Is it just me or...

[Rusto 0]

Does beer taste much better in a glass than a bottle?

 

Personally, I find it tastes so much better from a glass, it's like the beer takes some magical transformation upon entering the glass.

 

 

Damn does that look tasty!

 

Edit: also, I think the shape of the glass seems to make a difference too! Ah... the wonders of the human mind, well, maybe just my mind this time round. Hope I'm not alone in thinking this! (about the beer, not my wondrous mind)

Edited May 23, 2010 by gogoblender

[promatolya 5]

beer in glass > beer in bottle > beer in plastic cup > beer out of unusual stuff.

 

'nuff said

[locolagarto 15]

Actually it is the head as it is poured that adds to the flavor. Most of us here in the states frown of foam in our beer Mug. but its a very important part of the whole beer tasting experience. so its not an illusion that you notice a difference. Its them little tiny bubbles in there makin' everything tasty!

 

I homebrewed beer for a few years and did quite a lot of research on it.

 

Another intresting note is that sunlight is very bad for the taste of beer. never drink beer from a clear bottle. *sorry Miller fans* and keg beer is best as it never sees any light. another reason tap beer tastes better.

 

My favorite experiment was a very lightly hopped Bock I did for Christmas one year. It was best beer I ever made. And after a couple repeated failures to duplicate the recipe I quit brewing all together. That and cleaning the bottles is are real chore. unlike wine, beer is too low in alcohol content to kill any germs or bacteria in the bottle so you have to have everything sterile.

 

Ah! now you got me thinking about brewing again!

[Rusto 0]

How easy is it to make good tasting beer? I've never really looked into it, but I'm interested in trying.

 

ps. I couldnt take it any longer, rushed to my local dealer and bought some bottles of Kronenburg! And yes, I'm in a very good mood allready haha

[locolagarto 15]

If you can find a local winemaking or homebrew shop in your area they would be the best help. However, it is actually quite easy. you need about $50 worth of equipment ( Large stanless brew pot, 5 gallon fermentation bucket, bottles and caps, and cap press) and the ingredients will cost you about $25 to make 2 cases of beer. these are 1999 prices so it may have gone up a little. it takes 1 month to have drinkable beer.

 

Starting from raw grain is more difficult. I used to by Malt extract in different flavor (All beer comes from basically the same grain, light beers are very gently roasted to dry - where dark beers are roasted much longer until the grain in dark like Guiness). the Malt is a goo from boiling down the grain as a base for the brew.

 

1. you start with a brew of Water, malt, hops and yeast. takes 45 minutes

 

2. poor the wort (brew) into your 5 gallon fermentation bucket and let is sit for about 2 weeks. (the house smells like you had a kegger and nobody cleaned up the empty cups!)mmm...mmm good!

 

3. after 2 weeks it's time to bottle. I started with 2 cases of 12oz bottles and graduated to 22 oz bottles cause cleaning and sterilizing was a pain in the butt. If I ever do it again I will buy 40s. lol

 

a spoon of brewer sugar in each bottle then fill to the top and cap ( the sugar naturally carbonates the beer in the bottle, not what budwiser does I assure you).

 

then let them sit for another 2 weeks and your ready to party.

 

this will net you 2 cases of Ale. which has a little hint of a fruit, sour taste where a lager is smoother with less after taste. Lager ferments at at 45 F and takes longer to ferment. Ale ferments at room temp and is quicker.

 

Cheers!

[Rusto 0]

Thanks for the info =) How would you rate the result compared to good, and bad, commercial beers?

[locolagarto 15]

Thanks for the info =) How would you rate the result compared to good, and bad, commercial beers?

 

 

for me I don't drink the pilsner beers of the big commercial brewers like bud, miller,coors. (Well, I do. but there are not my preference)

 

I guess it all depends on how well you like to cook. can you follow a recipe? do you like to experiment?

 

IMO I liked the beer I made more than anything I have ever bought. but that is just me.

 

Mom's home made peach cobbler was always better than anything I have ever bought. So that's my opinion.

 

to me the hops makes a huge difference. you can brew a non-hop chocolate malt beer and its just as smooth as a glass of milk. or you can hop it up to the max and get the micro brew taste that is popular.

 

The cool thing is you get to make it, then drink it!

[Rusto 0]

Sounds good. I'm not a fan of the big name beers much either. Too much of it just tastes like carbonated water(ish).

[chattius 2,534]

beer brewing starter kit for around 80 euro.

 

The german version of the site offers a bit better stuff for around 1200 euro.

 

I do only fruit wine myself. And the main use of it is to soften meat and add some taste by laying it into the wine for a day.

 

There was a diploma work at my university some years back:

Beer gets its taste ruined by sunlight, so keg is best, followed by brown bottles, then green ones, ...

 

In my opinion beer tastes best if drunk with friends and keg beer drunken from a boot. But nowadays I drink alcohol very very rarely, working with explosives it is a bad idea to over-do it and so its best to don't drink at all.

 

 

In germany beer brewing law was the oldest existing law, before european community ruined it. Only 3 elements allowed to a beer: barley, hop, water (yeast was unknown then). Barley was used instead of wheat because the law was done at a mis-harvest year and the wheat and rye was needed for bread.

So there were some funny results:

 

Eisbock:

Around 1890 a brewery apprentice forgot to bring in kegs with beer at a cold winter night. The brewery mastery got angry and ordered him to drink the part in the kegs that was not frozen. The apprentice was totally drunk after a cup of beer but he wanted to drink more. Nowadays we know that alcohol and water have different freezing points and that Eisbock can contain up to 40% of alcohol, but it was a discovery in 1890.

And the best: freezing beer to raise its alcohol and taste was not forbidden by the law.

 

P.S.: English wiki claiming that the beer-boot was invented by military is nonsense. It developed in student fraternities centuries ago. Prussian was protestantic (lutherian) and used rapiers if students challenged each other (the famous scar above the lips, helmet which had just this part not protected). German states which were catholic weren't using weapons. They parodied the prussians by writing town duell-laws but replaced in all the laws rapier by beer.

Fencing was taught in universties for centuries. Duelling was forbidden at my old university 400 years ago because often there were no survivors. Using a sword with a multilayer damast steel blade and the size of a two-hander made the protective armour a joke. So it was forbidden already before rapier and foils came in use at other universities.

It is somehow funny that the old european swords used a steel folding technique similiar to the ones for katana's, but fencing masters considered a single edged sword like the katana as inferior. I bet there were reasons, but the knowledge was lost with time.

Edited May 21, 2010 by chattius

[Groosum 1]

"I do only fruit wine myself" Chattius is that Schnapps ? I was working with an Austrian exchange student many years ago and we collected pears under his guideance (later found alot of fruits can work). He fermented this for a period of time and strained out the solids, then starting boiling it off. I do remember that he was watching the surface of the pot and said ether or methanol was boiling off first and needed to watch for the change to when just alcohol was left.

 

Tasted great, and yes we got very intoxicated on it

[chattius 2,534]

Schnaps is created with distillation to raise the alcohol from 8%-10% to above 15%, normally 38%.

 

Fruit wine is before distillation. After distillation it would be called Obstler in the alpes region. (Obst = fruits).

 

Apples we bring to a company who is specialized in doing apple wine and applie juice. The fruit wine I use for cooking is mainly elder berries, blue berries,...

The wine will turn into vinegar after 1-2 days in the open. And I use it to marinate meat for half a week. So first at marinating it is wine and at end of marinating it is vinegar.

 

Sauerbraten

 

Most often in my house the meat is from 'wild boars' which had to be softened. Depends on the type of meat how I marinate it. There is a lot of forest around our house, owened by an earl who likes to hunt but not to eat what he shoots. So we have a lot of wild boars or venison for free.

[Bondbug 32]

Actually it is the head as it is poured that adds to the flavor. Most of us here in the states frown of foam in our beer Mug. but its a very important part of the whole beer tasting experience. so its not an illusion that you notice a difference. Its them little tiny bubbles in there makin' everything tasty!

 

Interesting that Loco, about a decent 'head' on your beer. There is the head from gas pressurized beer, which is a load of gas, and the rather more delicate head from what in GB is called Real Ale - I.e. the yeast is still present.

 

It amazes me when you say that people frown on foam on the beer. It is essential.

 

As for home-brew, my own method is even simpler, 5 days only in a plastic bucket, covered only by a cloth, then bottle. When the fermentation is reduced to small spots on the surface of the brew it is time to filter and bottle. Otherwise it is precisely as you say.

 

We are lucky in France that the 'flip-top' bottles which disappeared in GB are readily available and perfect for the job.

[Rusto 0]

I was a barman in a pub on the north west coast of Scotland for a while, and most of the regulars wanted almost no head on the beer at all. Primarily because they wanted their monies worth. Personally I like my beer to have a head, but some places I've been in europe do give it waaay too much, and I feel like am getting ripped off.

[locolagarto 15]

I was a barman in a pub on the north west coast of Scotland for a while, and most of the regulars wanted almost no head on the beer at all. Primarily because they wanted their monies worth. Personally I like my beer to have a head, but some places I've been in europe do give it waaay too much, and I feel like am getting ripped off.

 

 

Excellent! I had a feeling last night when Rusto and I were exchanging posts that by mornings time Bondbug and Chattius would drop in to say hello. Thanks fellows! your welcome to my next beer tasting. Maybe soon!

[Timotheus 416]

I was a barman in a pub on the north west coast of Scotland for a while, and most of the regulars wanted almost no head on the beer at all. Primarily because they wanted their monies worth. Personally I like my beer to have a head, but some places I've been in europe do give it waaay too much, and I feel like am getting ripped off.

 

I don't really care for the head. The standard head here in Holland is 2 finger widths 'tall'.

If I can, I drink beer from a bottle, mainly out of lazyness. Corona is a different story, because you are supposed to drink it that way

[locolagarto 15]

I was a barman in a pub on the north west coast of Scotland for a while, and most of the regulars wanted almost no head on the beer at all. Primarily because they wanted their monies worth. Personally I like my beer to have a head, but some places I've been in europe do give it waaay too much, and I feel like am getting ripped off.

 

I don't really care for the head. The standard head here in Holland is 2 finger widths 'tall'.

If I can, I drink beer from a bottle, mainly out of lazyness. Corona is a different story, because you are supposed to drink it that way

 

Funny thing about Corona is that is the poormans beer in Mexico. about 50 cents a bottle in non-turist places. Plus it's in a clear bottle(cheaper I guess). And the lime wedge in the bottle was not originally for taste, but to kill the germs on the bottle since sanitation and clean water are hard to find in many parts of central america.

 

Next time try Dos Equis Lager. (Green Bottle) you can even have it with the lime if you like. Its by far a much better beer.

[Bondbug 32]

I was a barman in a pub on the north west coast of Scotland for a while, and most of the regulars wanted almost no head on the beer at all. Primarily because they wanted their monies worth. Personally I like my beer to have a head, but some places I've been in europe do give it waaay too much, and I feel like am getting ripped off.

 

Where were you - up Oban way? From what I remember the old pint glasses had a line round them at the pint mark and left half an inch or so above that for the head. Yes, the barman has a stick to wipe the head off at the top of the glass, but from that to beer with no head ... difficult to envisage. Fair enough you don't want half a glass of foam but the head is what tells you that the beer is not flat and dead. Quite a skilful job filling a beer glass properly - even from a bottle.

 

You don't, of course, drink it straight from the bottle do you Tim? Not on this thread at least.

[Rusto 0]

The pub was in gairloch, 90 miles wnw of Inverness =)

[Bondbug 32]

Not aboard a nuclear sub I trust? ... or was that Loch Fyne ... senile decay sets in regardless.

[Rusto 0]

Haha, I did actually live on Loch ewe, which has a NATO base, and was a hotspot during WW2. Theres bunkers litered about all over the place, and regular army/navy/raf exercises that take place there.

Edited May 21, 2010 by Rusto

[Timotheus 416]

Funny thing about Corona is that is the poormans beer in Mexico. about 50 cents a bottle in non-turist places. Plus it's in a clear bottle(cheaper I guess). And the lime wedge in the bottle was not originally for taste, but to kill the germs on the bottle since sanitation and clean water are hard to find in many parts of central america.

 

Next time try Dos Equis Lager. (Green Bottle) you can even have it with the lime if you like. Its by far a much better beer.

 

I am well aware of those facts I don't drink it a lot here, mostly in the summer. Too expensive.

In a bar, we have to shell out about €4 for a bottle while a 25CL glass goes for €2,00-2,20.

My more regular brands of choice (no connoisseur) with the appropriate bottles are:

Jupiler

Bavaria

Grolsch

 

You don't, of course, drink it straight from the bottle do you Tim? Not on this thread at least.

Lol, well, wherever I pretty much can, I will. Whenever I'm at friends, that's the way we roll. When we go out, there are even some bars who serve bottled beer.

But in most bars and restaurants it's in a glass, and I'll drink it that way also when I'm over at relatives or at a more formal place.

Edited May 21, 2010 by Timotheus

[Spunky 16]

Ah, Grolsch is a beer I have good memories from, but sadly it was removed from the market here in Norway due to low sale numbers.

[Rusto 0]

Tried a couple varieties of blonde/white beers today, one was 'unfiltered and naturally clouded', wasnt all that nice. I found the cloudyness a bit minging to be honest. Also I had a strong blonde beer(7%), it was awrite, but again I really am not a fan.

 

I've been on a quest(half heartedly), for years to find beers that taste the way I like. I dont know if it was just the situation, and setting that added to the enjoyment, but whilst I was taking a 200 mile walk around the alps some years ago(as you do), several remote pubs(or whatever they are called in the alps) served some beer that just blew my mind. I wish I knew where to find that calibre of beer, or at the very least trick myself into thinking it is that calibre of beer(the right glass, right amount of head, consumed after plenty physical exertion might do the trick haha!). I do know however that what I'm looking for isnt 'blonde'(my girlfriend will like to hear that).

 

ps. yes I know thats a lot of brackets

[gogoblender 3,072]

Does beer taste much better in a glass than a bottle?

 

Personally, I find it tastes so much better from a glass, it's like the beer takes some magical transformation upon entering the glass.

 

 

Damn does that look tasty!

 

Edit: also, I think the shape of the glass seems to make a difference too! Ah... the wonders of the human mind, well, maybe just my mind this time round. Hope I'm not alone in thinking this! (about the beer, not my wondrous mind)

 

 

Nice question. Besides the aesthetics, which hugely impact our imbibing, eating experience, there is some science here as well. Beer's a ton of yeast, and when you pour it into a glass, that head is produced, which is aerating the beer and getting more of the beer flavorized. If you drink it straight from the bottle, probably a lot of the unrealized taste is just sitting there, waiting to get "activated" . Proper pours produce the correct amount of head and suds and give a wonderful level of satisfaction when it's done right, none spills (alcohol abuse! ) and perfectly kisses the top of the rim.

 

Sublime.

 

 

gogo

[Bondbug 32]

Looking through these posts it strikes me that you are all talking about, and illustrating, bottled beer.

 

Does this mean that most of your drinking is done at home? I see no mention of beer from the tap?

 

I also wonder about all this talk of yeast. To me, in my ignorance, bottled beer is a sterilised product with no living yeast remaining? Unless you are fortunate enough to have "Real Ale" type brewers in the vicinity.

 

I also seem to remember that a number of bars brew their own beer on the premises, which would be 'proper' beer.

 

I recall that in Cologne (Köln) in the early 50's every 'bar' brewed its own - (we used to collect their beer mats) - but I doubt if that is still so.

Edited May 25, 2010 by Bondbug