the lager beer pecking order

Leffe Blond.. 6.6%, 3 and I'm rockin'

I don't think castlemaine is now available in the Uk. For a while it was brewed under license by Allied Breweries in Burton, when Carlsberg Tetley took the company over I think they dropped it so there was no clash with Carlsberg or Kronebourg. Was never as strong as the real Aussie version but was not too bad for a canned lager.

yeh i think it would be carlsberg. i used to drink it draft in a pub where carlsberg was the other lager. after a while they dropped it. probably to make people have carlsberg. didnt know carlsberg took over brewing it. or not, as appears to be the case.

stick to softies

and what happened to harp,haven't seen that for years

lech , stella black

All lagers are pi$$. Drink proper beer ffs.

Duff

Lager is proper beer.......just leave it to continental Europeans, know what they are doing.

german wheatbeer or leffe  if you must

the stuff sold in cans is watered down chemical tasting  p1ss for doleys

lager is a kids tbf

I've now reached the age where I've ditched lager for beer,tastebuds needed a change I think.
somebody please shoot me if I start drinking it out of a tankard though

Nobody else drinks fukcing dark bitter/ale that isn't chilled. It doesn't make you unique and quintessentially British, it makes you weird, probably a beardy, xmas jumper wearing, Volvo Estate driver called Clive.

hatchback Keith here close enoghh & i chew me food 23 befor swallow

bleeedin bluebells

Stella Artois used to be up there when it was 5.2abv.

Then it went down to 5% - the taste remained and the 0.2% was only slightly missed.

Now it's 4.8 and is approaching Tennents

Heltons Lips (5%) and 1664 (5%) is still good cargo.

Wherever does some silly Muckle Flugga get it into his head that less %age is good for the population?

NO MAN IS AN ISLAND!  unless his name is alex salmond

hobgoblin

castlemaine,fosters,carlsberg,carling...ych y fi

The only lager that counts is special brew (9%), created to commemorate Churchill's state visit to Daneland... four cans, some music & a nibbs quiz = a good night in 

Yup, Holsten's good kit all right.

That people still drink Bud, Carling, Fosters etc says a lot for the advertising and marketing industry.

The range of lagers is still very limited in pubs - whereas the real ale drinkers have much more choice these days.

Lager doesn't necessarily mean rubbish beer, but the major brewing conglomerates seem to like it that way.

In answer to the original query though, isn't the availability of lagers largely down to the owners of the pubs, whether they are tied or not and what version of urine its customers prefer.

I brew my own.

The word lager means store room and requires cooler temperatures to brew along with a bottom feeding yeast.

Best beer I ever had was in a pub called http://en.ufleku.cz/ in Prague. They only sell 1 type of beer, brewed in house. It's a dark lager, quite unique and like nothing available in the UK. I've since reproduced that beer and was my sole reason for brewing my own. I just tweak my recipe each time but I've never got it quite right although close enough.

Most of the top selling beers don't have complex ingredients. Carlsberg is a simple 1 malt, 1 hop, 1 yeast type. Guinness only has 3 or so malts so the best selling beers are also the simplest.

Brewings not hard btw even from raw ingredients. You could brew 10 pints of your own easily with much of what you have at home.

I have been seriously  looking into starting home brewing, Ovalman.  For 2-3 months now.

I like the hoppy stuff and discovered that BrewDog publish all their recipes online.

I don't want to buy some equipment and then find it isn't good enough, big enough etc - so if I do make the move, I will be buying some decent kit.

Could I ask what equipment you have?

Luckily at the start of my journey a local brewer was making the upgrade and gave me his old Peco Boiler. I brew the Beer in a bag method but I began all grain by following this guide:

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=51779

The only things you won't have are the grains, hops and maybe a thermometer you will need a big pot but as you see in that guide, the guy split his brew into 2 small ones. I am forever grateful for that guide, I would never have tackled all grain until I read the thread.

Use a 5L water container (£1 Tesco's) to brew in and your good to go. Get a couple of 5L brews (10 pints) under your belt and decide if you want to keep going or upgrade to a 40 pint kit. A decent set up will cost £200+ but once you have it it will repay itself in no time. The folks over at Brewdog actually started their company using these: http://www.geterbrewed.com/the-grainfather-the-grain-father-all-in-1-brewing...

You could of course just buy a kit but all grain is much more satisfying, knowing your doing it all from scratch.

Grains: http://www.geterbrewed.com/irish-ale-malt/        get 1KG crushed.
Hops: http://www.geterbrewed.com/bobek-hop-pellets-2014-6.5/

That's only a couple of pounds for 10 pints. If you've a local home brew store even better as you will save on postage.

Use an old(washed) pillowcase for your bag and follow that guide.

I can do 40 pints for under £10 but once you get the hang of things you can experiment with different hops and grains and maybe try out that Brew Dog recipe book. Stick to ales because lagers require a fridge imo.

Hope that helps Jack.

When I was 13 years old at the rugby club my friend asked for lager and he was told in no uncertain terms only girls and footballers drink lager. So it ever was and such profundity stuck with me.

I have similar to this Jack: http://www.geterbrewed.com/get-er-brewed-all-grain-starter-kit/

but purchased in stages. There are some people that have DIY'd their boiler using a large bucket and the elements from 2 cheap Tesco Value kettles for around £20 in total.

That Grainfather is the bees knees but you don't need expensive equipment to brew. I'm about to bottle a kit today but I'm using reused 3L Pepsi bottles.

Thanks for taking the time to post that Ovalman.

I didn't know BrewDog had used Grainfather!

The Grainfather is my dream purchase!  Its a big investment though - although I know if circumstances changed I could very easily sell it on eBay for only a 'smallish' loss!

They started with 2 or 3 machines and expanded from there. Their a multi million pound company now and releasing their recipes was ingenious. I hardly knew about them until then but I now sample their odd bottle because they know as a home brewer I may tackle that recipe some day. I'm sure sales have soared from it. A guy on that forum has just released a "DIY Dawg" app. I'd download it now as I think it will be removed due to copyright issues.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brudawg.diydawg

Someone done a cost calculation v's pub pints and it easily pays for itself if you have a couple of pints per week. I've brewed some great and some not so great beers but each one has been unique. That dark style of lager and stouts are now my tipple of choice. I've a house stout that I tweak every time, really simple recipe which I'll pass on if you like.

You'll also need some yeast for the above which will cost £2 ish. Safale S04 or 05 work really well.

I love American Pale Ales, with a preference towards west coast style, is it easy to get the new world hops? Ta.

All lager tastes like sh1t. We don't drink it for the taste, flavour.  Altho, admittedly some are nastier tasting than others - Carling in particular imo, but everyone's taste buds different.

Lager is fine for those "ice cold in Alex" moments on holiday, after that initial quench it's not much at all imo.

http://www.geterbrewed.com/hops/

Hops aren't hard to get hold of, some people grow their own.

Thanks, I'll have a look, will check the Brewdog stuff out also.

Dark Lager is very nice. One of my favourites. But mass produced lager is just for getting p1ssed. Stella is fairly good. Fosters and XXXX? I can't believe that stuff is even sold anymore. Fosters hasn't been here since the early 80s.

They used to have Fosters at the Ranji Bill Bar at Harold Park trots. Got BLIND there loads of times.



In this vid you can see Ranji Bill winning at Headquarters. The little mare won I think 40 races at Harold Park.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaHhkHrj9bg

Mark Waugh's wife.

There is plenty of good lager, just none of it produced in the UK.

the lager beer pecking order
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Woodpecker ,surely ?

was told in no uncertain terms only girls and footballers drink lager. So it ever was and such profundity stuck with me.
____________________________

i think it's a social class thing and has an age bias too .

Go into a rough pub and all you see is lager on tap .  Go to a country pub or a posh town esp one with more mature drinkers   and it's mainly ales . 

I don't mind either  but have graduated more  to the ale side of things.  Deffo more variety . Lager pretty muchg tastes the same and is an OK drink when it's hot and sunny.

prefer a nice strong cider  -  i'd recommend Aspalls Cider - a great drink ,plenty of kick in it .

Lager is actually harder to brew, it takes more time and requires constant low temperatures. Most commercial lager is filtered which removes any yeast, it's then force carbonated. I guess that's where a lot of the taste is lost because any lager I've made has been good.

what does your lager taste like Ovalman -  like wheatbeer ?

Depends on what I'm brewing. I've only had a brewing fridge a few months so only made a couple of lagers. They take around 4 weeks to ferment because of the lower temperatures. I've made 2 dark lagers, one was a bit too roasty for my liking but it was OK and I know where I went wrong. I've made a SMASH lager (Single malt and single hop) and it was a bit like Carlseberg as I used a Czech yeast. I have a set up to force carbonate but I prefer self carbonating with a little sugar in bottles. Bottles are more work to sterilise but it's easier grabbing a bottle than pulling a pint with my set up, I've plans for an outside bar but that is 6 months away at least.

Wheatbeers are cloudy, I've only made one it was around 6% iirc. I really should keep tasting notes but I don't.

Was gonna brew today but the element has went in my boiler. Only a £16 fix but it's scuppered my plans.

I like Aspalls as well Coach, Tesco do 3 bottles for a fiver. The local pub also sell it, £4.10 a pint, I'll be off to Tescos shortly!

I wouldn't drink Budweiser if it was free, absolutely ghastly brew imo.

Ovalman - hope you have some luck with the brewing . Something i will try when i feel confident enough .Past efforts have been a failure .

4.10 good for London  Slippers . 3.90 in these parts ,4.20 out near the coast

I hope this will become the home-brew thread.

If it doesn't we should start one.

Always fancied having a go at this so will watch and learn hopefully.
BTW gotta say that sideshowbob is a sad miss for the forum.

Lager owes its popularity to the big brewers promoting it since the 1970's.  Real Ale (proper beer) is difficult to keep and transport. Mass produced Lager however is indistructable and along with cockroaches will be the only thing that survives after the bomb drops

I have made a start on home brewing.  Started with no kit at all.  Decided to spend as little as I thought I could get away with in case I didn't take to it.

Watched the video Ovalman linked to.  Had to buy a decent sized stockpot, checked with the wife so that she would get some use out of it if I didn't.  It is 8 litre, but ideally a 10 orwould have been bette.
I bought a demi john, bung and airlock and thermometer.  I also bought half a dozen grolsh type bottles.  You will need a jug and funnel.

Decided to buy this which includes the malt, hops and yeast and sanitiser for a small 4.5litre batch.  I went for Mosaic IPA.  It costs £10 plus £4 p&p.  This is expensive but a good option because
for a first brew you don't want to be worrying about buying stuff separately or worrying about what to buy, what quantities etc.

https://www.brewuk.co.uk/beerkits/craftybrews/stove-toppers.html

I followed the instructions that came with the ingredients kit.

During the mash, the instructions said to keep the temperature at 65 degrees.  I found this very difficult to achieve on a gas hob because of trying to keep the heat in, checking with a thermometer.  In one case I added way too much heat so may
have compromised the brew.  We will see. (On my second brew I **** up some insulation sheet I had in the garage like this...

http://www.screwfix.com/p/radiator-reflector-foil-470mm-x-4m-1-88m-/88629?kpid=88629&cm_mmc=Google-_-Product%2520Listing%2520Ads-_-Sales%2520Tracking-_-sales%2520tracking%2520url&gclid=Cj0KEQjw0IvIBRDF0Yzq4qGE4IwBEiQATMQlMYyQY4UMWAlIJJ0O_ZkN8bLdL6Qrxp15QHlXQBVEP2IaAh2b8P8HAQ&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CNCz1qf9yNMCFfgi0wod2EAN5w

I cut it around the stock pot and taped it with gaffer tape so that the stock pot fitted snugly inside it.  This enabled me to leave it completely for the mash period.  When I checked the temp after the hour it was still 65 degrees.)

I had to use another large pan I luckily had, for sparging.  The boil was fairly straightforward and for my recipe the hops are added in 3 stages. 

I still have to wait 2 or 3 weeks to test the stuff.  I think next brew I will go down to the home-brew shop and have a chat with yer man and buy some malt and hops from him.

Overall, it was a great learning experience for me (someone with very little knowledge about how beer is made) and a good grounding for learning more.

I now have two demijohns bubbling away and I can't wait to taste the results.

Holts bitter is the filthiest muck i've ever drank..

So just put all lagers underneath that..

We import Paulaner, Weihanstephaner & Augustiner. When out and about anything brewed under German purity laws is good, Baltika 7 is a pretty good Dortmunder that you can find in most town centres.

All commercial beer is decent, it's the way it's kept in the pub that makes the rubbish.

I used to brew.
The best brew I ever made was when the gaffer of a Bathams pub got me some yeast from the brewery.

The result using a cheap beer kit was remarkable. Which shows how important the yeast you use is.

I also made some very good Guinness using the yeast from a bottle of the stuff.

Original list is a strange australian leaning selection of p1ss? I wouldn't go for any of it.
I'm a fan of Kronenburg, or if I'm in a shop doorway, Kestrel Super.

Ugh I was just trying to think of the worst tasting lager I've had and had a flashback to being sick drinking Special Brew.
That stuff is so vile I think it tasted better coming back up

I am always amazed at the range of bottled beers available now. Seems to be hundreds, if not thousands of different brands with ever more colurful labels and weird names. I honestly don't know how they make any profit. My local supermarket were selling bottles of beer for 59p recently, presumably because they've been on the shelf for years. Who the hell is buying all this weird stuff at upwards of £1.65 for a small bottle? Most of it hasn't got enough alcohol in it to get you drunk, unless you drank a large crate of it.

mass-produced, marketed lager is mostly utter rubbish, some people can't buy any product unless they've seen it advertised and hence it survives. Imported lagers, mostly German or Czech are the way to go, or British micro-brewery lagers. The Germans have laws which prevent poor quality lager being brewed, Reinheizgebot or something like that, you will have to excuse my spelling there