Oh, looking at my photos (1,672 left to stick into blogs) it seems I succumbed to one more bar on that last day in Washington D.C.
So I left the refinement of old D.C.,
for the brashness of the Pentagon City shopping arcade.
You can see where I get the Milton Keynes analogy.
I’d been hoping to do a Proper Pub in DC as well as the hipster craft bar. You know, one with bench seating and Budweiser served from the jug. A US Dyffryn Arms, if you like.
Our wonderful guide, Jan, had pointed out the boozing options on our tour, both in the shopping centre.
The Irish Pub,
and the “Sports” bar.
Well, you know what a sucker I am for cluttered bars, massive beer choice and American sports on TV.
Perhaps it was the Heinz ketchup bottle that swung it for me, but I sort of loved sitting at the bar next to real Americans with their screaming baby at the bar (honest).
Mark Crilley would have been delighted at the Britpop soundtrack.
It was as close as the US got to Wetherspoons, albeit at $7.75 + tax + tip a nearly pint of Ballast Point Sculpin.
Served in a big thick glass at perfect temperatures, I have to conclude that all the beer I had in the States was cool and tasty.
Apart from the cask.
Time to pack for the trip home. Before I start saying “In the hole “
retiredmartin 
And therein lies the rub.
Virtually every pint sold in the US is keg.
It varies in quality of taste, can be very expensive and is invariably poured cool.
US craft beer can mean endless variations on the same IPA hop bombs but there’s also lots of other gorgeous stuff in between.
And none that young Martin has had on this trip has gone into a plant pot as far as I could tell.
It may be c**p beer at times but it’s always consistent.
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I enjoyed it all, Prof. And at Happy Hour a near pint for $6 is no worse than craft in Manchester or Cambridge.
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A proper pub tour sometime ?
Florida is great in the Spring and cheap charter flights outside school holidays.
It would be warm enough for Mudgie to roll his sleeves up …
http://madbeachbrewing.com
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Like Florida, but I tend to avoid anything with the word “Brew” in the title (except BrewDog, obvs).
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P P-T,
“Virtually every pint sold in the US is keg.” – as in much of Britain.
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Do you know what the actual percentage cask/total beer sales is these days?
Of course, folk who only ever go in their local “CAMRA” pub will believe cask is still buoyant.
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It’s partly obscured in your photo, but I see Champps had the Flying Dog “Raging Bitch”. Great name (even in these PC times) and actually a good beer.
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Even I’ve heard of that, possibly had it before. Quite a mainstream beer line up I guess?
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I enjoyed the cask I had in San Francisco a year or so back, though I do wonder if I can really discern the difference between the good stuff (as it would be in England) and what I had. But as you know, yes, I’ve had really awful cask in some places over here, worthy of the potted plant treatment!
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I think the good stuff is the stuff that tastes nice, Mark 😉
Of course, in my view virtually all cask beers are capable of tasting nice if the pub has decent standards and the beer is selling quick enough.
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