For those Wordcrafters who might be in London (specifically Earl's Court) during the week commencing 03 August, please be aware that this is the week of the world's largest beer festival - the Great British Beer Festival - and I should be delighted to see any of our members there - probably on Thursday 06 or Friday 07 August.

For those who are interested in the wonderful world of beer, you can find full details on the CAMRA site - http://gbbf.camra.org.uk/home

I won't be in the are this year until after it has finished.

I'm very envious. Have a good time!

I've seen this topic broached before and I wonder if I could ask, Richard - is there a BEST beer in the world?

Yes. The trouble is no two beer drinkers can agree on what it is.

And the more beer they drink, the less able they are to agree.

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I've seen this topic broached before and I wonder if I could ask, Richard - is there a BEST beer in the world?

Indeed. And when you realise that there are over 3000 fine beers brewed in England alone, you'll appreciate why the task is so difficult.

What can be said, though, is there are some beers that are exceptionally good by any standards and some that are poor by most standards (and the same could be said of wine, of course).

But in the bottled beer arena, most would agree that Fuller's 1845 is in the select band of excellent beers and Fosters is in the other band.

Agreeing with Bob and Richard, it's much too difficult a task to decide which is the best beer of all. If you ask the visitors to the GBBF you'll get a wide variety of responses. Individuals vary in their tastes, and sometimes their tastes also vary. There is no simple way of deciding.

I can well remember spending a hot summer's day rowing on the River Thames near Henley in my youth. The beer I drank then, Brakespears, still seems like the best I've ever tasted. I've had several pints of the same beer since then and, while it is excellent, it has never tasted as good as it did that day!

If you ha asked me thirty years ago I'd have answered Banks's Mild without hesitation. Nowadays I'm quite a fan of Enville White and Banks's is considerably inferior to Banks's of the past. (And yes, I have spelled Banks's properly!)

Looks good, goofy, although I'm not really a fan of Imperial Stout. Have you tasted it?

Oh yes, many times, that's why I say it's my favourite beer. You can't buy it in Ontario yet, but whenever I go to Montreal I have some. The last time I was there I had some Péché Mortel aged in American bourbon casks... bourbon chocolate coffee beer delicious.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

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The beer I drank then, Brakespears, still seems like the best I've ever tasted. I've had several pints of the same beer since then and, while it is excellent, it has never tasted as good as it did that day!

I don't think it's as good now as it was when it was brewed in Henley. When Brakespears closed the Henley Brewery and outsourced the brewing I am convinced the beer lost its edge.

I can remember spending many happy hours during the Regatta, sitting on the banks of the Thames supping pint after pint as the rowers exerted themselves! In those days the Ragatta bar, as the pubs, were open all day long - unusual in those unenlightened days when DORA still held sway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...f_the_Realm_Act_1914

I hasten to add that I didn't take part in the Henley Regatta; we were merely messing about on the river one day. I went to the regatta as a spectator a couple of times as my brother was a keen rower and took part. This was in the days when Brakespears still brewed their beer in Henley.

Here's quote from a book someone is pushing on the internet:

The Modern British Empire
Noted in the book The Element:

- - -

Nowadays, being British means...

Driving home in a German car,
but stopping off to pick up some Belgian beer,
at a Turkish kebab or an Indian takeaway,
to spend the evening on Swedish furniture,
watching American programs,
on a Japanese TV.
And the most British thing of all?

Suspicion of anything foreign.

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I hasten to add that I didn't take part in the Henley Regatta; we were merely messing about on the river one day.

Nor I. My mother happened to live in Henley at that time.

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Driving home in a German car,
but stopping off to pick up some Belgian beer,
at a Turkish kebab or an Indian takeaway,
to spend the evening on Swedish furniture,
watching American programs,
on a Japanese TV.

It would be possible to subsitute "British" for most of the items mentioned in this list.

But it is a fact that Britain is a great trading nation and it is easy to obtain goods from all over the world in most British towns and cities and many take advantage of the choice there is. I have never visited any city, anywhere in the world, where the range of produce is the equal of that one can find in London - or indeed many other British cities.

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I have never visited any city, anywhere in the world, where the range of produce is the equal of that one can find in London - or indeed many other British cities.

I believe that aspect is covered here.

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I believe that aspect is covered here.

There is no doubt at all that some of the early British traders were pirates - as were those of many other countries throughout the ages.

That does not alter the fact that the British were once the world's superpower, much of which power depended on international and colonial trade. Unlike many other imperial powers, though, Britain has retained its pre-eminent position as a trading nation, although no longer as an imperial power.

Richard, for all your talk about how great English beer is, you may not be doing enough to keep the industry viable.

http://business.timesonline.co...e/article6722488.ece

I don't quite know why this news broke again - it has been known and CAMRA has been publicising the fact for many months. I assume that CAMRA or "Save The Pub" sent out a press release and there was maybe not much other news.

The various comments to the item have covered many of the reasons; probably the main one is the way in which avaricious and badly-run pub companies (such as Enterprise and Punch Taverns) have been treating their tenants. Properly-run pubs, such as those in the J D Wetherspoon chain, are doing very well.

Of course, the three main anti-alcohol pressure groups haven't helped since it is their efforts that have persuaded the Government that there is an alcohol abuse problem (in fact, alcohol consumption in the UK has actually been falling over the past few years) and have suggested that the Chancellor should tackle this supposed problem by increasing alcohol tax. Governments, of course, need no encouragement to increase tax - especially our present "tax and spend" crowd - and UK alcohol tax is now set to increase annually at 2%(?) above inflation.

I don't know you would agree but it seems clear to me that there is an alcohol abuse problem but that it has little, if anything, to do with pubs. The problem is caused by cheap supermarket available alcohol and the kind of two for the price of one on strong spirits that many pubs targeting the young drinking market offer.
(For the US readers who may not realise the prices involved, a pint of a 6% ale in a pub will, depending on where you live, cost from about £2.50 to about £4, a can of a similar strength lager from a supermarket can be as little as about 50 pence.)
I only have to walk around my home town centre at almost any time on almost any day to see examples of the former, men (and occasionally women) of all ages sitting or wandering drunkenly around with cans of extra strength cheap lager.
I only have to wait for a late bus in Wolverhampton city centre to see examples of the latter, late teens and early twenties who are too drunk to stand.

The problem is that the people who would, quite rightly, want to reduce this kind of thing, use a scattergun approach - some people have an alcohol problem, therefore all alcohol must be banned. This is plainly punishing the innocent along with the guilty.

Taxation is not only too blunt a tool it is actually a tool that does the exact opposite of its intent. Raise the tax on beer by 10% and that adds between 25 and 40 pence to those pub prices quoted above but only 5 pence to the supermarket price. In other words it disproportionately hits the responsible drinker and hardly touches the irresponsible one at all.

I firmly believe that stopping cut price promotions and imposing ban on cheap supermarket sales would be a simple and effective way to reduce the problem. Simply claiming that there isn't a problem isn't helpful to society OR to the pub trade. The publicans don't like abusive drunks any more than anybody else does. The key is effective, targeted measures.

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Simply claiming that there isn't a problem isn't helpful to society OR to the pub trade.

I wouldn't suggest there isn't a problem, simply that it is nowhere as near as bad as the media (especially the Daily Mail) would have us believe. Drunkenness in town centres is an old problem - although I suspect that the greater numbers of young people (especially girls) is a change from the way things used to be.

Sadly the targetted approach suggested by various responsible bodies (that of imposing a minum price for alcohol) is unlikely to be accepted since it will not increase tax revenue (indeed, it might even reduce it). A nice easy across-the-boar increase is far better for Government coffers.

In fact, the tax increases actually mke the problem worse, since the primary effect is on pubs - and pubs are not the problem. You rarely see drunkenness in pubs - Landlords don't like it and are actually under a legal obligation not to serve customers who are drunk. No such obligation lies with the likes of supermarkets which is why street drunkenness is where the problem, such as it is, lies.

I agree with Richard and Bob concerning the availabity of cheap booze from supermarkets undercutting the pub trade.

An important contributor to the problem is the smoking ban that was introduced in 2007. I should first declare an interest; I am a smoker, although I'm not much troubled by the ban. However, many smokers dislike being forced to go outside to smoke, and have taken instead to staying at home, where they can drink (cheap supermarket booze) and smoke without hindrance, at least for the present. Some non-smokers, finding their friends who are smokers no longer visit the pub so often, also stay away and drink at home.

I am not suggesting the smoking ban should be reversed, as it has had so many benefits, but there should have been provision made for indoors smoking areas in pubs. This was what was originally proposed, but was dropped when the final version of the law was produced.

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Originally posted by arnie:
but there should have been provision made for indoors smoking areas in pubs. This was what was originally proposed, but was dropped when the final version of the law was produced.

It was dropped because it would have been impossible. Many pubs are single rooms, albeit quite large ones in some cases. A smoking "area" in a room is a nonsense. The smokers might take notice of it but the smoke certainly wouldn't. The only way to have an indoor smoking area would be to have a separate, enclosed, room which would a) mean many pubs having to have substantial building work done and b) be ineffective anyway as the moment the door was opened the whole pub would be filled with smoke again (unless it were fitted with an airlock ).

I'd also like to declare an interest. I am a lifelong non-smoker and have, in the bad old days, frequently been forced to leave a pub and go home because the atmosphere was so horrible for me. Nowadays it's much better and I don't actually believe that the smoking ban as such has had much of an effect on numbers. The recession has had a far greater effect.

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Originally posted by Richard English:

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Simply claiming that there isn't a problem isn't helpful to society OR to the pub trade.

(especially the Daily Mail)

I've always assumed you to be far too intelligent to be taken in by anything that's in that reactionary rag. We may have a member who writes, and writes very entertainingly, for the Mail but I find its editorial stance to be mostly abhorrent.

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I am not suggesting the smoking ban should be reversed, as it has had so many benefits, but there should have been provision made for indoors smoking areas in pubs. This was what was originally proposed, but was dropped when the final version of the law was produced.

If you were to make that exception for pubs then you would need to make the same for gastro-pubs. And if gastro pubs then restaurants. And if restaurants then other public buildings - until the Law would no longer apply and we would be back to the old system of voluntary smoking and non-smoking areas. And pretty soon we would be back to the old "smoking policy" - which for most pubs was "smoking is permitted everywhere".

Smokers need to get over it - they manage to do without a gasper on all public transport - often for hours; they can manage to go without in a pub for a few minutes.

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I've always assumed you to be far too intelligent to be taken in by anything that's in that reactionary rag. We may have a member who writes, and writes very entertainingly, for the Mail but I find its editorial stance to be mostly abhorrent.

Your assumption is correct. Sadly there are many well-educated and otherwise normal people who are taken in by it.

I was discussing binge-drinking with my niece - a mature and well-educated undergraduate - and she was holding forth about the no-go areas in many UK cities. She admitted that she had never experienced any such herself but she knew it for a fact, Then I remembered - her father takes the Daily Mail!

Well son Robert, Arnie and I met up at the GBBF. We met Chaswyke (from RBP who is a member here) and a good and bibulous time was had by all.

We spent a bit of time at the Wells and Young bar where we conversed with a young lady called Sinead and I suggested she took a look at this site and OEDILF.

She wrote to me today telling me that she has done just that so maybe another UK contributor.

Well, a pox on your house! How about Wordcraft?!

I am at a conference in Philadelphia and went to a bar last night that had four pages of Belgium beers. Not bad!

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Well, a pox on your house! How about Wordcraft?!

Read my lips (or at least my words):

We spent a bit of time at the Wells and Young bar where we conversed with a young lady called Sinead and I suggested she took a look at this site and OEDILF.

Well, after trying four pages of Belgian beers I'm surprised Kalleh was able to read any of your post, Richard.

Incidentally, Sinead has been in touch with me and sends her regards to you, Arnie.

Yeah, you're right, arnie. Sorry, Richard!