A Bitter England

It was one of those nights. The company was stimulating, laughter filled the room and the conversation was flowing at about the same rate as the beer. During a brief lull in the proceedings I paused. I paused to look, fondly as it happened, at my half full (never half empty) pint pot. Gazing into the deliciously brown frothy-lined nectar I thought… I'll have another. And so I did. But, as I made my way to the bar, I glanced around at my fellow drinkers and was stunned by the number of people drinking lager and by others drinking directly out of bottles. How strange, I thought, have times really changed so much? Can there really be so few of us bitter drinkers left? Has the nation sold its collective soul to the lager barons, they of the flashy adverts and sponsorship of national sport? I had to investigate.

What struck me most forcibly was the difference in age groups. Generally, it appeared to me, the bitter drinkers were nearly all over forty years old and the lager drinkers were under forty - actually some of them were under the table but that's another story! Was this down to the age of television, I wondered? Most bitter drinkers, I think, probably picked up the habit from their fathers whereas lager drinkers, being younger, and therefore more impressionable and susceptible to advertising were probably swayed by mass advertising. Perhaps.

The bottle drinkers were more difficult to categorise as they seemed to cover all age groups. There appeared to be a fair smattering of youngsters drinking out of bottles, probably because they thought it was cool and fashionable. Then there was the group of young trendies (we used to call them yuppies, remember?) who clearly think that glasses are either something that you wear or put your toothbrush in. Finally, the saddest group of all, the old swingers who were drinking out of the bottle in a vain attempt to ape the young trendies and look younger. By the way, is there a discount for drinking out of a bottle? After all it does save on the washing up.

So, you may wonder, where is this all leading up to? Well, it is clear to me, as a drinker of some thirty years standing -usually- that things have changed and not necessarily for the better. To me and others like me namely, middle-aged, traditionalist and set in our ways, it is a real pity. Bitter is our national drink as much as that black stuff is the native drink of Ireland or whisky is the national drink of Scotland. Clearly, we older drinkers have a duty to discharge and we are not doing very well at the moment. We have to preserve the traditional English pub and traditional English beer. We must teach our trend-obsessed youngsters that drink is about taste and not image. That bitter is our national drink, a drink that may initially take you some getting used to but once you do it becomes a lifelong love affair.

There. That feels better. I'm glad I got that off my chest. Anyone fancy a pint?

JE