Drinking Beer and Ale

A Local View On Beers Ales and Beer Mats

There is something uniquely British about the phrase I'm off for a pint!

That quintessential measure of English happiness and relaxation, 'the pint' is the facilitator of good cheer and conversation throughout the country. The English are of course famous for their understatement and use of euphamism, so if you hear someone say 'I'm off to see a man about a dog', then rest assured they will be found at the local hostelry imbibing a pint.

Now...do I choose a beer or an ale? Most people assume they are the same thing, you also have to decide if you prefer Mild? or Bitter?

Then...as my pint arrives what do I place it on? No doubt a beer mat. That highly collectable piece of promotional material that soaks up the drips.

The Beer Mat or Drip Mat is an iconic symbol of a brand. An advertising medium and more. Collecting Beer Mats is known as Tegestology.

Drink Drink Drink

from ein bruder Bier nation

Drink! THE STUDENT PRINCE (the same yes)

Book & Lyrics by DOROTHY DONNELLY Music by SIGMUND ROMBERG Originally Staged by J.C. HUFFMAN First produced at the Jolson Theatre on December 2, 1924, with Ilse Marvenga as "Kathie" and Howard Marsh as "Prince Karl Franz". PLOT: The operetta opens in the palace of the mythical kingdom of Karlsberg. It is 1860. Prince Karl Franz, heir to the throne, is bored with royal life in his native land. With his tutor, Doctor Engel, he plans a visit to the old German University town of Heidelberg. Engel recalls nostalgically his own youth in Heidelberg, as the Prince looks forward with considerable anticipation to his future freedom in that delightful city ("Golden Days"). When they arrive in Heidelberg it is spring, and the world is in bloom. The Prince, now incognito, joins his new comrades in a student's song ("Student's Marching Song"), after which they parade to the "Golden Apple Inn". There the students raise their Steins of beer in a robust toast to drink and romance ("Drinking Song"). They call for Kathie, the lovely young daughter of the innkeeper. She addresses the students with considerable warmth of feeling, after which she comes to the Prince's table and dedicates to him a sentimental song about Heidelberg ("In Heidelberg Fair"). The students respond with a vigorous rendition of the age-old student hymn, "Gaudeamus Igitur". Before long, Kathie and the Prince are strongly attracted to each other. In the ensuing weeks their friendship ripens into love ("Deep in My Heart"); one beautiful evening the Prince is inspired to sing a serenade under her window ("Serenade"). But their love idyll is doomed. The news arrives from Karlsberg that the king is dead, and Prince Karl Franz must return to ascend the throne. More than that, he must, for reasons of State, marry Princess Margaret. Realizing that their life together is over, they bid each other a sentimental farewell. But back in Karlsberg, the new king cannot forget Heidelberg or Kathie. As he sits in his royal suite, visions arise of the place where he had been so happy, and the girl with whom he had been so in love. Unable to contain himself any longer, he leaves Karlsberg to revisit Heidelberg. When the lovers meet again they are deeply moved, but they also know that a permanent union is an impossibility. They say farewell for a last time, with a pledge to keep at least their memories of each other alive as long as they live. The original New York run of The Student Prince (608 performances) represented the longest of any Sigmund Romberg operetta. The operetta is now a classic of the American theatre, repeatedly revived.

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Beer Song

Duff Beer Song

Simpsons-Song

4.58745

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My First Pint

My first pint of beer was Kimberely Mild. Mild is a dark beer that was 'milder' in taste than bitter and usually less alcoholic.

The main reason I drank this was because it was 1 penny cheaper than a pint of bitter. When kept well it was silky smooth and 'guiness-esque' in appearance. Sometimes it wasn't so good and the rumour was that the 'drips' from the overspills were poured back into the mild barrel to save money!

These beers were brewed by Nottinghamshire brewer Hardy Hanson.Their standard beer mats looked like this...

image credit Selwyn

All The Beer You Could Wish For

Check out these amazing beer links Stumble Upon

Beer Rivals in Nottingham

Two other breweries competed for busines in Nottingham these were Home Ales whose Robin Hood insignia adorned their beer mats and Shipstones Brewery

Shipstones were famous for using Shire Horses to deliver their beer.

image credit This Is Nottingham

In the 1970s Shipstones had an old fashioned image. If your beer 'tasted like Shippos' it wasn't really a compliment!.

image credit John's Beer Bits

Home Ales Brewery Nottingham England

When I was a kid one of the first things I noticed from my bedroom was a building with a flashing neon sign away in the distance in the suburb of Nottingham called Arnold. The sign read 'Home of the best Ales'. It is now a local gorvernment office. The building was the home ales brewery and I was looking at it from the horizon in the picture

Home Ales

Home Ales Brewery

Drinking Beer

Where did beer come from? How is beer made?

When drinking water was unsafe hundreds of years ago the only safe way to drink water was by having a beer. The alcohol killed the majority of germs and nasties in poor quality water.

English beer has a long history, and has quite distinct traditions from most other beer brewing countries (see Beer and nationality).

England is one of the few countries (along with Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) where ales, beers brewed by warm fermentation rather than lagers, have remained dominant among domestic beers. In addition, cask conditioned beer, rather than bottled beer, is still normal, with the beer finishing its maturing in casks in the cellar of the pub rather than at the brewery.

read the rest of the Wikipedia article

Drinking Ale

Ale is not strictly beer

Ale is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a top-fermenting brewers' yeast. This yeast ferments the beer quickly, giving it a sweet, full bodied and fruity taste. Most ales contain hops, which impart a bitter herbal flavour that helps to balance the sweetness of the malt and preserve the beer. The other major style of beer ? lager ? is bottom-fermented.

Ales are common in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, the eastern provinces of Canada, South Australia and among craft beer consumers in the United States. The German word for "top-fermenting" is "obergärig"; the French equivalent is "Haute fermentation".

Ales typically take 3 to 4 weeks to make, although some varieties can take as long as 4 months.

Lagers take significantly longer to brew than ales and tend to be less sweet.

read the rest of the Wikipedia article

The Foggy Dew

English drinking songs - A L Lloyd - The foggy dew

Track 2 (Including Lyrics) -Description - This true-life story is known in many forms. Sometimes the girl is frightened by a ghost: the bugaboo. Sometimes she seems disturbed by the weather: the foggy dew. Some say the foggy dew is a virginity symbol; others say the words are there by accident or corruption, and all the girl was pretending to be frightened of was ghosts. Whatever the case, she creeps to the roving bachelor for comfort, and gets what she came for. The Irish have it as a sentimental piece of blarney, the Scots as a brief bawdy guffaw; students have coarsened the song, and Benjamin Britten has refined it. The East Anglian country-folk have it straightest, and sing it without a laugh or a tear or a nudge in the ribs, just as it happened. The Foggy Dew is known all over Britain, yet rarely seen in its full form in print, which is odd, for the song is eminently decent in its best traditional forms. It's not a drinking song, but it's often sung in drinking plaves. -Lyrics: When I was a bachelor young and bold, I followed the roving trade. And all the harm that ever I done, I courted a handsome maid. I wooed her all the summertime, And a part of the winter too. And the only harm that ever I done Was to keep off the foggy dew. It was all on one night about twelve o'clock, When I lay fast asleep. There came this maid to my bedside And bitterly she did weep. She wept, she moaned, she tore her hair, And she cried, What shall I do? So all that night I held her tight Just to keep off the foggy dew. Well all the first part of that night How we did sport and play,. And all the latter part of that night Snug in my arms she lay. And when the broad daylight appeared She cried, I am undone! Oh, hold your tongue, you silly young girl, For the foggy dew have gone. I never told nobody her name And damned be if I do, But many's the time I think of that night When I kept off the foggy dew.

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Beer on Amazon

Books about drinking beer

If you are interested in drinking beer and the social aspects of imbibing beer then these books will be of interest to you.

Man Walks into a Pub: A Sociable History of Beer

by: Pete Brown

Amazon Price: $10.20 (as of 12/31/2009)

The Longest Crawl: Being an Account of a Journey Through an Intoxicated Landscape, Or, a Child's Treasury of Booze

by: Ian Marchant

Amazon Price: (as of 12/31/2009)

John Barleycorn

"John Barleycorn" is an English folksong. The character of John Barleycorn in the song is a personification of the important cereal crop barley, and of the alcoholic beverages made from it, beer and whisky. In the song, John Barleycorn is represented as suffering attacks, death, and indignities that correspond to the various stages of barley cultivation, such as reaping and malting.

read the rest of the Wikipedia article

Beer Links

Being interested in drinking beer means you will find the beer links really useful.

These drinking beer links are skewed towards drinking beer in England and link to breweries, and beer drinking associations.

Beers of the World: Awesome resource about beer
Bass: Brewer of repute
Wolverhampton and Dudley: Black Country Brewery
Theakstons: Originator of the famous Old Peculiar
Abbot Ale: East Anglian brewer
Directory of Real Ale Brewers: A tasty list
Pub Explorer Brewery List: Find your way around the beweries
Society of Independent Brewers: Celebrate independence
Beer Pages with Roger Protz: Roger Protz and Tom Cannavan's beer pages - beer tasting notes, beer features, beer glossary, beer links
Beer Advocate: Advocates of beer
Realbeer.com: Beer in the UK: Everything you could ever want to know about beer, brewpubs, microbreweries, homebrewing, and the beer industry. We have over 150,000 pages about beer, searchable brewery and pub databases, beer festival and homebrew event calendars, and news about beer.
Hook Norton Brewery Company Limited: Hook Norton brewery was started over 150 years ago by farmer and maltster John Harris. The brewery is now a very well known and respected "independent brewery " and is still run today five generations on by the Clarke family. The brewery produces a wide range of of award winning real ales
Hesket Newmarket Brewery: Beers
History
Outlets
Wychwood Brewery: Wychwood Brewery - hand-crafted fine beers and organic ales from the famous Oxfordshire brewer
Jennings Brewery: Home
Wadworth :: Welcome to Wadworth: Welcome to Wadworth
Dent Brewery: In Yorkshire
Wye Valley Brewery: Brewery producing a range of real ales, including Dorothy Goodbody's traditional bitter. Three tied houses.
Black Sheep Brewery: The Black Sheep Brewery is based in Masham, North Yorkshire, where you can take a brewery tour, have a meal in the Bistro and purchase souvenirs from the shop. You can also buy online.
St Peter's Brewery: Finest quality traditional & special ales
Real Ale, Online Beer Shop and Online Pub Directory: Buy Real Ale Online from our Online Beer Shop. Hop Back Brewery PLC is a Real Ale Brewer Based in Salisbury Wiltshire, and brew award wining Real Ales such as Summer Lightning, GFB and Crop Circle.
Northumberland Brewery: You can now order Bottles of some of our fine bottled ales online from Northumbrian Gifts at www.northumbriandgifts.co.
CAMRA: CAMPAIGN FOR REAL ALE
Badger First Gold: A classic country ale from Dorset using a single hop for purity and character.
Imagine acres of low growing hedgerows more reminiscent of a vineyard, where the First Gold hop develops its traditional English character and flavour.
Shepherd Neame, Faversham, Kent: Shepherd Neame's only official website contains details of its products, a tour of its brewery, products for you to buy, and some fun features.
Beers of Europe Ltd - British beer: Beers to buy
Opinionated Beer Page - Reviews from England: Beer Reviews
Modern Drunkard Magazine Online: Standing Up For Your Right to Get Falling Down Drunk Since 1996
Must Love Beer: Across the World there are at least fifty major styles of beer

Brewing

A bit of history about the way in which beer drinkers get the beer the enjoy to drink

Brewing is the production of alcoholic beverages and alcohol fuel through fermentation. The term is used for the production of beer, although the word "brewing" is also used to describe the fermentation process used to create wine and mead. It can also refer to the process of producing sake and soy sauce. "Brewing" is also sometimes used to refer to any chemical mixing process.

Brewing specifically refers to the process of steeping, such as with tea and water, and extraction, usually through heat. Wine and cider technically aren't brewed, rather vinted, as the entire fruit is pressed, and then the liquid extracted. Mead isn't technically brewed, as heating often isn't used in the mixing process, and the honey is used entirely, as opposed to being heated with water, and then discarded, as are hops and barley in beer, and or tea leaves for tea, and coffee beans for coffee. Spices could technically be brewed into a mead though.

Brewing has a very long history, and archeological evidence suggests that this technique was used in ancient Egypt. Descriptions of various beer recipes can be found in Sumerian writings, some of the oldest known writing of any sort.

The brewing industry is part of most western economies.

read the rest of the Wikipedia article

Brewers Blog

Brewers Roundtable: The professionals speak

The Curious Example of Carlisle's State Owned Brewery

The only place in the UK where barstaff were civil servants

One of Carlisle's most curious claims to fame is its government owned brewery. Apparently the government of the day didn't want munitions workers in World War 1 turning up to work drunk or with hangovers and hampering the war effort. So they nationalised the brewery to ensure the alcohol content of the beer was relatively 'weak'.

Carlisle State Owned Brewery

Cumbrian Breweries

Campaign For Real Ale

the guardians of standards and variety

The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) is an independent, voluntary, consumer organisation based in St Albans, England, whose main aims are promoting real ale and the traditional British pub. It is now the largest single-issue consumer group in the UK,

and is a founding member of the European Beer Consumers' Union (EBCU).

read the rest of the Wikipedia article

CAMRA Newsfeeds

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Old Speckled Hen

One of my favourites

Old Speckled Hen

Barley Wine

Is it a beer? is it a wine? No...its Barleywine

Barley wine is an unusual type of strong ale. If you bought a pint and had it poured into a 'jar' like the one pictured at the of this lens, then drank off exactly one 'window', you could fit a bottle of Barley Wine into your pint!

Barley Wine - Wikipedia

Drinking Beer and Ale

A Local View On Beers Ales and Beer Mats

Contents at a Glance

Contents at a Glance

Drink Drink Drink

from ein bruder Bier nation

Drink! THE STUDENT PRINCE (the same yes)

Beer Song

Duff Beer Song

My First Pint

All The Beer You Could Wish For

Beer Rivals in Nottingham

Home Ales Brewery Nottingham England

Drinking Beer

Where did beer come from? How is beer made?

Drinking Ale

Ale is not strictly beer

The Foggy Dew

English drinking songs - A L Lloyd - The foggy dew

Beer on Amazon

Books about drinking beer

John Barleycorn

Beer Links

Being interested in drinking beer means you will find the beer links really useful.

Brewing

A bit of history about the way in which beer drinkers get the beer the enjoy to drink

Brewers Blog

The Curious Example of Carlisle's State Owned Brewery

The only place in the UK where barstaff were civil servants

Campaign For Real Ale

the guardians of standards and variety

CAMRA Newsfeeds

Old Speckled Hen

One of my favourites

Barley Wine

Is it a beer? is it a wine? No...its Barleywine

I'm Only Here For The Beer

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Beer mats

The Katz Group - Leading Beer Mat Manufacturer

A great company under threat

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Beer Mat Collecting Link List

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