OT - the great BREWSKIES thread!

Discussion in 'Warbirds International' started by -frog-, Feb 10, 2021.

  1. -frog-

    -frog- Well-Known Member

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    Just to shake that forum for a bit (if still possible).
    Just read a 2020 ranking of beer-drinking nations, and it seems we "mounted the podium", with 121 litres per capita per annum (ranking third, after Germany - 126 litres, and Czech Republic - almost 150 litres).

    What's "your kind of brew"?
    A typical lager, ale or stout?
    A sour beast?
    Maybe a porter?
    Or a Belgian-style beer, or an IPA?

    Is the beer you drink manufactured in your country, or imported?
    Is it a mass-produced beer made by a large company, or a smaller, regional (or even craft) brewery?

    As for me, I am a beer enthusiast and drink almost every type of beer.
    But I prefer the strong-flavoured Imperial India Pale Ales, and... just the opposite of that - Czech lagers (the bitter the better - try Radegast Ratar from the Radegast brewery if you don't know, what I mean).
     
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  2. looseleaf

    looseleaf Well-Known Member

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    As of late the only "big company" beer I drink is Guinness. Most corporate beers suck. There are so many local small breweries I prefer the "craft beers". I remember a store near the university would import some small production beers from Czech Republic. Very good ! The other acceptable brews I drink on occasion are the Spaten products and Anchor Steam.
    Some reason around here in Nor Cal, I have not found an IPA that I like. Oh yes, hefeweizen works too!
     
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  3. -frog-

    -frog- Well-Known Member

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    I am not fond of stouts. I don't like "dark side of the force" - OK - a Russian Imperial Stout, from time to time, is OK, as it "kicks in" in a quite brutish manner, but not a regular stout.
    I do like my regional breweries, but also prefer the craft scene, yet I am far from crossing the "large players" out of the list. The Radegast Ratar I just had is just about as perfect as a light lager may get, although it is manufactured by the same SABMiller multinational, which is responsible for MGD or Foster's... both of which taste like watered-down piss, at best.
     
  4. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    "Lass Dir raten, trinke Spaten"!
     
  5. mcgru-

    mcgru- Well-Known Member

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    "Alles machen, wollen zu trachen (frichen)"
     
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  6. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    Hi, Loose. Maybe now that the pandemic is over, we can meet at a Cali airshow sometime. I need to check the schedules.
     
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  7. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    I was once traveling by train from Budapest to Bucharest, it was a night train and there were few passengers. The train conductor was a Hungarian and in the cabin next to me there was this polish family - a patriarch and several women.
    It was early in the morning, maybe 6am and I was talking to the Hungarian (which spoke all the languages to a certain degree, Polish and other Slavics included) when we hear a shouting from the Poles' cabin: "Kolega, problem!" . The conductor runs to their cabin with me following. And in the doorstep there's the smiling Pole holding two glasses of polish vodka. For us. We drink and a woman hands us peanuts. The conductor and the Pole chat for a while, then we return on the corridor. Then another shouting: "Kolega, telefon!". Another two glasses, then peanuts. I somehow managed to get out of the train in Bucharest, they were going further, to Istanbul. I wonder how many "problems" and "telefones" happened afterwards. I'm sure they had enough booze for a few days.
     
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  8. -frog-

    -frog- Well-Known Member

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    So they did not travel unprepared?
    Hmm.. a normal thing.
    In late 90's, when I was studying, we used to travel by train, a lot.
    There were summer research camps, there were regular holidays, and all sorts of places to visit.
    The worst thing that could happen on the way, was when you came prepared, and the other passengers were not.
    I had a great buddy, also a drinking buddy, back then.
    We once left from Lublin to Hel (single "l" there - a peninsula on the coast of the Baltic Sea it is). 600 kms, 9 hours... and we had just 2 bottles of vodka.
    But there were 8 of us in the compartment, and 6 were of the "drinking sort".
    Thank God you could order a beer to your train compartment back then.
    Otherwise we would arrive sober to the seaside... which, at that time, we considered to be a mortal sin.
     
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  9. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    That's a good way to travel! Train travel is much more fun outside of the USA, I must say :) Forgive me if you've heard this one before, but once I was in Italy, heading north by train. It was hotter than hell and I found a guy selling beers. Bought two cans, and boarded the train, found my compartment. An elderly and very respectable Italian couple shared the compartment. Tried to greet them as politely as possible and with respect. Well, the air conditioning wasn't working. After a while I pulled one of the beers from my pack and opened it. Unfortunately, the beer can was well charged from the heat and travel, so it sprayed over the dignified lady's blouse and dress. I wanted to die then and there but couldn't croak on such short notice. My apologies were profuse and heartfelt.

    After some hours, the couple realized that I truly was simply a naiive Yank and genuinely apologetic. Turned out that the guy was a retired engineer travelling around documenting WW1 and WW2 bunkers and defensive positions. It was his hobby. He had really cool sketches of the places he'd visited and we bonded a bit over that. Ooof. One of the most embarrassing things I've experienced (and there are many).
     
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  10. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    Two (2) bottles of vodka, six (6) drinkers, and 600 kilometers to travel within nine (9) hours on a train. These are the sort of problems our school tests had back in the 1980s but without the alcohol. Looking back, if they'd used vodka, the number of drinkers and time spent on travel, I would have done much better on tests.

    Instead of real situations we had ersatz imaginary travelling salesmen, bridge navigation in Konigsberg/Kaliningrad, and other boring examples :)
     
  11. vasco

    vasco Well-Known Member

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    I used to travel a lot by train, as a student. Going home on a Friday and returning on a Sunday, 250 km by train. Those 2 hours of returning to the university were a time of intense drinking, for the train was packed with students and it was an evening train.

    Many times I had to travel by veeery slow trains that stopped everywhere along the way. Sometimes whole night. And one way to pass the time was drinking, And people were so much more open to drinking in public, I guess. One could make acquaintances along the way and drink each other's booze. Sometimes it was home made wine and I drank the most horrible and the best wines one could imagine, on such occasions. Many times I wondered if it was the quality or the quantity that made me puke.

    I don't think I got to the point when one drinks for the taste of it, like today's habit of wine drinking among adults. I did like certain drinks very much (moldavian cognacs, for example) but I drank to get drunk. I stopped drinking alcohol early in my life, about the time my friends begun drinking for the taste of it. I've never got to that.
     
  12. looseleaf

    looseleaf Well-Known Member

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    keep me posted Uncles!!!!
     
  13. OldUncles

    OldUncles Well-Known Member

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    Planes of Fame in SoCal, Chino, is on schedule for around Halloween. I wonder if it will really happen?
    That's a great show; think I may try for that. https://planesoffame.org/