Re: The Yanks are lousy shots

They do not serve warm beer, they serve it a room temperature, IOW, not a whole lot warmer that Americans do. If you've ever been there you'd know what I mean.

Bill Smith

Actually, they don't serve it at room temperature (which is also nowhere near where Americans typically serve beer - or most cold beverages). Beer in the UK is typically served at cellar temperature, which most of the time is around 50, 55 farenheit. Yanks typically serve their beer (especially the standard lagers like Bud or Coors) in the upper 30s.

The only time you're going to get truly warm beer in the UK is if they've in the middle of a heat wave, and even the cellars warm up.

-Steve

OK, smartypants - What is making them go insane when in large groups? Americans are drinking beer at football games in the US, and you don't see them attacking one another in large groups with imitation samurai swords.

No I wouldn't. I don't drink beer. Warm or cold.

Correct. Beer (to include bitter, mild, pale ale, stout etc) that has a flavour is best served at this temperature. Below this, the taste buds tend to shut down and you lose the flavour and most of the pleasure. Lager, on the other hand, is always (even in the UK) drunk as cold as possible, as this is the only way to mask its lack of taste. If you have drunk warm lager, you know what I mean.

If you think the Brits serve their beer too warm compared to Americans, you are comparing apples and oranges.

And, right there, you've captured the very point. English beer is palatable at those temperatures unlike your typical US beer which generally tastes like stale piss unless the flavour is masked by the low temperature.

We managed to find one of the few expensive restaurants in town last night, a foofy "fusion" place with ultra-cool decor and such. I ordered a La Fin du Monde, and my wife ordered a Golden Monkey (listed as a "Belgian" ale). Both were brought out ice-cold with standard US-style shaker pints, frosted. I'm seriously thinking about leveraging what little local fame I have as a beer geek and giving them a polite lesson in beer savviness. Call me a snob, but there's no reason I should have to pay $28 for an entree accompanied by a frosted, inappropriate beer glass.

Too broad. I wouldn't drink a bock, doppelbock, or strong lager such as Samichlaus "as cold as possible". Helles and decent pilsners work better around 40-45 degrees, too.

Again, too broad. Bud/Miller/Coors type products, perhaps, but that's it. And of course it's the same in pretty much all countries which serve industrial light lagers.

Witzel

Fair point. If a decent lager has any flavour, then it should be drunk cool, at cellar temp. The terms "decent" and "lager" together are a vanishingly rare phenomenon in the UK, however.

Bud/Miller/Coors is pretty much all we get in the UK. IME this is only drinkable if cooled down to +0.5 degrees Kelvin, and then only if you're already half pissed. If America produces proper beer or lager, we'd love to try some. US comments criticising Brits for serving beer warm are way off the mark, though. If it's s*it, we chill it; if it's a proper drink, we don't. If all you've ever drunk is s*it, you are forgiven for not knowing any better.

St. Jackanapes wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.alt.net:

They tried but screwed up royally when they gave the refrigeration contract to Lucas.

A 2006 study by Texas A&M University found that the average American walks about 900 miles per year.

Another study by the American Beer Institute found that Americans drink an average of 22 gallons of beer a year.

That means, on average, Americans get approximately 41 miles per gallon - .....Not bad!

Lager is dismal in the UK. There have been times where people I've been with have dragged me to places where that's really all on offer (or the only place with a decent TV to watch the football was pretty much just a lager joint), and even by the normally dismal standards of industrial lagers, the stuff in the UK was just dreadful.

And it seems that actual good German, Czech, etc. lagers don't make it there. Budvar is really the only thing I recall seeing with any frequency. Yeah, there's stuff like Holsten, but it's brewed in the UK. And differently.

There are a lot of small breweries in teh States doing excellent ales. They're typically stronger than what you're accustomed to in the UK, but they've very flavorful and engaging.

Good lager's tougher to find. It's out there, but the small American brewers by and large haven't got the hang of it (or, frequently, the right equipment and/or budget to devote to the longer cold storage needed).

Which was my point with my earlier post (as well as correcting the fallacious notion that it's served at room temperature).

Fairly close to the same here, although even ales tend to get served more in the 40-45F area. Americans as a whole like their beverages very cold (water, soda, etc., as well as beer).

-Steve

Hell, I don't think there's anything I hate more about beer service in the States than the frosted glass. I've had bartenders look at me like I've got three heads when I've asked for a non-frosted glass. I tend not to go back to those places. (One exception is Joe Jost's in Long Beach; but then again, I'm not really going there for the beer.)

-Steve

You're there for the sack of nuts. And the "schooners". Still love that place, regardless. And I would have been afraid to ask for non- frosted, myself.

Witzel