The perfect pint

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Laughing_Gnome_Invisible

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Well, this section is for drucken ramblings, and I'm pretty druck right now...so I'll tell y'all about my perfect pint in the hope that you will tell your own tale!

August 1993. It was a Flowers IPA. surprising really, because at it's best Flowers could only normally be described as a good pint. Even more surprising was that I had this pint at The Lord Nelson, Hythe, England. Not the best of pubs, and it certainly had no particular reputation for keeping it's ale in prime condition. They always kept their pipes clean, but the staff rotation there often meant that the beer was not always quite as it should be.
Anyways, this particular day my dad was on a rare visit. This was at a stage in our lives before we truly appreciated eachother for some reason. We got a round in, (both flowers IPA) and for whatever reason, we decided to just step out of the door and do a spot of people watching.

I can never forget the feeling of total happiness of the moment as I took a gulp of what tasted like pure nectar. I now realise that this feeling was largely due to my company at the time, however, it would have never been the same without the luck to have been drawn a truly wonderful pint in it's prime. Say what you like about cask conditioning, sometimes you might get a sub-standard pint that is still good, but when everything comes together, and the stars are properly aligned you get to taste perfection.

Anyone else remember their perfect pint? Please tell!


Reference point. We were stood at the open door in this pic.

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View of the street: The pub is on the left.



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My best pint:

Recently I visited London, and on our first day there, a friend of mine and I made our way to a small pub near Leicester Square called Angel & Crown. I picked the pub because it advertised as selling genuine cask conditioned ales.

We went in, and immediately ordered two pints of Theakston's Best Bitter-- it caught my eye and I love a good bitter. We sat down near a window and reflected on the day. As I started drinking the pint, I quickly realized just how amazingly amazing this beer-- this pint-- was.

I quaffed it quickly, but enjoyed every last drop. My friend wasn't feeling well, so he offered me his pint. I grabbed it quickly, thanked him, and enjoyed it as much as the first pint (and a bit more slowly).

It was fun relaxing and watching all the activity in the streets from the relative comfort and quiet of the pub while drinking excellent beer.

Several months later, a good friend of mine went to London on business, and asked about good pubs to visit. I recommended both the Angel & Crown and Theakston's Best Bitter. He called me from the pub while he was drinking his pint, and agreed that it was a terrific beer. We chatted a bit and thought it was pretty cool that we able to share a similar experience in London, albeit many months apart.

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This is the actual "best pint".

-Steve
 
Bump.

Nobody else wants to share the story of their perfect pint?

C'mon people! I really enjoyed OhioBrit's story. Please don't make me think I'm a thread killer...
 
Great stories, both.

I've been thinking for quite a while and can't really narrow down to one.

Well, one of the most memorable that I have a relevant picture for occurred last Spring. I was living in Montana but was in my hometown of Cincinnati for a friend's wedding. The wedding was fine, but the next evening I met up with an old, good friend. He was my favorite drinking buddy throughout college, always good for a wide variety of conversational topics, from talking tech about cars to discussing Radiohead lyrics to weighing in on personal issues, we would go on for hours.

Anyway, we picked up a bunch of local/regional ales that were new to me (been living in MT, remember?), a couple good cigars, and spent the evening on my folk's back deck. We picked up just where we left of in our college days. It was a beautiful, calm clear evening under the stars. We talked and drank and smoked and before we knew it it was 3AM or so. We'd gotten through all that wonderful beer, exhausted nearly every topic, and called it a good night.

I set up the tripod and composed this picture afterwards:
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As a grad student I'm a bit of an oddity in my town- generally it's a lot of older folks with a lot more money than I have. This makes it a bit suprising that my most recent perfect pint was a Guiness at a bar downtown here in Madison. My wife and I walked down one night, just to get out of the house.

I ordered a Guinness, which I regard as a safe but not exciting pint. Now, it might be that I was having a nice time with my favorite person, but the bartender knew what they were doing (multi-stage pour, drew a cloverleaf in the head, etc.), and this Guinness tasted better than any I'd had before. The bar itself really is a pub, catering to regulars from the neighborhood, and the warm ambiance, great conversation, and a really tasty beer make that the most recent perfect pint I can recall.
 
My perfect pint isn't as exotic, but to date the best in memory.

My wife and I had just moved to Maryland after Hurricane Katrina, and she had purchased a homebrewing Ail Pale kit for my birthday. I, at the same time, had discovered a local brewpub/restaurant in a nearby suburb. I worked four "tens", while she was starting her new job, which gave me Fridays alone.

I drove to this brewpub (Growler's of Gaithersburg, for those playing along at home) after my very first extract brew solo. I walked in, sat at the bar, and ordered from the chalkboard. I got their Nut Brown Ale.

Fall had just "fallen", the temperature was in the mid fifties, I was wearing my leather jacket for the first time that year, and I sipped a seriously soul-enriching pint of nut brown ale. It was grainy without being sweet, bitter without being hoppy... basically the most balanced beer I've ever tasted.

I had two more. Then bought a growler of it. Then bought a growler of their pumpkin ale.

I have yet to have as good a beer at that same brewpub. I don't know if it's because of my mindset that particular day, if my tastes have grown more discerning, or if their beer is flagging in quality... but I'll never forget it.
 
My favorite pint was...ready for this? a Hieniken :). It wasnt the beer...it was the moment. Just sharing a pint of Heiniken on a cool summer evening in north georgia on the porch with my dad was a great feeling
 
I'd have to say the best pint that I've had so far was the first date with El SWMBO. I met her at the Horse Brass for some dinner and to talk and stuff. When I walked in, the place was packed, and she was sitting right about ..... there.

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We found a place to sit, order some food, and get some drinks. I had a cask conditioned Younger’s Special Bitter. It was cool, flat, and omfg so delicious. I had a Scotch Egg, first time ever. There was a crotchety old Scot sitting at the bar loudly but jovially arguing with one of his compatriots right next to us at the bar.

We talked for four hours.

We would have kept up on it even longer, but I had to be getting off to work. I took her home, then off to work I went. It was a beautiful night.
 
I think my best pint was probably about 3-4 months ago (and it wasn't even a full pint!). I had been living with HWMO for about 8 months in our first apartment together, and my parents came up for the day to visit. We took them to the Clipper City Brewery (Baltimore) for a tour and tasting. The tour was awesome (given by the owner, Hugh Sisson) and you got to take a sample of beer on the tour with you. After the tour, we gathered in the tasting room, and over the course of the next half hour, my stepdad proceeded to get a bit tipsy (ok, he was probably closer to smashed than tipsy, but whatever). And as I sipped on a half pint of Loose Cannon (an excellent IPA), I had one of those "my parents are people just like me, and I am becoming friends with them, isn't that cool?!" moments. It was good. And it happened here.
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My perfect pint was sipped on the deck of my family's house in Portland last fall. The Ribs had been in the smoker for hours, the homebrewed Cream Stout had been chilling in the fridge for a week. I brought my mini-mash rig with me on the contract job... a guy's gotta have something to do :)

My father rarely compliments anyone or anything.
this beer tasted fabulous.
and he told me so.

great day.
great beer.

Sipping one right now here in California -- hoping and waiting to be able to move back home for good, and try to recapture that moment over and over again.
 
I think my perfect pint was last May. My best friend that I am very close to went to a Bar in the city, which is very uncommon for us. We had gone to a bar every night for a total of 25 nights in a row, not the same bar every night but atleast one bar. He was getting deployed and just wanted to party. Well we stopped at Coles on Elmwood, it was a Tuesday night, like 3 am. I had a really long day at work and it was just a nice night and I needed to relax. This was my first pint of the night so I started with a Chimay Blue. The beer was kept at the perfect temp, good music, with a good conversation with a very good friend, thats what made it a perfect pint. I sipped it till it was room temp, and it just kept getting better the warmer it got.
 
My perfect pint was actually a beer I don't care for much but given the location it was the best thing I could get. We were on a family cruise in the Carribean, me and my wife, my parents, an aunt and uncle, a cousin and his girlfriend and a sister and brother in law. I asked my wife to marry me the day before on the ship. We were visiting St. Martins for the day and we all just decided to head to the closest beach by the pier to spend the day. The weather was perfect, the beach was beautiful and the water was incredible. I walked over to a beach shack selling beer and ordered the only thing they had, caribe. The lady tells me I can buy a 5 gallon bucket of beer and ice and take it over to the beach for $5. We stood in the water drinking what tasted like the best beer on earth by the bucket load for the entire day. We met some cool people from Canada and took turns staggering to the beach shack for buckets of beer. The beer obviously wasn't that great, but, the location, knowing I was going to marry my wife and being with the people I was with, priceless. Everyone who was there still talks about it 6 years later like it was the best day on earth, and it was. I plan to do the same thing in the same spot someday.
 
That's the reason why on a scale from 1 to 10, I always reserve the 10. To me, if someone scores something at the top end of the scale, there is a personal interpretation going on there. I have yet to have a perfect pint I think. Perfect to me is always always situational.
 
I don't know if I have had the "perfect pint" yet, but here is one that is as close as I have so far:

Last winter, My wife and I went to Idaho and met up with most of my family. My brothers, my dad and my three new siblings, all but one of my cousins and aunts and uncles from all over (Hawai'i, New York, Massachusetts, California). We all met up for a few days of seeing each other around the holidays and to go skiing and snowboarding. Anyway, we all met up one day for lunch on the mountain right here:
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We grabbed tables outside, and went in to grab some food.
I couldn't possibly tell you what I ate, but I got a pint of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. Sitting outside in the warm noon sun, with all that family, looking out over the snow covered mountains and valleys, talking and having fun, sipping that wonderful pint. It was great.
 
I don't know if I have had the "perfect pint" yet, but here is one that is as close as I have so far:

Last winter, My wife and I went to Idaho and met up with most of my family. My brothers, my dad and my three new siblings, all but one of my cousins and aunts and uncles from all over (Hawai'i, New York, Massachusetts, California). We all met up for a few days of seeing each other around the holidays and to go skiing and snowboarding. Anyway, we all met up one day for lunch on the mountain right here:
large_SeattleRidge.jpg

We grabbed tables outside, and went in to grab some food.
I couldn't possibly tell you what I ate, but I got a pint of Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. Sitting outside in the warm noon sun, with all that family, looking out over the snow covered mountains and valleys, talking and having fun, sipping that wonderful pint. It was great.

You ate outside there? How do you eat with mittens and a ski mask??
 
I havn't had my best pint yet, I hope not anyways.

I can envision it though.....

At my house with my SWMBO, & my dad. Crazy huh?

My second best pint is the one I'm working on now. It's something that I brewed. I don't really know b/c this whole post belongs in the drunken forum. My second day home in a LONG time. Home looks good. I love the folks that have fires & hurricanes, but I love home too. Premium supports know why...


Cheers folks. It's bedtime.
Zac
 
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