It's the constipation I can't stand

[evilC]

It's the constipation I can't stand

Eggchaser wrote:

I would also like to say that I couldn't grow a beard if I wanted to, a source of great annoyance to me as I always wanted to do so, especially when I was playing prop at the College of Law. Bearded front rowers are where it's at.

Plus, of course, being a probate solicitor mutton chops are practically compulsory.

Ah-ha! I see you're trying to bait me into comment, here, Eggchaser! ;-)

Strangely, I don't think there's a single person here at the moment - let alone in the rugby team - who could so much as grow a beard - I think half of them haven't even started shaving yet! Mind you, I'm a hairy bastard and I hate it. I actually had to start shaving when I was 13. I had even briefly sported a moustache by the time I was 15!

[Guest]

It's the constipation I can't stand

Men can look really really good with beards. This is a true fact. Don't be afraid of growing a beard if you want one.

[evilC]

It's the constipation I can't stand

I've only just got rid of the goatee I'd had since Christmas (when I grew it to protect my top lip from getting chafed due to all the nose-blowing a bout of bronchitis was precipitating). I still had it, though, when I saw my ex, the other week. She said that it looked good, in combination with my 'grade 1-length' shaved head. However, she is my ex ...and as such could be simply encouraging me to look completely risible. Hmmmm... I'd already made up my mind to shave it off anyway - before the sun arrived and brought with it the inherent risk of 'beard-shadow' comedy tan!

[hissing fauna]

It's the constipation I can't stand

The only difference is the water source. They don't add anything different in the UK otherwise they wouldn't be able to advertise as only containing 4 ingredients.

there is no legal requirement to list all the ingredients in alcohol. We don't have a purity law here. I stand by the fact that Stella in the UK has chemicals in - it's not just the water source.

(dead link removed)

[Wyatt Earp]

It's the constipation I can't stand

Dead link.

Look more closely at the ad, hobbes; I'm afraid it's designed to suck people in, and that it's worked with you. Stella might not be "chemical"*, but it does contain large amounts of maize, which the ad goes as far as to boast. Maize is the cheapest of all adjuncts, and this explains the thinness and blandness of Stella compared to even a bog-standard German pils like Warsteiner or Bitburger. It would fail the Reinheitsgebot comprehensively.

Even American Bud doesn't stoop as low as maize.

"Brewed for 6-11 days longer" is meaningless, because the actual brewing process takes only hours. I suspect they're on about the period of cold-conditioning ("lagering") after the main fermentation. It's not a surprise that this is longer than for a cheap lager like Carling, but it's also no surprise that they don't explicitly say how long it is. The best Czech and German lagers are cold-cnditioned for two to three months; cheap UK lager gets about a week. Stella's still at the crappy end.

Most Belgian pilsners are well-made but boring. Belgian Stella is a case in point. UK-brewed Stella I find actively unpleasant. You're actually better off with a South Dutch pilsner like Gulpener, Brand or Christoffel, which is odd because on the ale side, Belgian beer bosses the Low Countries without breaking a sweat. But the Germans and the Czechs are still the princes of lager.

(*Though it might be: there's no requirement to disclose the way the water might have been treated. This is a loophole even in the Reinheitsgebot.)

[Reed John]

It's the constipation I can't stand

"Maize is the cheapest of all adjuncts,"

Are you sure about that? I thought rice, which is in a lot of shit American lagers, was the bottom of the barrel (heh, see what I did there?) I'm not sure how to look that up. I don't know if their commodity prices are comparable.

Maize is what we call corn, right?

Some beers made in the midwest "boast" being made of corn because it proves they're local, but I suppose that's not really anything to brag about.

[Stumpy Pepys]

It's the constipation I can't stand

... the actual brewing process takes only hours.

Well, days — there's only so fast yeast can divide into two.

[hobbes]

It's the constipation I can't stand

I stand by the fact that Stella in the UK has chemicals in

Ok, prove it. I've presented evidence to the contrary. Can you provide any to prove it? Or is this one of those "it is because I think it is" arguments?
We may not have purity laws, but we have pretty stringent advertising standards.

Wyatt, it's the maize that makes it amaize-ing.

[dotmund]

It's the constipation I can't stand

I quite agree. I injured my spine in 2006 and towards the end of summer was held together with codeine. Once I had the operation to fix it, morphine was added to that, plus anaesthesia. The constipation after all that lot was unreal. I damn nearly broke my back again trying to drop some kids off at the pool the following morning.

I can't quite decide if the other major effect of the opiate and opiod - the floaty feeling of having slightly itchy teeth and the like - makes up for it. I'm thinking, no.

[Alderman Barnes]

It's the constipation I can't stand

A couple of years ago I had to have my ring stitched after I managed to pass a sharp-edged rogue peanut sideways. The first few days after that weren't much fun.

I wanted to go, in fact I was desperate, but as soon as it got half way down the bomb-bay my reflexes would kick in and send it back up again.

[Stumpy Pepys]

It's the constipation I can't stand

Alderman -- are you seriously telling us you couldn't pass a peanut?

Are you from Yorkshire?

[Alderman Barnes]

It's the constipation I can't stand

This is no occasion for flippancy, Stumps. If you don't chew them properly they can stick out the sides of your chods like razor blades and lacerate your nipsy.

[evilC]

It's the constipation I can't stand

A couple of years back, I had some kind of stomach/bowel infection that gave me the worst shits I've ever had. After all the semi-solids had gone, it was like I was just shitting blood - truly horrific. I would just collapse, unable to move, on the loo, pouring with sweat. I really thought I was going to die on the worst occasion. Anyway, to counter this, the doctor I saw gave me some kind of mega-codeine-based stuff and asked me to provide a stool sample. (Ewwww!) I think he suspected some kind of poisoning.

Simple enough, I thought - after all, I hadn't been able to stop for the last day or two. Wrronnggg!!! I couldn't go for, I think, 5 days! I ended up trying several different laxatives, none of which did the trick. I was in agony from the blockage. (Having a spinal injury doesn't help things, either - something Dotmund might also be able to corroborate.) Eventually, of course, it happened and this thing fell out of me like a dead otter, but even more noxious. Blood, mucus, mould and everything. Ugh! And then, of course, I had to poke it with a tiny wooden spatula of the type I'd last used to eat little tubs of cheap ice cream when I was a kid. I was nearly gagging at the stench. I feel quite ill just remembering it now.

Still, the tests came back negative, so that's alright!

Haggis, anyone?

[Incandenza]

It's the constipation I can't stand

Reed of the Valley People wrote:

"Maize is the cheapest of all adjuncts,"

Are you sure about that? I thought rice, which is in a lot of shit American lagers, was the bottom of the barrel (heh, see what I did there?) I'm not sure how to look that up. I don't know if their commodity prices are comparable.

Yeah, Anheuser-Busch brags about using rice in Budweiser.

[Wyatt Earp]

It's the constipation I can't stand

Stumpy Pepys wrote:

... the actual brewing process takes only hours.

Well, days — there's only so fast yeast can divide into two.

That's fermentation, not brewing.

[Wyatt Earp]

It's the constipation I can't stand

Reed of the Valley People wrote:

[i]I thought rice, which is in a lot of shit American lagers, was the bottom of the barrel (heh, see what I did there?).

Rice is more expensive, I think--especially in the US, where maize is highly subsidised. As has been pointed out, A-B have been bragging for decades about their use of rice. Rice produces a cleaner, smoother taste than maize, but contributes little in the way of flavour. Rice-adjunct beers seem to be unusually thin-bodied. In part this may be because to use rice, you also need to use six-row barley instead of the enzyme-poor two-row strains, and it's the two-row barleys that give the deep flavours after fermentation. Two-row barley is ubiquitous in Europe, pretty much, making rice a rarer adjunct here.

I think with golden lagers, the German/Bohemian way is just unambiguously the best way. The only way to get that cleanness and smoothness without blandness seems to be to use 100% two-row barley malt, and then cold-condition the stuff for fucking ages. It's a shame the beers that Germany exports to Britain in bulk are mostly dull, Protestant, Northern jobs like Holsten and Beck's.

Ales are different, because you're after complexity and fruitiness rather than a clean, smooth taste. Even under the Reinheitsgebot, you're allowed to prime the conditioning with sugar if what you're making is an ale. British brewers have often used Demerara or Barbados cane sugar, and the Belgians that slightly caramelised brown beet sugar you get in coffee houses. Sugar is actually more expensive than malt these days, though, so it's not exactly an eking-out exercise.

[Reed John]

It's the constipation I can't stand

You know much more about this than I do.

The books I have on brewing (which I haven't gotten very far in because I've only done it a few times) say that using plain sugar is sort of cheating and that to do ale properly, you've got to use malt only. I don't recall the details of that issue.

Corn is becoming more expensive as more and more of it gets used for ethanol.

Also, there's corn and then there's corn. Apparently, most of what is grown in Iowa, etc, goes to corn syrup and cattle feed (even though it's not very healthy for the cows) and you wouldn't want to eat it straight because it doesn't really taste like anything. The sort of corn that you buy in the market to boil and serve as corn on the cob looks a lot like that other corn, but isn't the same.

I don't know what kind goes in beer. Probably the cheapest.

[evilC]

It's the constipation I can't stand

Fascinating.

...But back to the shit-talk!

When I was a teen I discovered that the Mars bar's legendary low-level laxative properties weren't a lie and that the effects were exaggerated by washing one down with a can of coke. Thus, the next time I felt a little 'bound up', I had two Mars bars and two cans of Coke, alternating between the products. The effect was a bit like a depth charge for the stomach! Not healthy, but effective - totally 'predictable' too. (This was in the days when Mars bars were considerably more substantial, too. Today's ones barely are worthy of carrying the name! Pah!)

So - if you're ever in need of that kind of relief, or are simply desperate for an excuse for a bit of chocolate-frenzy, there you go!

[WOM]

It's the constipation I can't stand

I think the day's first coffee and cigarette can be fairly effective.
As well as a pint of Guinness the night before.

[evilC]

It's the constipation I can't stand

I've heard about Guinness, though I don't like the stuff. Is it true that it gives you black shits?

[WOM]

It's the constipation I can't stand

I think 'iron-rich' is the term.

[Gangster Octopus]

It's the constipation I can't stand

evilC wrote:

I've heard about Guinness, though I don't like the stuff. Is it true that it gives you black shits?

Dunno, but a gay friend of mine once told me that his boyfriend didn't like him drinking it...

[Alderman Barnes]

It's the constipation I can't stand

... the day's first ... cigarette can be fairly effective

The "drag and drop" method.

[Guest]

It's the constipation I can't stand

Reed of the Valley People wrote:

The books I have on brewing (which I haven't gotten very far in because I've only done it a few times) say that using plain sugar is sort of cheating and that to do ale properly, you've got to use malt only. I don't recall the details of that issue.

Plain white table sugar (corn sugar) is seen as a bad adjunct to use alright, but a lot of ales have sugars of some sort (demerera, unrefined etc.) in them. The German purity law is ok, but there are a hell of a lot of good beers out there that use sugars, unmalted barley and other ingredients.
The old home brew method of getting a can of hopped malt extract of questionable quality, and adding a kilo or more of sugar are happily becoming a thing of the past. Nowadays, and especially in America, the home brewer has as much choice as the breweries.

[Wyatt Earp]

It's the constipation I can't stand

As noby points out, it depends on the kind of sugar: a dash of raw sugar can add flavours that work well for ales, whereas refined sugar will tend to have a thinning effect.

It also depends when it's added. The Reinheitsgebot, I think I'm right in saying, restricts the use of sugar (which is in any case restricted to ales) to priming the secondary fermentation, the way they do it in the methode champenoise. If you add tons of the stuff at the primary fermentation stage, that might work less well.

With lagers, the RHG rules out the use of sugar at all stages, and the secondary fermentation is generally primed by adding a bit of unfermented wort.

Overall, I've had scores of great ales that would probably fail the RHG, but very few great lagers, if any, that would do so.