mrken30

The Brits generally drink enough beer to make any beer taste good. What is the definition of a good beer? If you asked the teenagers when I was growing up special brew would have been a good beer because it got you drunk more quickly.

The best thing about going for a pint in the UK is the environment and sometimes the pub food to go with the beer.

I do like a double IPA which is hard to find in the UK

Anian

Agree, although maybe disagree on the definitions of well brewed and kept.

Those are beer snobs and they are missing out on loads of very good beer due to their dumb "purity" restrictions. There aren't that many of those kinds of people, fortunately, but they tend to give all the other beer enthusiasts a bad reputation due to their snobbishness and know-it-all holier-than-thou nature.

robin1234

I started going to the pub in England in the mid sixties. Most of those pubs (the Halfway House, the Anchor, the Rorty Crankle, the Beehive, the White Hart, the Kentish Volunteer ... still exist, and look about the same from the outside, but needless to say, gutted and totally different institutions inside.

The Beehive had never graduated to that modern invention, the hand pump. The landlord would descend into the cellar and bring up the beer in large jugs. They can only have held a few pints at a time, so he (they) must have gone up & down through the hatch hundreds of times a night. The landlords were an elderly couple, whether brothers or a gay couple I cannot now remember.

Westerham Ales, that house was. Others were Friary Meux or Fremlins. Friary Meux was owned by a massive multi national, Fremlins and Westerham Ales were independent. Being close to London, plenty of other breweries were represented too.

Then, early seventies, CAMRA emerged. It certainly served a useful purpose in documenting the state of the industry at that time. I remember reading the good beer guides like the bible, after all there was no World Wide Web at that time. I read about Norfolk, a real ale desert .... all the breweries had been bought up by Watneys and closed down. A high proportion of pubs had been closed down and sold off too.

Now, Norfolk is not so dire. Watneys disappeared, I believe, and there are several new, local & regional breweries around. The Grain Brewery is particularly to be commended. The Oak and the best bitter are both very good. One of their pubs in Norwich they only serve drinks, no food menu! And it has a very pleasant garden too. Http://www.grainbrewery.co.uk/ourdrinks/cask.php

Yeah, the Plough on St. Benedicts. Worth mentioning, just to demonstrate their minimalist website http://theploughnorwich.co.uk

Grayling

Agree
Greene king is still a blot on the East Anglian landscape although, to be fair, they still produce a few good real ales including Abbot which can be wonderful if well Kept.
GK also allow their tenants to stock guest beers and my local, although a Greene King house is able to stock 10 different ales at a time including from our local (Cambridge) brewery Milton, and Three Bind Mice brewery. There is also the Two Rivers brewery in West Norfolk which has some good stuff.....in fact this area must now be about one of the best in the country for proper pubs and Ale....and not a single fruit machine, Jukebox or Television in the ones I frequent

HumphreyC

FWIW I live in bit of a 'beer desert' here in North central Massachusetts but my town still has a brew pub that serves non pasteurized cask ale brewed on premises.

The craft brew industry here is great but it has to work with the American consumer who still insists on 'ice cold beer' (thus killing the flavor). American beer certainly doesn't deserve the bad rap - though there is a lot of room for improvement.

I think last time I checked that the UK has many more breweries per capita than the US - in fact more than any other country. We should probably be a little less modest about that.

Pulaski

If his article and the embedded graphic is correct, the UK, in breweries per capita is a little behind the US, and a good way behind Canada but a long way behind Switzerland.

robin1234

Problem with Canada - much as I love the country - the mediocre is usually good enough. Certainly applies to beer. When I find myself in a pub in Ontario, I usually order a Fullers London Pride.

Pulaski

Canada, aka "America lite".

robin1234

Certainly appropriate in a beer thread

Oakvillian

When was the last time you were in a pub in Ontario? That's about as out of date a viewpoint as "all American beer is like making love in a canoe." There are a lot of fine small local breweries hereabouts making really rather good beer. Often difficult to find, it's true, because of our province's particularly stupid licensing and retailing laws, but they're there if you know where and how to look.

robin1234

Hmm .. when in Brockville, we often go to the Keystorm or the Union Jack. In Prescott, we tried the Red George but were unimpressed (food was bloody awful.) Ottawa, we end up in the Earl of Sussex fairly often, food is pretty good there, and they have a good line up of beer & wine. When flying out of YOW, we often eat in the Royal Oak that's nearby. I'm afraid I can't remember specifics of beers I've tried and found disappointing ... One IPA that absolutely wasn't an IPA! But I cannot now remember the brewery..

I'd appreciate recommendations if you know Ottawa, Brockville and environs! I realise the Royal Oak brand in Ottawa is just a mediocre chain, but convenient for a meal on occasion...

dc koop

I invariably tend to critique the first beer I drink. After 12 I don't give a shit what it tastes like

Ash UK/US

Ahhhh yes the same people who believe all English people drink warm beer

Hiro11

Exactly my point. I like whatever tastes good to me, I couldn't care less about "the rules".

kimilseung

I prefer cask, because I get bloated on keg. In a craft brewery pub I will ask if they have cask. as I will often prefer whatever it is to the alternatives. Often this leads, to, "yes we 24 types of cask on tap". This alerts me that they dont have any. I dont expect everyone to know what a cask is, but I get surprised when they dont in brew pubs.