Guardian - Beer-v-Wine with food.

I think it's made of sugars... but anyway the statement 'wine is a protein' is nonsense.

We find , that for us at least , by far the best beer to go with food is mild. We had our local Branch meeting at a pub that put on a curry for us and with just one exception ( who doesn't like mild anyway ) we agreed that the mild went perfectly with it. I now always go for it on my pub lunches. It is not assertive and slips down so well with food.

pete@vob> We find , that for us at least , by far the best beer to pete@vob> go with food is mild. We had our local Branch meeting at pete@vob> a pub that put on a curry for us and with just one pete@vob> exception ( who doesn't like mild anyway ) we agreed pete@vob> that the mild went perfectly with it. I now always go pete@vob> for it on my pub lunches. It is not assertive and slips pete@vob> down so well with food.

Acutally, I find a bottle of Hobgoblin goes perfectly with a curry. Far too much flavour, you'd think, but it worked for me.

AndyC

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In my experience, the best drink with a hot, spicy curry is the hoppiest IPA you can get.

I agree, but Brooklyn Lager also goes well with curry.

To each his own of course , but the consensus was that the mild just sat beautifully alongside the curry whereas a hoppy beer tries to cut through it.

As the person who sort-of started this debate by emailing Malcolm Gluck and telling him what a stupid glucker he was, I'd like to make a few points about beer and food:

2 Most beers go with most foods, tho' I wouldn't personally drink, say Guinness with fish - but Guinness with a Malaysian curry is very fine ...

4 The myth perpetuated by people like Gluck is that wine, per se, is worth drinking. Let it be said now - most wine is either cheap muck or overpriced not-much-better-than-muck, and it is much easier to find a reasonably-priced good beer to have with your meal than a reasonably-priced good wine.

Finally, an appropriate quote from the novel Lorna Doone, by RD Blackmore (1825-1900), in which the hero explains the John Ridd diet to a Frenchwoman:

"Be-or, be-or, be-or, all day long, with you Englishmen!'

"Nay,' I replied, 'not all day long, if madam will excuse me. Only a pint at breakfast-time, and a pint and a half at eleven o'clock, and a quart or so at dinner. And then no more till the afternoon; and half a gallon at supper-time. No one can object to that."

Indeed.

snipped-for-privacy@cornerpub.com (Martyn Cornell) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

So droned yet another British Beer Bore.

Listen, I love a pint of Beer, be it Ale, Stout, Bitter or Pilsener and the eighth quart as much as the first, and if you saw my beer gut, you'd agree! But I could never hold such a narrow minded, dismissive, ill informed, boorish, insular view, with no consideration for quality, standards, or provenance. Other than that, you are of course, entitled to your own opinion. Maybe you should seek your own counsel!

Well it makes a change from the Wine bores we have to ensure in the British press.

Why not attempt to put a counter view rather than stooping to insults?

Following up to Martyn Cornell

Why spoil your case by trying to rubbish wine?

I have found that when abroad wine is often of a better quality and cheaper than in the UK!

In message , Martyn Cornell writes

As opposed to Boddingtons, Whitbread Tankard, John Smiths Smoothflow, etc?

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Reid at snipped-for-privacy@fell-walker.co.uk wrote on 17/12/03 18:24:

The point I was trying to make, rather too obliquely, is that wine benefits from the halo effect, where SOME wine is very good, expensive, praised to the hilt, and too many people think ALL wine must be good. It isn't. There's an emperor's new clothes thing here - sure, you can find great wine, but the majority is no better than so-so. However, people seem afraid to say so, in case the Glucks sneer at their "lack of sophistication".

in article Xns945478F46D03BigG@192.61.239.93, Big G at snipped-for-privacy@prevent.my.disclosing wrote on 17/12/03 11:53:

You cannot have read my post properly. Try reading it again without eight quarts of beer inside you, and you will see that most of it was a quick and extremely well-informed trot round the history of beer with food, with a short side-swipe at wine snobs. I have drunk wine at vineyards and wineries from the Napa Valley to the Hunter Valley, and I have drunk beer at breweries from Edinburgh to Melbourne. My conclusion reached many years back is that while there is a lot of muck out there, wine and beer, it is easier to find good beer, and at a much more reasonable price, than it is to find good wine.

in article MY3npzrFfM4$ snipped-for-privacy@news.posting, Malcolm Loades at snipped-for-privacy@justmay.be wrote on 17/12/03 21:16:

Well, I wouldn't deny most mass-market beers are muck as well, but that is irrelevant to the point I am making, except in so far as a pint of John Smiths nitro costs the same, or more, as a pint of Tim Taylors Landlord, while a bottle of Piat d'Or is much cheaper than one of Haut Brion. Compared to Landlord, however, both wines are well over-priced ...

I have to agree, & I'm someone who dislikes beer-boredom every bit as much as wine-snobbery. (of which MrGluck was guilty of in the highest order, along with deep ignorance of his country's favourite drink)

one thing that I enjoy about the UK is that we have decent beer, wine, spirits & foods & all quite easily available.

as to price, it is odd (but for drinkers q good) that many of the finest beers available in the UK are fairly inexpensive - i.e. most good cask stuff is cheaper than most naff lager or nitro-froth ale (presumably the vast advertising spends of these inferior *premium* products ensures they are *reassuringly expensive* . . . BTW Stella Artois is largely brewed in South Wales & Lancashire IIRC!)

the situation IMO is broadly similar in wine (that good stuff is available fairly cheaply) with the exception of many of the *very* cheapest, especially white wines not being worth the glass & cork.

if, Martin, you are merely saying that good cheap beer is of better quality than very cheap wine, then I might agree (tho there is the point about relative ABV, bottle size, etc) but suggesting that wine as a whole is not worth drinking is something I'd take issue with. Likewise IMO "most wine is either cheap muck or overpriced not-much-better-than-muck" adds little to the debate.

IMO one of the reasons why wine has attracted so many devotees in recent years is that quality has improved massively since the 1970s & now it is very rare to get a truly bad bottle. I think you'd have much more chance of getting a really bad pint (most likely an off pint of real ale) & for the drinker of that vinegar, its of no use to hear landlord & brewer arguing the toss as to who is to blame.

Also the wine industry, shops (esp Oddbins) & writers seem to have conspired to talk intelligently & educate drinkers about flavour, grape varities, wine-production, etc & drinkers have taken on this information & become more interested - lessons that brewers have been fairly slow to pick up on.

there are numerous reasons as to why wine has long had, a greater cultural cachet than beer; & it seems unfair that the press devotes such time & passion to wine while ignoring beer, or mocking those who appreciate it; moreso when one realises that we don't have the climate or much expertise in viticulture & vinification to produce wine, (much less any of real quality); yet we *do* have enormous expertise & history in making world-class beer. cheers MikeMcG

Well said.

Can I also recommend Giles Kime, Telegraph wine hack, as a recipient of your eloquent pro-food and beer thoughts?

Also, please ignore the ranting of this Big G character who seems to come from a "shut up and get it down yer neck" POV.

Keep up the good work.

JP

It would stand to reason, IMO, that in England beer would be better and cheaper, if local, than wine, for which the climate is ill-suited. The argument shouldn't come from one so lamentably inexperienced. I am not a proper judge of beer, but I do regularly drink local wines that are very very good although cheap, and costlier wines that are astoundingly good, and especially with cheeses, albeit, not English cheeses. Perhaps some English cheeses are better with beer. All of those I have tried and liked were great with wine if you chose well.

in article AacEb.193125$ snipped-for-privacy@twister1.libero.it, Judith Umbria at snipped-for-privacy@nospam.indiatimes.com wrote on 18/12/03 06:54:

If you're talking about me lady, I have visited some of the most famous vineyards (and breweries) in the world

You're not reading properly. I didn't say you couldn't find good wine, I said most was muck. The two statements are not mutually exclusive.