things easy, these categories were also known as ‘light’, ‘heavy’, ‘export’ and ‘wee heavy’, with ‘wee heavy’ being the strongest, as well as the easiest to make a joke from.
The shilling names fell out of favour but were revived in the 70s, and we think they’re great. McCheers!
Can be heavy-going, but will keep you warm in winter.
Dark Irish beers
In Ireland, Guinness is a national icon, up there with James Joyce and Roy Keane. Yet a lot of people don’t know that the origins of the big G are in a dark beer popular with the porters at Covent Garden market in London. When this was exported to Dublin, Arthur Guinness decided to take on the challenge, and he did like a challenge. In the early days bg (Before Guinness), when Dublin authorities threatened to cut off his water supply, he threatened to pickaxe the gang who came to dry him out. You didn’t mess with Arthur.
Anyway, so successful was he at brewing ‘porter’, or Dublin Stout as it became known in Ireland, that he switched his entire beer production to it in 1799, and the rest is definitely history.
It’s not all Guinness though, oh no. There’s another strand of brewing in Ireland that has been making a bit of a comeback recently and that’s Irish ales, or Irish red ales. These get their name from the reddish hue produced by roasting small quantities of barley in the brewing process – it’s very popular with beer connoisseurs.
Definitely good for you, with a strong body and frothy top!
American artisan beers
We Brits took beer with us when we colonised America. Then immigrants from Germany brought their lager styles to the Yanks. Now the trad Brit styles are making a comeback in the States, with artisan brewers – from the West Coast to the East – producing everything from strong, so-called ‘barley wines’ to savoury brown ales (like our Newcastle Brown).
A marriage made in heaven – strong British roots and American savvy. Pull one of these and you won’t regret it.
German beers
Though they do produce their own ‘sour’ beers, the Germans are rightly best known for inventing the lager – named after the lagering (‘bedding’) method of bottom-fermenting beer (as opposed to ale, which is generally top-fermenting beer)! There are loads of different types of lager made all over the world, not just the cheap piss beloved of British city-centre pubs. It is one hell of a drink when done properly (‘hell’ meaning ‘light-coloured’ or ‘fair’ being the German word of choice to describe the golden brew).
Ice-cool blonde. May appear common, but worth bedding for a while to fully appreciate.
Fruit beers
Nothing to do with the cherry-on-a-stick brigade. Beers have been flavoured with fruit for centuries – raspberry, apricot, cherry and peach are favourites and are popular with those wildly experimental Belgian Lambic brewers and also American microbrewers. The fruit balances the acidity and acts as a thirst quencher. More disturbingly, some brewers use vegetables like pumpkin and chilli to give their brews a kick. Now that’s just confusing.
Colourful, though may be just a little tart .
MORRISSEY MAXIM
A great pub is like your best mate – familiar, comforting and a bit smelly.
Spit or swallow: Morrissey and Foxy’s guide to beer tasting
Why taste beer?
If you think brewing your own is a step too far towards wearing hairy jumpers and having a twiggy beard, why not get a load of different beers in and have a tasting session with some mates? (Do this at home, not at the pub – you’ll look like a complete twat.) The point of brewing your own is that you are in control of the taste. By finding out what flavours and styles of beer appeal, you open your mind and mouth to some of the 5,000 or so different brands of beer you can get in the UK at the moment. So when people say ‘I don’t drink beer, only lager’, we say, ‘Yes, you do drink beer – lager’s a beer. You’re halfway there. Now, come on, take a look along that bar, past the chemical piss. See those pumps? Go on!’
When you were a teenager you didn’t say, ‘No long trousers for me, I’ll stick with the shorts, thanks.’ We change – tastes change. It’s in the interest of some hefty marketing budgets that we Keep Drinking The Same Thing, but we don’t have to do as we’re told. There’s a whole world of beer out there, just waiting to be discovered. Some of it you’ll hate, some you wouldn’t bother with again, but one or two you might like. Then love. Then search for more. Why deny yourself the pleasure? You may have been drinking the same pint for 20 years, but it’s never too late to try other things. A lot of this is about drinking for flavour as opposed to drinking because it’s coloured blue and it gets you off your tits when you’ve had seven of them. Get drunk on something decent. Let’s have fun, but quality fun.
The tasting session
When you taste something you are excited by, ask yourself, ‘Why? What’s the thing in that beer that makes my trousers tingle?’ When someone buys you a beer and you don’t like it, do the same thing – what is it about that beer that makes you think of snogging your granny?
So, get the beers you want to try and read the labels to find out what’s the best temperature to drink them at. The cooler the beer, though, the less flavour and smell it gives off. There’s a reason that some lager is supercold: it tastes like Chernobyl water at anything other than lip-freezing temperatures.
1 Pour into a wine glass. Have a look at the colour of the beer by holding it against a sheet of white paper or a white cloth. Most beer (except wheat beers) should be clear. If not, something may have gone wrong at the processing stages and some rubbish has slipped in. Chuck the beer down the khazi if that’s the case.
2 Swirl. Hold the glass by the stem and examine the colour for shade and intensity.
3 Smell. You’ll get some initial smells, which you should shout out very quickly – all of the impressions you get are valid. Remember what gives trouser action from the smell. Try different words until you nail the smell. There are some ideas in the Flavour Wheel (page 29) but have a go at saying what comes into your head first of all.
4 Taste. Finally, get some beer into your mouth. Swill the glass and take a sip; get some air in your mouth at the same time as this will help get more flavours out. Try not to breathe in too hard or you’ll choke – just a tip. Swirl the beer round so all of your mouth gets a taste. Make ridiculous noises, puff your cheeks out – do anything that helps move the beer around and gets it going. The more you do, the more tastes you’ll get. Keep a mental note of what you get – don’t shout out as your mates won’t be happy with a faceful of gobby beer. When you swallow, try to breathe out through your nose. This will increase the flavour extraction. If beer comes out of your nose, you’ve done it wrong. ‘Dead badger on the motorway’ or
