TOPIC:

&amp;quot;Laurent Mousson&amp;quot;:2wvg1ihg wrote: I've taken dealing with french Canadians, some of whom go mad when you refer to their bit of land as Canada instead of Québec and to them as Canadiens instead of Québécois. <!-- s:wink: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s:wink: --> )[/quote:2wvg1ihg]I assure you my objections are purely grammatical and not at all political. Did I mention I may be a geek?

&amp;quot;Laurent Mousson&amp;quot;:2wvg1ihg wrote: 2 to 5 years i mentioned not because it's anawful lot of work, but to put together gradually a healthy dynamics.[/quote:2wvg1ihg]Yeah. Given the current rate of growth, I think ICB could well be ready to produce a campaigning off-shoot around then.

&amp;quot;Laurent Mousson&amp;quot;:2wvg1ihg wrote: Newsletter ... as a means of information in bars etc.[/quote:2wvg1ihg]Getting bars which aren't already sympathetic to stock it, though: that'll be hard. It goes back to us not having tied houses but a largely voluntary tied [i:2wvg1ihg]market[/i:2wvg1ihg].

Mind you, I just had a look at the new Porterhouse menu, and under Coors Light it says "Try one of the original facist [sic] beers!". I wonder has the Heineken Ireland rep who sells them the stuff seen that yet?

First of all welcome EBCU guys great to see we have been noticed and we appreciate your input.

ICB website in its short life has in my opinion been a phenomenal success. It has the most vibrant and regularly used forum I have seen outside USA.

Should ICB change from its informal web base? like most members I am not sure where it should go or do. I am in agreement with most on this thread --- no rush.

I have a couple of questions EBCU guys.

1. What do you think are your major achievements since forming?

2. Why is there no German member?

Rather cheekily I am wondering if a European web based informal association like ICB is the future rather than Formal Clubs?

[quote:1h31g4dw]Why is there no German member[/quote:1h31g4dw]
[color=olive:1h31g4dw]Oh dear, where to start?
We've got plenty of contacts in Germany.
All of them localized, never general.
All of them distrustful of each other, and above all, about EBCU - [i:1h31g4dw]are they trying to take away our Reinheitsgebot?[/i:1h31g4dw]. In fact, the brewers themselves take a much more relaxed view (having been on International Jury's a lot recently, with many German judges, I can vouch that in the brewers, the outlook is much more realistic).
But above all, the unshakeable faith of the German punter, that since German beer is superior anyway, a few breweries might die off, but another superior brewery will fill in the gap.
Complacency...
Anyway, we don't despair. Who knows that one day [i:1h31g4dw]das Brauereistirben [/i:1h31g4dw]will hit the subconscious mind of the German beerdrinker.[/color:1h31g4dw]

[quote:2ci83azq]Rather cheekily I am wondering if a European web based informal association like ICB is the future rather than Formal Clubs?[/quote:2ci83azq]Now there's an idea <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D --> Would be great for me if I ever decided to move to Germany like the wife wants!

I was also wondering about the German contingent.

&amp;quot;Joris P.&amp;quot;:1vhgvz2k wrote: [quote:1vhgvz2k]Why is there no German member[/quote:1vhgvz2k]
Oh dear, where to start?
- [i:1vhgvz2k]are they trying to take away our Reinheitsgebot?[/i:1vhgvz2k]...<snip>
But above all, the unshakeable faith of the German punter, that since German beer is superior anyway,[/quote:1vhgvz2k]
Interesting. While on my last visit to Germany I was chatting wth some chaps about my own brewing (which impressed them no end), and during the conversation I mentioned that the [i:1vhgvz2k]Reinheitsgebot [/i:1vhgvz2k]probably killed many local and interesting beer styles and traditions and probably slightly homogenised the beer offerings from Germany. It was something that hadn't occured to them I thought, and I wasn't sure how they took it. Having said that, there's no shortage of pretty good beers in Germany now, is there? <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

I'm curious as to what extent things have changed since the [i:1vhgvz2k]Reinheitsgebot [/i:1vhgvz2k]pretty much became a voluntary thing since 1987 (as I understand it), although many breweries are proud to proclaim their beers as being brewed according to the [i:1vhgvz2k]Reinheitsgebot[/i:1vhgvz2k], which is fair enough as it was in force for the best part of 500 years, so is bound to be engrained in the German psyche.

(I should point out, for those who don't know, that my wife is German, so I have a special interest <!-- s;) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!-- s;) -->)

[quote:11cy4zd0]I'm curious as to what extent things have changed since the Reinheitsgebot pretty much became a voluntary thing since 1987 (as I understand it), although many breweries are proud to proclaim their beers as being brewed according to the Reinheitsgebot, which is fair enough as it was in force for the best part of 500 years, so is bound to be engrained in the German psyche.[/quote:11cy4zd0]

[color=olive:11cy4zd0]Sorry to contradict you, but you're wrong there - and you ought to know, since you realised that the [i:11cy4zd0]Reinheitsgebot[/i:11cy4zd0] killed, indeed, a lot of the old German styles.
The Reinheitsgebot isn't German. It's Bavarian. And it only reached the hapless rest of Germany at the unification of Germany - not the one of Kohl, but of Bismarck. It was an express demand from the Freistaat Bayern towards the forces of unification, as they were terrified for the position of their brewers, had they to compete against the vicious non-Reinheitsgebot brewers in the rest of the new country.

History has a way of repeating itself.

If you are interested in a very in depth research on the influence of the Reinheitsgebot, and the lost beerstyles in Germany, I recommend the website of Ron Pattison (a Brit, living in Amsterdam, and travelling all around Europe in search of good beer):[/color:11cy4zd0]
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="www.xs4all.nl/~patto1ro/">www.xs4all.nl/~patto1ro/
[color=olive:11cy4zd0]and especially:[/color:11cy4zd0]
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="www.xs4all.nl/~patto1ro/#germany">www.xs4all.nl/~patto1ro/#germany
[color=olive:11cy4zd0](scroll downwards).[/color:11cy4zd0]