Yes, I was going to say hop pillows are a thing for some people.
Bit of social history: spending a week or two “hopping” in Kent used to be the nearest poorer people in south and east London got to a holiday, until wages and paid leave improved:
I came in to say Sam Smith’s - but many posters got there first 2 yrs ago.
Assuming you mean British beers I’d like to eulogise for Brains beers. I grew up in Cardiff and the brewery was in the middle of the city. The yeast/hops smell from the brewery was a constant in my childhood and adolescence. The brewery was not small, but not national either - not even in Wales. It had pubs all around the city and some across the south Wales coast, selling 3 varieties - Bitter, Dark or SA - the tradition being the breweries best bitter is named after the brewer - Stanley Arthur Brains. SA was my beer of choice, although it’s strength meant it was often called ‘Skull Attack’, I loved that beer.
After living in Cumbria for the last 25 years (good to see the cumbrian beers mentioned above - plus Jennings beers from the town of Cockermouth…) I was in Cardiff in the summer and had a pint that I’d been looking forward to with some anticipation. It was crap. Worse, it was different. It transpired Brains had sold out to one of the UK’s biggest beer producers and they’d wrung the neck of their golden goose.
This is obviously not a unique story, but it made me sad in a Proustian way.
So I’ll raise a bottle of Samuel Smith’s best bitter to all you beer lovers instead.
MiM
I used to love Newcastle Brown Ale when it was imported here to the U.S.
But, they stopped importing the English version here a few years ago, and instead, apparently licensed the name to Lagunitas Brewing, which introduced a new (and completely different) beer in the U.S., under the Newcastle Brown Ale name. Highly disappointing.
Yeah upthread, I mention buying both when they transitioned from the English to the Lagunitas formulation. Having them side by side, yes, they are not at all the same, so if you liked the OG Newcastle, you will be disappointed by the Lagunitas formulation. I didn’t like the original, so I preferred the new one, but I don’t understand changing the flavor so much and alienating all the people who enjoyed it. I can’t imagine they’d pick up more new drinkers of it to make up for the ones they lost, but I could be wrong.
My bold.
Now you have me confused.
Unless this has been reversed and I missed it, Jennings brewery is no more.
The old, old story.
j
Usually, corporate idiocy. Though I would have thought that a smaller brewery like Lagunitas wouldn’t be as likely to pull that crap.
WAG-the ingredients in the original Newcastle aren’t available here, specifically the hops though the water might also be a factor.
My guess is that they decided to create a formulation that was more in line with what they thought American beerdrinker palates would like. It’s less sweet than the original, now uses American hops (with a slightly higher IBU score), and has a stronger, smoky/roasted flavor.
The articles below also quote Lagunitas/Heineken spokespeople that U.S. sales for Newcastle (and brown ales in general) had been declining, and they made the change in an attempt to reinvigorate the brand.
TIL that Heineken bought a 50% stake in Lagunitas in 2015, then bought it outright two years later. Lagunitas then began brewing their new, American Newcastle recipe in 2019.
If you’re drinking beers from the Great Lakes brewery, you don’t need to look to foreign countries. I mean, you’ve got access to Elliot Ness Amber Lager, Dortmunder Gold, a nice Irish Ale… and Edmund Fitzgerald NITRO, dude!
My local tavern always has two Great Lakes beers on tap. No other brewery except New Glarus (we’re in Wisconsin, we have to have Spotted Cow, it’s a law).
More on Newcastle Brown. I’ve posted on these boards before (but not in this thread) about how it used to have a unique “twisty” taste. For some reason, today I remembered that Lunatics’ Broth* was originally a blend of two beers, one of which was Newcastle Amber (which used to be commercially available); and another, stronger beer which was never sold to the public. Here’s a discussion regarding this. It seems that at some point this practice stopped (cost reduction, anyone?) but my WAG is that at least a token effort was made to match the original peculiarity of the flavor. If Lagunitas are not invested in that history, perhaps it’s not a surprise that their version tastes different.
j
* - historically the local name - don’t blame me. NB that Theakston’s Old Peculier seems to have also been referred to in the same way.
What is “twisty” supposed to evoke? I honestly have no idea what is meant by that.
It’s how you can tell the beer hasn’t gone off. It takes on a “bendy” flavor if it has.
:flees:
Don’t know about ‘twisty’, but here’s the song we used to sing in the folk clubs in the '60’s
Yeah, well… it was as if the various flavors didn’t combine as a whole, but rather remained separate and wrapped around each other. If that makes any sense. Forty odd years ago, it really was a unique beer.
j
I believe the term people might be looking for is “parti-gyle.”
In short: Parti-gyling means getting multiple beers out of the same mash. The brewer boils successive runnings separately, and then, ideally, blends them to different strengths.
Is that what happens with Newcastle Brown? Is “parti-gyle” like where you brew your main beer and then get a “small beer” (I know Anchor Brewing, if it doesn’t still, at least used to sell a small beer.) ETA: Oh, or wait – in this technique it all gets blended into the same beer, I guess?
Into several different beers, usually. It was a standard brewing method “back in the day.” Making a small beer out of a secondary mash is just good business sense when you have to stretch your grain supplies. I’ve done it with a barleywine mash before. I have no idea whether or not Newcastle ever did such a thing for their brown crap. It just seemed to me to be what folks might have been talking about.
In the days when Newcastle Brown was a blend, no. The stronger of the two beers was aged before being used in the blend, so it would (obviously) have to be a separate mash.
j