Why real ale is better than british lager

I work with a number of "heathens" who can't understand why I'm so passionate about the beer that I drink, while they all pile into their Guinness, John Smith's smooth and Carling Premier... (yuk!!!

Is there anywhere online that explains the major differences between RA and the pasteurised cr*p... also, the difference between UK lager and the real thing?

Cheers,

Dom

Reply to
Dom
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At the Maidstone beer festival one of the bands had a case of lagers on the stage, rather than drink the proper stuff that the festival was all about.

Reply to
Manky Badger

I hope they're not invited back to play next year!!!

Dom

Reply to
Dom

Well, soem points:

- Ingredients : continental and UK malt types are roughly equivalent, but not exactly. Typically a german maltings will not be able to provide a british style pale ale malt, and a british malting will not be able to provide a 100% accurate muenchner malt (not to mention the difference between muenchner I and muenchner II...). Hop varieties from the continent can be imported to the UK, but I suspect they're notnecessarily used in the same way as on the continent...

- brewing itself : processes like decoction mash, possibly a multi-stage one, are typical of a proper lager, but are time-consuming, therefore rarely done outside of the lager heartland. Details such as the type of taps used to run off the wort can also influence the finished beer by aerating the wort more or less...

- fermentation : yeast strains should not be a problem, but I suspect many UK lagers are fermented a few degrees warmer than their proper continental counterparts. This does change the character quite a bit. Lagering, ie. a long cold maturation / conditioning, does have an effect as well, proper lagers are lagered for six weeks, two months, sometimes more, which is rarely reached by Uk commercial lagers. The condition of a proper lager is acquired during the lagering, which, being long, tends to give a finer condition than if one just injects CO2 into the beer. Proper draught lagers from regional brewers of the continent (especially Germany/Austria, Czech republic) are filtered, but rarely pasteurised, therefore tending to taste crisp and fresh. Quite a few German small brewers also do not pasteurise their bottled beer, for example.

- Dispense : for example a lot of german beer bars do not use CO2, but "aligal", ie. mixed CO2 / N gas, which gasses up the beer much less than CO2 does. Yet this isn't like nitrokeg, because the gas is not injected into the beer itself beforehand, and the fonts used are different, as they do not rip the gas apart from the beer to start the "chain reaction" typical of nitrokeg.

All in all, there's plenty of factors, many of which are overlooked/skipped in mass-market near-lager brewing, because they tend to be time-consuming, costly, or tie up to much capital to the taste of the executives...

Cheers !

Laurent

Reply to
The Submarine Captain

Thanks, very good info.

Dom

Reply to
Dom

Yes, . Both drinks start off the same way of course, it's just that one of them has unspeakable things done to it before it leaves the brewery. This is primarily so that no-one at the pub has to do anything much with it other than mix it with assorted gases.

For an insight into the brewing process generally, have a look at Arkell's "virtual brewery tour": .

Reply to
Daisy Hill

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