Well, first and foremost, I'd like to thank all for the responses so far; People who understand the virtue of 64 coding surely have a better appreciation for life's small indulgences. And, not only has this given me some new beers to try sometime, it has also given me some good filler material for C=Hacking :). > > Those were our favorite beers in Greece (note: the Greeks are not famous > > for good beer ;-) > Drinking beer in Greece is just like drinking beer in France or > drinking wine in the Czech republic: Not done :) The only place I've been to in Europe is France, and I agree: wonderful wine and horrible beer :). Someone earlier described Amstel and Heinekin beer as being "the worst". Sir, I must disagree. There are far worse beers. For example, there are always various college guys around who brew their own beer; one of those is definitely the worst beer I've had. I also had a "malt whiskey beer" while in France -- I can't say that I found it very appealing. But, sad but true, there are a number of American beers which are just plain bad. Bad bad bad bad "good God what are you THINKING man!?" bad. We're talking the Spectrum ZX, the Bionic Granny, the MS-DOS of beers. > > Here in the States, beer isn't considered coding fuel. The three drinks Although I in general agree -- better to keep the mind and wits sharp for coding -- I must say that occasionally having a beer and chips with an afternoon coding session can be quite enjoyable (like having chips and a beer while watching a ballgame). > > of choice are Jolt, Coke and Mt Dew (Jolt and Mt. Dew have more than 80mg > > of caffiene in the U.S., not always so overseas). > > heh. Jolt is on the so-called "Opium-list" over here. The organisation of > the TakeOver'98 party (yeah, I know.. No X part, so it sucks anyway) had > some problems with the fact that they kinda sold Jolt at that party.. Very interesting. Jolt really is a drug delivery device (much like certain beers around here). But I've never heard of it being banned :). (I can't have any of them, personally -- caffeine totally hoses me). > > am an American, I detest crappy American beer like Budweiser and Miller. > > Budweiser should be good, since it's supposed to be the US version of > Budvar... And there is an interesting story. Apparently, some years back, Budweiser wanted to build a brewery in Czech/Slovakia -- and the government wouldn't let them! The refusal was to the effect that "We don't have a whole lot of stuff here, but the one thing we do better than anyone else is make beer, and we don't think a crappy beer factory is in the national interest." Regarding American beer, Budweiser is nothing like Budvar. The popular American beers (Bud, Miller, etc.) are basically pretty wimpy. Their main virtue is that you can drink a lot of it at once -- they are cheap, and don't taste horrible after a bottle or two. For example, you don't have a beer and watch the football game -- you have a six-pack and watch the football game. And you can still walk afterwards. Although they're not very tasty, they also don't taste _bad_. Just kind-of light and watery. (Light beer, which is also popular, is _really_ light and watery, and I'd rather just drink water). Since I personally like to just enjoy an occasional beer, with a meal or as a treat (or a Saturday afternoon coding session :), I don't go for the cheapies. (Although it should be noted that some food, like brats or pizza, goes pretty well with cheap beer). In recent years micro-brews have become more popular. These are generally more comparable to the European beers. Some popular examples are Sam Adams, Pete's Wicked Ale, Rogue, etc. Often they will brew their formulas in the vats of bigger brewing companies. Here in the Wisconsin area there are quite a lot of mid-sized breweries, and quite a lot of reasonably priced beer. There are also "brewpubs" nowadays -- restaurants with brewing facilities on the premesis. These other beers generally cost quite a lot more than the cheap American "macro-brews". How cheap is cheap? Generally a 24-pack of cheap beer costs around $10. That's about $0.40 per can. A micro or imported beer is generally around $6-$7 for a six-pack. (And a bottle of good Czech beer is $2 per bottle). The beer I like to extoll the virtues of -- Old Style -- is basically a mid-range beer costing around $7 for a 12-pack of bottles. The flavor of the fancier beers is certainly better, but it sure isn't $7 better. Note that some beers are _really_ cheap-ass beers -- these would be beers like Olympia, Milwaukee's Best, Rolling Rock, etc. The slogan of "Olympia" beer is "It's the water." Yeah, no kidding. I have read that some young people in Germany think it is very trendy to be American, and will pay exhorbitant prices -- $2 to $3 per glass -- for cheap American beers like Bud or Miller. If you make a graph, with hops on one axis and malt on the other, beers like Bud and Miller are near the origin in the lower-left hand corner, and beers like Sam Adams and European beers are in the upper-right area. Most beers lie along a straight line connecting the two, but there are a few outliers (like Lowenbrau, which lies in the lower-right corner -- lots of malt compared with the hops). Finally, just to give a little historical perspective... it turns out that Bud and Miller -- the two biggest brewers -- used to be rather small. "Schlitz" used to be the most popular beer, followed by "Hamms" and other now-obscure beers. Like many companies in the 70's, they thought they knew what was best for the consumers. At one point Schlitz changed its formula, and it caused a slime to form on the inside of the cans. Suddenly Budweiser got a lot of business, and became huge. Miller was tiny until they came up with the first "Lite" beer -- then they became huge, with other non-Lite offerings. There, who says you don't learn anything by hanging out with the 64 crowd? :) -S (Who really doesn't know why he knows all of the above stuff) - This message was sent through the cbm-hackers mailing list. To unsubscribe: echo unsubscribe | mail cbm-hackers-request@dot.tcm.hut.fi.
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