rural back of beyond it's really the social centre of the village, clearing house for all the gossip, just *contact* with people beyond the family across generations (as is church, but the dynamic's different) - especially for agricultural workers or those of us who worked from home even before the pandemic.
It's probably the thing I most want back actually from 'life as it was before' - some people are back in the swing already, but I'm still playing it fairly safe. Also, having just moved to a new village, we don't really know anyone yet, and casual drinking has always been my way into a community in the past!
I've stayed in a few places in rural Scotland where the owners have been trying to remain the local pub and entice tourists with a more upmarket restaurant/ambience ('We'll just bring your drink through to the lounge')
The visitors are the premium item, but the place's financial viability probably depends on the year round presence of the dozen or so drougthy neebors limpeted to the bar.
I've stayed in a few places in rural Scotland where the owners have been trying to remain the local pub and entice tourists with a more upmarket restaurant/ambience ('We'll just bring your drink through to the lounge')
The visitors are the premium item, but the place's financial viability probably depends on the year round presence of the dozen or so drougthy neebors limpeted to the bar.
always a difficult trick to pull of I think (although I much prefer 'wet' pubs anyway. The pub in the next village to where I used to live literally had a curtain across the bar, behind which the remaining locals had to stand, so as not to contaminate with their presence the people dining.
My own last village pub was an extension of the houses round it, probably skating the very fine line between accepting of and hostile to visitors (and sometimes the wrong side of it to be honest) but the living room, snug, etc for a lot of people with no room to swing a cat in their little tied cottages, or on their live-aboard canal narrowboats.
For a long time it was almost proud of it's 2/5 Tripadvisor status, as it kept out non-locals... Oddly enough we'd also picked up the refugees from behind the curtain!
I've never quite understood the way some pubs are like a herd of bison, circled against the interloper. It's not as though I know or care about the people being discussed. Walking the South Downs, my companion and I stopped into a pub for lunch - in Steyning? - and the landlady announced, rather coldly, that the kitchen wouldn't be ready for 15 minutes. No further information. No offer of a drink. We were the only customers. When asked, she rather sulkily poured our pints. Her husband(?) came in, and looked at us like we were unpleasant surprise. It was almost out of spite that we stayed for lunch - which was a superb dish of roast cod, stunningly good.
I know that this isn't an exclusively rural phenomenon, as there was a pub a couple blocks away from me when I lived in Islington, where they took my money very reluctantly. It probably didn't help that the second or third time that I went in I had my Guardian, and they were likely Daily Mail folk. Or perhaps it was my accent. The only reason I persisted was the always had a football match on, and I, like them, supported Arsenal.
I've never encountered this in Scotland, but perhaps that's just luck.
I've never encountered this in Scotland, but perhaps that's just luck.
I'd have said so - there are some pubs in Scotland (as indeed in anywhere else in the UK) where it's wiser not to go in - I once did a brief pub stop in Govan Hill with a friend who grew up there and it wasn't for the faint hearted.
But for 'American Werewolf in London' style darts stopping in mid-air, all eyes swivelling towards you, and outright hostility I can recommend a couple per county in England (I'm sure there are more). In Scotland certainly I can think of examples in Langholm, Oban, Ardrossan, etc. The very worst (not in Scotland) was a backstreet pub in Kidderminster.
The joys of life on the road as a social researcher. you certainly see life.
To be clear, most people in most pubs in most places are fine. But I do get to hang out in some dodgy pubs in dodgy places. Langholm above was truly unexpected though I must say.
By the way, I have of course considered the possibility that the problem's me! On the other hand pre pandemic I was going to 2-3 pubs in 2-3 different parts of the UK pretty much every week so really I guess it's a function of volume of pubs experienced more than anything.
From an ethnography point of view they're always good as a place to observe people, while (sometimes) being marginally more salubrious than sitting in the car.
This reminds me of being in London for the first time, 1987. A friend of mine was doing the Canadian thing of living in the UK and working in a pub. I was trying to find her flat in some dodgy pocket off Fulham Road, and, London A to Z in hand, I still got lost. I spotted a corner pub, and went in to get directions. Poorly lit, few tables, sawdust on the bare floor, a lot of burly men. All men. Not feeling, erm, typical, in my then limited experience of pubs. My presence was immediately noted. I went up to the bar, and the bartender leaned forward, supporting himself on the bar at full wingspan, and said, "May I help you, sir?" Erm, yes, where is... His manner changed immediately. He stood upright, and said, "Right. Out the door and to your left for two streets..." As I left I realised that I had been outsider in a hostile environment, but recognised simultaneously as outsider and fresh meat. My callow self felt a bit shaken. My much less callow self finds it amusing.
I used "buying" as I just knew someone would say that! Yes, I'd probably take a free Budweiser over my own home-passed version, especially in asparagus season.
*cackle* nope not so desperate. Last person I heard about who did so was a now deceased PM if India who had a glass first thing every morning, for his health🙀
*cackle* nope not so desperate. Last person I heard about who did so was a now deceased PM if India who had a glass first thing every morning, for his health🙀
And is now deceased, as you say. He did not prevent the inevitable.
He was as I recall a high caste Hindu. I have no doubt that he expected to reborn in another form, so perhaps he wasn’t too fussed to leave his (then) life
I once heard Budweiser described as “homeopathic beer” in that a tiny amount of a substance is taken and heavily diluted
A tale did the rounds some years ago that a batch had been urgently recalled and Anheuser-Busch wouldn't say why. The story had it that someone had slipped some malt and hops into the mash and AB were terrified their customers would find out what beer was meant to taste like.
When we were first married, my wife was a beer prude. She could not tell the difference between a lager and an ale. Now, whenever we go to a bar she will ask for a sample of something before she orders it. She now prefers Hazy IPAs. Me? Give me a Stout or a Scotch Ale.
My kids got me membership in one of those beer of the month clubs. I think wife was behind it. We have been getting some good beers, but I still have problems with beers that are to be drank at room temperatures. On that point, I am a bit of a prude.
I guess Americans prefer cold beer because we need to have our taste buds numb to drink the poor quality of our stuff.
I do have to say when I was in Europe, I drank many beers at room temperature and had no problem with it, though.
Indeed. Although if it is cellared properly it should be just below room temperature.
Coming back to the cider thing, Breton cider is lovely. A local farmer used to bring his home-brewed cider round to the camp site we pitched at and it was gorgeous.
*cackle* nope not so desperate. Last person I heard about who did so was a now deceased PM if India who had a glass first thing every morning, for his health🙀
I forget his name but I heard a story about that Indian PM attending a dinner for heads of state after some big conference. The caterers had info on the guests and read that he didn't drink alcohol or tea or coffee so they gave him fruit juice. So they provided apple juice, presumably so as to not make his drink stand out from the mostly wine of the other diners.
Apparently there were people sitting nearby who knew about his 'special' health beverage and couldn't help wondering whether he'd really drink it at an official dinner.
My opinion of mass produced American beers is unprintable, though I do remember one strange exception. Budweiser is, I believe, brewed regionally, and in the summer of 1981, on a long cross country drive, a great thirst came upon me at the end of the day causing me to buy a bottle of the local Budweiser. Possibly it was the exhaustion of driving (it was the same Fiat noted in another thread) - I don't really know - but thirty years later I still recall thinking, this isn't bad!
My mother-in-law will drink the low alcohol Budweiser with lime, but when you are 93 you can do as you please. She knows it's safe from me.
Indeed. Although if it is cellared properly it should be just below room temperature.
Coming back to the cider thing, Breton cider is lovely. A local farmer used to bring his home-brewed cider round to the camp site we pitched at and it was gorgeous.
I raise my eyes from work to this thread, and then from this thread to the window, and I can see the excellent cider maker in my village - he basically takes everyone's apples in the autumn and does lovely things with them.
I, on the other hand, will this weekend (or potentially the one after) be getting the next beer brewed - in this case a full grain clone of Banks's Mild.
Comments
We tend to do a detour when we go down to Wells and call in at Thatchers to stock up.
Darllenwr also likes Symonds, which is on tap at our favourite pub/restaurant in Hereford.
They used to have Doom Bar on tap, before it became so popular. At the moment, it’s been replaced by Jemima’s Pitchfork, a Welsh beer, which is more bitter than Doom, so whilst Darllenwr likes it, I’m not so keen.
I got some critically glares and mutterings from some of the toothless habitués of one local near here for ordering what they regarded as a poncey cider rather than the sour green cloudy stuff with bits floating in it that they were drinking.
Speaking from experience, sour green cloudy cider with bits floating in can be a very effective laxative.
Gregg Wallace seemed impressed by the gleaming metal and bottle filling machines but I was left thinking (a) I won't bother with Bulmers (not that I think I would anyway) as it's cheaply made fizzy alcopop, not cider, and (b) what Gregg Wallace knows about cider could be written in 24 point type on the back of a postage stamp.
🤣
At Thatchers, you can take your own containers and buy draught cider. It amuses/horrifies me to see (presumably) locals turn up with gallon containers to be filled with cider which has a warning that it should be drunk within 7 days.
“DRUNK” is probably the word!
Gallon is only eight pints. That's easily got through in a couple of nights.
My son got married in Devon about 10 years ago. The night before, a few of us went to the village inn for a drink. I asked for cider and was disappointed to be offered a standard branded product. I asked if they had anything local; the landlord said, "Yes", went to an unmarked cask I could see in the back room, and served me. It was possibly the best cider I've ever tasted and not expensive although, looking back, I do wonder about its legality!
Like a lot of companies (not just alcohol) the rot set in when the family started to take a back seat, then accelerated when they were taken over in 2003. It's been value engineered to within an inch of its life to make sure not a penny is wasted in the production.
What they (initially Scottish and Newcastle) were buying were the brands more than anything.
But yes, not on my list these days.
The one holiday I spent in Brittany - some forty mumble years ago - I was too young and innocent to really appreciate the local product. Though I must have drunk some, since I came home with one of the traditional shallow earthenware cups.
Like a lot of companies (not just alcohol) the rot set in when the family started to take a back seat, then accelerated when they were taken over in 2003. It's been value engineered to within an inch of its life to make sure not a penny is wasted in the production.
What they (initially Scottish and Newcastle) were buying were the brands more than anything.
[/quote] I fear that this may also be true of Aspall's cider (now owned by Coors). I used to love it when we lived in Suffolk and it was local ... haven't tried it recently, it may be OK!
My experience of cider in Brittany was that it was as thin as piss and about as worth drinking. It's possible that I was just unlucky in my choices of establishment, and that I kept finding the Breton equivalent of "pubs" that specialize in selling fizzy yellow drinks to teenagers, but I was not at all impressed.
Here in Oregon we have quite a number of cideries, and even pubs that feature cider as the main tipple. Angry Orchard is the Budweiser of cider. I recommend Wandering Aengus if you can find it.
Having always looked askance at anything more complicated than the tinned beer kits (which I've made for years) lockdown boredom got me into full grain brewing from scratch.
It's (relatively) expensive* to assemble all the required kit - but actually when offset against what I've not spent in the pub or going out anywhere in the last 18 months (beyond the supermarket) there were suddenly the funds available to give it a go and it passes the time!
*several hundred pounds total over a couple of months, not ridiculously expensive given a lack of other things to spend money on, but in the past always competing with other things.
Had you told me years previously that would be the case, I would have laughed in your face.
But…….🤷♀️
I've been in to eat, but not just for a drink. I *really* miss it, I'm one of those dreadful locals that stands at the bar (not every night of the week you understand, but usually at least once a week for 2-3 pints).
Out here in the rural back of beyond it's really the social centre of the village, clearing house for all the gossip, just *contact* with people beyond the family across generations (as is church, but the dynamic's different) - especially for agricultural workers or those of us who worked from home even before the pandemic.
It's probably the thing I most want back actually from 'life as it was before' - some people are back in the swing already, but I'm still playing it fairly safe. Also, having just moved to a new village, we don't really know anyone yet, and casual drinking has always been my way into a community in the past!
The visitors are the premium item, but the place's financial viability probably depends on the year round presence of the dozen or so drougthy neebors limpeted to the bar.
always a difficult trick to pull of I think (although I much prefer 'wet' pubs anyway. The pub in the next village to where I used to live literally had a curtain across the bar, behind which the remaining locals had to stand, so as not to contaminate with their presence the people dining.
My own last village pub was an extension of the houses round it, probably skating the very fine line between accepting of and hostile to visitors (and sometimes the wrong side of it to be honest) but the living room, snug, etc for a lot of people with no room to swing a cat in their little tied cottages, or on their live-aboard canal narrowboats.
For a long time it was almost proud of it's 2/5 Tripadvisor status, as it kept out non-locals... Oddly enough we'd also picked up the refugees from behind the curtain!
I know that this isn't an exclusively rural phenomenon, as there was a pub a couple blocks away from me when I lived in Islington, where they took my money very reluctantly. It probably didn't help that the second or third time that I went in I had my Guardian, and they were likely Daily Mail folk. Or perhaps it was my accent. The only reason I persisted was the always had a football match on, and I, like them, supported Arsenal.
I've never encountered this in Scotland, but perhaps that's just luck.
I'd have said so - there are some pubs in Scotland (as indeed in anywhere else in the UK) where it's wiser not to go in - I once did a brief pub stop in Govan Hill with a friend who grew up there and it wasn't for the faint hearted.
But for 'American Werewolf in London' style darts stopping in mid-air, all eyes swivelling towards you, and outright hostility I can recommend a couple per county in England (I'm sure there are more). In Scotland certainly I can think of examples in Langholm, Oban, Ardrossan, etc. The very worst (not in Scotland) was a backstreet pub in Kidderminster.
The joys of life on the road as a social researcher. you certainly see life.
To be clear, most people in most pubs in most places are fine. But I do get to hang out in some dodgy pubs in dodgy places. Langholm above was truly unexpected though I must say.
From an ethnography point of view they're always good as a place to observe people, while (sometimes) being marginally more salubrious than sitting in the car.
The Knotweed's sis-in-law bought me some beers to say "Thank you!" for all the seedlings, vegetables, etc that I have poked their way.
She told me that she'd asked "the family" (sounds like the Mafia!) what I liked to drink and got the reply "Oh, he'll drink anything!".
I do have *some* standards, you know! eg I'd drink my own urine before buying US Budweiser
You speak as one with personal experience of consuming both. And do you keep a special fridge to chill your pee?
And is now deceased, as you say. He did not prevent the inevitable.
Alcoholic sparkling water, basically.
Does not belong on a beer, ale and cider thread.
A tale did the rounds some years ago that a batch had been urgently recalled and Anheuser-Busch wouldn't say why. The story had it that someone had slipped some malt and hops into the mash and AB were terrified their customers would find out what beer was meant to taste like.
My kids got me membership in one of those beer of the month clubs. I think wife was behind it. We have been getting some good beers, but I still have problems with beers that are to be drank at room temperatures. On that point, I am a bit of a prude.
I guess Americans prefer cold beer because we need to have our taste buds numb to drink the poor quality of our stuff.
I do have to say when I was in Europe, I drank many beers at room temperature and had no problem with it, though.
Coming back to the cider thing, Breton cider is lovely. A local farmer used to bring his home-brewed cider round to the camp site we pitched at and it was gorgeous.
I forget his name but I heard a story about that Indian PM attending a dinner for heads of state after some big conference. The caterers had info on the guests and read that he didn't drink alcohol or tea or coffee so they gave him fruit juice. So they provided apple juice, presumably so as to not make his drink stand out from the mostly wine of the other diners.
Apparently there were people sitting nearby who knew about his 'special' health beverage and couldn't help wondering whether he'd really drink it at an official dinner.
My mother-in-law will drink the low alcohol Budweiser with lime, but when you are 93 you can do as you please. She knows it's safe from me.
(It’s quite good, if you like the style…)
I raise my eyes from work to this thread, and then from this thread to the window, and I can see the excellent cider maker in my village - he basically takes everyone's apples in the autumn and does lovely things with them.
I, on the other hand, will this weekend (or potentially the one after) be getting the next beer brewed - in this case a full grain clone of Banks's Mild.