Posts Tagged ‘tv’

Saturday Kitchen — why no beer?

Sunday, March 29th, 2009
saturdaykitchen

Chef James Martin and his trademark lecherous leer.

Inspired by Pete Brown’s excellent letter to the Independent, we decided to drop the BBC a line and ask why their hugely popular Saturday Kitchen cookery show hardly ever mentions beer. With the 350 characters we were given, we said:

Saturday Kitchen is great and I’m a regular viewer. But I’m getting frustrated because, while wine is discussed every week, it’s very rare to hear anything about beer. There are loads of interesting, complex beers around, that go well with food; and lots of people in the UK prefer beer to wine. Please suggest some beer and food pairings in future.

With hindsight, we don’t think “great” is quite the word we were after, but we always like to start with something positive when we’re writing nutty letters of complaint.

Seriously, though — would it kill them to schedule five minutes every couple of weeks for someone like Pete to talk about beer? We’d much rather have beer treated as part of the mainstream like that than sit through another Oz and James cackfest.

We don’t hate wine or people that drink wine but we are much more interested in beer.

Can a pub with football on the telly be any good?

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008
Portugal warming up at the 2006 World Cup in Germany

Portugal warming up at the 2006 World Cup in Germany

CAMRA guides to pubs often praise the absence of a TV screen, and indeed, a big sign outside a pub boasting Sky / Setanta sports and a big screen is usually synonymous with mediocre beer.

I can see why people hate TVs in pubs, because they can distract people from conversation and detract from the atmosphere.

But occasionally, I do want to watch a football match in the pub, and I always have to compromise on the quality of the beer (and pub) to do so.

Has anyone got any suggestions for places in central London that are really good pubs with nice beer that just happen to have a screen? Or are the two mutually exclusive?

I suppose what you need is a pub that has several sections, where you can keep the football in a discrete area, so everyone’s happy.  In Germany, both during the World Cup in 2006 and the European Championships this year, loads of cafes and bars got in screens, but put them outside, helping to create a fantastic street party atmosphere.

Incidentally, Zeitgeist is pretty good for big sporting events, but you have to choose your night carefully, as Bundesliga and Germany qualifiers get priority!

Boak

New Tricks: an episode for beer geeks

Saturday, August 9th, 2008
Amanda Redman and Dennis Waterman in New Tricks

Amanda Redman and Dennis Waterman in New Tricks

Last Monday’s edition of New Tricks focused on beer and breweries. The story was ludicrous even by the usual standards of this programme (which we kind of like…). It had the team investigating the 10-year-old case of the death of a promising young brewer in a fermentation vessel at a traditional family brewery. However daft the plot, which features a secret beer recipe, arguments over the provenance of the malt, and brewing dynasticism, there’s plenty for the beer geek to enjoy:

  • trying to guess which brewery they used for filming;
  • pondering which industrial brewers would really be using open fermentation vessels in this day and age;
  • product placement for Fullers, Theakstons and possibly Special Brew (although has that become a generic term for super-strength crap lager now?);
  • wondering whether they filmed the beer festival scene at a real festival or just got CAMRA to help with posters etc;
  • lazy stereotypes about gastro pubs vs traditional boozers (Eg gastro = female friendly and crap beer); and
  • old codgers complaining that the beer doesn’t taste as good as it used to.

You can enjoy it for yourself through BBC I-player. But you’ve only got until 21:00 on Monday 11th.