Franconian Beer Message Board
Village Breweries |
| Posted by Nick B. on 2010-05-23 02:35:46 |
| "Maybe if I lived there I'd feel different and would prefer to go off to the UK for my pub crawls?" Perspective! In my first couple of years here, I did try to explore as much as I could, by bike and bike/train, and I covered the area that's conveniently reachable from where I live pretty well. In the process, I found that about ...oh, just guessing... half of the breweries' beers were drinkable - very good, and the other half were boring - bad. And I found, luckily, some within a good biking distance that I enjoy so well that I patronise them as much as possible. But I'm also quite picky about what's good and what ain't, coming from a snobbish homebrewing background. AFA the cultural aspects go, I agree with you and Jürgen, but as a non-Franke, the subtle differences one encounters between, say, Ansbach and Bayreuth just aren't so noticeable or important to me. I was quite a Lager afficionado for the last couple of years prior to moving here, and so it was awesome for me to find out just how great the variety and diversity of Lagerbier here is, especially compared to the rest of the country. But also disappointing when 1/3 or more of the time, the beer is either boring, diacytel-laden, husky, or otherwise defective--despite the Reinheitsgebot and the Meisterbrief hanging on the Gaststätte wall. Earlier than that, I was an IPA-Belgobier-barleywine freak, which suited my Oregon life well. I never thought much about English beer, and never visited England until after living here for a couple of years. Now that I've discovered real Real Ale (as opposed to "cask-conditioned" beer in the US), I wish I could trade every brewery I've encountered in Franken for the likes of the best English brewers (Phoenix, Hawkeshead, Lees, to name three). 3.5% bitter, pale ale, or mild auf dem Keller would be absolutely perfect. But that's enough about me. |
| Followups: |
 Village Breweries by Nick B. on 2010-05-23 03:00:30 |
| Village Breweries by Barry on 2010-05-24 00:39:32 |
| Village Breweries by Nick B. on 2010-05-24 01:55:04 |
| Village Breweries by TreinJan on 2010-05-24 07:04:35 |
| Village Breweries by Barry on 2010-05-24 08:39:00 |
| Village Breweries by Mark Andersen on 2010-05-24 08:57:34 |