Best beers in the UK?
Feb 7th, 2002, 06:04 AM
#1
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Best beers in the UK?
My wife and I are traveling to London for a week in March and although she could care less, I must seek out many good pints. I'm partial to darker beers, but I'm really looking for the best of each (ale/lager/stout/etc). A few questions:<BR><BR>1. Can anyone recommend a few really good local (UK/Irish) brands in each category?<BR><BR>2. Can anyone recommend another European beer I must try while I'm over there? Are these 'fruity Belgian beers' all they're cracked up to be?<BR><BR>3. Without going too much into the 'best pub in <insert British locale here>' debate, can someone recommend a few good (less touristy the better) pubs which pour excellent pints or offer excellent beer selections?<BR><BR>Thanks a lot,<BR>Jeff
Feb 7th, 2002, 06:51 AM
#2
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Be sure to look for (or ask for) the hand-pulled 'real' ales, also called Cask Ales. If I went to a pub in London and they didn't have any I'd go out and find another pub. <BR><BR>One old pub I enjoyed was The Anchor, near the Old Globe and the Tate Modern. Lots of little rooms, food upstairs, good selection of real ales. Another is the Bunch of Grapes (don't recall what neighborhood). A very historic one is The George Inn in Southwark. <BR><BR>I didn't worry too much about brands, since as long as the cask was fresh I enjoyed the ale. Most pubs have only one or two real ales so I'd order whatever they had. I'll check my old notes to see which ones I liked the most (and maybe I'll find the area for the Bunch of Grapes, too). <BR><BR>Check out www.pubs.com for pub info.
Feb 7th, 2002, 07:50 AM
#6
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Have a look at the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) website - www.camra.org.uk<BR><BR>Among all sorts of other stuff, they list UK beer festivals by month. Beer festivals in the UK are not of the Munich Oktoberfest variety. They are more designed around tasting (and yes, drinking, of course) some of the smaller and less well known makes of beer, and if you really like beer they can be well worth a visit. I don't know whether they are all alike, but the odd one I've been to has generally been pretty civilised.
