Hey, if an American came to the UK and said that, then aside from the inflammatory (dogshit) comment, I couldn’t disagree.
I certainly couldn’t tell her that she’s just ignorant or looking in the wrong places – she would be right to say this.
pdts
Oh and I looked at that list again – it is out of date, in that some places on there no longer serve cask ale, or they only have it very occasionally.
And I know that two of the places on around here that do have it, have a British general/bar manager.
These brave missionaries are bringing real ale to the American heathens, but there’s a long way to go yet.
pdts
Now, now. Let’s just all have a beer and relax.
Barmaid, bring my friend pdts here a Bud Light!
C’mon ptds.
You know that stereotype about British food? You’re doing the same, but about US beer. Both have had a horrible nadir (WWII food rationing for us, Prohibition for them) and the long aftermath is yet to completely unravel in either country. Both countries have awoken an old tradition, and both are accepting of outside influence, and both are doing great things. So there. 
Thanks! I actually quite like all beers, including most of the bud light types. After two or three cans it gets a bit too metallic, but up to that point why not enjoy it? It’s like the dollar menu cheeseburger of beer.
pdts
Unlike in Europe, American is civilized. Only a fair percentage of our 320 million is legal to drink this cask beer. These 508 locations are not confined to one bar or pub either, note the chains please.
This beer thing is off topic anyway.
We have a black president. I was shocked too.
Please note this is a joke. Not having a black president, although that kind of is too. I’m being offensive.
Stupid elusive Flanders!
Oh man! In those three years, you’ve missed countless offerings from Taco Bell — innovative combinations of meat, cheese, veggies, sour cream, and tortilla wraps that surprise and delight us all, every financial quarter it seems, and which you may never live to see repeated. Who could forget the Enchirito? The Quesadita? The Toastichunga?
(One of those, I am not making up.)
I noted that in my post.
Dude. Like I said, wait another 10 years. There’ll be yuppie cask ale bars in every mid-sized city in America. That’s kinda how it works here.
You might not be able to disagree on a factual level, but you’d certainly think of her as an utter ass, and you’d be right to do so. Which brings me neatly back around to my point.
Don’t tell be what I would think – I have had American friends say that the food in the UK sucks because there’s no Mexican food to be had there.
And you know what? I didn’t think they were asses. A bit closed-minded, maybe. But if that’s what they look for in food, then yes for them food in the UK sucks.
Not all of us are as defensive as you seem to think.
pdts
And the KFC double down!
pdts
Uh huh. I’m sure you were all “Jolly good! Right you are! Pip pip cheerio!” and not one tiny little bit “Prat”.
They were asses for saying such an ignorant, closed-minded thing, and you know it.
Since you’ve been gone 3 years you must have missed our recession with the housing bubble burst. Check out some home prices from what you remembered when you left.
“Flip this house” reality shows seem to have disappeared overnight.
The mega home improvement stores like Lowe’s and Home Depot were like ghost towns for a couple years (they seem to have picked up a bit since then).
With Obama in office it seems to have brought out the worst in people who don’t like him with Fox News stoking the fire on a daily basis.
Check out Mountain Dew and Pepsi throwback. They use sugar in them.
McDonalds has new Angus burgers.
Oh, he (she?) did not. Based on what you quoted he merely stated an accurate fact. I agree with you on the better brews we have here, but there’s no question the UK has more local variety, and also that American drinkers heavily favor very cold beer, which makes it hard to find something different here. The fact that pdts is far from the major metropolises undoubtedly increases the difficulty.
You lose – first person to resort to lame ethnic-linguistic stereotypes Loses at the Internets. In any case, those stereotypes apply only to (Southern) England, you ignorant idiot.
And actually, the Americans were right: food in the UK does suck. Sure, there are pockets of excellence, and you can usually find nice food in any medium-sized town, but in general the food that’s usually consumed is pretty bad, and you have to go out of your way to find nice stuff. A very similar situation to American beers, in fact.
pdts
As a non-drinking American, I’m glad that’s the way it is. 
This is extremely misleading, as seem to be many other things published by the Times lately. If you read the link, four Americans, or people from America, try 20 beers selected more or less at random, with half of them being relatively local, and the other half traveling across an ocean. Then the four Americans find that they prefer American beers. Color me shocked!
The reality is that North American microbreweries and the Belgians make damned good beers. Just don’t try to pretend that the North American brews are superior just because four local persons decided they liked them better. As one should infer from the silly pissing contest preceding, beer tastes are very much personal.
Of course you can get good beers in the USA, if you know where to look. You can also get crap without trying. The Brick in Decatur, as noted, is a good place to look.
And they are heavenly, at least by fast food standards.
See, I knew you were hypersensitive. You DID think they were prats, and you were correct.
Ah, my friend. You’re not dealing with someone who has no experience with UK food. I have spent many days there, in large cities (London, Sheffield), mid-sized cities (Chester, Swindon, others), and in small towns (Gamlingay, Biggleswade, Buxton, etc.) I don’t think I’ve ever had any trouble finding excellent food in the UK.
Oh come on, the four people in question are hardly 4 random people. Two are New York Times food critics. Another owns a very highly regarded Belgian restaurant. The fourth guy runs Bierkraft, a place specializing in beer from around the world. None of these guys are going to just blindly pick American beers when asked to do a tasting of Belgian style beers because their tastes are patently American. And of course beer tastes are personal - I wasn’t suggesting that you blindly drink what’s recommended.
And it is something for an American beer to show so nicely in a highly regarded tasting. Disregard it if you must, but I think it’s disingenuous to say that just because they’re Americans they have American tastes and therefore their findings are somehow skewed. The French insisted that their wines were the best and that their tastes were the most refined, but the rest of the world took notice when the American wines won the blind tasting in the Judgement of Paris. Reviews do mean something.
I’m not following you. Do you have any evidence for this?
pdts