It's weird how hobbies intersect some times, a lot of the same dynamics translate over and let you see behavior through different lenses:
1. Stupid newbies always try to reinvent the wheel Pretty much every newbie brewer starts throwing in the kitchen sink and making abominations like fruited, spiced crap with six kinds of specialty malt and a box of breakfast cereal before they've learned to make a fucking APA. Ever wonder where all of those crappy indie games that nobody ever plays come from? It's the exact same things. Dumb newbies who want to revolutionize gaming before they bother to take the time to learn how how to run a dungeon crawl that doesn't suck.
2. It's the culture, not the product Here in Korea every single craft beer bar I've been to outside the foreigner ghetto of Itaewon has had a majority of female customers, often approaching 70%, often with the only male customers in the whole place being guys on dates. Back in the states it's a complete sausage fest even though the beer is pretty much the same. You don't get a hobby being less of a sausage fest by monkeying with the product you get it by not having the culture be full of "helpful" pushy douchebags.
3. Testing shit is really important One of the most popular brewing blogs is Brulosophy, which is mostly dedicated to making batches of beer that are identical except for one variable and then seeing (statistically) if anyone can tell the difference. They've done a lot to puncture a lot of old superstitions. I'm surprised how many ideas in RPGs people really cling to without any attempt to test them. Some of my most eye-opening experiences with RPGs is running games with students and changing small things between classes and just seeing how much of a difference that made (students are great test subjects because they come in with no preconceptions).
4. DIY is awesome. people who are fans of buying shit and people who are fans of making shit really approach hobbies in different ways. Ye gods can craft beer enthusiasts be annoying while homebrewers have never been anything but amazingly helpful to me. You can see a lot of the same DIY/consumer split in the RPG community. Who gives a crap if WotC or Budweiser make shit product if you can make your own stuff just fine no matter what they do?
5. People really do love their artificial categories for example ask ten beer nerds what the difference is between a stout and a porter is and you'll get a dozen difference answers. Then there's the bizarre sub-categories that some BJCP dork made up that don't have any historical grounding at all or are based off of literally one commercial beer. It's makes GNS stuff look simple and well thought-out.
6. There's nothing in the world better than people appreciating your hard work there's no real reason why you should give a shit if other people like your beer if it tastes good to you or why it should matter a lot if people love your games as long as you can have fun yourself but it does, it really does.
7. People get stuck on arbitrary combinations Lagers should use boring hops, beer with fruity hops shouldn't use fruity yeast and vice versa, wheat beer's gotta be sweet and saisons have to be dry as a fucking bone or you'll have a dozen idiots howling at you. Some of the combinations of mechanics and play styles I've seen grow up seem just as freaking arbitrary. For example why do rail roady games always have the most complicated chargen?
8. Beer is the answer. What's the question? Works for dealing with both beer morons and gaming morons.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;8807218. Beer is the answer. What's the question? Works for dealing with both beer morons and gaming morons.
That too. Got 8 gallons in the closet and six kilos of malt in the mail :)
Quote from: Daztur;880719It's weird how hobbies intersect some times, a lot of the same dynamics translate over and let you see behavior through different lenses:
Jesus, friggin' Christ, this is brilliant! :worship:
#3, an observation: Contrary to popular belief, neither Role Playing Gaming, nor beer (!) are the most popular things ever. As weird as it might sound, plenty of people have only limited knowledge and understanding, or even worse: false assumptions regarding either, even without 1st hand experience.
I got quite interesting results when I manipulated total newbies - otherwise dismissive towards the
hobby (because: reasons) - into trying some very specific stuff without actually telling what it is.
As an adjunct to #1
9) Hipsters ruin everything they touch. The latest purple darling rage rpg is just as fucking annoying as going into a bar in Tahoe and having 12 fucking types of IPA on tap, PBR, and Budweiser. Jesus Wept.
Quote from: CRKrueger;880777As an adjunct to #1
9) Hipsters ruin everything they touch. The latest purple darling rage rpg is just as fucking annoying as going into a bar in Tahoe and having 12 fucking types of IPA on tap, PBR, and Budweiser. Jesus Wept.
Yeah, homebrewers get flavors of the month too, except they're usually hops. These days it's generally mosaic, citra and anything Australian which tend to be more tropical fruity than the standard citrus or pine you get from standard American c-hops. Dunno, I don't use them, I'd rather use something cheaper and just add a shit ton of it at flame out.
But still even the most pretentious brewers are better than the hipster enthusiasts when it comes to making beer. And I freaking love IPA but the current trend to brew them bone dry and light gold is really getting on my nerves, some of them taste like hop tea with a shot of vodka dropped in.
Quote from: Daztur;880785But still even the most pretentious brewers are better than the hipster enthusiasts when it comes to making beer.
Yeah that's true, Luke Crane and John Wick are assholes, so am I. Fine. It's the people who think they're christ's second coming that are the real problem. Same with wine connoisseurs who can't tell a red from a white with food coloring.
Quote from: Daztur;8807197. People get stuck on arbitrary combinations ...For example why do rail roady games always have the most complicated chargen?
I don't think it's arbitrary. In these systems (thinking especially Pathfinder, & WotC's 4e scenarios) building the optimised character and then testing the build in set-piece battles is often the main point of the game for a lot of people.
#10: The kind of beer you most like is objectively the best kind of beer in the world.
Quote from: CRKrueger;880777As an adjunct to #1
9) Hipsters ruin everything they touch. The latest purple darling rage rpg is just as fucking annoying as going into a bar in Tahoe and having 12 fucking types of IPA on tap, PBR, and Budweiser. Jesus Wept.
And IPA is SUPPOSED to be "a noticeable hop presence," not "OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT IS THIS MY TONGUE IS TURNING TO LEATHER I'M DYING I'M DYING IT'S GETTING DARK
Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?"
I'm not saying we should hand out awards for Thread of the Month/Year/Aeon... just saying that if we did, this would be a good one. ;) Spot on, Daztur.
Quote from: CRKrueger;880786Same with wine connoisseurs who can't tell a red from a California Pinot Noir.
FIFY :D
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;880822And IPA is SUPPOSED to be "a noticeable hop presence," not "OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT IS THIS MY TONGUE IS TURNING TO LEATHER I'M DYING I'M DYING IT'S GETTING DARK Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?"
I don't think I've ever tasted a "light hop" IPA. It's all tongue-parching bitterness from hell 'round here. But what do I know? I'm a cheap lager guy.
I tried an IPA I actually liked called Carnage. It was like 10% ABV so that helped. Strong taste with good flavor without a lot of bitterness up front, the bitterness was more of an aftertaste, strong but a lot more muted than the "pucker your asshole" style IPA.
Kind of like a salsa/hot sauce that gives you a slow burn rather than a "call the fire dept" burn.
Quote from: CRKrueger;880777As an adjunct to #1
9) Hipsters ruin everything they touch. The latest purple darling rage rpg is just as fucking annoying as going into a bar in Tahoe and having 12 fucking types of IPA on tap, PBR, and Budweiser. Jesus Wept.
As a certified IPA-hater, you have just described my personal Beer-hell.:-)
*PA beers.
(http://www.creativeclass.com/_v3/creative_class/_wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/hate.jpg)
Assuming IPA is India Pale Ale and not something completely different, by the sound of it your American IPAs bear no resemblance to the stuff I'm familiar with here in London. :)
Quote from: S'mon;880867Assuming IPA is India Pale Ale and not something completely different, by the sound of it your American IPAs bear no resemblance to the stuff I'm familiar with here in London. :)
Virtually none any more. About five years ago US brewers started going the way of those pinheads who make ' hot sauce' so hot it can't actually be eaten. And ESBs are as scarce as eyebrows on eggs.
I actually like IPAs a lot, but there was a period last summer where every craft beer pub around'd almost only serve them. Then again, y'all need tougher tongues. Maybe go tongue some 0 lvl beers before you tangle with IPAs again?
Quote from: CRKrueger;880777As an adjunct to #1
9) Hipsters ruin everything they touch. The latest purple darling rage rpg is just as fucking annoying as going into a bar in Tahoe and having 12 fucking types of IPA on tap, PBR, and Budweiser. Jesus Wept.
Quote from: cranebump;880861As a certified IPA-hater, you have just described my personal Beer-hell.:-)
Not me, I wold have been fine there. Course I do like me some PBR:D
Quote from: Daztur;8807194. DIY is awesome. people who are fans of buying shit and people who are fans of making shit really approach hobbies in different ways. Ye gods can craft beer enthusiasts be annoying while homebrewers have never been anything but amazingly helpful to me. You can see a lot of the same DIY/consumer split in the RPG community. Who gives a crap if WotC or Budweiser make shit product if you can make your own stuff just fine no matter what they do?
Totally agree with this. Which is why I've been working on several gaming projects. (seemingly forever) Also why I'm going to be trying my hand at brewing a hefeweizen in the very near future.
Eh. For what its worth I'm on my fifth batch of mead. In five years.
What makes it really sad is that batches two through four were all failures.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;880822And IPA is SUPPOSED to be "a noticeable hop presence," not "OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT IS THIS MY TONGUE IS TURNING TO LEATHER I'M DYING I'M DYING IT'S GETTING DARK Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?"
Screw you (cough cough) I've been having coughing fits all day (cough cough) from my GD asthma (cough cough) and now you have to send me into another coughing fit from the laughing. Cough cough. My cat hates you too.
Quote from: S'mon;880787I don't think it's arbitrary. In these systems (thinking especially Pathfinder, & WotC's 4e scenarios) building the optimised character and then testing the build in set-piece battles is often the main point of the game for a lot of people.
Was thinking 90's style "frustrated novelist" games as well which aren't really about set-piece battles but have tend to have really complicated chargen.
Quote from: Rincewind1;880805#10: The kind of beer you most like is objectively the best kind of beer in the world.
Well "beer that's not fucking bland" is the best beer in the world :)
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;880822And IPA is SUPPOSED to be "a noticeable hop presence," not "OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT IS THIS MY TONGUE IS TURNING TO LEATHER I'M DYING I'M DYING IT'S GETTING DARK Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?"
Quote from: The Butcher;880834I don't think I've ever tasted a "light hop" IPA. It's all tongue-parching bitterness from hell 'round here. But what do I know? I'm a cheap lager guy.
Quote from: cranebump;880861As a certified IPA-hater, you have just described my personal Beer-hell.:-)
You guys are way behind the times ;) The IBU (measurement of hop bitterness) arms race has mostly been called off since the human tongue can't really register any more hop bitterness than 120 IBUs or so.
The new trend is to try to get more hop essential oils into the beer (they're the stuff that makes IPAs taste fruity/piney/herbal), which is really fucking annoying to do since you have to cook the hops to get the oils out of the hops with any real efficiency but if you cook the hops the damn oils boil off. Solution: MOAR HOPS.
Quote from: S'mon;880867Assuming IPA is India Pale Ale and not something completely different, by the sound of it your American IPAs bear no resemblance to the stuff I'm familiar with here in London. :)
Beer history time.
Victorian era beer was really fucking hardcore. You had 8% alcohol milds. Back then IPAs were pretty weak with only 6.5% alcohol or so. But then war and taxes took a massive toll on beer strengths for so long that the British got used to drinking lots of low alcohol beer that even though breweries can now afford to make strong beer the market isn't really there for it so much a anymore.
Then during the American craft beer revival American decided to make IPAs based on (wildly inaccurate, modern American IPA and Victorian IPA are different in a dozen ways but they both have about the same amount of alcohol and a fuckton of hops) interpretations of the old Victorian version, presumably because that's what was actually exported to India and those caught on.
Now Americans look down on English IPAs for not being "true to style" because they're a lot weaker and less bitter than American ones while not giving a crap about how different porters, milds, etc. are from Victorian beers or how the English have been making IPA that way for 70 years because they're a bunch of douchebags.
Except people who complain about Keith's IPA. They're right. That shit is just a light lager that is called an IPA for no fucking reason at all.
Quote from: Spike;880970Eh. For what its worth I'm on my fifth batch of mead. In five years.
What makes it really sad is that batches two through four were all failures.
Mead is finnicky shit, scared to try making that. You really have to go out of your way to get good honey though, so much American honey isn't any more flavorful than corn syrup.
For people who complain about IPAs, well generally when I go to a craft beer bar I order whatever the strongest and most bitter, not because I'm fucking hardcore but because I can't stand bland beers and I know those won't be bland. At home I can make mild beers that have plenty of flavor without a lot of bitterness or alcohol but I don't really trust commercial brewers to do the same so I usually get the craziest Imperial whatever they have that doesn't have any stupid spices or whatever.
For people who want to try craft beer but don't want to have the enamel eaten off their teeth try:
-Sierra Nevada Pale Ale: really common and cheap so you've probably already tried it but it's balanced and easy to drink while still having the American hop citrus tang.
-Indica IPA by Lost Coast Brewery: my wife loves this stuff and she thinks Pilsner Urquell is too bitter. It's got 50 IBUs or so which seems like a lot but it's more refreshing citrus than a hammerblow of bitterness.
-Bell's Two Hearted: haven't had it because I live in Korea but everyone says it's the best IPA for people who don't like IPAs.
-Anything English that isn't made by Brew Dogs pretty much. English IPAs are pretty different. Brew Dogs Jackhammer IPA is a really tasty example of the more hardcore enamel stripping American-style IPAs. Very tasty for me but their Punk IPA is pretty weak sauce.
Quote from: Daztur;880996For people who complain about IPAs, well generally when I go to a craft beer bar I order whatever the strongest and most bitter, not because I'm fucking hardcore but because I can't stand bland beers and I know those won't be bland.
I think you're a nice person.
Funny though - I avoid *PA beers for the very same reason and rarely recognize what I'm drinking if it's below 6%. ;]
OMG, Itaewon! Brings back delightfully hazy memories. Oh, the Wolfhound, how I love your burgers and beer.
But for real 2000ml+ madness I'd practically swim through Hongdae and Yongdae/Ehdae districts. Did opa (more like ong) "Gangnam style" a year before it blew up across the bigger pond. Hongdae's better for the madness, but my oh my was it fun regardless.
Gawd, now I'm jonesing for a double order of sundae and a personal 1000ml of beer in a tall, bubbly glass, to spill over me in golden deliciousness. A few of those bolted down and you're ready to go! And then I go dance and spin to the local indie scene trying not to vomit. Public drunkenness for the win...
:D
Quote from: Daztur;8807192. It's the culture, not the product Here in Korea every single craft beer bar I've been to outside the foreigner ghetto of Itaewon has had a majority of female customers, often approaching 70%, often with the only male customers in the whole place being guys on dates. Back in the states it's a complete sausage fest even though the beer is pretty much the same. You don't get a hobby being less of a sausage fest by monkeying with the product you get it by not having the culture be full of "helpful" pushy douchebags.
Very interesting.
Why is craft beer female friendly in Korea? Based on your description, it sounds female dominated which is even stranger.
Are women also mostly the beer crafters or just mostly the customers?
Quote from: Opaopajr;881018OMG, Itaewon! Brings back delightfully hazy memories. Oh, the Wolfhound, how I love your burgers and beer.
But for real 2000ml+ madness I'd practically swim through Hongdae and Yongdae/Ehdae districts. Did opa (more like ong) "Gangnam style" a year before it blew up across the bigger pond. Hongdae's better for the madness, but my oh my was it fun regardless.
Gawd, now I'm jonesing for a double order of sundae and a personal 1000ml of beer in a tall, bubbly glass, to spill over me in golden deliciousness. A few of those bolted down and you're ready to go! And then I go dance and spin to the local indie scene trying not to vomit. Public drunkenness for the win...
:D
Hrrrm? Never drank much beer there. Did have plenty of Captain Q & Coke. Was rather fond of Oscar too. Never spent much time down South of the Han. The hotspot when I was there was up in Dongdaemun. I lived in Ponchondong for about a year after ETS.
Quote from: Daztur;880996-Bell's Two Hearted: haven't had it because I live in Korea but everyone says it's the best IPA for people who don't like IPAs.
-Anything English that isn't made by Brew Dogs pretty much. English IPAs are pretty different. Brew Dogs Jackhammer IPA is a really tasty example of the more hardcore enamel stripping American-style IPAs. Very tasty for me but their Punk IPA is pretty weak sauce.
Oh, I like an IPA quite well, if it's decent. Sierra Nevada does one with "hop oil" that frankly tastes like the aftertaste of puking.
Bell's I like VERY much. There's a brewery in the Black Hills here in SD that does a local IPA that is quite lovely, especially on tap. And Sam Adams "Latitude 48" is one of my favorites when I can find it.
I really, really can't stand sweet beer at all, so I usually order an IPA. But not a "double IPA" or "triple IPA" or "what the fuck is this IPA."
11) That thing you hate is somebody else's favorite thing.
12) Your favorite thing is the thing somebody else hates the most.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;88107111) That thing you hate is somebody else's favorite thing.
12) Your favorite thing is the thing somebody else hates the most.
While 100% true, this doesn't serve much purpose in context of beer & RPG I'm afraid. After all, I'm not gonna stop calling
Wraethtutu an utter piece of garbage just because some freak out there might like it. And just because whole bunch of people think, that anything under 4% deserves to be called "a beer" doesn't mean that I'm gonna stop enjoying my Baltic Porters. ;)
Quote from: Spinachcat;881020Very interesting.
Why is craft beer female friendly in Korea? Based on your description, it sounds female dominated which is even stranger.
Are women also mostly the beer crafters or just mostly the customers?
It`s kind of like what I assume wine bars are like, lots of yuppie female customers but the people in the wine industry are still mostly male.
As for why it`s mostly female here`s my best guesses: male Korean drinking culture is very much about pouring each other drinks from the same communal bottle/pitcher and then chugging/doing shots together. Cheap beer, soju or Scotch work for that but chugging IPAs is a very bad idea and you don`t really order pitchers for the table in a craft beer bar. German-style brewpubs would be a better fit for men maybe and a lot opened in 2002 for the World Cup but they mostly crashed and burned hard afterwards.
For women the idea of ordering a sampler flight of craft beer and sampling it with your friends is a better fit. A lot of people want to look international and cultured so craft beer appeals to female yuppies for exactly the same reason imported wine does, which is also booming again largely among female drinkers.
Also craft beer`s artsy bohemian/hipster image just seems girly to Koreans I guess. The "macho men drink triple IPAs" doesn`t translate I guess.
Maybe also a part of it is a LOT of Koreans to go LA etc. Maybe the girls date a lot of craft beer hipsters there and bring back a desire for craft beer? Dunno but it`s funny seeing craft beers full girls with expensive handbags instead of hairy dudes.
Quote from: JesterRaiin;881001I think you're a nice person.
Funny though - I avoid *PA beers for the very same reason and rarely recognize what I'm drinking if it's below 6%. ;]
I`m like that when I buy beer but it`s really possible to make great weak beer. My most recent one is a pale mild which is about the least hardcore beer imaginable but it has a lot of malt/toasty biscuit flavor despite only 3.5% alcohol.
Going to have to brew a lot more mild, wife loves it and it`s great for gaming since you can`t drink a lot without everyone getting stupid, better than my old go-to gaming beer (Kozel Dark, Czech dunkel)and even weaker :)
My homebrew bottles are also technically tiny casks so I can even please CAMRA wankers.
Quote from: Opaopajr;881018OMG, Itaewon! Brings back delightfully hazy memories. Oh, the Wolfhound, how I love your burgers and beer.
But for real 2000ml+ madness I'd practically swim through Hongdae and Yongdae/Ehdae districts. Did opa (more like ong) "Gangnam style" a year before it blew up across the bigger pond. Hongdae's better for the madness, but my oh my was it fun regardless.
Gawd, now I'm jonesing for a double order of sundae and a personal 1000ml of beer in a tall, bubbly glass, to spill over me in golden deliciousness. A few of those bolted down and you're ready to go! And then I go dance and spin to the local indie scene trying not to vomit. Public drunkenness for the win...
:D
Damn when were you here? Went to Wolfhound`s all the time in 2007 or so for the cheap double Jamesons. Still a good bar but past its prime these days.
I`ll see your sundae and saeng maekju and raise you oshipsaeju in a kettle in a tent bar and some maegkeolli and pajeon on a mountain.
For Gangnam Style it blew up in the states FIRST and then became popular here because of that.
For the other person who mentioned Captain Q there`s a whole shelf of that in the local store, never tried it though. Can`t be any worse than Commander vodka can it?
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;881070Oh, I like an IPA quite well, if it's decent. Sierra Nevada does one with "hop oil" that frankly tastes like the aftertaste of puking.
Bell's I like VERY much. There's a brewery in the Black Hills here in SD that does a local IPA that is quite lovely, especially on tap. And Sam Adams "Latitude 48" is one of my favorites when I can find it.
I really, really can't stand sweet beer at all, so I usually order an IPA. But not a "double IPA" or "triple IPA" or "what the fuck is this IPA."
Like a moderate amount of sweetness, wheat beers and that abomination Sam Adams calls an Octoberfest are too damn sweet but a lot of moden American IPAs are so dry so you can`t even taste that it`s a beer. Prefer a lot of the stronger IPAs that you don`t like (Ballast Point Big Eye!) because of that since with that much grain you can taste that it`s a beer no matter how much hops you put in. But I really prefer stuff like Arrogant Bastard if I`m buying. Or Maine Brewing Company`s Red Wheelbarrow, soooooo damn good, hoppy and malty without being actively sweet.
For the hop oil ones tasting like vomits I don`t know the Sierra Nevada one, here they cost $5 a bottle on up and fuck that but in the time between this post and the last one I got my mash going for one of those. Two oz of hops a gallon should do it. Going to up my old grain steeping bag as a huge ass hop teabah just so the damn things don`t clog up my spiggot again.
Edit: 80% efficiency! Yay! Pretty damn good for my incredibly cheap and crappy set up and I`m using Vienna for my base malt too and it`s harder to get as many gravity points out of that as pilsner etc. Go me. Time to measure out a shit ton of hops :)
Is maegkeolli man still strolling the Hongdae streets, selling his drink in a pullcart? He was a fixture when I was there in 2008-2009 and apparently for over a decade before.
Itaewon, like every district, had plenty of nice secrets tucked away. There was that killer American chili dog place, that nice country bar with the jell-o shots across from 2-liter soda+shoju bar. That killer pub that held regular quiz bowl night, that amateur comedy club night place. This nice, kitsch temple bar just up from the Japanese restaurants....
oh dear, I sound like I had a stroke and blacked out from all that partying.... So this is what living through the 1970s is like.
I went to Yonsei and lived by Digital Media City as it just opened. There was a sweet rave along the Han river by there (Mapogu, great grill restaurants there). That and the 3 day rock/rave festival in Incheon were some good times, good times.
(I should bust out my old maps, mags, and show ticket stubs to actually put names to all this shit...)
Quote from: Opaopajr;881183Itaewon, like every district, had plenty of nice secrets tucked away. There was that killer American chili dog place, that nice country bar with the jell-o shots across from 2-liter soda+shoju bar. That killer pub that held regular quiz bowl night, that amateur comedy club night place. This nice, kitsch temple bar just up from the Japanese restaurants....
That is amazing! Are you by chance talking about
Grand Ole Oprey? Is it still there? Is
Mama Kim still there? One of her entertainers ended up marrying an Army buddy of mine. Last I heard they were still doing well out in CA...
I used to sit in
Grand Old Oprey on Saturdays and sometimes up on the on the second floor at the open windows, listen to
Alabama, Merle Haggard, Kenny Rodgers, The Oak Ridge Boys, Hank Williams Jr., Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, and Dolly Parton drinking that nasty Captain Q rum, and watch the foot traffic coming up the hill from the fish markets at the bottom of the hill. Used to be a lot more street vendors with pushcarts selling deep fried fish & chips and calamari at the bottom of the hill there. Do also recall being able to get heated shots of souju in the winter from the street vendors at the bottom of the hill.
There were a few other clubs I used to frequent. Don't know if any of them are still there. Just above
Grand Ole Oprey was
KISS which was of course, a Rock & Roll bar. Ask
Momma Kim what happened to that for me if you get a chance.
Down at the intersection across from what is now
Pearl, This just beneath
Manhattan, was
Molly Hatchett another Rock & Roll bar, with custom painted
Frazetta done up in neon colors with UV lights to Illuminate, and of course
Club MTV was located in a back alley right somewhere close to behind where
Candy is now. I remember the
Blue Mosque up at the top of the hill too. The
Gurkhas had a couple bars up there they really liked up there, and they loved to pick fights with everyone pretty much, except Americans. There was another bar up at the top of the hill we stopped in at frequently,
Shamrock. Was supposed to be an Irish bar, It was a favorite, of course, because of the ladies.
Tiger Den is also still there I see...
Quote from: Daztur;881117I`m like that when I buy beer but it`s really possible to make great weak beer. My most recent one is a pale mild which is about the least hardcore beer imaginable but it has a lot of malt/toasty biscuit flavor despite only 3.5% alcohol.
Playing D&D in pubs, it's important to be able to drink something that won't get me smashed...
Fullers, who seem to have most of the chain pubs in London, do a lot of great beers in the ca 3.2-4.2% range. Their most famous is London Pride (4.1%) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Pride_(beer) which is very good, but for drinking while playing I often prefer something slightly lighter. Recently I've been enjoying Seafarers, which is 3.6% - http://www.fullers.co.uk/beer/explore-our-beers/seafarers
Previously drank Chiswick, 3.5% - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiswick_Bitter - a bit too hoppy maybe.
I find taste quality doesn't generally suffer until they go below 3.2%. ABV below 3% always seems to taste weak/watery.
When I was in England some years back the Guinness they served on tap was about 4.5%. I really don't worry about alcohol content, I just go by taste. A lot of milds are quite low in alcohol but very nice for a lunchtime drink.
Fullers ESB on tap was also wonderful.
This was 1987. Things may have changed.
Quote from: JesterRaiin;880759Jesus, friggin' Christ, this is brilliant! :worship:
#3, an observation: Contrary to popular belief, neither Role Playing Gaming, nor beer (!) are the most popular things ever. As weird as it might sound, plenty of people have only limited knowledge and understanding, or even worse: false assumptions regarding either, even without 1st hand experience.
I got quite interesting results when I manipulated total newbies - otherwise dismissive towards the hobby (because: reasons) - into trying some very specific stuff without actually telling what it is.
how and what i wana here what you did to the newbs
Quote from: Spike;880970Eh. For what its worth I'm on my fifth batch of mead. In five years.
What makes it really sad is that batches two through four were all failures.
cool i love mead my self iv been thinking of looking in to how to make it
Quote from: Daztur;881117I`m like that when I buy beer but it`s really possible to make great weak beer. My most recent one is a pale mild which is about the least hardcore beer imaginable but it has a lot of malt/toasty biscuit flavor despite only 3.5% alcohol.
Going to have to brew a lot more mild, wife loves it and it`s great for gaming since you can`t drink a lot without everyone getting stupid, better than my old go-to gaming beer (Kozel Dark, Czech dunkel)and even weaker :)
My homebrew bottles are also technically tiny casks so I can even please CAMRA wankers.
wont work for me if its beer i get stupid fast if you want me to stay smart feed me hard liqueur ill drink more of it and stay smarter
For the Itaewon stuff:
I lived in Itaewon all 2008 and went there fairly regularly for years before that. I remember Polly Kettle House up on the hill and think Oprey is still around, but don't think I ever went there.
Then my wife got pregnant and haven't been back so much since.
Hongdae is a lot of fun as well but a lot of the clubs were so packed that you have to find the out of the way places like Skunk Hell, low prices, BYOB, fun Korean punks and some bands that don't suck and the magkeolli guy showing up with a cart of booze between sets. Great guy, don't know if he's still there.
Way way back in the day my main haunt was a bar the next station over from Hongdae that had a long-ass Korean name that nobody ever remembered that use under a bar called "the bar" so everyone called it "the bar under the bar." Great place, people would talk to each other, no cover, loud half-decent music and the middle of the bar cleared out for dancing when it got late and the bartender having enough of a crush on my fiance's best friend that he kept on giving us free pitchers of beer. Good times.
Except the fucking bathroom, it was a bit of roofed-over alley and deeply frightening.
That and Tin Pan and the Ho bars when you really wanted to get smashed. Tin Pan was great back when it was really grubby had gone down hill a bit by the time you got here.
These days with the impending base closure hanging over the heads of local businessmen Itaewon has really really really gentrified with most of the restaurants on the strip catering a lot to Koreans coming in looking for foreign food. A lot of places have a real touristy reverse-Chinatown kind of feel these days while the main expat scum scene has moved off to Haebongchon. Even hooker hill seems to be mostly closed down these days except for the gay bars.
Quote from: S'mon;881261Playing D&D in pubs, it's important to be able to drink something that won't get me smashed...
Fullers, who seem to have most of the chain pubs in London, do a lot of great beers in the ca 3.2-4.2% range. Their most famous is London Pride (4.1%) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Pride_(beer) which is very good, but for drinking while playing I often prefer something slightly lighter. Recently I've been enjoying Seafarers, which is 3.6% - http://www.fullers.co.uk/beer/explore-our-beers/seafarers
Previously drank Chiswick, 3.5% - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiswick_Bitter - a bit too hoppy maybe.
I find taste quality doesn't generally suffer until they go below 3.2%. ABV below 3% always seems to taste weak/watery.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;881310When I was in England some years back the Guinness they served on tap was about 4.5%. I really don't worry about alcohol content, I just go by taste. A lot of milds are quite low in alcohol but very nice for a lunchtime drink.
Fullers ESB on tap was also wonderful.
This was 1987. Things may have changed.
Here Guiness is 4.2%, pretty weak sauce for a stout but like the nitro creaminess so, yeah, that's a good gaming beer as well.
Of the English beers S'Mon mentions I've only had London Pride but just not enough flavor there for me, kind of like the Bass "ale" that comes in the black cans here, not bad just pretty bland.
I like my own 3.5% ABV mild because:
-Lots of East Kent Golding hops, really mild old school hops so it doesn't end up even remotely close to bitter but I put in enough of them late in the boil and in the dry hop to get some nice English flavor and balances some of the sweetness of the malt.
-US-04 yeast, despite the name an English-derived yeast and wimpier than the American-style yeast I usually use so produces less alcohol and leaves some sweetness (but not too much since there wasn't much sweetness in the original wort to begin with).
-Using only Munich base malt, the same stuff that's use to make the richer German lagers, in a lot of German beers it's mixed with pilsner or something so using only it leaves a pretty rich beer even with the low alcohol. A lot more flavorful than regular US 2-row and while English Maris Otter is wonderful stuff German Munich malt is toasted a bit more which leaves more flavor and less fermentable sugars so more flavor and less alcohol.
-Throwing in a pound of American "carabrown" malt which is like a cross between English biscuit malt and English brown malt. Wonderful stuff, gives the beer a deep gold color and a toasty richness without any bitterness. I used the same stuff in a Belgian dubbel and the other ingredients completely overpowered the carabrown but in a nice simple mild it really shines through wonderfully. Will be using this stuff over and over and over again thinking of throwing a crapton of it into a stout with just enough black malt on top to get the color right.
-No caramel/crystal malt, not a bad thing but a lot of brewers overuse it so I'm always careful with it. The Munich base malt gives me enough sweetness and I didn't want to overdo that.
Wonderful stuff, if you stick your nose in an empty glass the malt smell just comes pouring out, which is great in a light easy drinking mild :)
Wife loves the stuff which is an added bonus, because she's not going to drink the crazy tooth-etching IPA I brewed up yesterday.
Quote from: kosmos1214;881389how and what i wana here what you did to the newbs
Well, brace yourself for a story involving BDSM equipment, dark cellar and a bunch of people... Ahem, sorry, wrong forum. ;)
To tell the truth, it's nothing special. I have a few colleagues, with whom I share some hobbies, however they weren't interested in RPGing and were opposing the idea of playing them, because: reasons.
One day we were watching some slasher movie, one of these where protagonists run around and scream "omigod, what do they want from us, are they terrorists?" or similar stuff. I'm not sure how we started to argue about what WE would do in similar situation, but I kind of manipulated whole discussion, steered it towards "ok, guys, there's a way to check how it could've work for us".
So. Rather than suggest some RPG I introduced, step by step, some simplified rules (involving a bit of skill, a bit of luck), rudimentary character generation and I ran short, "besieged" type of adventure for them.
I recall that the majority of players ended dead, and they blamed poor "ruleset", "unlucky dice" and such. One led to another and the result was that next weekend we were playing (IIRC)
All Flesh Must Be Eaten and later moved to other games.
As for drinks: there were two chicks I knew, who disliked beer and thought it a bitter beverage suited for beggars. They changed their opinion once I made them taste mead-based beer without telling them what it is first.
...just like I said: nothing special. :)
Quote from: Daztur;881403Of the English beers S'Mon mentions I've only had London Pride but just not enough flavor there for me, kind of like the Bass "ale" that comes in the black cans here, not bad just pretty bland.
Well they're intended to be drunk in large quantities during conversation, not focused on for their own sake. :)
Quote from: S'mon;881627Well they're intended to be drunk in large quantities during conversation, not focused on for their own sake. :)
Yup. Just when gaming I want to skip the "large quantities" so something with more flavor and low alcohol works best for me. Kozel Dark works OK at 3.8% alcohol but is too sweet...
Who wants to pair games and beers?
American läger for D&D, English porter for WFRP, IPA (eww) for Traveller, barley wine for Runequest, dunkel läger for Vampire? What RPG goes with a nice Witbier?
Quote from: The Butcher;881688Who wants to pair games and beers?
American läger for D&D, English porter for WFRP, IPA (eww) for Traveller, barley wine for Runequest, dunkel läger for Vampire? What RPG goes with a nice Witbier?
Proper D&D is a good strong and bitter pro-prohibition pilsner from back when American mass market beer was good :)
American lager goes with nothing, if you're talking mass-market crap.
"Bear Whiz Beer. It's in the water, that's why it's yellow!"
Quote from: JesterRaiin;881530snip cools snip
ah thanks interesting
Quote from: The Butcher;881688Who wants to pair games and beers?
American läger for D&D, English porter for WFRP, IPA (eww) for Traveller, barley wine for Runequest, dunkel läger for Vampire? What RPG goes with a nice Witbier?
I tend to drink cider while GMing as I find it gives me more of a high-energy buzz. As a player I drink what fits the PC - ale for Barbarians, wine for Paladins, whisky for dwarves... I had ale today playing Labyrinth Lord and that felt right. Last night GMing Classic D&D Karameikos I had too much rose wine - it fitted the Palaces & Princesses setting, but not my GMing...
Quote from: kosmos1214;881389cool i love mead my self iv been thinking of looking in to how to make it
Boil about a pound of honey for every gallon of water and scoop off any film. Let it cool to a bit warmer than room temp and add a packet of champaign yeast (the dry stuff costs about a buck and a half a packet, the liquid stuff is more fragile and costs about ten bucks a 'vial', go with the dry.)
Pour it all into a nice sterile bottle (I use an iodine wash), and cap it with a ballon if you're cheap. Stick it in a closet. After a couple of days (or weeks if its cold in your house), pour it into a new, sterilize bottle, leaving the dead yeast sludge behind. Keep doing that until the alcohol content kills the yeast (look for bubbles...). Generally a couple of weeks (or again: Months if its cold in your house...).
If its weak, you can distill it by freezing and make, essentially, mead brandy.
Its really only 'ruined' if it gets contaminated from foreign bacteria and tastes... off. Metallic, or musty or acidic...
Boom. Done.
So much simpler than beer, really.**
** Disclaimer: I've never even attempted to brew beer, and almost everything I know about the process comes from Sam Adams commercials. I think it involves large horses, though.
Quote from: Spike;881839** Disclaimer: I've never even attempted to brew beer, and almost everything I know about the process comes from Sam Adams commercials. I think it involves large horses, though.
The horse piss known as Budweiser requires Clydesdales apparently. That's probably for the mass production though.
Quote from: Spike;881839Boil about a pound of honey for every gallon of water and scoop off any film. Let it cool to a bit warmer than room temp and add a packet of champaign yeast (the dry stuff costs about a buck and a half a packet, the liquid stuff is more fragile and costs about ten bucks a 'vial', go with the dry.)
Pour it all into a nice sterile bottle (I use an iodine wash), and cap it with a ballon if you're cheap. Stick it in a closet. After a couple of days (or weeks if its cold in your house), pour it into a new, sterilize bottle, leaving the dead yeast sludge behind. Keep doing that until the alcohol content kills the yeast (look for bubbles...). Generally a couple of weeks (or again: Months if its cold in your house...).
If its weak, you can distill it by freezing and make, essentially, mead brandy.
Its really only 'ruined' if it gets contaminated from foreign bacteria and tastes... off. Metallic, or musty or acidic...
Boom. Done.
So much simpler than beer, really.**
** Disclaimer: I've never even attempted to brew beer, and almost everything I know about the process comes from Sam Adams commercials. I think it involves large horses, though.
Few comments about this coming from a beer-making perspective:
-Spike's recipe is going to give you mead of a beer-ish strength and very dry, a lot of mead is more of a wine-ish strength. Listen to Spike, mead fermentation can be a bit finicky from what I've heard and a lower alcohol mead will be easier to manage, need less aging and have fewer off flavors if the yeast don't co-operate.
-Mead probably isn't going to taste like what you think. It's often quite dry (unless you put a shit-ton of honey in or remove/kill the yeast and then sweeten it which is annoying to do on a homebrewing level, a lot of commercial mead is heavily backsweetened, think the difference between crappy commercial cider that's half apple juice and real traditional cider) and tastes more like a less acidic white wine than honey because the yeast is going to be very efficient at eating up the honey's sugars.
-The variety of honey REALLY REALLY REALLY matter. A lot of honey is adulterated so beware.
-Balloons work fine for small bottles, but if you're making it stronger or going with a larger batch use an air lock to let the CO2 out.
-Champagne yeast works that yeast is great about sticking to the bottom of the bottle and not floating up, there are specific mead yeasts though.
-Champagne yeast has a pretty wide temp range but if it gets too cold it'll go to sleep and if it gets too hot it'll give you nasty hot alcohol flavors. Try to stay within 15-24 degrees Celcius and note that fermentation itself produces heat so the fermenting mead will get hotter than the room around it.
-The yeast sludge an the bottom of the fermenter isn't dead and the alcohol won't kill it, dead yeast have a HORRIBLE flavor and doesn't happen during normal fermentation. What happens is the yeast go dormant and sink once there's no more food for them to eat or if there's more alcohol than the yeast can stand (a pound of honey per gallon isn't going to do that to champagne yeast). You don't want to keep the fermenting stuff on the yeast trub TOO long but keeping it there a little while lets the yeast metabolize some fermentation byproducts and give you a cleaner flavor. What I'd do is keep the mead in the original bottle for a few weeks then transfer it to whatever you want to drink it out of (maybe sticking it in the fridge for a day to "cold crash" it and make any remaining yeast sink down). If you want add a bit of sugar to carbonate it (1-1.5 tea spoons/liter is a good rule of thumb depending on how much carbonation you want) and seal it.
-With mead you probably want to add some yeast nutrient, not as many yeast nutrients in honey as in beer wort.
-With stronger mead you've got to age it for a while, generally at least six months with regular beer of weaker mead you can drink it faster.
Beer making isn't THAT hard basically it works like this:
1. Make sweet wort. This can be done by getting extract and adding water or cooking some ground malt in water of a narrow temperature range (bad things happen if you go over this temperature range and nothing will happen if you go too much under) for an hour so. Then separate the grains from the wort (number of ways to do this).
2. Add hops. This can be done by getting extract and adding water or throwing some hops into the sweet wort and boiling them.
3. Cool the wort. I just put it in the bath tub for a while.
4. Put it in a fermenter with an airlock after cleaning the everliving fuck out of everything to prevent a bacterial infection.
5. Add yeast.
6. Keep it at the cool end of room temperature (depending on the yeast strain, you can get to damn near sauna temp with saison yeast and lagers and generally brewed colder) for a few weeks.
7. Bottle with with some kind of food for the yeast in the bottles (so they carbonate it), I use plastic liter bottles and reuse them with different sealable plastic caps each time.
Basically if you can:
-Follow a recipe.
-Keep things clean.
-Maintain basic temp control.
It's pretty damn easy to make decent beer. You don't need much equipment either, the minimum if you're doing all grain instead of extract is:
-Fermenter with air lock.
-Big-ass pot.
-Huge strainer bag.
-Thermometer.
-Bleach (there are better cleaners but bleach is cheap).
-Bottles to put the beer in.
That's really it.
If you reaaaaaally push it you can make a drinkable beer in ten days, usually takes a few weeks though.
Spoiler
Quote from: Spike;881839Boil about a pound of honey for every gallon of water and scoop off any film. Let it cool to a bit warmer than room temp and add a packet of champaign yeast (the dry stuff costs about a buck and a half a packet, the liquid stuff is more fragile and costs about ten bucks a 'vial', go with the dry.)
Pour it all into a nice sterile bottle (I use an iodine wash), and cap it with a ballon if you're cheap. Stick it in a closet. After a couple of days (or weeks if its cold in your house), pour it into a new, sterilize bottle, leaving the dead yeast sludge behind. Keep doing that until the alcohol content kills the yeast (look for bubbles...). Generally a couple of weeks (or again: Months if its cold in your house...).
If its weak, you can distill it by freezing and make, essentially, mead brandy.
Its really only 'ruined' if it gets contaminated from foreign bacteria and tastes... off. Metallic, or musty or acidic...
Boom. Done.
So much simpler than beer, really.**
** Disclaimer: I've never even attempted to brew beer, and almost everything I know about the process comes from Sam Adams commercials. I think it involves large horses, though.
Quote from: Daztur;882061Few comments about this coming from a beer-making perspective:
-Spike's recipe is going to give you mead of a beer-ish strength and very dry, a lot of mead is more of a wine-ish strength. Listen to Spike, mead fermentation can be a bit finicky from what I've heard and a lower alcohol mead will be easier to manage, need less aging and have fewer off flavors if the yeast don't co-operate.
-Mead probably isn't going to taste like what you think. It's often quite dry (unless you put a shit-ton of honey in or remove/kill the yeast and then sweeten it which is annoying to do on a homebrewing level, a lot of commercial mead is heavily backsweetened, think the difference between crappy commercial cider that's half apple juice and real traditional cider) and tastes more like a less acidic white wine than honey because the yeast is going to be very efficient at eating up the honey's sugars.
-The variety of honey REALLY REALLY REALLY matter. A lot of honey is adulterated so beware.
-Balloons work fine for small bottles, but if you're making it stronger or going with a larger batch use an air lock to let the CO2 out.
-Champagne yeast works that yeast is great about sticking to the bottom of the bottle and not floating up, there are specific mead yeasts though.
-Champagne yeast has a pretty wide temp range but if it gets too cold it'll go to sleep and if it gets too hot it'll give you nasty hot alcohol flavors. Try to stay within 15-24 degrees Celcius and note that fermentation itself produces heat so the fermenting mead will get hotter than the room around it.
-The yeast sludge an the bottom of the fermenter isn't dead and the alcohol won't kill it, dead yeast have a HORRIBLE flavor and doesn't happen during normal fermentation. What happens is the yeast go dormant and sink once there's no more food for them to eat or if there's more alcohol than the yeast can stand (a pound of honey per gallon isn't going to do that to champagne yeast). You don't want to keep the fermenting stuff on the yeast trub TOO long but keeping it there a little while lets the yeast metabolize some fermentation byproducts and give you a cleaner flavor. What I'd do is keep the mead in the original bottle for a few weeks then transfer it to whatever you want to drink it out of (maybe sticking it in the fridge for a day to "cold crash" it and make any remaining yeast sink down). If you want add a bit of sugar to carbonate it (1-1.5 tea spoons/liter is a good rule of thumb depending on how much carbonation you want) and seal it.
-With mead you probably want to add some yeast nutrient, not as many yeast nutrients in honey as in beer wort.
-With stronger mead you've got to age it for a while, generally at least six months with regular beer of weaker mead you can drink it faster.
Beer making isn't THAT hard basically it works like this:
1. Make sweet wort. This can be done by getting extract and adding water or cooking some ground malt in water of a narrow temperature range (bad things happen if you go over this temperature range and nothing will happen if you go too much under) for an hour so. Then separate the grains from the wort (number of ways to do this).
2. Add hops. This can be done by getting extract and adding water or throwing some hops into the sweet wort and boiling them.
3. Cool the wort. I just put it in the bath tub for a while.
4. Put it in a fermenter with an airlock after cleaning the everliving fuck out of everything to prevent a bacterial infection.
5. Add yeast.
6. Keep it at the cool end of room temperature (depending on the yeast strain, you can get to damn near sauna temp with saison yeast and lagers and generally brewed colder) for a few weeks.
7. Bottle with with some kind of food for the yeast in the bottles (so they carbonate it), I use plastic liter bottles and reuse them with different sealable plastic caps each time.
Basically if you can:
-Follow a recipe.
-Keep things clean.
-Maintain basic temp control.
It's pretty damn easy to make decent beer. You don't need much equipment either, the minimum if you're doing all grain instead of extract is:
-Fermenter with air lock.
-Big-ass pot.
-Huge strainer bag.
-Thermometer.
-Bleach (there are better cleaners but bleach is cheap).
-Bottles to put the beer in.
That's really it.
If you reaaaaaally push it you can make a drinkable beer in ten days, usually takes a few weeks though.
thank you thank you both very much as to the honey i do know a guy localy who keeps his own bees and is it beature for the honey to be liquid or crysaline ??? raw or cooked ???
Well, I lament the loss of the buckwheat honey I tried, due to back-contamination from my gas trap, but to answer your question:
Honey doesn't really spoil, so the state of it isn't really important. Step one is to cook the honey in the water to make the must, so crystalized honey will melt. Boiling is actually a bit over the top here, but if you don't cook it down you're good. With 'beekeeper' rather than commercial honey the skimming of the foam off the top during the cooking process is more important. Lots of impurities, like bee's wax and stuff in the natural stuff, while commercial honey is cleaner.
I don't really get the raw or cooked question. I'm strictly amateur here, but I suppose if you were really patient you could create the must without heat. Just add water and mix, slowly. Don't know why you would, though unless you were trying to do it in a zombie apocalypse without drawing attention???
I've been getting my honey from my brewer supply store, but my first batch of mead, which was awesome if a bit weak (in the watery sense...) was made with off the shelf honey from the local big chain grocery store.
My current batch is being done hand's off, which is sort of weird. Cold house, so the yeast is mostly dormant, no one around for weeks at a time to check on it, but aside from the slow as molasses pace, its doing great.
But thats the sturdy, dry, champaign yeast. The wet yeast went two batches in and did nothing at all due to the cold.
Too much heat too long will drive off some aromatics. The only time I used honey I dumped in a kilo or so my grandmother in-law got from a beekeeper into a 5 gallon batch of beer right at the end of the boil bits of wax and all and it gave the beer a wonderful flowery smell.
That`s a lot less then you`d use for mead but shit seemed to settle down pretty well before bottling.
yeah, I did make that mistake with this batch. Not ruined, but its going to be a bit less flavorful than it could have been, seeing as I boiled it down about 20%. Definitely lost some flavor there.
But then my palate ain't exactly refined. I keep going back to Angry Orchard instead of the far superior craft ciders that I dabble in, even though I can't drink more than two bottles in a row before my taste buds quit and just tell me everything is some sort of nasty rotten apple flavor.
Which is one reason I vastly preferred the dry, but that's gone from 'hard to find' to 'seriously, we don't make that anymore', near as I can tell.
Which reminds me that my next 'batch' of mead will probably be a cider instead. I gather the process is reasonably similar, except you are starting with solid apples.
I may need to do some research.
Check out homebrewtalk.com, it`s mostly beer but a lot of people into mead and fruit wine with a huge amount of knowledge. Pretty decent board culture as well.