BEER

Today we are going to talk about beer! Because everyone loves beer. And it's what we drink when we're not drinking tea here.

Scottish culture pretty much revolves around pubs. It's a very egalitarian situation - you alternate buying the drinks with whoever is keeping pace with you - and the Scots can drink. I feel like my 4 years of undergrad were training for UK drinking - I am now confident in my ability to drink from 4pm until 11 pm, having eaten lunch at 12:30, with dinner at 8pm (this is not uncommon) AND NOT SAY OR DO ANYTHING STUPID.

So! Beer!

Unsurprisingly, not many American beers make it over here. And if they are here, either a) they're usually pretty good American beers or b) you're in a nice pub. Sierra Nevada is pretty popular, and I've seen a couple places that had Sam Adams and Brooklyn Lager (I was excited). That said, you can get a bottle of Budweiser in most places (Light beer doesn't exist here, so Bud Light is out of the question.) You can also sometimes get Miller Genuine Draft, and then laugh about it because you know it's shit! Last week I had both Miller and Corona, because they were The Cheap Beer Special. We should probably start being embarrassed about anything that you can buy in a 30 rack. Blue Moon is starting to trickle over here, which is hilarious, however - I keep seeing it as a "specialty bottled beer".

The cheapest of the cheap beers here are infinitely better than American cheap beers. The big one here is Tennants, which is made in Glasgow. Tennants is sort of like Budweiser in that nobody actually likes it, but everyone will drink it. Stella and Peroni are both pretty popular, though I have no idea why- one is infinitely worse than the other (hint: Peroni > Stella.) Other cheap beers include Belhaven, Grolsh, Heineken, Kronenbourg, and Budweiser Budvar (which I assure you is different than Budweiser.) Guinness isn't always cheap, but it's easy to get. And, of course, every country needs their hipster beer. We don't have PBR here (but everyone who has been to the states LOVES pbr, it's hilarious); hipster beer here is Red Stripe. These are all pretty cheap, they're about £2 or £3 at a pub. You can get most of these - except for Red Stripe, you need to be able to identify your hipsters - on tap. Tennants and Belhaven are on tap at every single pub ever, and most places will have one or two others on tap too.

The UK also has cider, which is amazing. Well, we have it in the states, but not in the same way. Basically: you can buy a two-liter of alcohol that tastes like apples for about £2.50 at almost any store that sells alcohol, and it will fuck you up. It also comes on tap, in bottles and in cans. There's a couple major brands: Strongbow and Bulmer's are the two big ones, and then there are some smaller breweries around (Addleston's is good and I think the main local one). A good rule for cider is "the cloudier it is the more you will get fucked up". I really like cider but that's a slippery slope to go down sometimes!

There are some really good local brews too - Deuchar's IPA is made in Caledonia, and it's amazing. I don't usually like IPAs and this is fantastic. Alloa is made in some place called Clackmannanshire, they've got a great beer called Good Times ("Hiya, can I get two Good Times?" sounds ridiculous, but it's delicious) and they make porter called Midnight Sun which is very good too. Caley is heavy; I'm not a big fan but maybe you are. There's a whole group of ales called Heather Ales, which are fantastic, but again not if you're going to be drinking them for a long time.

I happen to really like Hefenweizens, which are German wheat beers - we're close to Germany, so those are easy to come by; naturally I am very pleased. I've had a couple of real German Hefenweizens, and they were lovely, but alas I cannot spell them (I can barely pronounce them).