While wandering down an Intarwebz alley, I saw this and nearly choked on my gin:
I’m sorry, and you can call me a reactionary old fart (it has been said before), but red wine with fish and chips? Out of a bottle with an actual label?
What the hell: why not try that same booze with corndogs or BBQ? Next thing, it’ll be Diet Coke with caviar, or Scotch with tacos. Yerrrrgh.
BEER, DAMN IT.
‘Nuff said.
To be fair, the image is of “Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale”, not wine
It is Australian mind!
https://www.beersofeurope.co.uk/beer/country/australia/coopers-extra-strong-vintage-ale
Vintage 2008 ?? — WTF?? Old stale ale??
Matures with age…. Depends on the type of beer though https://www.petedrinks.com/2014/08/on-ageing-condition-and-best-before/
Similarly cider (which is just apple wine after all) can be a lot better two or three years down the line. Obviously not the alco-pop style ciders most prevalent though.
I brewed batches of Russian Imperial Stout a couple of times; it’s a heavily malted and hopped stout that was made in England for export to the Czar’s Russia. It was prior to refrigeration and the amount of hops needed to keep it from spoiling had to be counter-balanced by enough malt that the unfermentable sugars would maintain enough residual sweetness to taste good.
I kept several bottles aside for 3 or 4 years, and they just got better over time with the flavors mellowing out and blending.
On the other hand I now live in Wyoming where it’s impossible to have beer shipped in (one of the weirder laws here) and I cannot get my favorite IPA, Surly Brewing’s “Furious”, and the last bunch I had brought in by somebody coming from where it could be had was just over a year ago. For whatever reason, that beer did NOT sit well, perhaps because it was in a can rather than bottle, and I’m drinking the last few cans left before it goes any farther downhill.
So type of beer/ale, container, handling/storage all play a role in which beers will age well.
Preach.
What they said about it being Ale. Wrong photo?
Ehhhh I fucked up.
Point is still valid, though.
Okay… MAYBE red wine in the living room, at home, before deciding to go out for fish and chips,
Your favorite beer or ale with the dinner (more than one, but don’t get crazy.) And my preference would be potato wedges over skinny fries, done to a crisp, golden hue and fluffy soft in the center. Double battered codfish fillets served too hot to touch.
And when safely home again, good, brown liquor served on the patio to close out the evening.
Now I’m hungry, and I haven’t even had my corn flakes yet.
beer with fish and chips is a must. plenty of malt vinegar. If the next table can’t smell the malt vinegar then there isn’t enough on the chips.
JQ
Took me a minute to realize you were referring to the beverage in the photo. I first read it as red wine vinegar and thought you meant that instead of malt vinegar. Which would be at least as great a heresy.
French fries is a bigger infringement than expensive ale.
Needs to be fried potatoe wedges with cheap ale.
And where’s the bucket of gravy and the mushy peas?
Where have you been eating? The name Fish and Chips kind of gives it away…. Gravy? On Fish and Chips?
In British pubs…
During my residence in Stellenbosch I got to know quite a few wine farmers including Spatz Sperling, Jannie Momberg, Stevie Smit and what was his name the German guy with the leather hat, Frans Malan was it who owned Simonsig. They would all quite happily polish off a bottle of really good shit with a packet of crisps.