Pencil&Spoon

Mark · Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 4:34 pm Post subject: My Favourite Beers...

As there is no answer to the question 'What is the best beer in the world?' I will list some of my favourites.

Personally I love a good strong rich ale. Complex and full of flavour, I like my beer to challenge me and excite me with every mouthful. Very few beers that I have tasted can achieve this, and the ones that do are generally specially produced or vintages.

Fuller's produce a Vintage Ale each year, these are always fantastic. They are not widely available but you can buy them. If you see one then buy it. It comes in a presentation box, marking it apart from the others. Each year is different so find one and try it! It is a special occasion beer, not your everyday kind.

I love Innis and Gunn. I have tried 3 of their beers so far. The standard one that you can buy in most supermarkets is superb and the flavours never fail to impress me; burnt buttered toast, caramel, oak, whisky and honey. The special edition beers that they produce are equally good and complex. These are sold in a box, either red or blue, and have to be tried.

Deus Brut des Flandres is a beer brewed in the same style as Champagne and this is one of the best beers I have tried in terms of it being quite unique and spectacular. It is light and tinglingly alive on the palate, with soft biscuit creaminess, apple fruits, delicate herbs and a dry hoppy smooth finish, made unique by the fizz.

These are the first few that come to mind, there are others but I just cannot remember the name; there is one I remember that tasted of pink wafer biscuits and came from France, or Switzerland or Austria, or somewhere around there.

mattstokes · Joined: 27 Sep 2007 Posts: 1

Mark your beers are all worthy contenders, yet as we know beers can become so much greater depending on the time and place of drinking. No beer is that good when sat by yourself watching wife swap or something.
Here are a couple of my favourites
Hobgoblin, in canterbury, my first taste of it on draught with a friend. I drank it in 3 gulps. Superb.
Paulaner light on my 21st from the bavarian beer house in old street, a litre of it, brought to me by a busty german waitress, possibly the finest draught lager in London.
Banoffe beer on a wetherspoons pub crawl, if you have a sweet tooth.
Pint of mild in the wenlock arms, accompanied by mandatory salt beef sandwich and drunk man after 27 pints of cider.
Oyster stout in Man of Kent pub- best pub ever, fishy beer. nuff said.
Sam Smiths bitter in Pricess Louise, Holborn. Had to ask the barmaid to repeat herself after she said 3.40 for two pints, then proceeded to lap up a fine bitter in one of Englands most glorious pubs.
Perhaps ona whim though, my best beer ever would be Deus Champagne beer, drunk before the summer ball at royal holloway in a suit, amongst friends, very pretentoiusly, before laughing at the poor souls who were drinking red stripe from a tin. unbelievably good, worth every penny of the hefty price tag. cheers.

Mark · Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 8:07 pm Post subject:

I cannot agree with you more mattstokes! In fact if I think back to all of the beers that I consider to be my favourites then it is always the memory of the occasion that brings them back to me.

The Fuller's Vintage was a 21st birthday present from my best mate, the special Innis & Gunn's were gifts from him too and we saved them up for a special occasion and drunk them together; the shared experience and the anticipation making them that much better in the memory of them.

The Deus Champagne beer also (a 21st from me to my best mate this time); it is the occasion that I recall before the taste, although it is a stunningly spectacular beer! These beers are great in themselves, but improved by the specialness of the occasion in which they were drunk.

A pint of ice cold Mythos while watching the sun set in Greece is almost perfection.

A Whitstable Bay Oyster Stout drunk on Whitstable beach from the brewery bar is incredible.

A bottle of Kwak in the Beer Circus in Croydon is almost unrivaled because of the brilliance of the pub, and not to mention the glass it is served in. Also, from the same night a friend had a glass of Liefmann's Kriek off tap, very expensive but totally worth it, and even though I only sampled it it still lingers in my mind.

For me it is the second stein in the Bavarian Beerhouse that tastes better; the first is great but the second just that bit more remarkable! and the actual bar itself just lifts the whole experience up.

And after winning the University of London Cricket Cup, a cold pint of lager from the trophy is perhaps one of the finest moments of my drinking past. And certainly the best tasting pint of bog-standard lager I have ever drunk!

The Samuel Smith's organic lager in the Cittie of Yorke near Chancery Lane is the best pint of lager in London in my opinion (although drinking it in the Princess Louise is equally good - lets just hope that it re-opens soon and the interior hasn't changed too much!)

I can remember one beer that I class as the worst beer that I have ever tasted, and I could've been anywhere, with anyone in the world and it still would taste undrinkable! That is Crazy Ed's Chilli Beer! I have never had anything so spicy in my life! But try it for yourself, it is one of those beers that is worth trying just for the experience!! I had mine in the Porterhouse in Covent Garden, which incedentally serves the best stout in London. In my opinion.

I guess it comes down to an interpretation of the question: is the best beer one that is judged on the flavour experience alone, or is it about the memory of time and place that goes with it?