mybeerbuzz Beer Travels – UK & Wales

For anyone playing along with the home version of mybeerbuzz, I thought you may be interested in some of the beer-details from my recent trip overseas.  Over the next few weeks I’ll post up some of the photos, but I wanted to start the series with a little beer info.

We flew into London Heathrow airport, and of course on final approach you quickly realize that London and the rest of the UK really embrace the beer culture.  As you fly over the outskirts of London, you can clearly read FULLERS BREWERY on the roof of the Fuller Brewery building.  We were also luck enough to drive by the brewery on our way into the city and smell the sickeningly sweet aroma of malt on a hot summer day.

Our trip took us through London and a few other English cities, but most of our time was spend in Wales so we naturally chased beers everywhere we went.  The bar culture in the UK is decidedly different than in the US.  In the UK, most pubs are “owned” or contracted by a local brewery, and as such they feature only the beers sold by that brewery and it’s subsidiaries.  They do have some “free” pubs that are not contracted and do serve whatever they want (like in the US), but they are few and far between, and the locals tell me the “free” bars are constantly under pressure to contract.

As far as the beers themselves, not only is the selection in the UK unusual, but the beers are too.  I am happy to report that CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ales) is alive and kicking in the UK.  Most every bar we hit featured at least two and sometimes as many as 9 or 10 hand pump beers.  Like in the US these beers are not charged with Co2 or Nitrogen, but unlike the US they are served at “cellar” temperatures, making them feel slightly warmer.  Naturally these kegs come and go very rapidly (in order to keep them fresh) so quite often when you requested a beer, the server would evaluate your pour, and many times declare it too hazy (or “kicked” as we would say in the US).  Yes you sometimes get a free beer, but this happened 6 or 7 times to us over the week which seemed too frequent to be a coincidence.

Beer in the UK is served in pints or “halfs”, and by default you get a “half” or half-pint unless you specifically request a pint (and of course we did every time.)  We also noted that extremes do not exist in the UK.  Most every beer we tried came in somewhere between 3.9% abv and 5.4% abv, with anything over 5% being considered “strong.”  We were also very surprised to find what they considered to be “extra bitter” or “extra hoppy” compared to the US.  Needless to say their hop presence is VERY mild.  We also noted quite a few “smooth” style beers, and while I can’t confirm all of them, most seemed to be a traditional English bitter style beer served with nitrogen charging…and yes they cascaded out like a good Guinness pour.  And finally I can confirm for those that asked, Guinness in the UK is slightly better than it is in the US, but not NEARLY as good as it is in Ireland.

From a pricing standpoint, a typical “half” was around 1 pound 70 (about $2.50) and a typical pint on hand pump was around  3 pounds (about $4.50).  Tipping doesn’t seem to exist, but we did manage to buy our server a beer on one particularly large beer order by saying, “and one for you.”  This is apparently a common practice in the UK.

Our first picture from the trip (top) comes to us from Rose St near Trafalgar Square in London at the Lamb & Flag pub.  They had a total of 6 hand-pumps (3 upstairs and 3 down) and quite a list of standard taps including, John Smith Smooth Carlsberg, Guinness, 1664 Cold, Fosters, Guinness Extra Cold and a few other fairly common beers (see photo above).

Sadly after flying all night and wandering into the Lamb & Flag, I can’t remember what the three hand-pumps were, but I assure you we tried them all.  Stay tuned for more photos to come and cheers from the UK.