Friday, September 7, 2007

More notes from Liverpool ...

Legend has it that drinking beer in England means drinking it warm, or at least at room temperature. While that tends to be true of the darker beers such as stouts and ales, the lagers are served nearly as cold here as they are stateside.

In fact, it’s gone so far as being a marketing gimmick now. Everywhere you look in Liverpool pubs, there are beer pumps trumpeting things like “Carling Extra Cold” and “Kronenbourg Special Cold.”

My travel mate said, “They’ve finally figured out that people actually like cold drinks.”

Indeed, it’s strangely warm in Liverpool, so we’ve enjoyed a number of cold beers (and some dark and warm ones, as well) to help keep the steam off.

While in West Darby, visiting the Casbah Club, we had something called Carling Special, which is a creamy pour similar to Boddington’s or Caffrey’s, not the crisp fizzy lager that the normal Carling is. Quite pleasant.

Sadly, in one pub way out in West Darby, one of my travel mates was mistakenly given a Foster’s. Good sport that he is, he drank it, but what a sad fate.

Until next time, cheers from Liverpool. —Kevin Gibson