"Tinned" Liquors?

here, the plastic bottled beers are most popular with those who choose their beer by cost/alcohol ratio.

here, unless you are buying it "bring your own bottle" AKA growlers, all bottles get smashed and recast, nowadays. we are long past the age where the bottlers would sterilize and refill until the bottle was frosted glass instead of clear glass. but our soda bottles weren't exchangeable - the labels were painted on.

addendum: and yes, by alcohol/cost ratio, I mean dodgy.

Ah, Yes, now, now you mention it, I didnt think of that one?.
Yes there has been a push to make all sports stadiums and public events glass free, and certain breweries have started producing plastic replica's of their glass bottles just for those events....
But not the standard 2ltr "Pop" bottle variety you get say Fanta/Tango/Supermarket own brand in?..

I went to a recent beer festival where they were dispensing real live beer into plastic pint pots.
I gave up on modern society when a Brewer's pride of what they produce festival has to have a "Plastic pot" ruling enforced on it?.
And they dont like it if you take your own either.
20/30 Yrs ago, you would see Beer festival goers going to the festival with a pewter handle-with-a-pot-on hung from a hook on their belt.
Yeah I had my own Mug, as a landlord attending, you were often presented with one, especially if you asked about ordering certain brews, but not hung from my belt, I wasnt ever that "trendy".... [/sarcasm?...]

wouldn't touch any beer like that. sounds like utterly nasty, on par with "auto filler" systems.

lager should be hand pulled, have about 2-3 cm foam on top and should be topped with a spatula to prevent the foam from forming big bubbles and collapsing.

pilsner is a style of lager

named after the pale lager made in pilsen first.

The Art of the trained bar staff is to poor a beer with a head that fills the gap from the line, the "paint" mark that is the origin of Pint, up to that with liquid, and leave the space above that in the glass with a perfect head, that holds all the way down the glass as you drink it.
You Dont need a spatula if you poor it right in the first place.?..

Un-Gassed beer, "Meat and two veg" on a hand pump, the first draw is energetic to form a head, the second two draws on the pump are to fill the glass with beer through that head, it should be no more than an inch of head, in fact three quarters an inch of head is about just right, and the beer should clear gradually, but the head stay, again, as you drink it to the bottom of the glass, presuming you dont spend more than 20 mins drinking one pint.

Experience is what is needed, but good bar staff should get that basic experience in the first day of working, and get better the more they do.
Bar staff, good bar staff, is 90% customer relations, and the rest is knowing where everything is, supplying the perfect product that pours right and getting the pumps "tuned" and clean to dispense a perfect pint is 100% of what a good landlord or bar manager should be doing.
The other 100% of his job is balancing the books.
Yeah, you read that right, 200%, never yet met a good landlord that doesnt put in 18hr days and do twice the amount of work he gets paid for to keep the place running right?.
Its a job you do as a lifestyle choice, its all done for the love of the job, not the money.
Although the money is nice... buys you some toys that does... like a bench saw, and a reach and twist chop saw that has a 3 axis cutting ability.
And the occasional chain saw, and car, and keeps the family in what they need as well.

Lager its self is "just" a form of beer, it comes from the Germanic world "lagerbier" of storing and brewing at cold temperature, where the yeast is active at the bottom of the beer and not the top, but basically its the same method as other beers minus heat?.
Its the same ingredients, basic ingredients, as other forms of "bitter" and other beers, but the yeast used allows maturation at a low temp, and therefore brewing without heating and storage is easier.

The Cold Brew yeast, the person that invented it, or discovered it rather, translated it into many different languages, all BUT Germanic, legend has it his Wife ran off with a German Milkman, but as he wasnt married at the time, there must have been some reason?.
But that strand of yeast "originally" came from a mould that grows on Gourds.
From South America, or Africa, cant remember which there, but its also proof that there was a lot of worldwide trade at the time, more than we expected?.

Pilsner, the difference is mainly the heavy use of Hops in a pale-er lagerbier, again just a small variation in basic ingredients, originally from a distinct area, but now just the name for a certain way of brewing, much like Champagne is a Fizzy Wine, but being its from the champagne valley in France, the name is used to donate a wine made "that way" that was made famous by that area.
Fizzy wine was nothing new at the time, its just that that area made an awful LOT of it and made it "posh"....

In UK, you hear "Bitter" and "Mild" as donations of different beers, Bitters and hops are the main parts that make it distinct, where Bitters are a Type of hops blended with certain other plant material, burdock root, dandelion, marigold, horehound, where Horehand is a name for a plant that is originally known as Mountain Hops in Germanic, Berghopfen, and they do throw in the occasional heather, and often a lot of other plants that grow locally that are known to be digestible.

Hops are known to be Anti-Bacterial, originally not used in beers, but then they discovered that the addition of Hops allowed the beer to keep for longer without spoiling, and the extra taste became desirable as well.

Me and Homebrew...
The term "Session" ale is not just slang for a week beer that you can drink lots of so is good for a long session, but is a term used to denote an easy form of beer that was better than drinking water at the time, and therefore was better for drinking in larger quantities, because a workforce works better when not half-cut.

I made a few...

But then went on to making special brews of exotic recipes I had found that were "Of historical importance".
Erm..
Yeah.
Some of them were rather nice.
I had a plan to start my own Micro brewery in the pub, but found getting a licence to brew commercially was rather "Difficult" at that time.
Mainly because I was in a "clean air" area and they believed the fumes from brewing may pollute the area?.

All I wanted was the ability to do maybe a Polypin, Nine gallons, max, per week, as a "thing" on historical beers as educational, no more than maybe a homebrew, but, brewing on licensed premises is a lot more tricky than you would believe.
Especially if it were to be "for sale"... taxation issues dontcha know?..
And also Especially for me, as this was my first time being the actual licence-holder Landlord.
I was sort of "On probation" because even though experienced, I was kinda new to the job of actual landlord licensee...
If I had have been there for a few years, maybe they would have been easier on me?.
Maybe if I had been married to my wife at that time who already held a certificate for food production licence type thing, that would have helped as well, but as we didnt get married for a few years, being we only JUST met at that time, yeah, hindsight is perfect 20/20 isnt it?.

Lets deal with this one bit at a time.
Gas mixtures in Beer, we have a variety, 60/40 and 70/30 being the usual mix of N to Co₂, where you are serving Guiness, that needs that fine grain head, smaller bubbles.
If you start putting 70/30 into say a Lager beer, after a few days, the lager will start to poor flat, taste flat, and go flat quicker.
The particles in Guniness that is a clouds beer can hold a finer gas, the particles in a clear lager beer can not, so you get excessive off-gassing as its pored, and it goes flatter quicker.

You mention He...
No.
That would be dangerous to Humans to consume, not just the squeaky voice thing, but it does get absorbed by the blood and replaces O2, which can be dangerous, and may give the drinker a mild "Bends" reaction?..

The mixes of gas that have been produced and used in the industry have been carefully researched to fit the product that you are making and do as little damage to either the product or the consumer as possible.

For any gas you want to use, check out warnings on human consumption, and what it may do to blood chemistry, before you gas a beer with it?.
And yes it is that simple.
If that gas is dangerous to breath in quantities, its not that good to drink it suspended in liquid either.
Nitrogen and Co₂ are common gasses in our atmosphere that are either waste gas we produce ourselves anyway or non reactive to the human condition.

To change the character of your beers, as you may see by the post I just posted above, try changing the mix of what you put in.
Caramel.
That is a high sugar content thing that aids Yeast fermentation...Its also an after-fermentation additive that "Calms down" an over-bitter brew.

And a final suggestion, I have a friend who swears by throwing in a good handful of Raisins in his mash.
I think its more to do with the fruit sugars and what effect they have on the fermentation of the yeast, but, it does have some effect on the taste, for me, rather sweet after taste, but he loves it?.

So play about with local edible flora, and try an addition of fruit, I have tasted a distinct "Orange" flavoured brew he nicknamed Marmalade, from one local micro-brewery, the taste was definitely distinct and original, the Jury is still "out" on if I liked it or not, but as it was far from undrinkable but rather interesting and maybe I would get to like it, I dunno yet?.

But for Gas, unless you are doing a clouds heavy Porter type beer, keep the Nitrogen to a minimum in the mix, stick to Co₂ as you main gas, play instead with ingredients, try different grain mixes, and, dont forget, Rice is a grain, and Rice Beer is something that they drink in the far east, but hasnt yet made it popular over here.

The initial mash is all important, get that right, you are onto a winner.
You make the mash turn into Wort, that the yeast feeds on, and that is what gives you the initial flavours, so start with initials, get base flavours, make wort, add hops, clarify that, add the extra notes at any stage, play about with what stage you add certain ingredients, pre- or post fermentation, check maturation, and how you do that, is maturing on an old sherry barrel better than just plastic, then final clarification, filtered or not, there are plenty of variables to play with in how you produce, if I tried to mention them all, I would break the server with a post so long its unreadable?.

But the gas is just there to form a head.
Some people like a head, others not.
Personally?. I much prefer a Non-gassed beer through a Fine Sparkler head on a tap with a hand pump to create the firm head when pulling the pint that clings to the side of the glass all the way down and lasts at least 20 mins.
That and a good beer, priceless perfection.
That with a good bitter hop brew, aids digestion dont ya know?.. VERY good for you.
Hops are very good for the digestion, check Wikapedia and the likes for more on that.

when I was reading the menu in the local chain pub. (I think I've posted them before, they buy up old properties and make destination pubs. each pub develops its own recipes and then they cross-ship them. their beer list is a multiple page pamphlet for those who like to read. - they had a raspberry beer on tap at the time. but it also gives you the idea - they have some beers that have three or four malts in the initial mash, and three or four varieties of hops added at specific times. then another local introduction - some pubs here have taken to filtering the finished beer through a filter body loaded with hops for a final shot of flavor. in specific IPAs, of course.

www.mcmenamins.com/

it also bears mentioning that hops are a shirttail cousin to cannabis, and allegedly have some of the same mellowing properties, though not in such concentration as to be smokable to get high. - but there is the claim that people drunk on beer are more convivial than those drunk on other things, because of the hops.