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"Laurent Mousson":8u5n7dyx wrote: respect for different brewing cultures and traditions is a fundamental principle of EBCU[/quote:8u5n7dyx]With irony of Swiftian proportions, the best beer in Ireland (as voted by ICB, natch) is one of only a handful which totally ignore our national brewing tradition and culture.

I think Ireland's brewing culture has been dominated by factory-brewed blandness for so long that any advocacy group here should be actively taking a stand [i:8u5n7dyx]against[/i:8u5n7dyx] the Irish national beer tradition.

Irish pubs aren't tied, incidentally. They voluntarily serve that stuff, believe it or not.

"TheBeerNut":2749ok73 wrote: Irish pubs aren't tied, incidentally. They voluntarily serve that stuff, believe it or not.[/quote:2749ok73]
True but I believe that at least up until recently, they were effectively tied - if a bar wanted Guinness they had to take bud and carlsberg with it, and couldn't do heineken. Until a few years ago you would rarely see bud and heineken on the same bar. Seems to have relaxed a bit more recently.

"kenmc":1jd47nhn wrote: Until a few years ago you would rarely see bud and heineken on the same bar.[/quote:1jd47nhn]When I worked in a Dublin pub (1996) there would be deliveries from Guinness, Heineken and Showerings every week, and the bar had Guinness, Murphy's, Kilkenny, Smithwicks, Bulmers, Carlsberg, Bud, Heineken, Harp and Furstenburg on tap. This didn't seem at all unusual, but perhaps it was. That's a lot of lager, now that I look at it written down...

I do remember the owner sending the Guinness rep packing when the rep suggested introducing Coldflow to the pub.

"kenmc":2hyiv8vl wrote: True but I believe that at least up until recently, they were effectively tied - if a bar wanted Guinness they had to take bud and carlsberg with it, and couldn't do heineken. Until a few years ago you would rarely see bud and heineken on the same bar. Seems to have relaxed a bit more recently.[/quote:2hyiv8vl]

It wasn't as formal as that. Bars would often get extra kegs of beer if they were exclusively one brand or another. Around 1995 the EU suggested that seemed illegal and could get a company fined up to 10% of its global turnover if the competition authority decided it was unfair trading practices. That ended the practice soon after.

John