Bourbon, Beer Back

[Squash]

I was reading a Las Vegas bartender's impressions of what type of people order what type of drinks. I think it was a link from a thread here.

The bum's drink was bourbon, beer back.

I know a lot of people have water back, and I have heard some have seltzer back.

What are your experiences/impressions of these?

[ratcheer]

What are your experiences/impressions of these?

None at all. If I am having bourbon, I am just having bourbon. If I am having bourbon and soda or bourbon and water, they are mixed. I cannot imagine myself wanting bourbon and beer at the same time. :skep:

Tim

[OscarV]

None at all. If I am having bourbon, I am just having bourbon. If I am having bourbon and soda or bourbon and water, they are mixed. I cannot imagine myself wanting bourbon and beer at the same time. :skep:

Tim

Yeah, what he said.

[Virus_Of_Life]

I think one of the greatest traditions in drinking is the beer back. I never started asking for it until recently, but when I want a drink and don't necessarily want to hang around a shot of Wild Turkey with a beer back is perfect!... WT Rye (or Saz jr.) is even better! I don't know, just something so very cool about getting that little bit of beer with the bourbon, 6oz. or whatever it is.

[GOCOUGS2002]

When I first read that I threw up a little in my mouth, but I will try most anything once...

[jimmoose]

I had a friend at one time that would take a shot of bourbon and drop it in a mug of beer. It wasn't cheap bourbon or cheap beer, its what he liked.

It wasn't my cup of tea and I probably couldn't stand it but its what he liked so I was fine with it. A water back or a ginger back is cool with me, beer,

I have no idea, its not what I would want but I ain't drinking it. Different

strokes.................Saw many a guy with a beer back, maybe I need to try it.

I'm a newbie so go easy on me.

jim

[funknik]

dropping the shot in the beer is typically called a Boilermaker, but c'mon a shot and a beer is classic...I like Beam White or WT (either 80 or 101) with a really good micrbrew...only out at the bar though...at home, I'm drinking either/or.

[sotnsipper]

I once tried drinking beer with a shot of whiskey (the cheap stuff mind you). I drank about a 12 pack this way one night and woke up with the absolute worse headache:banghead: I have ever had in my life. Life lesson learned....the hard way. Now, I can hardly drink a beer and much more prefer my bourbon!

[rockporter]

Very popular in college as a way to prime the evening. JD and Budweiser.

Happy to say now I sip and savor bourbon instead of Tennesse whiskey and leave the beer to others or to cook with.

[chefnash51]

a quality Russian Imperial Stout goes great with a pour of bourbon. I could never imagine drinking swill beer with bourbon.

Even better is pairing a bourbon aged beer with a glass of bourbon. They actually compliment each other quite nice.

I think the key is know the right beer to pair with the right bourbon.

[polyamnesia]

ok....i was fixin' supper (i.e., preparing dinner... ) and i had a nice pour of the WT Rye left (all gone now). instead opened up a bottle of the Phil. Brewing Co.'s "WALT WIT" belgian style ale brewed with grapefruit skin and chamomile...which are quite subtle...then remembered this thread......

so, i poured the WT rye...got a good taste...waited about 20 seconds and swallowed some of the ale....ya know, that was pretty amazing....

i guess with that rye still sparkling on the tongue and that cascade of belgian foam came across it...i got an incredible finish...taste was great!...but the finish was fresh italian bread...hot out of the oven. i did that three times...

the pasta wasn't bad...but i might have to try THAT experiment (with other variations) again!:grin: :bowdown:

then again, i can see the simple pleasure of a good ole WT101 followed by a Yuengling or an Anchor Steam...etc. etc...

[HipFlask]

I've always said everything goes good with beer. This rule has so far held true for me. So why not bourbon? I usually have the beer back with a nice bloody mary however. I would think the type of beer would really be important(No Miller or Spud lite) and I don't think I would do it with a premium bourbon either. Eagle Rare and say Yuengling perhaps. Life is too short not to try it.

[Virus_Of_Life]

I guess either I misunderstand the intention or am old school in my thought that a beer back isn't necessarily intended to 'go well' with the shot you get, but more-so to serve as a chaser for it. I understand most of us here drink our bourbon in "sips" to appreciate the taste and with that a chaser is not called for. When doing a shot though, a chaser is often needed, or at least appreciated and that is where I believe the beer back originated?

If I am getting a pour of bourbon to drink casually in a snifter (or whatever glass) I'll usually ask for an ice water just to have something else; however [as previously mentioned] if I want to get my swerve on I'll have a shot and ask for a beer back. I honestly do not like shots of many whiskeys but at times it just hits the spot and one of the few I really enjoy is a good rye such as WT.

[Jake_Parrott]

Man, sometimes a shot-and-a-beer is exactly what the doctor ordered. Favorite combos include JB 7yo and a hoppy pale, or Four Roses yellow label and a good Wit (the latter a thoroughly satisfying nightcap in Amsterdam in November).

Less recommended, palate-wise, with higher alcohol bourbons.

[Josh]

dropping the shot in the beer is typically called a Boilermaker, but c'mon a shot and a beer is classic...I like Beam White or WT (either 80 or 101) with a really good micrbrew...only out at the bar though...at home, I'm drinking either/or.

I've done it before and its quite good. Never actually expensive beer or expensive bourbon though. Like Rolling Rock & WT or Stroh's & JB White, something like that. There's one where you drop the short of tequila into a glass of Corona too, but I only did that once. Made the Corona actually drinkable.

[funknik]

ok....i was fixin' supper (i.e., preparing dinner... ) and i had a nice pour of the WT Rye left (all gone now). instead opened up a bottle of the Phil. Brewing Co.'s "WALT WIT" belgian style ale brewed with grapefruit skin and chamomile...which are quite subtle...then remembered this thread......

so, i poured the WT rye...got a good taste...waited about 20 seconds and swallowed some of the ale....ya know, that was pretty amazing....

i guess with that rye still sparkling on the tongue and that cascade of belgian foam came across it...i got an incredible finish...taste was great!...but the finish was fresh italian bread...hot out of the oven. i did that three times...

the pasta wasn't bad...but i might have to try THAT experiment (with other variations) again!:grin: :bowdown:

then again, i can see the simple pleasure of a good ole WT101 followed by a Yuengling or an Anchor Steam...etc. etc...

I think I've said this before, but beer is what got me into drinking bourbon. A little whiskey to start roughs up the tastebuds and gives beer that 'Italian bread' aftertaste the Andy is talking about to the finish...especially in a good beer...I always shoot a 'regular' bourbon (WT, JB, KC) then follow it with a nice beer (no yellow beer, please)...it only improves the beer...this is not a way to enhance the enjoyment of your bourbon, but vice-versa.

[DrinkyBanjo]

I like a beer and a shot but always with Irish Whiskey. I don't think beer/bourbon compliment each other at all.

[smokinjoe]

I usually don't intentionally order this combo, but just this week while in the hotel bar in Nashville, I kinda did. I was enjoying a nice Sierra Nevada while at the bar watching the game on the TV, when I spied the FRSB on the shelf. Couldn't control myself, so I ordered up one of those, too. A very nice combo. Very enjoyable. A sip of FRSB...pause...gulp of SN...pause...gulp of SN...pause...sip of FRSB...(Repeat...) I was thinking at the time how good this was, and that I might intentionally do this again.

So, yes I do.

[cowdery]

Shot and a beer is traditionally the working man's drink, in part due to economics. It would have been considered a trade-up from just drinking beer. It also ties in with the idea of session drinking, which is something people talk about in Great Britain more than here. Session just means you are going into an evening of drinking with a modicum of a plan, based on how much you can afford to spend, what you like, and perhaps also on a calculation of how drunk you dare get and when you want that state to be reached. The shots could be anything, and often among some of my younger friends it usually is tequila, vodka, rum or Jagermeister rather than whiskey.

"Shot and a beer" as a bar call also means you're asking for well whiskey and the house's cheapest draft beer. The "beer back" call usually follows a specific spirit call, but the orderer is still indifferent about the beer. If you are calling the beer too, you usually don't use the "beer back" terminology, you just place the two orders.

I haven't heard the boilermaker ordered as such very often. Although Wikipedia disagrees, I would say the term "boilermaker" means the spirit will be whiskey. Here again, we're talking well whiskey and draft beer. It's also not uncommon for the beer to be a pony, i.e., a smaller glass, often called, quite literally, small beer.

Again, working man's drink in working men's bars. Part of the idea was that the boilermaker would be the house special, a fixed price, and usually the cheapest way to drink, although just drinking the house draft might be cheaper. I've never known it to be served with the shot in the beer glass and don't know many people who liked to drink it that way. The shot in the beer I've also heard called a depth charge and now, commonly, a ______-bomb, e.g., a Jager Bomb.

Again, in the tradition of working men's bars, if you were drinking straight whiskey, period, you were probably looking to get plastered as quickly as possible. The shot-and-a-beer call was an indicator of sociability.

Personally, I might get a beer back when I feel like a whiskey but I'm also thirsty, though I probably get water back most of the time. Sometimes, though, there's nothing quite so refreshing as chasing a good whiskey with a cold lager.

In a working men's bar, whiskey rocks, whiskey and water, whiskey and soda, etc., would have been considered effete or pretentious, that being the way whiskey was taken among the middle and upper classes, the middle class being nothing but a bunch of aspiring snobs anyway.

A little bit higher class call for the exact same thing is to order a whiskey with a beer chaser. You just don't hear that word--"chaser"--much these days.

What whiskey? It would depend on where you're drinking. Certainly in the south it would be bourbon. Pre-prohibition it would have been rye in a lot of places. In the Northeast it might be blended whiskey. In the midwest it might be Canadian.

It's never been wrong to ask the bartender to show you what's in the well, within reason of course.

[OscarV]

I haven't heard the boilermaker ordered as such very often. Although Wikipedia disagrees, I would say the term "boilermaker" means the spirit will be whiskey. Here again, we're talking well whiskey and draft beer. It's also not uncommon for the beer to be a pony, i.e., a smaller glass, often called, quite literally, small beer.

.

[QUOTE][/QUOTE]

How about a call for a shot and a short beer?

I remember when I first started at the beer distributor I work for, (1977), that we had 8oz bottles of "longnecks" that we sold only to bars.

[cowdery]

As I meditated on this some more, I remembered bars where you always got a short beer when you ordered a whiskey, at no extra charge, and you had to speak up if you didn't want it.

[polyamnesia]

I like a beer and a shot but always with Irish Whiskey. I don't think beer/bourbon compliment each other at all.

[cowdery]

The depth charge is basically a stunt, as the idea is to drink the beer, then chug the shot at the end as it comes racing toward your mouth. No real drinking man wants to worry about beaning himself with an errant shot glass. I have known guys who poured the whiskey into the beer, though. I've tried that. It tastes like beer with a little bit of whiskey in it, which improves neither. More common still is the guy who shoots the shot, then chugs the beer. Rarer is the civilized man who savors both.

[callmeox]

With all of those options, I couldn't help but think of the scene in Caddyshack where an obviously drunk Lacy Underall and Ty Webb are sitting behind the electronic keyboard with tequila, salt, and lemon wedges in front of them.

After doing a shot with a lick of salt before and a lemon wedge after, she mentions that it tastes bad. Ty says "you're doing it wrong" and immediately snorts the salt off his hand, tosses the tequila over his shoulder and sucks the lemon.

That scene busts me up every time.

[ILLfarmboy]

Not to get too off topic but in the movie Brannigan John Wayne orders a boilermaker and has to explain to the English barkeep that its a whiskey 'neat' and a glass of beer.

To stay on topic, I have no personal experience with a beer back since I'm not a beer drinker but I have seen this combination ordered. Perhaps, to some extent, it is going out of fashion in this area. When I first started drinking in bars it seemed more common.

The idea of a "depth charge" just sounds disgusting. I have seen it done. Not with whiskey dropped into a beer but something else, Jagermeister, maybe. I want to say it was called a root-beer float. Heck, it may not even have been beer that the shot was dropped into.