A Few Notes On British Food and Beer

Well our time in England is nearing the end as we are currently on the way to Dover from where we ship out to France in the morning. In shifting from one culture to another I thought I would look back fondly on some of my culinary adventures of the past two weeks here in England. Firstly I think Fish and Chips have been ruined forever (at least out of a box ones) due to the pubs here. I've also ventured into different meats having tried lamb, duck and my favorite of the week was rabbit, stuff I probably never would have tried at home. I really think I could get used to pub food, probably not good for me but can't argue with the taste. Overall I was very happy with the food we had in England. I read in our travel book that real ale is served at cellar temperature instead of cold like back home so armed with this knowledge I headed to the pub to try some British real ale ... I was not prepared for that first pint, tasted like something left in the bottle too long. Luckily for me I blame this first pints disaster on a bad pull, as next up I tried was substantially better, so much so I finished it before the food arrived. I followed up my excellent Cumberland Ale with a St. Peters Mild, it says mild right there in the name, as he cranked on the hand pump (so cool) to pour the ale an incredibly dark liquid came forth. A dark beer! Crap! I was only able to finish half of it (apologies to my dark beer drinking friends/family) oh well, it was actually ok for a dark beer though. Finally for lunch today I paired my Rabbit Cider pie with a Youngs Special, not quite as good as the Cumberland ale from before but still a solid pint. With the exception of the dark one all the pints had a nice amber coloring to them, which added to the appeal. Now it's time to explore the culinary world of France/the question of can the French brew a decent pint?