At dinner we had pizza and beer, the pizza was delicious and the beer was Budvar and was gorgeous, as you would expect. We then decided to have another drink before we went home and headed for Neary's just off Grafton St. Great pub, brilliant atmosphere but I still feel the loss of the peacock wallpaper in the ladies toilets, it will never be the same for me since they cleaned the place up.
Howandever, Neary's would not be a trendy pub and so choice of beer on draught is limited to Budweiser, Carlsberg, Heineken, Guinness and Smithwicks. All very well when you haven't been drinking yummy Czech beer. I ordered a Budweiser on the basis that I was interested in the compare and contrast of drinking one after the other.
The King of Beers?
Let's just say it was not a good experience. Actually minging is the term I would apply to the taste of my pint. I couldn't finish it.
Then I started thinking about beer and my likes and dislikes. I have developed a strong preference for imported beers, especially Czech and German beers, in recent times. Miller, Bud, Carlsberg, just aren't acceptable to me anymore. I have become a beer snob!
And to think 20 years ago your choice of beer was Guinness, Smithwicks or Harp! And we were happy with it!
8 comments:
That reminds me of the famous draing of a horse that's eating out of a bucket marked "Guinness" and is pissing into a keg marked "Budweiser".
Your opinion does not make you a beer snob, it means you have good taste.
That being said, I personally thought Harp was equally bad. I also have no time for all these "designer" beers as I call them, be they Czech, Polish or Venezuelan.
I get my Dutch courage from Heineken and always will.
I'm a Guinness Nazi myself! It gave me a bit too much courage last night, less said the better...
Well Guinness would be my #1 but i've started drinking these piss coloured beers since I moved abroad. I agree with JL, it doesn't make you a snob it just means you have good taste. Bud is pure urine, IMO, and doesn't come close to a good Czech beer.
If you haven't yet done so, cultivate a taste for weissbier. This is the German (or Belgian) beer made from wheat, that has brewers yeast still in the bottle. Try Erdinger, Fransiskaner, Hoegaarden or my favourite, Maisel Weisse.
Bud, Miller, etc are popular because they taste of very little. For the mass market, bland and sweet are the tastes of choice. (Though some may argue that the popularity of Guinness, a particularly complex and dry brew, disproves that theory. I would argue that we Irish continue to support the Guinness brand because we see it as part of our national identity.)
You're not a beer snob, Fi, you just have a discerning palate.
"I would argue that we Irish continue to support the Guinness brand because we see it as part of our national identity."
A nice Guinness is class though.
Indeed it is, Maca. However, if we didn't already have a stout-drinking culture, and a beer like Guinness was trying to break into the Irish market in 2005, it would get no further than niche status, imo.
Good point G.
Did you ever try Casey's? I never even heard of it 'till a couple of weeks ago, we were getting a bit sick of the Karjala (bit hard on the stomach) and went looking for some Kilkenny, all they had was Caseys. It's not bad ... after you've had a few.
I have tried Weissbier and it is very yummy however it makes me very drunk far too quickly which has its good and bad points.
As for the creamy pint of Guiness oh yes I've sunk a few in my time and you can't really beat it but being a girl it does make me fat so I don't tend to drink it anymore! Oh the trials and tribulations!
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