I was intrigued, in Amsterdam, to see a Hoegarden truck pull up and run, a power cable and a hose into each pub to deliver beer. How does this work ? Do they refill kegs or is it dispenced from a refilable tank. I know it's not real beer, but, having never seen beer delivered to a pub by hose before how it is done.
This was quite common practice in British pubs and clubs in the 60s and
70s, not with cask conditioned beer (obviously) but with filtered but unpasteurised bright beer. I used to drink this stuff in a Davenports pub in Northfield, Birmingham in the late 70s (there was nothing better available).Paul
On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 17:24:24 +0100, Bill Hewitt wrote (in message ):
Of course it's real bloody beer, it's just not your precious real-ale.
Erm, what's the name of this newsgroup again? If you're not interested in real ale, why hover around here?
Honest to gawd! You wonder why so many of these usenet newsgroups go bust! All this bickering like a bunch of spoiled urchins. Everybody here gets a time-out, then start again NICELY.
An old aphorism: Nasty is as Nasty does.
What did I do?
Funnily enough, (given the trigger of this little spat) I once read a letter from Whitbread (once the UK distributors for Hoegaarden) responding to a landlord/CAMRA query asking was the beer real ale.
The letter confirmed that the beer was fermented with an ale yeast, that there was live yeast & a 2ndary fermentation occurring in the keg (though obviously dispense wasn't exactly "CAMRA kosher").
That said, the Amsterdam beer might even be properly considered "real ale", if the serving tanks are lined with plastic bags & dispense is aided by air pressure, if the beer is unfiltered, unpasteurised, with some carbonation gain in the serving tank + no extraneous gases coming into contact with the beer AFAICS, it all adds up to just about real ale!
In the recent-ish past these type of serving tanks have turned up in the UK - at CentreParcs in the 1990s (serving Foster's or something similar) & AFAIK all of the ZeroDegrees brewpub/restaurants have them, but happily serving unfiltered, unpasteurised, naturally carbonated beers. cheers MikeMcG
If I've understood the description, Fullers used something similar in the 70s. That was for bright beer, though.
In Japan, Hoegaarden is not classified as 'beer' because of its low malt content, but is labelled 'happoshu' a kind of low malt, alcoholic, fizzy drink :)
Wayne
DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.