I had some of this a few weeks ago, it was vile. Like someone spilled a few spoonfuls of Horlick's in a lager.
Haha, in Tesco they sell a Hoegaarden Rosé...not too bad actually!
Not long ago I was a barman at a local pub, and I was educated greatly on the subject of Real Ales. I live down in the south of England where a lot of the older generation reside, and they all
really know their stuff. Dorset (the county I'm from) is known for it's quality local ciders and ales (real Cider, or what you folks in the US would call 'hard cider'...I think?), and we had 3 of the taps on the bar dedicated to 3 different Real Ales each week. Me and my boss would drink pints of the stuff to see how it tasted, so we could give a good description to the locals. Some of them were horrific (we had one in for Halloween that was so bad, my mates that came in were using it as a punishment in a drinking game!) but they were some real gems in there.
One of the best I tried was a Butcombe Original...smells incredibly hoppy, but tastes clean, dry and bitter and is a classic amber to the eye. Honestly, I couldn't rave about it enough! If anyone is ever visiting the UK and happens to be around Dorset/Somerset, you owe it to yourself to try it! Another good one is Adnams Original. Both on tap, and bottled, it's incredible.
I won't talk about the ciders we had on tap, as it's a beer thread, but there were a couple of decent ciders too!
EDIT: Also, on the health debate, it depends how you're made up (genetically) as to how your body will take it.
One of the regulars at said pub (I say regular, he was literally in there
every day at 21:15...you could set your watch by him!) has been drinking all his life. He's been in this pub every day since it opened (60yrs ago), without fail. When he was younger (around 19), he'd drink 60 bottles of Guiness a day (around 30 pints!) as well as drinking cider out of the barrel while they worked on the farm. This is what he told me:
Him and his 7 brothers would have 3 bottles each when they woke up (around 5am), go out and work on the farm until 8am, have 3 or 4 bottles with breakfast, go back out and work until around 11:30, have a long(ish) lunch and have with it between 7 and 10 bottles, head back out around 1pm, work through the afternoon until around 4pm, go into the barn for a smoke and 5 bottles, head back out and work until around 7pm, have a huge dinner and around 15 bottles of Guiness, play cards with a few more bottles until 10pm, then head down to the pub where they'd have around 10 pints (so 20 bottles) each to finish off the night...head home around Midnight, go to sleep then start again!
This guy is now 80, and doesn't quite drink the same amount now. But every night he used to come in, he'd have between 6 and 10 pints of Guiness. He also hunts regularly and, for those of you that don't know, over here they have a tradition in hunting where they drink port before they go out. So he'll have around half a bottle of port in the morning! The guy's blood
must be alcohol by now! Yet he's one of the fittest people I've ever met! He's gone the mind and body of a 40yr old, he runs around with his grandkids and doesn't really stop!
» Tue May 15, 2012 8:36 am 
I think it ruins the taste (or gives it taste as it were) I believe they say the purer vodka is, the better; that's why those pre-flavoured-by-the-brewing-company ones that have flavors like green apple and raspberry gross me out. 
