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I don't drink beer, but you need CAMRA
Or the 2000 beers from Delirium Tremens

Its balanced, lots of hops, IPA classic, only good fresh, and its smooth

If it's got "lots of hops" by American standards it is not anything "classic".

India Pale Ale - the real stuff, as from Burton-upon-Trent - is only considered hoppy by British standards. American breweries have been on an over-the-top hops kick the last 15 years and they put it in all sorts of beers that aren't supposed to have an overpowering hops flavor. The dominant flavor of any IPA you purchase from a Real Ale vendor in the UK is malt, although certainly it's far hoppier than Guinness and hoppier than a typical pub bitter.

American pseudo-IPAs have become their own thing, a noveau IPA if you will, that has little connection to the classic form. Nearly all modern American microbrews are severely unbalanced, to my taste - too much hops for full appreciation of the other, more subtle flavors. You may as well drink sake! English Real Ales, on the other hand, are wonderful, and there are certainly exceptions to the massively overhopped trend in American beer... Lancaster Brewery for example.

then how come i can't have real glass in a bar?

You get your not real glass to go with your not real ale.

Wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cask_ale#Real_ale
http://www.cask-ale.co.uk/us/realale.html
http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=100330

Real ale is fresh living beer that undergoes a natural second fermentation in the cask. Like any natural live product, the beer will mature age and ultimately go off. Real Ale must therefore be drunk within a strict timescale. Real ales requires proper handling on its way to the pub, and care within the pub to bring it to condition for serving. However, real ale can reach its full flavour potential, without chilling, filtration, pasteurisation and added gas.

Keg Beer, mass produced, often pasteurised, dead, with C02 gas added. The reason it is chilled is to inhibit a natural secondary fermentation.

Campaign for Real Ale definition of Real Ale.

I've always viewed it as a cabal of ancient gummy git-wizards, with a three foot beard and lifetime membership of the Campaign for Real Ale being pre-requisites for membership.

As far as I can see it, the current Grand High Git-Wizard rescued the BCS from total irrelevance, and is actually in danger of making it an organisation with a purpose. This angers the other git-wizards, who want to get back to the real business of the BCS: finally concluding the debate over whether the PDP-11 was a retrograde step from the PDP-8.

Try a Budweiser here, too. They're the real thing, not the Anheiser Busch dog's piss. Try a cider or a scrumpy as well. You'll weep for what could have been next time you have a "bud" or a Strongbow.

If you fancy trying local brews, you can buy the Campaign for Real Ale's Good Beer Guide: http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=192602 . They sell it in book, ebook, and GPS POI file formats. Also look for the casque mark sign on pub entrances. They identify pubs that sell proper cask ales, and have proper cellaring and handling conditions. http://www.cask-marque.co.uk/

Regarding your power adaptor, any Maplins, Dixon's, Currys will sell North American to British adaptors. If you're flying through Heathrow T3, there's a last-chance duty free after baggage claim that sells them for £5. Muji sells a good, cheap all-countries adaptor as well, but its heavy and big.

Depending on how long you stay there, if it's more than a week, try to find a neighbourhood pub (a real one preferably, not one of those modern things) and meet the locals. Pubs are an important part of the British social life.

True, but declining sharply as people stay in to watch TV :-(

Don't worry about our reputation for being reserved: we can be (when sober), but that just means we don't tend to strike up converations with strangers. We're usually more than happy for strangers to start conversations with us. (One for the psychology geeks.)

And don't ever order US beer. Try the local bitters, see if they have any local breweries, try anything you've never heard of. Beware, they are served warm by US standards (where any drink is served just above solidification temperature). Putting ice in your beer will be considered weird.

True. Warm beer is as much an abomination to the British drinker as it is for the American, but bitter should be cool, not cold. And not all beers are equal. Look for Cask Marque or CaMRA recommendations.

I think that last 1/4 ml approximation is as close as to not really matter.

I can only assume you're not a CAMRA member ;-)

This is why I prefer real ale. No bubbles.

Actually that's not true; I prefer it because lager tastes of arse.

Beer, being boiled water, kept people from disease for centuries (millenia?) before.

I wouldn't want to be operating machinery though.

Just as well I won't be operating any after going to The Great British Beer Festival tomorrow :)

Go go captain over-generalisation!

There are many very good English beers from microbreweries etc. Seek and ye shall find, e.g. see this guide if "Real Ale" (cask-conditioned, no extra carbonation) is your thing. (As a bonus the pubs serving it tend to be old or otherwise interesting, e.g. I type this a short distance from The Crescent in Salford, Manchester where Marx and Engels met to discuss Communist theory.)

The majority of the mass-market stuff drunk in our pubs is of foreign origin or foreign varieties locally brewed under license anyway : Carlsberg, Heineken, Kronenberg, Guinness, recently Magners cider etc. One of our most popular lagers (because it's generally the cheapest) is Carling, brewed by ... umm, Coors. It's no better than OK, but goes down well on the rare occasions we have a sunny day.

(damn 'slow down cowboy' filter, ffs how long do I have to wait this time, yes I know make an account etc)

In beer at least

I can live with it if it's even remotely like this

Bob

The most successful pressure group to date is The Campaign for Real Ale. No other group can compare, nor offer a wider range of beer.

Actually, the _really_ best thing we did in Australia was work out how to keep the beer cold, but that other stuff is still pretty high on the list.

Try a Camra compatible ale at one time - it's fine at room temperature.

British beer can hardly be classed as "shit".
You've obviously only sampled the nasty pop lagers that the big corporate brewers churn out.

If you dig around a bit you can find some excellent brews like Hobgoblin, FireCrest, Spitfire, London Pride.. the list is endless. Thanks to organisations like camra the small superior breweries should be here to stay too...

Specially blended and ground
espresso coffee beans are
added to the copper along with
the late hops to produce this
dark, rich stout.

I, too, enjoy a draught when I overheat; my favourites being Guinness or my own home brew.
I am sad, however, when there is a drought and I cannot enjoy same ;^)

Cambridge beer festival in 10 days, mmm... ;-)

Cambridge beer festival in 10 days, mmm... ;-)

I think you'll find that the Guinness in the States (and in the UK) is pasteurised, while that in the Republic of Ireland is normally still live - like the difference between Watney's Red Barrel and a real ale.

Whether I'm correct or not, I do know that virtually all the Guinness drunk in the UK is brewed at Park Royal in London, while the Republic of Ireland's Guinness is brewed in Dublin. The different waters would definitely have an effect on the flavour, although I doubt the water alone would make the bubbles behave differently :-)

Not according to here, where you can find statistics stating that Brussels is on average both colder and wetter than London.

I can't comment on transport, I've never needed to use it in Belgium. ;)

The UK is insular compared to the cultural mix in Belgium.

Having lived on a street where there were no less (and probably more) than five first languages spoken I would doubt that Belgium is any more culturally diverse than the UK.

Belgian girls are way cuter than British girls

Personally, I've found cute girls in just about every country I've been to, in around the same proportions.

There are some good beers in the UK these days but they're largely inspired by Belgian brews

I'm sure if you looked round you could find plenty of British "real ales" that AREN'T inspired by Belgium.

Brussels is 1.5 hours by train [snip] from London

Journeys work in both directions.

Belgium has a relaxed attitude to soft drugs

A policy that is being rapidly adopted by the UK at the moment.

We do not believe it's our moral obligation to topple foreign dictators just because they pull faces at us.

Not according to the hardware you sent to Iraq in the last gulf war.

I would never search "camras"...

I wasn't aware that CAMRA was up for sale...:-)

Australians don't touch the shit.

Well, duh.

Re:Been drinking Fosters, eh?

Nope, been drinking decent English ale.

This really does give a whole new meaning to CAMRA

P

The usefulness of this device depends entirely on the kind of pub it takes you to.

It would be a tragedy if such a device were only able to offer the locations of trendy bars which only sell loathesome fizzy piss.

Obviously, it should use the CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) database of pub locations, so that you can always be assured of a good beer at the end of your journey.