Monday 21 June 2010

A few pints of the same beer

A typical night out drinking will be planned ahead: we’ll know exactly where we’re going and we’ll be going there specifically for the variety of beers they offer. This means that a night out will involve drinking many different beers; a pint of something to begin, a couple of half pints in the next place, and so on. We do this because we like trying different beers and we like a variety (plus the places we go to offer the chance to drink differently with each round). But this isn’t, for many, a typical way of drinking. For a majority of beer drinkers an evening out will mean multiple pints of the same beer, back-to-back. When was the last time you did that?

For me it was Friday. I was in Wetherspoons to watch the football. They had a few ales on, the usual ones, plus something football themed and then a Westerham Challenger single hop. I went for the Westerham as the brewery is only a few miles up the road. It was delicious. Clean and light, just sweet enough, then bursting with Challenger hops, off-fruity, a little old citrus, earthy and pungent, properly English with a wonderfully long, clinging bitterness. I had a couple more (I would’ve had another but wasn’t in the mood for drinking after the game finished) and the beer was changing throughout; the first pint tasted more vibrant, the second more bitter, the third more pungently hoppy. That was the first time in I-don’t-know-when that I’ve just sat and drank a few pints of the same beer in a row. 

I like to try new beers all the time and this was a brief departure in my usual drinking habits, but I’m probably not alone in the fact that I seldom just drink the same beer all night on a regular basis. When was the last time you just sat down in a pub and had pints (three, five, seven, twelve...) of the same beer all evening (through choice too, not just because they didn’t have anything good on or because you got dragged to an All Bar One, or something)? 

19 comments:

  1. I like to stick to the same beer for as long as it sticks on me, even (or especially) at beer festivals.

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  2. Yesterday. I had quite a few Lees Bumpy Lane - the pub's unique dry hopped version of Lees Bitter, then a couple of Strawbeery because I could. Even that's a departure for me, as I usually drink Lees Bitter which is easy drinking and comfortable for me. I'm out seeing my friends. No beer geekery is involved, so it's a different mind set.

    I tend to stick to a beer I enjoy, unless I spot something I especially want to try, or get a recommendation to try. Butterflying about holds little appeal for me nowadays. Been there done that and wasted more evenings and money than I care to remember seeking something better than what I'm actually enjoying. I still search for the perfect pint, but now I have a fair idea where I'm likely to find it and more importantly where I most certainly won't.

    Mind you on a night out where several good pubs are involved, I'll have different beers, but when I find one I like, I stick to it.

    That has been evolutionary of course. It wasn't always so.

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  3. Not for a long time! I've done it recently but only because there was nothing else on offer. A beer has to be pretty special, and have an element of complexity, for me to go back time and again.

    If you make the comparison to food, I think it makes sense that we do this. You wouldn't eat the same meal every day of the week, it would get boring. Variety is the spice of life and all that.

    People that session the same lager every time they go to the pub - they're the odd ones, not us! :P

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  4. Saturday night - went to the Barton Arms, a fantastic Victorian pub in Brum now run by Oakham. Was going there for tea and a club night upstairs in the old ballroom, and usually I'm pretty happy to be drinking a range of Oakham and guests when I'm there - but on Sat they had the Oakham Citra, which is one of my favourite new beers this year but rarely available - very fragrant and thirst-quenching and not too high abv - so I was very pleased to get the opportunity to drink that all night long!

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  5. Anon, sticking to the same beer at a beer festival? That's like going to an all you can eat restaurant and only have one dish!

    Tandleman, as a regular where you were drinking it makes sense that you'd stick to what's good - no one wants a pint they don't enjoy as much as something else (especially if the 'something else' is also on the bar), do they?! I tend to stick to names I recognise or know rather than those I don't, but I'm still on the search, like you, for that perfect beer.

    Chunk, good point about food and you are right - they are the weirdos, not us!

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  6. Tania, if they had Oakham Citra in the pub I was in then I'd have had quite a few pints of that too!!

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  7. I quite often have a few pints of the same beer in our local, last wednesday it was tribute, the week before it was dalesides world cup beer i think it was called pride of england..

    if i find something good ill drink it where and when i can,

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  8. Every night I go to my local I always stick to bankss bitter. I always try the new guests but my usual pint is my favourite.

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  9. I have had several sessions on Summer Marble recently!

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  10. I do this all the time. Hence my Reluctancy. Recent examples - three days slowly draining a Derby pub of Thornbridge Seaforth despite another dozen beers (all new to me) on offer. Leffe Blonde, as it was available at the restaurant I went to one lunch and I knew it would be in every bar I went to for the rest of the day. Moravka lager, because I don't see it often and it's too damn tasty to only drink a pint of it.

    And, yes - I've been to a beer festival and drank one beer all night, cask Brewdog Paradox. Messy.

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  11. Occasionally I find a particular beer at the peak of perfection and then it's so good that one pint isn't enough, so I just keep drinking it. I distinctly remember a summer's evening in a friend's mock-Tudor local, sinking pint after pint of Bitter & Twisted. Lovely.

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  12. There are probably many aspects of your life where you do eat or do the same thing, day in, day out - it's just that you happen to be a beer enthusiast.

    Certainly our local CAMRA branch holds many of its meetings in tied houses where the choice over the course of the evening will be bitter, mild and possibly a seasonal beer.

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  13. All the time - you gotta mix it up. there are two sides to everything - the beer festival, ticking, sucking in beers from everywhere experience, and the (usually pub-based) one where you see an old friend, maybe one you've not seen in a while, and try a couple of pints just to get reaquainted. And more often than not, you remember why you were friends in the first place. Special beers are like a good woman (in a swiss tony voice) - when you find one, cherish it!!

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  14. I like Fosters: it's always clear, cold and available. I also like a sausage sandwich and I disagree with Chunk because I eat them all the time.

    Comfort and security from consistency, it's all a human looks for. You're the weird ones.

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  15. Yes Mark, yesterday at the Swan & Rushes, Leicester me and the Mrs drank a gallon of Blue Monkey BG Sips. This was in a pub that has a huge selection of bottled beers inc Cantillon and 6 other cask ales.

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  16. I always have Landlord at my local, The Dolphin in Sydenham, purely because Pride and Broadside (the only two other beers they ever do) don't float my boat.

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  17. Last week, with my Dad in Hawes on the Pennine Way. We celebrated our mutual awakening to Old Peculiar with 5 pints after walking 60 odd miles to get there. Every pint was bliss and I the one different pint felt wrong.

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  18. Every Friday evening down to my local, 7pm with mates. Three or four pints of Goachers Fine Light. There are other good beers there (including ones I have brewed) but Goachers fine light is what tradtion dictates.

    Tradition and the fact that is a truely great beer.

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  19. Like the others if there is something I really enjoy and it is on top form then it is likely I will drink that for the session. If we are at mine then my local is a McMullens and as their IPA (now it seems to be a regular not a seasonal yay) is lovely I usually will stick to it.

    Sometimes though you just fancy a change and swopping between beers can be fun.

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