[OFB Cafe] Cheers!

[saki]

Rick Bowers wrote:

> If it's beer, I'll drink it. 

I'll drink to that! When I was 13/14 or so my father said to me "You'll 
be going to parties soon, where there will alcohol around. Take my 
advice, drink beer until you're forty, and whisky after."

I took his advice, except that I started whisky well before forty, and I 
haven't stopped drinking beer either!

We are lucky, now, in the UK as there are numerous local breweries all 
brewing "Real Ales" (a term used here to indicate that cask beers are 
still alive and have not been "boiled in the bag" (or pasturised) in 
metal kegs). And I know, ales traditionally did not have hops added but 
the Campaign for Real Ales -CAMRA- sounds better than CAMRB).

Within five miles of my village there are five micro breweries producing 
everything from light wheat beers to porters and stouts.

Traditional bitter is the most popular, with strengths from around 
3.6/3.8 (session beers), to 6.5 and 7% (definitely NOT session beers!).

There are three annual "Beer Festivals" here as well, one with only 
local, Devonshire, beers. This year there were over 90 to sample- but I 
didn't manage anything like that.

Thinking about that's made me thirsty- I'll have to have a bottle of 
secondary-fermentation-in-bottle Brakspear Triple (7.2%) to slake it!

Terence