Whereas the best lagers have a month, two months or even longer to mature, some big industrial incarnations, we understand, are lucky to get three days.

Given that the purpose of lagering is to allow chemical compounds to dissipate or be consumed by the secondary action of yeast, how is it actually possible to accelerate this process? More chemicals? Sorcery?

Peraps all the important stuff happen in the first three days and the rest is just superstition and marketing, but we can’t help but wonder if is this one of the reasons why, say, Stella Artois tastes so nasty.

Would it improve if given 90 days to ripen?

A couple of weeks ago, we posted something about the lager spectrum, suggesting that lagers range from nasty (e.g. San Miguel) to good (Estrella Damm) via neutral (Becks).

We had a nagging doubt, however, that there might be some prejudice in our rankings of these various very similar industrial beers. Do we prefer Estrella to San Miguel because it’s imported rather than license brewed in the UK? Did we think of Becks as neutral because the brand suggests ‘german purity’?

So, inspired by Lars Marius Garshol, and by the results of blind tasting for the Champion Beer of Britain at GBBF, we set out to test ourselves.

Bailey served four beers to Boak, who didn’t know which were in the fridge. They were chosen on the basis that none of them was especially highly regarded or characterful (i.e. no Brooklyn Lager or Jever). The serving order was randomised to prevent any temptation on Bailey’s part to save the perceived best for last, or vice versa.

Boak’s notes were as follows.

Beer 1 (San Miguel, UK brewed)
Tastes like generic lager! Good malt profile; a bitter, slightly metallic edge; no hop aroma or flavour. Not much after-taste at first. A bit unpleasant as it warms up. Not unpleasant when cold. Spanish? Is this Estrella Damm?

Beer 2 (Becks)
Good, pungent, hempy aroma, like Jever, which totally fails to deliver on tasting. Disintegrates. Bland. Like drinking spit. German?

Beer 3 (Estrella Damm)
Crisp and refreshing, but tastes of nothing, apart from a little tartness. Fizzy water with a twist of lemon. Spanish?

Beer 4 (Bitburger)
Similar hoppy aroma to number two but flavour persists a bit longer, definitely accentuated towards the hop. Pretty good. German?

At the end, she named San Miguel her favourite because of the solid maltiness, with Bitburger the runner up because of its hoppiness; Estrella Damm was her least favourite. We were both surprised by this, and a little embarrassed.

This was a fun, eye-opening exercise, and (as if it were needed) once again proves the value of blind tasting.

All commercial lagers sit somewhere on a spectrum.

On said spectrum, Becks might act as the zero point, with its more-or-less neutral flavour. We can take it or leave it; it doesn’t actually taste unpleasant; it’s better than nothing. Maybe that’s where Peroni lives, too.

Above that point, there are many good, very good or even excellent commercial lagers. Estrella Damm, for example, might not be remotely like a craft beer, but it’s good. We enjoy drinking it, and even find it a little moreish. It has a certain something.

But, head the other way, beyond the Becks neutral zone, there is the murky world of the nasty lager.

Nasty lagers aren’t just bland or boring: they actually offend the tastebuds. We’d rather drink water than San Miguel, even on a hot day in Spain. What is that flavour? Onions burned in butter? Stella Artois is in the same boat, with a taste that suggests someone has bunged a bit of lighter fluid in to pep it up.

What are your candidates for the nasty end of the spectrum?

Kirin Ichiban is apparently made (in Bedford…) with uncompromising standards, using only the single first pressing of the finest ingredients, giving us the sweetest, most flavoursome beer every time.

Is anyone else slightly confused by this label?

It may seem odd to go all the way to Bristol and then make Zero Degrees our first stop, given we have a branch of the same brewpub in London. The shameful truth is, though, that we’ve never been to the one in Blackheath,  despite hearing great things about the beer from bloggers and friends.

On this occasion, the decision was made for us when we’d dragged ourselves up the charming, Dickensian Christmas Steps and spotted that the place was opposite, just as we started to feel peckish and thirsty.

Despite the late-90s trendy warehouse look and aspirational dance-jazz soundtrack, the first thing that struck us was how many families were in, contributing to a German brauhaus atmosphere. The staff were extremely friendly, too, although that seems to be true of Bristolians more generally. We got a smile on approaching the bar; a “be with you in a minute”; a bit of banter during service; and some apparent expertise when it came to the flavour and manufacture of the beer. Impressive stuff.

We started out with the pilsner and one of the specials, continental blonde. The pilsner was bang on, if mainstream — something like tankova Urquell.

The continental blonde was fascinating and delicious. Despite the colour, we think it was actually a clone of a Belgian pale ale, but much fresher tasting than any example of the real thing we’ve had. It was spicy with hints of banana — an absolute treat.

The wheat ale was Belgian style and utterly delicious. Again, the freshness and condition was outstanding. The dark lager was also of a superior quality, as good as the wonderful Bernard Dark, with a besutiful balance of treacle and bitterness. It might almost be as good as U Fleku.

The prices, as Jeff has noted of the London branch, were very competitive for such an apparently swanky place, with regulars at £2.60 specials at £2.90.

A minor quibble, though: does the name refer to the temperature of the bar? Brrrrrr….

In a crap pub, a bottle of Budvar is often the last refuge for the beer geek. Sadly, those little green bottles are almost always past their best — stale and flavourless.

It was nice this week to be reminded that it doesn’t always have to be that way with bottled lager, though, when Augustiner Lagerbier Hell (our beer of the week) transported us to Bavaria with one sip.

There were veritable hops, sweet malt and — hooray! — no off flavours.

It also helped that it was served in a nicely shaped and properly branded glass. That shouldn’t matter, but it does.

These days, it never seems to be the right time to tackle a strong or quirky beer. Maybe it’s the weather — we’re craving cold lager or, like Knut, wheat beer. Ron’s of the view that there’s nothing better in the heat than a chilled Guinness Foreign Export, but we’re not convinced.

So, the Brew Dogs, the Belgians and the bocks sit gathering dust in the ‘cellar’ while our recycling bin fills up with empty bottles from beers like Svyturys (contains rice) and Franziskaner (contains no real hops). We’re also slowly working our way through our oh-so-small stash of homebrewed lager.

Maybe this weekend, we’ll tackle our recently acquired Lou Pepes. They ought to be refreshing and worth taking notes on.

First we tried Latitude Pilsner, from the Atlas Brewery. We thought this was fruity and sherbety, and packed a good amount of flavour in for 3.9%. We wonder what the cask verson is like?

Next up was Hop Rocker from BrewDog. This is the first time we’ve had anything from BrewDog, but it certainly won’t be the last. This reminded us quite a lot of Brooklyn lager, although maybe not as intense — a good mixture of sweetness and bitter, nice balanced carbonation. The Beer Nut has recently reviewed it, here.

Finally, an old favourite – Harviestoun’s Schiehallion. We’ve always liked this one for its full flavour and wonderfully dry, perfumy finish.

Perhaps Scotland is the natural place for producing quality UK lagers? It’s a bit cooler than England (not that we’re roasting here at the moment!) and therefore well suited to lagering, and the water’s probably a bit better for it too.

Boak

PS — we note that Brew Dog are “in trouble” again — after being picked on by the Portman group for aggressive labelling, they’re now being attacked in the press for launching Tokyo, possibly Britain’s strongest beer at 12%. You can read their side of the story on their blog, here. Are they unlucky, or just shrewd at marketing?

We drank them at a bring-your-own Ethiopian restaurant in Shepherd’s Bush. Blimey, that’s some filling food. We’re still stuffed now.

The following post comes from Wei Sen, our man in Hanoi. During his last visit to the UK he told us all about the beer scene in Vietnam, and it sounded so interesting that we asked him to blog about it for us.

The walls are panelled in dark wood, the air is heavy with the smell of hops and cigarette smoke, the tables are crowded with dishes of smoked sausage and fried cheese, and everywhere there are tables of customers throwing back tankards of beer brewed in the on-site microbrewery. It’s not a scene typically associated with Vietnam, but Hoa Vien Brauhaus in Hanoi is part of a number of European style beer halls that have opened over the last couple of years.

There is no doubt that beer is the drink of choice in Hanoi. The most popular drinking places are bia hoi, which serve unpasteurised beer and traditional snacks. Most bia hoi are quite modest, and consist of a few plastic tables and stools set out on the pavement. However, as the economy has developed, more upmarket venues have opened up to cater to the new middle classes. The most notable of these are the Czech beer halls –- bia tiep — that have opened up in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Drinking in Hoa Vien (or the half dozen other such places in Hanoi) two things are immediately obvious. The first is that the décor, food, and beer are all heavily influenced by European styles. The other is that the clientele –- unlike the bars and pubs of Hanoi’s tourist district — are almost exclusively Vietnamese.

Although modern Vietnam is a capitalist-friendly place, during the 1970s and 80s the main foreign influences were from other communist countries. Thousands of Vietnamese worked or studied abroad in the USSR or the Eastern Bloc (including Hoa Vien’s founder, who is now the honorary consul for the Czech Republic in Ho Chi Minh City). One of the more positive aspects of this cooperation is the exposure to a European beer culture that complements Vietnamese drinking habits without seeming uncomfortably foreign.

Hoa Vien mainly serves a pilsner style draft lager; the taste is light but hoppy, and well-suited to provide refreshment in Hanoi’s muggy and humid summers. A bottled version is also available, as well as a stout. There is a varied menu, with a broad range of hearty east European dishes, as well as more traditional Vietnamese food.

Bia hoi are likely to remain popular –- 3,000 dong (10 pence) for a glass of street-corner lager on a hot day is too good an offer for most people to turn down. However, for those with a bit more cash to spare, bia tiep are the perfect places to witness the fusion of Vietnamese and European cultures through a shared love of beer.

Wei Sen

But he also said that, in his time travelling the world for IndustroBooze, he met a lot of brewers of what most of us would consider crappy beers, and found that, to a man, they loved the beer they produced.

He said that the makers of one of the big bland American lagers drank it themselves and were genuinely convinced of its quality. They couldn’t understand why it was so reviled. After all, making it taste the way it did, consistently, was hard work for them — not just a matter of pressing a button.

Perhaps most revealingly, he described the experience of working for a big international drinks company as like being “brainwashed”. The company’s own products are wheeled out at parties; dished out as Christmas bonuses; and staff are encouraged to drink them when they’re out and about and push them to friends.

Just like mothers who think their own children are the most wonderful in the world, regardless of any evidence to the contrary, the men who slave over industrial size operations to make the bland beers most beer geeks shun think their babies are beautiful too.

Bailey

PS sorry about reusing this image so soon, but we gather Stella Artois are keen to increase their profile in the world of beer blogging. Anything we can do to help!