What is your favorite alcoholic drink?

@ArishMell Is that what “craft” beers means in the US? Here, craft beers are very rarely cask-conditioned.

@MartinII My source was either a trade journal or a CAMRA magazine, that explained the term "craft beer" is American but (whatever it means in its own land), some advertisers and "lifestyle journalists" do apply it to cask-conditioned (or "real") beer in the UK.

To be fair I gather there are real-ale makers in America, and some independent brewers in Britain add imported American hop varieties to their recipes; but I don't know what the general styles in beers are in that country.

Incidentally I was surprised to read once, a favourable review of a lager in a CAMRA magazine. It transpired this was a cask-lager, made by a small brewery; but of course we've probably become used to "lager" being the mass-produced, pseudo-fashionable stuff dispensed in ways that so chill and fizz it, you can't taste its rather weak flavour anyway. The term "lager" of course refers to the type of recipe, not mode of dispensing.

Keg lagers I have drunk while on holiday in France, where there is little or no choice at least in rural village cafes, were still highly-processed and top-pressure dispensed, but did have a richer flavour than the two or three big-name lagers sold in British pubs and (tinned or bottled), in supermarkets.

@ArishMell Thanks for that. To add a couple of points. On one of my only two, very brief, visits to Washington I had some very acceptable real ale in a place rather like an English pub. And some of the small breweries in London brew “real” lagers.

@MartinII Ooh, they sound good!

@ArishMell i don't investigate alcohol anymore but i used to try anything out of curiosity. the closest i got to those beers is when i would try all the local small brewery beers

@DIABLISS I must admit I don't drink as often as I used to, though even then it was normally at weekends only.

Almost £4 a pint doesn't exactly encourage too much investigating!

@ArishMell You are lucky! The going rate in London is £5 or more, except of course in Wetherspoon’s.

@MartinII Ouch! Still, nothing's cheap in London, is it?

@ArishMell All public transport is free for people my age. That’s all I can think of!

@MartinII I live over 100 miles from the capital. I have a bus-pass, which wakes up at 09:30 and goes to sleep at (I think) 22:30; but would still have to pay for train tickets and of course taxis.

It's a bit academic though if you can't afford to enjoy what the free transport will take you to!

Luckily too I live in an area quite well served by buses, and for long journeys, connected by trains not only directly to London, but also to almost any other part of mainland UK outside of London without the difficulty and inconvenience of transferring between termini in London itself. (Via Yeovil, Bristol or an intermediate junction; each a single-station interchange.)