I rarely drink beer, and then only good Belgian or German (or locally-brewed French) stuff. Here in France restaurants usually mark up wine by 5-10 times, so on my extremely rare visits to restaurants I will order beer which is marked up only slightly. Wine is much more varied and interesting : there's a whole world in wine but only a small country (the size of Denmark) in beer and ale.
As for BritIrish pubs - as a homosensual intellectual I find them threatening and intimidating, and noisy, with horrible music and/or TV. I have also always had a hearing problem whereby I cannot separate out sounds of equal volume, thus mercifully releasing me from utterly banal pub-talk. Wine induces real conversation. The only virtue of (certain and few) drinking-places is the music - which I would prefer to listen on CD, at home, with a glass of wine, pastis, or cognac, with no distractions.
BritIrish pubs are not inviting and open-to-all (and to the street) the way European café-bars are. They can be very intimidating for women.
The only time I now drink in an Irish establishment on my rare visits to the bile-green isle is in the pleasant neutral space of Dublin airport, where the Guinness is good, and where one can with no eyebrows being raised ask for a mere half-pint.
2 comments:
You surely must have a disdain for beer then, too! May I surmise, that you have never been a frequent patron in the pubs of Ireland?
I rarely drink beer, and then only good Belgian or German (or locally-brewed French) stuff. Here in France restaurants usually mark up wine by 5-10 times, so on my extremely rare visits to restaurants I will order beer which is marked up only slightly. Wine is much more varied and interesting : there's a whole world in wine but only a small country (the size of Denmark) in beer and ale.
As for BritIrish pubs - as a homosensual intellectual I find them threatening and intimidating, and noisy, with horrible music and/or TV. I have also always had a hearing problem whereby I cannot separate out sounds of equal volume, thus mercifully releasing me from utterly banal pub-talk. Wine induces real conversation. The only virtue of (certain and few) drinking-places is the music - which I would prefer to listen on CD, at home, with a glass of wine, pastis, or cognac, with no distractions.
BritIrish pubs are not inviting and open-to-all (and to the street) the way European café-bars are. They can be very intimidating for women.
The only time I now drink in an Irish establishment on my rare visits to the bile-green isle is in the pleasant neutral space of Dublin airport, where the Guinness is good, and where one can with no eyebrows being raised ask for a mere half-pint.
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