Naf ballots

Need a new set of glasses, love, it was Buvar, the czech original...

The lagers (yup, lagers... mostly unpasteurised, though) served through those taps are designed to be served under gas pressure, any other way of serving them, such as air pressure or handpumps leads to 90% head...we non-CAMRA EBCU organisations have tried repeatedly to get Bieres Sans Frontieres bar staff to cut the crap and sell the beer the way it should be.

Cheers !

Laurent

In message , The Submarine Captain wrote

No difference, neither are a real ale/larger or bottle conditioned.

Mostly?

How were these beers, or styles of beer, served 70 to 100 years ago? I guess they were not designed to be served under artificial gas pressure.

In the same way as Fosters, John Smith Smooth, Caffrey's etc.

Budvar is a proper lager, all-malt, lagered for 60 days, with a decent hopping. Anheuser-Busch's dishwater is more than 30% rice, unperceptible hops, and a mere fortnight's conditioning. Taste them before you launch such misinformed rubbish, please.

There is NO such thing as cask-conditioned / bottle-conditioned lager on the continent... unfiltered ones you may find, which are nevertheless quite clear, as lagering at a cold temperature causes the beer to drop bright. Leaving live yeast in lager kept in a cask / bottle at room temp would mean allowing a top fermentation to develop, which would impair the flavour.

It usually is the case for keg lagers meant to be sold in on the local market, about 20 miles around the brewery, in germany or the Czech republic, and GBBF organisers try to get this kind of kegs. But some of those lagers are nevertheless pasteurised (and so was quite a bit of the bottled stuff). But that's the way proper lager is conditioned and served. Wanting to impose the "real ale" norm to proper continental lager is very narrow-minded a way to consider the issue, and not one which shows much respect for other brewing traditions.

Not a century ago, but they've been served under gas pressure for at least 50 years now, and it often is the only form in which you can get them on the market anyway. So if the taste is worth it, you have to dispense them properly. Question of coherence.

BTW, a century or so ago, proper lagers did not condition in casks. As they were drawn off the lagering vessels, they were de facto racked bright and already conditioned. This form does still exist in some parts of Bavaria and Rhineland, in particular, and is also to be seen every year at GBBF, for it is the chosen form whenever available, but in no way is this "real" the way it is meant for cask-conditoned beer either...

You're off the mark by a long run, here, time to try and see beyond the white cliffs of Dover for a sec, if you dare... Those beers you mention are marketing-fuelled *tasteless* thingies with no proper tradition behind them, and no special resemblance to what the product was like 20 years ago, whereas Budvar, for instance, has... And the beers you mention would anyway never make it to GBBF, whatever you may think.

Besides, John Smith and Caffreys being British Isles beers, the desirable form would be cask-conditioned ale (and there was some Cask John Smiths at the ScotCo stand...), Fosters is bland s**te anyway, and would be even in cask form... nothing to do with the dispensing method, really. Gas pressure or filtered bottling is not reliable indicator that the beer served is s**te, it's as plain as that... But then if you don't want to know, that's your problem, and you are missing on some great beers.

Oh, and before you mention them : Weizenbiers / Hefeweizens / Weissbiers may be bottle-conditioned, but they are ales, ie top fermented, and no valid counter-example.

Cheers !

Laurent

(huge snip)

It's pretty pointless debating every little point without acknowledging the basic point that CAMRA are not affiliated to the 'Little Englander' party (despite what some on this group may claim) and recognise all traditional beer styles around the world, as long as they are of good quality. CAMRA may well have been set up as a campaign for real ale, but times change and thankfully so have CAMRA, and let's not forget, cider has been an integral part of the campaign since day one, that ain't RA either.

Mark

In the historical context of brewing and beer drinking, artificial Gas dispense is /not/ traditional, and should not be used as an excuse for the fact that other countries have not experienced the campaign-driven revival that this Isle saw, which pretty much stopped real beer becoming extinct in the 1970s.

Just because gas dispense has become the norm doesn't mean it is right, nor indeed that the trend can't be reversed.

Look at the USA: 20-30 years ago, cask beer really had died out. But over the last couple of decades, the microbrewing revival has brought handpumps back to the States, and real ale availability - though still by no means mainstream - is increasing, even in areas that were previously beer deserts - e.g. the midwest. Some of the best cask beers in the world are now brewed in the USA.

No, but in general the campaign only promotes real - e.g. cask - Cider Which was and is far far far harder to get hold in most of the country than real ale.

Personally, while I like (real) cider and perry, I do tend to favour a seperate consumer group to campaign on this front, as the presence of cider within the CAMRA mandate rather clouds the issue.

But would there be sufficient interest for APPLE/ any other real cider/perry campaign to exist on it's own?

BTN

Your question has no obvious connection to the bit o my message you quote, but anyway : It currently (qv below) stands for real ale, but the name was thought up over 30 years ago and the scope of the organisation has changed a wee tad since... Originally, the RA in CAMRA stood for "revitalisation of ale", much wider a programme...

We are defending a certain margin of flexibility, because there are interesting beers too *OUT THERE*. Call that double standards if you like, I consider it plain pragmatism. Those beers are among the finest on offer in *other countries*, therefore the UK-only real ale rule cannot be applied 1-to-1 to them. But then it's sooo much easier sticking to apparently simple principles, innit ?

Again, the keg beers served them are the top of the crop in the countries considered. The message is clear, on the lines of "if you really want to stick to lager, then at least get to know the proper stuff". This does derogate to the real ale rule (gasp, shock horror), but it's a very good way of undermining the marketing campaigns for big-brand sub-lagers.

is it just because you have decided so, or would you have a reliable source to quote as to how long it takes for something to become traditional ?

Nope. Because there is decent cask stout brewed in Ireland, so there is an alternative. Where as there is NO cask alternative to a proper german pilsner which, admittedly comes in kegs.

No, because a beer designed to be served from a keg under gas pressure and a racked beer meant to be sered via gravity dispense have different CO2 concentrations, and you just have to serve them inteh way they were meant to be served. Facts. I've once tasted nitrokeg Kilkenny served under CO2 pressure, well, it does manage to be even worse than nitrokeg Kilkenny under mixed gas pressure...

not *all*. *MOST* as and when available in such a form. Why do you insist on extremes and big easy generalisations ?

NO, they aren't. most Kölsches are paler and drier than they used to be, for instance... and I know of no british real ale that would be either.

if under "bayerischer Anstich", yes indeed, but they are not real ale nevertheless

Introducing british drinkers to what a proper lager may taste oike, so that they realise how disgusting the Uk mass-market lagers are

Which happens to be the Great British BEER Festival, not Great British Real Ale Festival :o>

Uh ? Budvar, direct descendent of a beer brewed in 1895, has in your eyes less tradition than, say, Watneys Red Barrel ? oh dear.

Ohh, yes, you're certainly right... this cannot have to do with local legislation which bans air pressure or handpumps, for example ??

... for lack of any precise arguments over the matter ?

Many of the keg beers sold at BSF ? I very much doubt it... most of these german and czech breweries were already around in the second half of the 19th century

Indeed, becuase there are alternative products to those on the market. Of which there are none on the German market.

Yes : tons of marketing appealing to the bleating masses.

because *you* are prepared to travel for that. Many people are not, and why should they only ever come in contact with the bland imported stuff imported by the international groups, and not the better ones ? Bit of pragmatic thinking, mate...

Hmmm, what about running for the National Executive, then, and implement this programme form the inside, as your political vision is so convincing and sound ?? :o>

Hmmm, it is indeed quite comfortable yelling such "shoulds" if you are not involved in it at an exccutive level...

again, not Bud, Budvar, and those products have no other similarity than one stealing the denomination of origin of the other.

And a guy who switches form Heineken to Budvar because he is offered some of the latter, and then realises it does taste a lot better, is one step nearer to accepting to try cask ale... and many actually do at GBBF.

Cheers !

Laurent