Pen/Ink/Paper Trios

[Bo Bo Olson]

You are welcome....but I very seldom drink Export, it is not bitter enough for me.

...............

part of what a beer should have...at least in Germany is a fine rocky head that stands around for a bit.

In GB, that is not he case and if there is a head it is whipped off the pint glass.

The marking line is deeper on German glasses.

.....................

One has to go to belgium A beer menu card is much deeper than a food menu. and they hve some 30 or so glasses, each for a different beer or beer sort.

.........

Not that my wife would agree, but if I hit the lottery, my winter house would be in Belgium....and I'd have to have my house a good hours walk for a Gasthaus....or I'd look like a balloon. Luckily there is a large grocery store we go too, that occasionally I pick up 3-4 Belgium beers.

.................

Really I don't drink near as much as I am giving an impression.

But for a while my shooting club's Gasthaus had the best selection of beer (national & international) in Heidelberg...but he left.

I haven't been to a beer or whiskey tasting in ages. One has to set priorities, fountain pens, papers and inks...first.

 

[fireant]

Went I went to SHAPE (Mons BE) for work, I remember walking through their shop for beer. Soooo many beers. Mind you, I wasn't a beer drinker per se, but the choices were astounding.

[Bo Bo Olson]

And over 30 types of beer glasses, to show of that particular beer perfectly.

 

The shocking thing is more than half the people in Belgium, speak French...and make the best beers in the world.

The Belgium dirt is too good for wine. One requires real poor soil for wine, and the wine vine has to struggle to make good wine.

 

The English Thomas Hardy ale can be aged for up to 21 years. The American no longer sold Ballintine beer, had a private family sub-brand that could be aged about that long. My problem is none of the Belgium beers I stuck in between my wine bottles lasted much more than a year, much less the seven some Tappist beers can age. 

[Penguincollector]

  Belgian beer doesn’t last long around here, I love a good sour, my favorite is the Duchesse with a bird on her hand, and the Framboise lambic beer. 

[fireant]

5 hours ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

And over 30 types of beer glasses, to show of that particular beer perfectly.

 

The shocking thing is more than half the people in Belgium, speak French...and make the best beers in the world.

 

 

 

They speak french only in that part of Belgium! We got lost and my boss spoke decent German and I spoke just a bit at the time as well as a tiny bit of dutch. No one understood us in German, Dutch (which they are supposed to speak), or English. I was reduced to asking, "la gare?"  lol.

 

Since our hotel was close to the station we eventually got back. Sigh.

[Penguincollector]

  Belgium is such a linguistic mélange. I knew one person from there, don’t remember where, and they spoke Flemish.

[Bo Bo Olson]

2 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

Framboise lambic beer

My wife knows much about cooking, and more about wine than I ever will. and then more about foreign beer.

Once and only once, I had had Berliner Wiesse...a tasteless wheat beer, that syrups are added to. I'd order water instead.

 

It was a summer day, hot for our taste in the middle of Brussels. The joint was a common large 30 table restaurant joint with no class; a common eatery, but we were thirsty. The wife ordered Kriek beer...a cherry beer with or with out the cyanide stone. Two slightly different cherry beers.

Sitting there with my lip curled. Cherry Beer. cubed.

 

The waiter comes up with a liter/quart bottle.  He snaps open his  Laguiole waiter's knife, and pops the top of the big beer bottle. With another deft hand twist he opens up the cork screw on his waiters knife??????

Then he digs it into the beer bottle. A beer bottle with a cork!!!!!

It was a real good tasting red beer, and not the least bit sweet...or nowhere as sweet as a Berliner Wiesse.

 

Back in the days when they had European borders, we went to the brewery and got a tour.

They open up the windows in the roof over the beer swimming pool, and let the wild yeast blow in. It can take up to 9 months for the first fermentation.

Then they add either cherries and the stones, or just the cherries or Framboise/raspberry mash to that pool of wheat beer and let it ferment again...that too, could take another 9 months.

So any beer that takes a year to a year and a half to become ready...is not cheap junk like a Berliner Wiesse.

So I smuggled two cases across the Belgium border.

......................................

I did have my Micheal Jackson beer guide with me in Belgium.

Then they then had 5 star listing for the world's best beers. After the first edition, they listed only 4 stars for best.

I went to a classic ...listed..old beer pub, where they had more beers than I could count. I was going by the book...one thing at a time.

Duval beer was then listed as a 5 star beer. I ordered a bottle of it...there was something wrong with that bottle.

 So I ordered a second bottle...something wrong with that bottle too, but in or about the second or third swig, I realized, there were all sorts of odd tastes all over in my mouth...not the suddenly simple German beer taste....but a champagne of different bubbly tastes. It was five star beer once I learned how to taste more complex beers.

......................

That reminds me, the next time we go shopping at the better supermarket we go to, there is 4 different Tappist beers...I need. 4 yards by 8 foot shelving.....all sorts of beers, half I've never drank.

and or Winter is here, time for double bock beer.

Duckstein, a 6.2% winter ale with taste notes of cinnamon and plum. Orange peel, fenchel also. Something that wouldn't have been allowed  a decade ago back when German beer had to go by the 1516 Bavarian purity law.**

** There are Belgium tappist beers that have many other herbs and roots in them, so once were not allowed to be imported into Germany.

I think any beer that has been made the exact same way for 3-400 years, is good enough for me.

 

[Penguincollector]

3 minutes ago, Bo Bo Olson said:

I think any beer that has been made the exact same way for 3-400 years, is good enough for me.

 

 Same. That Kriek is lovely beer as well. Your wife has good taste.

[Mark from Yorkshire]

@Bo Bo Olson, and @Penguincollector please try some good quality English ales with a proper head on them. I can Recommend two from God Country. Masham North Yorkshire UK T&R Theakston Old Peculiar and Black Sheep Riggwelter. They are both dark ales, that are really quite tasty on the pallet.

 

My other favourites are The Wychwoodales especially the hobgoblin ruby, once again if it is not served ruined I.E flat with no head. The head should 1/4 to half inch not served to top of glass.

[lamarax]

Here's my recent, pre-FPD '24 haul. I'll reveal what I got today in due time 😛

 

 

Finally, I've changed the light bulb in my study to a 4000K 20W LED, so photos should be truer without any need for color correction.

[Mechanical]

39 minutes ago, lamarax said:

Here's my recent, pre-FPD '24 haul.

There are so many pens I didn't know I needed until I come here to FPN.

 

@lamarax, the Silvern's nib looks a bit different than other Pilot nibs. Does it perform the same and follow the same sizing?

[fireant]

3 hours ago, Penguincollector said:

  Belgium is such a linguistic mélange. I knew one person from there, don’t remember where, and they spoke Flemish.

 

Yeah it's supposed to be french/flemish (dutch). I wasn't thrilled because I could've asked in dutch where our hotel was, not so much in french.

[lamarax]

20 minutes ago, Mechanical said:

There are so many pens I didn't know I needed until I come here to FPN.

 

@lamarax, the Silvern's nib looks a bit different than other Pilot nibs. Does it perform the same and follow the same sizing?

 

Yep, it's distinctively and unanimously a Pilot <M> 😄

 

If you're familiar with the Elite 95S' inlaid nib, this one feels quite similar, albeit bigger and a little bit stiffer (being 18K instead of 14K).

[Bo Bo Olson]

It's hard to get English ale or beer near me...even Newcastle Brown Ale is scarce...and I have nothing against that beer.

I'll have to look if those Baltic IPA's and other beers that are in that direction are all German or if Shetland, or Orkney brew is in that beer book case.

[Penguincollector]

1 hour ago, lamarax said:

Here's my recent, pre-FPD '24 haul. I'll reveal what I got today in due time 😛

 

 

Finally, I've changed the light bulb in my study to a 4000K 20W LED, so photos should be truer without any need for color correction.

  That’s a great looking combination. The ink shades nicely on the paper. You mentioned that it was dry; is it ok in the Silvern, or can you feel the dryness?  I love that pattern.  
 

 

[Penguincollector]

44 minutes ago, fireant said:

 

Yeah it's supposed to be french/flemish (dutch). I wasn't thrilled because I could've asked in dutch where our hotel was, not so much in french.

  I’m the opposite, I can do ok with French, but find Dutch and related languages incredibly difficult. 

[lamarax]

4 minutes ago, Penguincollector said:

  That’s a great looking combination. The ink shades nicely on the paper. You mentioned that it was dry; is it ok in the Silvern, or can you feel the dryness?  I love that pattern.

 

 

I should rather have written that it's unlubricated. Flow is quite wet.

[Penguincollector]

1 hour ago, Mark from Yorkshire said:

@Bo Bo Olson, and @Penguincollector please try some good quality English ales with a proper head on them. I can Recommend two from God Country. Masham North Yorkshire UK T&R Theakston Old Peculiar and Black Sheep Riggwelter. They are both dark ales, that are really quite tasty on the pallet.

 

My other favourites are The Wychwoodales especially the hobgoblin ruby, once again if it is not served ruined I.E flat with no head. The head should 1/4 to half inch not served to top of glass.

  I have tried a couple of English ales, they were good, but it was a long time ago. Old Speckled Hen, Samuel Smith, and the ubiquitous Newcastle Brown Ale are a few names I remember. If I ever get to your island, I’ll be sure to try the local delicacies.  Around the turn of the last century, beers from around the world were a big deal. Now the local brewery scene has pushed all of the imported beer out of the local market. I’m lucky enough to have several brewpubs in walking distance. 

[Mechanical]

54 minutes ago, lamarax said:

 

Yep, it's distinctively and unanimously a Pilot <M> 😄

 

If you're familiar with the Elite 95S' inlaid nib, this one feels quite similar, albeit bigger and a little bit stiffer (being 18K instead of 14K).

 

Thanks!  I do really like how Pilots write.

 

Oh right, I had forgotten that the Elite has a similar style nib.

[lamarax]

On 11/2/2024 at 12:52 AM, Mechanical said:

 

Thanks!  I do really like how Pilots write.

 

Oh right, I had forgotten that the Elite has a similar style nib.

 

Now that I think about it, I guess you could say that the Elite 95S's nib is equivalent in size with the #5 nib of e.g. the Custom 74, while the the Silvern's is comparable to a #15 (e.g. in a 823). There's no numbering as such imprinted on the inlaid nibs 🙂