Best bitter

shame that

Bitter and Pale Ale (not Indian Pale Ale) are the same thing by different names.

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.

Lidl sell their own brand of bitter called Hatherwood (3.6% alcohol) for £2.99 for 4x500ml cans. Excellent for shandy.

I would be more concerned about all the bitters which were not "best". Average? Mediocre? Worst?

Landlord, a pint of your worst bitter if you please.

Cheers

Dave R

Does it really matter if you are going to add half a pint of sugar rich (or substitute sugar rich) lemonade to the beer?

Not bad, and very cheap, but it's called an IPA. Falls at the first hurdle.

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.

No it is not. It is brewed differently.

In message snipped-for-privacy@jrenewsid.jretrading.com>, Joe snipped-for-privacy@jretrading.com writes

AIUI, IPA was a quite-a-lot-stronger-than-normal beer to prevent it going off on its long sea voyage from Britain to India.

That is actually a myth.

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.

In message snipped-for-privacy@pvr2.lan, Rod Speed snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com writes

Noted. Very informative.

Yeah, one of the best wikipedia articles I have read.

Not stronger, but with more hops, which are a natural preservative.

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.

alan_m snipped-for-privacy@admac.myzen.co.uk> wrote

Fraid so.

We weren't discussing those.

Don't believe that.

So they aren't just adding water to their best brew.