THE BRITISH THREAD II

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_beer

Malter , sorry I vb reading.

Well that's a very long time ago, in brewing terms.
I think it was the Romans who introduced cultivation of hops (for brewing beer) in this country, but I'm not sure about that.
I don't know absolutely everything, despite what Tico may think.

There are historical societies and others here and there who brew things like mead (fermented from honey) but really these only look back as far as mediaeval times.
I doubt whether any written recipes for intoxication liquors would have survived in this country through the Dark Ages. Thereafter, monks brewed beer. Spendy is often pissed as a monk.

What an interesting subject for research.

Some infos about "pre-Roman" beer >here via google books<


The oldest Roman beer brewery in Germany is to be found - well, what's left of it - in Castra Regina (aka Regensburg), built Emperor Marc Aurel in 179 AD


The oldest (German) monastry brewery, btw, is close to Regensburg: Benedictine abbey of Weltenburg is brewing beer since 1050.

I think you may have misunderstood me, McT.

MISSED AS A PUNK ? wth ? I am having accent problems with you lot. Dont you know the Queens English ? Phil isnt, he's greek.

Thanks for the info, I was hoping you might know where i could buy some. Bit of a pipe dream it seems. (sigh)

"Drunk as a skunk" is already in the Brit lexicon of flowery and insulting epithets.

"Pissed as a fart" too.

I thought "pissed as a monk" was quite good.

You lost me..how is being intoxicated an insult ? The one I like is "as drunk as a lord"; makes it sound desirable which it truely is for some.

I liked this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxi6QDwQyLU

I would prefer one of you Mac showing you from getting out of bed to making it to the top of the stairs. It's a bit unfair really. And it's not very original. When I see cuts in a movie I know I'm on a new scene each time. And that was Cut City.

Suppose you were filmed for, say, fifty days doing your entrance to the morning and then fifty cuts of you pulling your underpants up were flashed up one after another. Or zipping up. Fifty of you checking how you looked in the mirror would be good.

Anyway--why do you keep going off this thread. There's a hot election in the offing and it might be interesting for a few Americans to listen in on a conversation about it between an ex civil engineer (retd.) and a nutcase.

Take Mr Brown's rather stringent criticism of the UNITE union which is funding an £11 million contribution to his party's campaign in the 100 marginals to counteract the millions the Tories have arranged for Lord Ashcroft to contribute on their behalf to the same battle-front constituencies.

I can't imagine his words not being very carefully chosen.

Yes, ionus, there's a brewery in the States that recently got a lot of media play that makes re-creations of ancient beers from very very old written recipes and from scientific analysis of the lees found in ancient drinking vessels and vats (some re-creations probably closer than others). I tried googling it a month or two ago without much luck, after reading about it six months or so ago. They do an Egyptian and I think a mead, and maybe a Neolithic one (memory fogs), and they're very expensive as I recall, in the $10/$20USD range PER BOTTLE (they tend to come in presentation cases). I'll try googling them again, or you can see if you have better luck than I did.

you were an engineer?

re, ionus,
ah, better luck this time, the Dogfish Head Brewery in Rehoboth, Delaware, USA, Sumerian beer, Egyptian beer, 9000 year old Neolithic Chinese beer, the beer served at a feast by the original King Midas, druidic beer (heather???), in limited editions.
http://discovermagazine.com/2005/nov/stone-age-beer

Well Jack--I wouldn't buy any. Who is going to know whether the beer is anything like the ancient beers. Or made as is claimed. One could easily buy a tanker of John Smith's Extra Smooth, pump it into a big vat, add some treacle and a few spices, stir it all up and bottle it for presentation packs. Nobody would notice they were drinking John Smith's Extra Smooth when they are being distracted by what wonderful people they must be to be drinking beer at those prices and savouring the tastes of bygone times.

With John Smith's Extra Smooth it's the drinkers that get neolithic.

read the article, spendius, if you're not too hungover to focus. it'll answer some of your points, tho i know you never let facts stand in the way of a good rant. (good last line, tho)

There's nothing like "limited editions" to make people feel very special.

We have a high priced bottle called Abbey Well.

I once spent a few nights in the pub studying the presentation methods of the vast range of alcoholic products. Subtle, and not so subtle, sexual allusions were everywhere.

The thing to drink is the most popular. It will either be the cheapest and the best or capitalism is up a gum tree.

You ever drunk Budweiser Lite, spendi? Disproves your contention that most popular is cheapest and best.

I've read the article as you advised Jack. It is pretty funny I must admit. There's not a shred of evidence that it's not all bullshit. Not a peep.

I have never drunk Budweiser Lite nor anything else Lite. I have heard negative comments about it before.

If it is the most popular and it is not the cheapest and the best then it shows that American beer drinkers are aesthetically undertrained and that capitalism is only in a healthy state in the British Isles.

I did and I was dismayed..

Then I tried the regular and I was dismayed..

I take it you drink John Smith's Extra Smooth because it's the cheapest, then?