Spidrift wrote:Bambikles wrote:...was never grown in Britanny...
And yet, grapes grow in Germany (and in southern England, for that matter). Oh well.X
Well, I exaggerated a bit, there is some vine grown near Nantes, but otherwise, there are no vine in Britanny. I guess it's a matter of soil and of a too wet climate. But as
this map shows, there are several vignobles more nordic than Britanny (most famously, Champagne). There it is a matter of correct exposition to the sun (vine is grown on hills then).
Don Alexander wrote:Spidrift wrote:Wandering way off topic, but we have a German moderator, so we can talk about beer with impunity.
The problem is, though, your German moderator
hates beer!
Is that even possiblee ? I'm shocked, shocked, I'm telling you !
It's funny, when Bambikles listed all those Belgian beers...
I didn't listed
that much, however.
Abbaye beer is a style. Hoegaarden is a Belgian wheat beer (different from Germans wheat beer). Leffe is the standard Abbaye beer, available in every supermarket in France, along with Grimbergen. Spidrift mentioned fruit beers, I think he talked about the lambic family. These are sour beers, often with mixed with cherry (that is kriek). But there are lambics without fruit: gueuze and faro (this one with sugar candy). It's quite easy to find an industrial kriek in France, under the brand La Bécasse ("the woodcock"). La Bécasse, Hoegaarden and Leffe are all brands of AB Inbev, the biggest beer company in the world. Chouffe and Gulden Draak are much more obscure, though.
I've never heard of a one, and I grew up not THAT far from the Belgian border, actually. I guess there's the first law of beerodynamics. Beer always flow from the high pressure area to the low pressure area.
Didn't know that law.
So even close to Belgium, no Belgian beers show up in Germany, whereas close to the Czech Republic, you see Staropramen in Germany! In northern Italy, on the other hand, you just get Münchener Hofbräu after it has quantum tunneled through the alps.
To be fair, Germany is a word in itself when it comes to beer. It's lager-land after all. Other countries, outside of massively produced pseudo-pils, tend to prefer ales. I tasted only 3 brands of Czech beer, but I was never disappointed.
I tasted several English beers too (more than Czech beers, for sure).