AG#2 : Go Ahead Punk, IPA

[tazuk]

+1 :thumb: :

Hmm, we seemed to have turned this into a Brew Dog thread, but that's the internet for you!

I'm only chipping in because a mailing list I'm on was recently trying to organise an xmas party at a fairly major local venue, and was essentially told that there was no real ale sold by the venue, and they couldn't organise getting real ale, and the party couldn't even bring their own real ale and have the venue sell it back to them with their normal markup.

Basically, no real ale. End of.

A few years ago, I remember reading an article comparing the advertising spend on commodity lager versus real ale - and the differential was something like 100:1, if not more. Basically, real ale was being marketed out of the market.

Fast forward a few years and - not being a great TV viewer or consumer of advertising - I started seeing the youngsters in our group drinking cider with ice in it. "What's all that about", I asked myself - only to figure out a while later that a whole breed of ads had come out showing bright young things drinking cider with ice in. So that's what they were doing.

My point ? Controversially, I think people like Brew Dog might be on the right track with their marketing. It may be over the top, but we live in an over the top world so it seems. We've all seen the real ale in local pubs curl up and die, and we've all seen those same pubs then curl up and die themselves. If using over the top, in your face marketing to get the upcoming generation drinking proper beer, I have to say I'm all in favour, because it means when I go to a pub, I might find something in there that I would like to drink.

The alternative is that all the tasteless fizzy pop commodity lagers dominate the landscape, and real ale becomes a thing of the past.

And I remember my grandad telling me that part of their pay as farm workers was in ale.... how times have changed.

 

[MacKiwi]

I can't agrue with any of the this Mike. I just think I'm not part of their target market, and hence find the "too cool for school" marketting a bit comical. I'm poking a bit of fun at them. I'm sure they don't mind.

On a more serious note, anything that improves beer making in Scotland, and introduces decent beer to the next generation, is a good thing. On the rare occasion I travel in England I'm always well impressed by the amount of real-ale on tap in pubs. In the village I live in, there are 7 pubs and not one has real-ale. And that is, I think, pretty normal for Scotland...

Hmm, we seemed to have turned this into a Brew Dog thread, but that's the internet for you!

I'm only chipping in because a mailing list I'm on was recently trying to organise an xmas party at a fairly major local venue, and was essentially told that there was no real ale sold by the venue, and they couldn't organise getting real ale, and the party couldn't even bring their own real ale and have the venue sell it back to them with their normal markup.

Basically, no real ale. End of.

A few years ago, I remember reading an article comparing the advertising spend on commodity lager versus real ale - and the differential was something like 100:1, if not more. Basically, real ale was being marketed out of the market.

Fast forward a few years and - not being a great TV viewer or consumer of advertising - I started seeing the youngsters in our group drinking cider with ice in it. "What's all that about", I asked myself - only to figure out a while later that a whole breed of ads had come out showing bright young things drinking cider with ice in. So that's what they were doing.

My point ? Controversially, I think people like Brew Dog might be on the right track with their marketing. It may be over the top, but we live in an over the top world so it seems. We've all seen the real ale in local pubs curl up and die, and we've all seen those same pubs then curl up and die themselves. If using over the top, in your face marketing to get the upcoming generation drinking proper beer, I have to say I'm all in favour, because it means when I go to a pub, I might find something in there that I would like to drink.

The alternative is that all the tasteless fizzy pop commodity lagers dominate the landscape, and real ale becomes a thing of the past.

And I remember my grandad telling me that part of their pay as farm workers was in ale.... how times have changed.

 

[DirtyCaner]

I'm a big Brewdog fan as some of you guys know.

To be fair so of there stuff is pretty clever and bordering on the heston Blumenthal of brewing? Like sunk punk! I've been to that harbour they did it in. Apparently theyre going to be brewing their next beer on the moon.

Some of the marketing can be a bit OTT but I don't think your meant to take it too seriously...

But to get back on topic MacKiwi, I use the tinfoil method to fly sparge and it works fine. Just watch it and adjust how open the tap on the HLT is to maintain about an inch of water over the top of the perforated foil.

DirtyC

 

[Frogfurlong]

enable social life-hacks, post Cluetrain feeds and integrate A-list widgets to reinvent authentic value to integrate post social synergies which disintermediate user-centred mashups.

 

[MacKiwi]

This has had 2 weeks secondary fermentation in bottle, mini-keg and poly-pin, plus a few days cold conditioning My brew buddy was around for ag#6, so I put together a blind tasting to compare the various storage methods.

1. Polypin : Not very well carbonated, and flat and uninteresting. Still quite drinkable, and fault-free, but doesn't have the life of the other two.
2. Bottle : Lively nose, enough hops to be interesting. Well carbonated. Looks great, tastes great.
3. Keg : Nose and taste comparable to bottle. Not so well carbonated. The sample rushed from the keg, and created lots of foam. But not so many bubbles in the beer.

So I'm thinking 2 things...
1. Bottles are 500ml, kegs and polypins are 5l. It probably takes longer to carbonate the higher volume vessles, so a bit more cold storage should sort out the carbonation levels.
2. I'm not sure why the polypin tastes lifeless. I did vent it a couple of times to let off excess CO2 pressure. Could this have released some flavor volatiles? Regardless, unless I can understand why, it's going to be mini-kegs for my bulk storage...