My friends Richard and Tina (who aren’t online in any form, which is a pity) gave me this CAMRA book by Roger Protz for Christmas entitled “300 Beers to Try Before You Die!”. It is a great present for someone like me who likes real ale, and especially tasty foreign ales from Belgium and Germany. The book struck me as a fantastic project, however as I’m supposed to be doing something about my weight this is going to be a long term-project – let’s face it, as the title says before you die…and I intend sticking around for a very long time.
The book itself has an interesting assortment of ales categorised into your usual beer types like milds, bitters, pale ales etc. The selection of beers is diverse taking in curiosities such as Rodenbach Grand Cru (a favourite here at the Fernsehturm) through to quite mainstream ales such as Theakston’s Old Peculiar and Fuller’s London Pride. I could quibble about the non-inclusion of some beers such as Mort Subite’s excellent lambic beers or no Skinners ales, but it is a good cross-section of what is available on the market today. Some of my personal favourites are represented such as Harviestoun Bitter and Twisted, Deuchars IPA and St Austell Clouded Yellow. Cornwall punches above its weight here, with the inclusion of Blue Anchor Spingo and St Austell’s HSD.
I reckon that I’ve had throughout my life probably about 60-odd of the beers listed, but have decided to start from scratch again, with one exception U Flecku Flekovsky Dark, a wonderfully flavoursome dark beer from the oldest brewpub in Prague. I visited it 2008 and sampled their lovely beer, but can’t see me getting back to the Czech Republic anytime soon.
