The UK has a very old and rich beer culture. Cask beer is unique to the UK, mostly. I can’t go anywhere and have a pint of cask anything, in the US. I think that it’s awesome that so many breweries in England are taking pride in there local ingredients. After all, beer styles, for centuries were a result of their environment.
I first found out about "real ale" from the TV show Come Dine With Me. Unfortunately, this was *after* I visited England. I will have to pay it another visit to steep myself in the magic of real ale.
So happy to see Theakston's Old Peculiar (2:58) - we used to travel 25 miles every Friday just to get to the only bar in southern England that sold it from the barrel (wooden). By the late 80s, they had found ways to transport it safely further afield, with a small drop in quality, but still one of the best ale's I ever had - memories...and some lost ones too!
After nearly 40 years in England I returned to the USA to find nothing but American ales that taste so fruity and nothing like a pint of real ale such as London pride, Old Specled Hen, Green King, HB. Even Newcastle Brown Ale changed their recipe for the ‘American Taste’ preference.
Just came back from the largest liquor store in my whole city. 5 aisles, 6 giant fridges full of HUNDREDS of beer brands. Found ONE decent british ale - Samuel Smith Nut Brown, and ONE american brown ale from a local microbrew. While both tasted great, I was so disappointed by the sheer lack of diversity of beers in general, despite living in a city with one of the HIGHEST number of small breweries in the whole country. No wonder beer sales are dropping in the US....
Alessandro has complained about the lack of British imports in the U.S. too. Im a little luckier here in Canada, but could still use a massive improvement there.
@@BeerBrackets Don't think I've ever even seen a Canadian brand, and i live on the border state. Another big problem is that... many of the local microbreweries are just... well, bad. Out of 100 or so breweries we have just 1 distributing a brown ale onto shelves, since bars and diners don't really count. My gripe is that one is tastes palpanly worse than Sam Smith, while prices are the same. Like I want to support my small local businesses don't get me wrong, but not like this.
@@lars2894 It's so true, I've tried a few locally brewed brown ales or english bitters and I haven't found one from a microbrewery here yet that has matched the quality of a british import. Such an underappreciated category of beer.
You guys need to get a hold of Victoria Bitter a real Australian beer not like Fosters. I liked it while visiting Sydney a couple years ago. Hard to get in the USA.
It seems like the number of British ales available in the US has decreased in the past decade. I lived for a summer in the London area near a Fullers pub. There’s nothing better than a hand pulled Fullers ESB. The bottle version is no longer imported to the US.
Alessandro has told me the same thing about the availability of British ales in the US. It’s definitely strange, I wonder if they just weren’t selling enough to justify the distribution.
I feel like the "real ale" method was brushed over, host pouring a beer and checking it out while the explanation of a fundamental core difference was being highlighted. Instead focusing on hops. I get speaking to buzzwords but who is the target audience for the channel? If discussing champagne do we focus on a place and admire the colour while an expert highlights that the bubbles come from the double ferment