Why do the English drink warm beer?

84ok said:
i didn't even know lol there was such a thing as warm brew

It is the usual misnomer, discussed at length here and elsewhere. English bottom fermented beer isn't served warm, and it most definately not served chilled. Real beer is served at cellar temerature, here in uk, avaerage ground temperature is 12C at 60cm/2ft below grade, so that is the usual temperature of the beer stored underground. So that is 12C, not chilled to tastelessness.
My old house built in the18C, had it's own cellars, one for storage and one, only half underground for brewing. The other two were for storing wine - lots of wine. This would have been the norm, even modest houses would have made their own drink, the water was often unsafe, even the kids had their small beer, from the second wash, about 1-2%.
Beer has been brewed in England for centuries, even before anyone knew to use hops in it, maybe nettles or other herbs. Hops were first found to be useful to prevent the beer going off so fast. It took a while for people to get used to the taste, the antiseptic properties being appreciated if not understood at all.
Different areas produced styles due to differences in ingredients - water, hops and malts, some of which persist today. The one difference between here and central Europe was their barley had more protein, insoluble in water or alcohol, which made the resultant drink very cloudy. No one bothered about cloudy beer if it was only taken in opaque containers - stoneware, leather, horn or even wood - you couldn't see how much dross there was.
The invention of cheap glass in the 19C brought a demand for clearer beer. With the British top fermented systems, the spent yeast drags the proteins down to the bottom and the clear liquid is easily racked off the top. The Europeans had a harder problem. The Czech's in Pilzen found a way of chilling their bottom fermented beer while in long term storage to precipitate the what are now considered contaminents. Lagering being the German for storage. Now we have two new words for beer drinkers to play with - Pils and Lager. Done properly, with decent ingredients it produces a fine drink, but needs to be served cold, apparently.

The warmer serving temperatures and stronger flavours of top fermented beer are obviously an acquired taste. The full flavour brings satisfaction sooner and drink is imbibed slower and if that is your "norm" then lagers are all tasteless over chilled piss. What we have is two different drinks, which happen to be made from the same basic ingredients in response to the environmental conditions locally. Like cake and pastry.
If you live somewhere very hot, then the requirement for lots of liquid is apparent, drinking it very cold to dull the taste buds and so more can be taken, more can be sold. I'm sure someone benefits.

I travel to Germany quite a lot and enjoy the beer, Lagered, there. There are many small Brauhaus, often pubs, making their own beer for local consumption. Often the local pubs will make a beer to be served "warm", especially in winter. Ice cold beer when the outside temperatures are -10C is not so attractive.

US beer imported here, while occasionally a subject of metro chic fad, is of the type I don't think many would claim to be state of the art as far as being a finely flavoured beverage. I have occasionally come across decent US craft beer, it is generally of an English IPA style.
There does seem to be a rather cultish macho snobbishness attached to the need to declare that strong ales are the only way to satisfaction. I prefer to end my evenings at least coherent, if not entirely sober. Oblivion has never been my goal, my life isn't that crap.
 
interesting & tx, apologies on the "lol warm beer" i don't(didn't) know diddly about beer other than my very ltd experience which is summertime high heat, the colder the better
 
If its hot and you are thirsty, alcohol is not such a good thing. as a thirst quencher it tastes nice going down, but the alcohol acts as a diruretic. You piss more, which makes you more dehydrated.
"Drink a pint and piss a quart" as they say - which of course is going to lead you to being dehydrated. Same with sugary drinks, only worse, the sugar itself makes you thirsty again very soon.
I suppose a beer with a cool water chaser - I know it doesn't feel as good as the beer but better for you long term.
 
understand but that is pretty much the extent of beer drinking for me, not even interested other than on those hottest days, ice water suits me fine as the main thirst quencher re-hydrator(?)
 
lazyeye6 said:
The Campaign For Real Ale in the UK and the craft beer phenomenon in the USA have revived actual flavorful beer much to the chagrin of the large multinational brewing corporations who are steadily losing market share to small local breweries.
Think global but drink local.

Before craft brews got really popular, my favorite beers were more traditional European beers like Moretti's 'La Rossa', Ayinger's 'Celebrator', Spaten 'Optimator', Fuller's 'ESB', or Guinness. I liked pretty much any combination of dark, strong, bitter.

Now that these microbrews have come out with beers like 'Hopsicutioner' 'Ranger' 'Nitro Milk Stout' and 'Torpedo', I've not had imported stuff for a while.
 
When shopping for beer in the US, keep an eye open for "Scuttlebutt". That was my local brew-pub when we lived in Everett. They expanded a bunch in the last few years, with a big restaurant on the Everett waterfront and a wider range of beers. Their porter is definitely among my favorites. Pity we live 65 miles away! Their IPA and some others are in our local Safeway, but I haven't seen the Porter in the stores yet.
 
Re the Moretti that just got mentioned, a friend has a villa in Sarnarno, Italy. He is always badgering us to go - just to have people in the place.
The village is really nice, except the only beer, if you just ask for beer, then you get Heineken. Most of the locals seem to drink it and all the visitors unless they know better, and its bloody vile, as bad as the rubbish sold here.
However, a couple of the bars have a cabinet in the corner, and you help yourself to "Biera Nationale", and in our case "con due coppa". Sharing a litre means it gets less warmed up when sitting out on the terrace. I developed a taste for Morreti, a not bad quaffer.
We'd wander down to out favourite bar late lunch time, have a coffee, excellent as always in Italy. Then an ice cream while checking emails and writing rubbish or planning tomorrows trip.
At some point the school bus arrives and the 16 to 18 year olds hang around, playing cards, until they get fed up of being trashed by the oldies. They head off to the the pizzaria. Eventually we follow. Seems like the whole town comes in for a slice - its rare for anyone to buy anymore in one go though. Sometimes a customer returns for something else, there was quite a choice. We stand out by having a couple of slices. At the same time. OOH - heads turn...
Then back for another Biera Nationale. A wander round the town to burn off some calories, its a bit more precipitous than it first looks, then home. As its a ski resort in winter, and quite high, by late summer the nights can be chill, so we light the fire, mess with the crossword or jigsaw or read.
If we have somewhere to go, we drop by in the morning, most days the porchetta guy is there in his bright blue stripped and stainless steel trailer. Always up for a nice porchetta. Back to the bar for a coffee. Then off.
HAving missed the excitment of previous afternoons, we can spice things up by going to Gabrielli's, just up the mount from the house. Very rustic food, but in generous portions and very much meat based. Like many European bars the longer you stay, the greater the frequency of small dishes of snacks.
If not too bust, Gabrielli will get out his guitar and sing a song or two, and hand out the liqueurs.
 
In the late 70's I visited England and was told that the "real ale" movement was a response to the buy out of some English breweries by American multi-national breweries, that the new owners switched their British brands over to pasteurization as a "cost cutting and quality control" measure and that that pasteurization, having cooked the bubbles out, then required re-carbonation of the brew.
 
nickguzzi said:
The village is really nice, except the only beer, if you just ask for beer, then you get Heineken. Most of the locals seem to drink it and all the visitors unless they know better, and its bloody vile, as bad as the rubbish sold here.

i ended up getting some Heineken after seeing a detailed discovery channel program covering it a-z, that came across as tho one of the known best (world renowned?)

i think it cost a tad more than regular stuff
 
I thought the takeovers was mostly by Canadian "breweries", Carling being the one that comes to mind, because they have a large factory in the middle of Northhamton (home of a famous Norton man, Mr Hemmings and Cosworth Engineering).
The rest of the big British brewers shot themselves in the foot. I think the move to pasturised and pressuirised beers was in fact purely profit driven. Real, ie unpastueurised beer only lasts about 3 weeks, takes a week to settle after transportation and needs a skilled hand to keep and serve in peak condition. All these extra costs which the accountants and boards thought should be theirs. They invented "cask ales" which are flat and need CO2 or N2 fo push them along the pipe work.
The end result, eventually, was many beer factories lost a lot of trade and even more goodwill.

Heineken, the stuff here, and in Italy, may be even worse than the stuff supplied elsewhere, it is bleuch!!!!
 
Heiniken is a lager and, IMO, one of the better ones. But I don't think it's worth the extra price. All the lagers have a similar, fairly bland taste. After almost 30 years in the US, I even drink British-style beers chilled!
 
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