If I am driving I don't like to imbibe too much alcohol. Accordingly prefer to have a shandy with my meals.
At least half of the local restaurants do not stock bitter. I can cope with that but when I visit supermarkets I cannot find beers labelled Bitter. They nearly all say Ale. (Except for the lagers).
What is it about bitter that you are specifically looking for? A bitter taste? 'Ale' no longer means 'brewed without hops', indeed many modern pale ales have a powerful hop flavour. The most bitter beer I've tasted was Thornbridge 'Wild Swan', described as a 'pale ale', though their more common 'Jaipur' is also fairly bitter. The very common Adnams 'Ghost Ship' is also fairly bitter while being extremely pale in colour.
The problem with restaurants and many clubs is not that have nothing called 'bitter', but that they usually have nothing but the cheapest (in terms of brewing cost, not retail price) keg bitter. I'm more concerned with good beer rather than gourmet food, so I tend to eat in pubs, and then only those that stock at least one decent beer.
Indeed so. Many brewers have a flagship bitter, and another with a similar flavour but much weaker. Presumably the latter is simply the former with added water. They're not generally called any of the names you suggest, surprisingly, but e.g. Greene King's Abbot and IPA, or Ruddles County and Bitter.
But these days when the alcohol content is shown, it's not difficult to see which is the 'best' of stablemates before tasting. In my youth, alcohol content was not just not displayed, but was confidential.
The beer that started it all off wasn't stronger than other stuff around at the time and wasn't brewed especially for India. It was only after it went down so well in India that others joined in and the name came.
Same brewery for all those. I my opinion some of the worst beer in the UK but that may be because many pubs around my way are Greene King and they really don't keep or serve it well. Even when KG does a special brew and pushes it out to the true free trade you could tell it was KG from the taste.
I do appreciate that it's down to personal taste but with so many different beers out there is not difficult to find something far superior to what KG turns out. I can remember many decades ago going to the Great British Beer Festival where they announced that GK had won one of the beer categories - the whole venue erupted with loud booing!
IMO strength has nothing to do with taste and enjoyment of the beer.
In years past original gravity was usually displayed which gave some indication of alcohol content.
alan_m snipped-for-privacy@admac.myzen.co.uk> wrote
Dunno, I never could find any low alcohol beer that tasted any good.
I used to teach in the evening sometimes and needed a low alcohol beer to ensure that I was legal to drive. One half strenght was drinkable but was noticeably not as good as the best full strength beers.
Not true, common practice in the USA and possibly by some of the big UK brewers. Also, first and second run off from the mash can be fermented afterwards to produce two different strength beers as well as blending them to make a third.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.