Beer

What would a pub be without beer?  And what would beer be without a pub?

Whether you drink Carling or Beacon, Kronenbourg or Original, doesn't it taste so much better served draught in your local pub than out of a can or bottle at home?

That's partially because things taste better when you're enjoying yourself - and where better to enjoy life than with friends, having a laugh in your local - than if you just sit at home and drink for the sake of it.  But that's not all there is to it.

Before I even start to talk about real ale, I'll deal with lager.  Carling is the best-selling beer in Britain, so it's a bit hard to ignore!  There are three main differences between the Carling you drink in the pub and the stuff you get in cans:

1. The canned version is held at a much lower pressure than is possible in a 22 gallon (100litre) beer keg.  So the can of lager has less carbon dioxide dissolved in it.  It's the release of CO₂ from solution that makes beer fizzy - whether it's the swirls of bubbles rising in your glass to keep an elegant head on the beer, or the refreshing tingle in your mouth caused by bubbles forming as the beer passes over your tongue.
2. In a pub you get the beer at the temperature it's supposed to be served at.  Is your fridge regulated and monitored by beer dispense technicians on a regular basis?  Do you have a separate shelf for making "Extra-Cold" beers come out of the fridge at 3°C?
3. You get properly cleaned, branded, nucleated glassware in a pub.  Presuming you don't drink out of the can (which causes you to miss 40% or so of the flavour - as well as drinking mostly saliva by the time you reach the bottom), your glasses at home are unlikely to be as thoroughly clean, grease-free and evenly dried, as those in a pub.  Next time you drink in a pub (or more likely a hotel or restaurant) where the glasses are dried with a tea-towel, have a look at the bubbles that form on the walls of your glass.  That's caused by grease spread around by the tea-towel.  Grease kills bubbles at the top of your beer because it makes them burst, so your beer looks flat, and tastes flat too!

All of the above applies to Guinness and Strongbow too

Onto real ales shortly...