What are you drinking right now?

[Hot Flatus]

I lied.

I've just found a can of Coconut and Marshmallow Stout in the fridge. So I've opened it. It's like the cherry one, but with the cherry replaced with marshmallow. I'm not sure if I like it or not, but at 11% it's going to make me feel floaty.

Effectively its like drinking half a bottle of wine in the time it takes to drink 3/4 pint of beer

[Hot Flatus]

I feel floaty

[ian]

I have a Vocation Heart & Soul session IPA. A more modest 4.4%.

I am horrified to see it says gluten-free on the can. Now I'm going to have to find more gluten.

[Hot Flatus]

4.4%?

Might as well just have a glass of water 

[Hot Flatus]

I mean that's mental really, isn't it.

A 'session' beer that is 4.4%. Session beers used to be 3.5%.
4.4% is just half a % away from what was 'export strength' beer in the 80s. Stella etc

[ian]

Everything is relative.

There's a Wiper & True Small Beer at 2.8% that's very, very quaffable. That's practically Barr Lemonade Shandy, the gateway drink of my childhood. Opened the door to two-litre bottles of Woodpecker behind the garage.

The barrel-aged Vocation stuff hath arrived. And the Imperial Kirsch Stout is marinating in the fridge. I might not get around to that tonight

A nice Burning Sky Saison d'Eté is riding me over while the curry fragrances the house in a way that I suspect will persist till Monday. Reminds me that I have a big bottle of Burning Sky Cuvée in the fridge too.

[Jakob W]

I picked up the Imperial Kirsch when it appeared in selected Tesco branches, which was a good excuse for a bike ride across Sutton Park; it is rather nice, but as with a lot of these silly ABV beers I do wish they were in smaller cans (or even nip bottles). The disadvantage of lockdown beer buying is that I've now got a cupboard of 10+% ABV beers that I'm not sure I want to crack open without someone to split them with...

[ian]

We had the imperial kirsch last night, it was good, but it didn't compare with the bottle of barrel-aged Great Divide Yeti that preceded it. That's a literal monster taste bomb, very complex. I'm not a great fan of the stouts that taste like someone liquidized a cake.

We're all out of Prairie Artisan stouts that moment (the sublime Pirate Noir, Bible Belt, and Bombe) which is making me sad. They had Bible Belt on tap in Ghost Whale the last time we were there. Oh my. And FFS, how long ago was that, now? Over a year. I want to go sit in a place that has other people in it and drink a beer.

For proper ABV danger zone territory, there are barrel-aged barley wines. I love these, but they often top 12% and up, so they're proper sipping beers. A couple of years back we went to a bar in NYC, and they had were doing a barley wine tasting. On a Sunday afternoon. Oh well, why not. It was quiet and the bar girl took a shine to us foreigners. Try this. And this. This one too. That was a long afternoon and I believe the evening was made out of marshmallow.

[Hot Flatus]

If you ask Jaded he might remember a similar evening in the Jordaan in Amsterdam where assumptions were made about ABV that turned out to be not true.

Then again, he might not.

Sort of with you on the stouts. I don't really like stout; a small glass of the Imperial Kirsch one is OK as a sort of stunt beer, but it isn't something I'd do regularly (he says, eyeing up can of said stout in fridge)

[Wowbagger]

For reasons of tending the sick and walking their dog this morning, we are having our main meal this evening, rather than lunchtime, as has been our wont over the past 8 months or so. I think I might partake of a small glass of red - the first alcohol for about a month.

[citoyen]

I'm not a great fan of the stouts that taste like someone liquidized a cake.

I know what you mean. Just because a beer is dark, that doesn't necessarily mean it should be heavy, sweet and cloying.

The best stouts I've ever had have all, without exception, been made by The Kernel. There's a brewer who really gets what stout is all about.

[Jakob W]

I've generally got a bit of a sweet tooth, but pastry stouts all too often tip over into cloying in a way which other sweetish styles (dubbels etc.) don't. This goes back to my nip bottle point: a lot of pastry stouts are ok in a 1/3rd pint measure at your favoured hipster beer emporium, but in larger measures are horribly sickly by the time you hit the bottom of your glass and the beer's warmed up.

[ian]

Kernel do indeed do some decent stouts, I prefer my stout mostly dry and complex, the flavour should come from the malts and hops, not cupcakes. The Great Divide Yeti is a good one, it's got loads going on. They've not just thrown a black forest gateaux in a blender. OK, there's an occasional novelty, but take a sip and move on.

I do save some ire for Guinness though, for being an utterly awful yet stunningly popular stout that everyone raves about. It's not good, people, it's not.

[Hot Flatus]

Beers come and go in terms of popularity.  I mean if you are offended by Guinness, just think back to that utterly inexplicable era in the late 80s when Newcastle Brown was all the rage.

[Socks]

A cheeky Argentinian Tannat, good value and very tasty.  On the other hand if I drank less red wine my cycling might improve.

[Mrs Pingu]

Last night, in fake beer (alcohol free) I had a Big Drop x Amundsen Rush Rider pastry sour (it was also gluten free).
It didn't taste like beer and the fruity flavours were a bit too fake plastic fruit as well. I wouldn't buy it again.

[ian]

Beers come and go in terms of popularity.  I mean if you are offended by Guinness, just think back to that utterly inexplicable era in the late 80s when Newcastle Brown was all the rage.

That shit was my 'Nam. I flashback now to my student days when we were regular imbibers of 'the Dog.' In the misplaced pursuit of nostalgia, a couple of years back I tried a bottle. It's a weird and unpleasant car crash of peculiar upfront sweetness with a sour aftertaste like it was somehow brewed after it's best-before date. It also makes you feel sticky after you've drunk it. It's weirdly and persistently popular in the US (along with the beers that time tried to forget like Harp and Bass).

Mind you, as students, our tastes were not especially refined. We even drank Boddingtons which is quite probably the worst beer in the world. We once made cocktails out of Santogen Tonic Wine and Night Nurse. Now that's the stuff will a launch a night, in much the same way as they launched the Titanic. Into an iceberg.

My gripe about Guinness, tbh, is more down the lectures you get about how good it is, and how you need to go to Dublin and drink it from the source at which point you will receive some heavenly stout-based revelation. It has the same watery, burnt taste it has everywhere else.

[Hot Flatus]

I think the Dublin thing was true at one time. In the late 80s I often drank in the Half Moon just down from Archway, which, as well as staying open beyond midnight because it had a music licence, also served Dublin Guinness. I drank vast quantities whilst singing along to Republican songs. Good Times.

The Draught beer in cans was also noticeably superior, and it too came from Dublin.

I think the point about Guinness is that it is redundant, and has been for probably 15 years. But, prior to that it was always an acceptable option if you found yourself in a shite pub that only served keg bitter and lager.*

*most pubs in Scotland, now.

[John Stonebridge]

That ^ rings true.

While im lucky enough to live in Edinburgh with a really good choice of pubs with great beer, I’ll revert to Guinness when I go back home to Falkirk to my old local with my brothers and extended family.

 Its rather like retsina - by the 3rd one its fine - and the fact that we meet in a pub where it turns over quickly also helps a bit. The same will be true of pretty much every town outside Scotlands cities.   

Id still rather be in the Bow Bar mind you.....

[John Stonebridge]

Enjoying a pre dinner glass of Bellavista - Franciacorta Alma Gran Cuvee Brut purchased from the best deli in Edinburgh, Valvona & Crolla. 

Im sure that champers is generally overpriced and Im on a quest for fizz thats both value and quality. 

[rafletcher]

Pouilly Fume.

[jsabine]

Im sure that champers is generally overpriced and Im on a quest for fizz thats both value and quality. 

We've generally gone off prosecco and tend to drink crémant when we fancy fizz - plenty of different ones around and I'm sure that your favoured wine merchant will have their own preferences (do you have an opinion on Little Rascal?) but in terms of readily available ones we come back to the TtD Crémant de Loire and Prodiguer Crémant De Bourgogne from Sainsbury's, and the Cuvée Royale Crémant de Limoux from Waitrose. Years ago we also tried Roche Lacour Crémant de Limoux at the cave, then were pleased to find we could restock from Laithwaites.

[Feanor]

Enjoying a pre dinner glass of Bellavista - Franciacorta Alma Gran Cuvee Brut purchased from the best deli in Edinburgh, Valvona & Crolla. 

V&C is 2 minutes walk from our pad in Embra, and is a major source of our food and drink!

In happier times, it also has a nice cafe for lunch, where the waitress has already written my order on her pad before asking me!

[Hot Flatus]

Pouilly Fume.

One of my favorites. Been to the village.

By sheer coincidence, in my village here, there is a vineyard that produces an award winning Sauvignon Blanc, and it is more than reminiscent of a decent PF. All flinty and mineral.

I'm just drinking a large Vocation Riwaka. It's nice. Slight sour edge, making a change from their other output.

[John Stonebridge]

Enjoying a pre dinner glass of Bellavista - Franciacorta Alma Gran Cuvee Brut purchased from the best deli in Edinburgh, Valvona & Crolla. 

V&C is 2 minutes walk from our pad in Embra, and is a major source of our food and drink!

In happier times, it also has a nice cafe for lunch, where the waitress has already written my order on her pad before asking me!

Daughter #1 bought a flat in Dalmeny St before lockdown so its a bit of Edinburgh Ive rediscovered (was based in Blenheim Place for a year) and Ive enjoyed a couple of said lunches.  Its a bit of a cliche but the cafe at the back of the shop is a real hidden gem.