The South - where does it start?

[AleisterCrowley]

[
Real ale should...
Julian F. G. W.

There is really no good way to continue this thought other than to say "...should be banned from the planet on the grounds that it all smells like sewage runoff and tastes like fetid yellow fever-infested swampwater swarming with mosquitoes"

give me an ice cold clean-tasting glass of a light European lager any day: Amstel by choice

NO! Stone him, stone him....
Real ale is a fine natural craft product, which is often locally sourced from small brewers
Mass-market lager is a noxious mass-produced chemical cocktail, usually produced by a mega-brewery that looks like an oil refinery (cf Carlsberg Northampton) Amstel is very poor indeed - I bought a four pack for a train journey a few years back and almost didn't finish it, which is saying something..
There are some good craft lagers of course...

[servodude]

give me an ice cold clean-tasting glass of a light European lager any day: Amstel by choice

No, no, no no!

On my weekly poker night in our local, my six friends all drink lager while I partake of one of a choice of five or six locally brewed craft beers, including the pub's own brews (brewed by an ex brewer from Siren brewery). There will be up to four tapped straight from the casks at the rear of the bar (under cooling mats) and another two or three hand pumped from the cellar. The are some fantastic and varied brews every week.

Of the lager drinkers, one drinks Peroni, one Kronenburg and three drink Amstel because it's the cheapest and they have the palates of a gila monster that has not had a drink for two years! (One particularly perverted individual has something called "a top" in his...ugh)

FWIW real craft beers can be brewed anywhere, North or South.

John

I worked the bar at a sci-fi convention in Glasgow in 1995 (the one where John Brunner died).
I was asked by one plamf for a heavy tops, in Klingon.
I guessed that's what he was speaking given his outfit, which included stuck on next gen lumps and dark tan boot polish, so told him I didn't speak it.
He repeated it in English, and I told him we didn't do cocktails (and served him it 5 secs later).

As to the original question; I'm pretty sure the answer is Abington.

-sd

[AleisterCrowley]

Abington, Northampton, or Abington, Lanarkshire?
Or do you mean Abingdon?

[tjh290633]

Before the motorways were built, Potters Bar was often said to be the boundary, because the A1 road signs all said The North.

Living in Gloucestershire, it always seemed to us that the South had finished past Worcester. When I was working in Sheffield, that seemed to be on the edge of the Midlands, with the North some way up the country. East Midlands Gas Board provided our gas supply.

My guess as to where the South lies, taking all things into consideration, is defined by a line from Worcester to Ipswich. The North, probably by a line from Preston to York, with the Midlands in between.

The North was characterized by fizzy beer, squirted through nozzles, and having lots of froth. We in the South had proper beer, as the Lord intended.

TJH

[servodude]

Abington, Northampton, or Abington, Lanarkshire?
Or do you mean Abingdon?

Lanarkshire; where the Southerners used to get trapped because the snow defeated them


-sd

[simsqu]

[
Real ale should...
Julian F. G. W.

There is really no good way to continue this thought other than to say "...should be banned from the planet on the grounds that it all smells like sewage runoff and tastes like fetid yellow fever-infested swampwater swarming with mosquitoes"

give me an ice cold clean-tasting glass of a light European lager any day: Amstel by choice

NO! Stone him, stone him....

...etc etc. Locally sourced... do me a favour

Well I knew if I told the truth about all that ridiculous "cask" rubbish a few of you Neanderthals would crawl out from under a collection of mildewed rocks in the vainglorious attempt to defend the indefensible.

I suggest all you sad old beardies man up for once and admit that real ale or whatever you call the stuff is merely a substitute for inadequacies in other areas of your humdrum lives.

Only a man completely at ease with his own masculinity would admit to enjoying a cool pint of Amstel or even a Campari with a little umbrella.

Hairy Beasts the lot of you

[panamagold]

Surely the bottom of the Edgware Road?

[stewamax]

There is really no good way to continue this thought other than to say "...should be banned from the planet on the grounds that it all smells like sewage runoff and tastes like fetid yellow fever-infested swampwater swarming with mosquitoes"

So you don't really like it then?

[simsqu]

Surely the bottom of the Edgware Road?

First sensible thing I've heard all year

[simsqu]

There is really no good way to continue this thought other than to say "...should be banned from the planet on the grounds that it all smells like sewage runoff and tastes like fetid yellow fever-infested swampwater swarming with mosquitoes"

So you don't really like it then?

Last time someone forced a pint of the stuff on me I found a dead cat floating in it

[UncleIan]

The south is where you can happily grow courgettes outside, the north isn't.

[bungeejumper]

The North was characterized by fizzy beer, squirted through nozzles, and having lots of froth. We in the South had proper beer, as the Lord intended.

The first bitters I ever drank were during the fizzy keg age of the late 1960s , down in Watford, and I thought they were bad until I moved to Birmingham, where they drank something called mild. I have never bothered to find out how mild was made, but the popular wisdom was that the people at Ansells or Banks put all the sweepings from the floor into the brew and didn't bother with hops because the flat-capped eejits who drank it would never notice the difference.

Ten years of living and working in Brum convinced me that the locals were harmless, and much friendlier and kinder than Londoners, and that everyone in our street knew somebody who could get them stuff at half price, or less. I rather miss the place sometimes. Don't miss the mild, though.

BJ

[AleisterCrowley]

Banks's Mild is quite nice actually.
Anything made by Ansells was filth

[tjh290633]

The first bitters I ever drank were during the fizzy keg age of the late 1960s , down in Watford, and I thought they were bad until I moved to Birmingham, where they drank something called mild. I have never bothered to find out how mild was made, but the popular wisdom was that the people at Ansells or Banks put all the sweepings from the floor into the brew and didn't bother with hops because the flat-capped eejits who drank it would never notice the difference.

Ten years of living and working in Brum convinced me that the locals were harmless, and much friendlier and kinder than Londoners, and that everyone in our street knew somebody who could get them stuff at half price, or less. I rather miss the place sometimes. Don't miss the mild, though.

BJ

We used to have Ansell's Light Mild at our local Lloyds & Yorath Pub in the 1950s, delivered by Steam lorry. It was an acceptable very weak bottled beer, but draft was often a variable concoction. I recall that the takeover of Alton Court Brewery by Stroud Brewery in that era was one of the few cases of deterioration asa result of take over. One of the worst that I ever tasted was Garnes Burford Ale, whose tankard I took in recompense. Flowers Keg was welcome in those days, as was Watneys Red Barrel, but Worthington E and Draught Bass were usually of a good standard, and one could always fall back on Draught Guinness as a last resort. That was in the days of double casks, one forcing the dark fluid out of the other by gravity.

I also had my first taste of American beer in those days on a visit to USAF Brize Norton on an open day. Cans of Millers "Hi Life" and Schlitz's, "the Beer that made Milwaukee Famous" were found in the Sergeants' Mess Bar, in long cupboards with galvansed baths of ice in the bottom. Garnes Burford Ale was sampled on the way home from that visit. I crawled through a B52 on thhat occasion.

TJH

[jfgw]

There is really no good way to continue this thought other than to say "...should be banned from the planet on the grounds that it all smells like sewage runoff and tastes like fetid yellow fever-infested swampwater swarming with mosquitoes"

I have had some of that too, usually from a pub full of lager drinkers. Any idiot can keep keg beer; cask takes skill and it has a limited life once started. Try a pub with someone who knows how to keep cask ale and which has a good turnover.

...etc etc. Locally sourced... do me a favour

Some is, some isn't. If you say where you are, we can point you in the direction of a local brew. For me, Maldon in Essex has two breweries (I have been in both). Bishop Nick is in Braintree (I've been to that one too). Wibblers is in Southminster, there is a brewery tap on site, as there is with Crouch Vale brewery in South Woodham Ferrers. There are others in Essex but if you head just into Suffolk, I recommend the Mouldon's brewery tap in Sudbury and Nethergate brewery tap just up the road in Long Melford (you can see the brewery plant through a window).

How locally souced is your fizzy lager?


Julian F. G. W.

[simsqu]

There is really no good way to continue this thought other than to say "...should be banned from the planet on the grounds that it all smells like sewage runoff and tastes like fetid yellow fever-infested swampwater swarming with mosquitoes"

I have had some of that too, usually from a pub full of lager drinkers. Any idiot can keep keg beer; cask takes skill and it has a limited life once started. Try a pub with someone who knows how to keep cask ale and which has a good turnover.

...etc etc. Locally sourced... do me a favour

How locally souced is your fizzy lager?

Julian F. G. W.

Thanks Julian, but I have no intention of going anywhere near a cask, whatever that is, and my fizzy lager I assume is made in a large steel industrial vat somewhere off the A13, or possibly on the outskirts of Rotterdam: works for me!

[Leothebear]

[
Real ale should...
Julian F. G. W.

There is really no good way to continue this thought other than to say "...should be banned from the planet on the grounds that it all smells like sewage runoff and tastes like fetid yellow fever-infested swampwater swarming with mosquitoes"

give me an ice cold clean-tasting glass of a light European lager any day: Amstel by choice

It should be pointed out this is the view of someone whose favoured drink is Campari.

Leo