Chris claims that the British lager is dead. Maybe he’s right. But is there something more happening?
The British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) reports that UK beer sales have fallen through the five billion litre mark for the first time since 1975. This represents a decline of 1.7% for the year. And yes, the biggest decline was in the premium lager segment where sales fell 2%.
The volume of beer sold through pubs in the UK has hit its lowest level since the Great Depression of the 1930s – yep, the Great Depression. Sales in the …read more

Last week I spent some time in London with a friend and, needless to say, we enjoyed ourselves a very nice pub crawl or two. Now, after years of drinking lager beers in Germany I’ve become accustomed to ales here in the US, so I am perfectly happy with either (most of the time, anyway). My friend, however, is German, and although he’s become more British than German in many respects, he’s still a resolute lager drinker.
That’s how I noticed that there are no more lagers from Britain, at least not on the taps of London. Lest you think I …read more

Shopping yesterday at Wegmans, I saw a Yuengling Lager Hot Sauce. I decided to check it out online before buying a bottle and – nothing. Not a mention on Yuengling’s site, or Wegman’s either.
Has anyone tried this?

I’ve written about glasses before, and at some point I’ll write about beer temperature, but it probably won’t come as a great surprise to anyone who has read this blog for any period of time that I don’t like frosted mugs. Frosted mugs result in a beer that’s too cold in the beginning followed by beer that’s cool but watered down. The plastic ones with the ice or insulating materials have similar problems, plus they are plastic, and I just hate to drink good beer out of plastic. That said, sometimes you’d like that lager to stay a little cooler, …read more

I like beer with a lot of different foods, from all sorts of different places. Indeed, entire books have been written on the subject (none of which I’ve actually read). But surely one food which goes well with beer is pizza.
Now, I must confess to often choosing a big-bodied red wine with my favorite slice, but there are plenty of times I’ll enjoy a nice pilsner or other lager-style beer instead. The flavors in beer seem to compliment those in pizza, it’s as simple as that. Or perhaps not.
You see, someone has decided that if those two flavors go …read more