I'm going to go off topic and out of my habbit of writing about business, leadership and tech and dedicate this post to beer and more specifically bitter beer which is my favorite type of beer.
I only recently discovered that I like my beers as bitter as possible. However, Israel is not the best place to come by that discovery as most beers are from the watery kind or the fruity and sweat kinds. I had to identify what is it that makes beers bitter and what would be the acronym or word that I would be looking for when I'm checking a menu.
Ok, so the first thing about bitter beers is that they have lots of hops in them. Now, I'm probably not going to make one myself so why would I care about that? Well, apparently if you go into a restaurent in America and tell the waiteress that you want a beer with lots of hops in it she would ask the barman and assuming the guys knows his stuff he will be able to get you one. I'm assuming that the situation is simillar in the UK but in Israel that might not cut it.
Pale ale is another name you should remember if you are in to bitter beers. At least in scotland and in the U.S. that is true. There is another variation of this kind of beer which is India Pale Ale or IPA for short. There are beers in the UK that is called IPA but they are actually not as bitter as an IPA beer would be in the U.S. Not sure where the 'India' part of the name comes from. I doubt that IPA beer have more to do with India than french fries have to do with France but it's still a good bitter beer.
From some reason English people and American always have hard time agreeing on names. Conviniently enough bitter beer is simply called 'bitter' in the UK. IPA would be less bitter over there but Extra Special Bitter would be the way to go. ESB is used in the US as an acronym for Extra Special Bitter.
Sorry if it came out a bit too informational. Most important thing is to enjoy your beer and drink responsibly.
P.S. - I used this wiki as a resource - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_(beer)
ur blog very nice and interesting,
Posted by: Castors | 12/30/2011 at 06:41 AM