In a very thinly-veiled effort to give this chronicler a few days’ breathing space, I thought I’d throw open the bar and pose the question close to everyone’s heart at 6pm. What’s everyone’s most desired drink, loved libation, needed nepenthe?
As you’re all probably aware, Ozboy’s Full Ale is my own preference; that or some local wine with dinner. The great advantages of home brew include never running out; being able to tweak the recipe to one’s own taste, and enjoying a premium product for a tiny fraction of what you’d pay at the store. The disadvantage occurs when friends and rellos acquire a taste for it, and you end up having to satisfy a lot of thirsts. I get around this by encouraging them all to take up home brewing themselves; my cousin (who lurks here—g’day mate) has taken the art further than I, and produces a wide selection of quality drops.
I never tire of trying new beers, though. I’ve tried all the big-name British beers; Boddington’s, Newcastle Brown Ale, Tetley’s and so on. My favourite is Breakspeare’s Bitter, for which I developed a taste while working at Henley-on-Thames many years ago. I have sipped the Guinness at the St. James’ Gate factory in Dublin, said to be the best Guinness on earth. I even don’t mind Budweiser export, though of American beers I tend to concur with Monty Python’s analogy. But I stand to be corrected. In Europe, I don’t mind Carlsberg and Leffe.
Among Australian beers, Coopers Sparkling Ale and (if you dare) Vintage Ale are my favourites. OFA is actually a clone of Vintage. I suppose you should all try Fosters Lager at some point (but Yanks be careful, as one future president discovered when his buddy, tennis great John Newcombe introduced him to it one night in a bar in Maine). Our two Tasmanian flagship beers, Cascade Premium Lager and Boag’s (below) are also well worth a look. Across the Tasman, I don’t even mind the occasional Steinlager.
So, how about you? I’ve got ’em all behind the bar. Taps are yours.
Cheers.
Be Responsible - Be Free! 
Ozboy,
Of course my favorite libation is beer. I developed a taste for plain, ordinary Coors in a bottle while in college. Coors certainly meets the Monty Python description but it has a nice, clean, crisp taste. I like the “fancier” beers from time to time. Samuel Adams’ Boston Lager is very good and the local Santa Fe Pale Ale is exquisite. I can’t stand wheat beers or some of the strange European brews. My next door neighbor gave me a case of a Belgian Ale for installing her car battery. I got halfway through one of them and re-gifted the rest to friends of mine who drink exotic beers. I like most beers, but a few are truly vile. Like any good American I like cold beer (in Texas “cold beer” is spoken as one word).
I can’t stand American sour mash whiskey or gin. I used to enjoy the occasional good, single malt scotch. I once was in love with Hennesey Cognac. Then my buddy’s wife remarked that cognac was like drinking perfume. The very next time I had a snifter of cognac, perfume was all I tasted. Ruined it for me. I’m not a big wine drinker. I have a couple two or three favorites. One is a table wine from a winery back in Michigan, another is a California Riesling and one is from a southern NM winery and is called a “white merlot” (it is neither white nor a merlot…but it’s damn tasty). But a friend of mine invented a great mixed drink he named “tiger’s milk”. It is a 50-50 mixture over ice of Carrolan’s (like Bailey’s Irish cream only smoother) and high proof Kaluha. It’s a little like drinking booze and having a candy bar at the same time…but damn, it’s tasty.
We’re getting our two weeks of truly hot weather here so lately I’ve had a taste for seltzer water. I’ve been plowing through it.
I prefer real ales or bitter myself rather than the rats piss called lager, my local favourites from back home are Tetley’s Scotch, Newcastle Brown ale or dog and Old Peculiar. As for spirits I did like Gin and tonic until I got hammered one night then drank a pint of the stuff for my birthday at college. If you want real authentic cider go to Somerset and buy it off a farmer and hope the rats did not get into the press.
DrDave have you considered that Coors brewed from water in the Rockies may actually be radioactive? That water comes from melt water that runs over Granite. You need to have friends run it through a mass spectrometer. We did that for Perrier the fancy French spring water that stuff glowed in the dark.
An ice-cold Marguerita with salt round the rim of the glass!
Don’t like beer much although I am partial to a (sorry real ale drinkers) brown-ale shandy.
Mostly drink red wine and ouzo out here though.
“Where the beer does flow and men chunder”
I like a nice glass or four of chateauneuf du pape. With the right meal. Or any reasonable wine really….. Even Australian.
Hi Oz,
I’ve been drinking quite a bit of cheap and nasty “wife beater” the past few evenings.
Seems that a tinny or five is traditional at the end of a day’s sheep shearing. The Kiwi lads are sound, unfortunately the Kiwi-ess didn’t show up today, the wrapper who did come was a nice bloke but just not the same. She was here yesterday (Sunday).
The shearers are busy this year, the past couple of years, they’ve had little work, pal’s clip is about 10 metric tons these days, and it was only two or three tons in the 1940s, but he got more £ for it back then!
I asked them whether anyone had seen the mythical global warming, and the reply was “Yeah; but only Today!”
Today was in the high twenties to low thirties celcius – exceptional; for these parts.
We touched on the amount of environmental regulation and general statism, and they reckoned that Kiwi land is almost as shagged as Airstrip One is
– must be bad.
Ian (and Crown), a tinnie is no longer a tube in these parts; it is now a small amount of herbaceous material contained in tin-foil, so i guess that you’re talking about the other; though you never know with those shearers.
Godzone shagged? Where would you rather be?
Fen, I have to hand a 2007 Barossa Shiraz from Langmeil vineyard; you would have to give it four stars. The lamb racks are ready and the kumara and yams are nearly roasted in the lamb fat. (I’m just including the fine detail for Crown’s benefit [sic] ). I dare say the match will be perfect.
It’s called a “foil” over here. And the menu sounds delicious.
Even more so after a foil – Oz
WHICH reminds me…