Let’s get one thing straight: I don’t like beer. You won’t find opinions on microbrews, top notes, or the proper way to pour yourself a glass here. No, not even six months at Queen Mary University of London, where I spent the spring of 2015, could turn me into an ale-appreciator. So it may seem a bit strange that I am, self-professedly, writing a love letter of sorts to the barley-brewed beverage, but over my time in the United Kingdom I came to value beer for far more than its taste.

The pub, short for public house, is undoubtedly an English institution, and has been since Britain was Roman. In small English towns, a pub is often a community focal point, serving not only as a place to purchase food and refreshments but also as a kind of meetinghouse. Here, a pub might be referred to simply as your “local” – your local pub. The terminology has carried over to the big city, where “local” denotes your favorite pub, the one you frequent most often. In either case, from the country village to the metropolis, the local is the place to be.

I mention pubs because they are, of course, the absolute best place for patrons to buy and consume beer. And consume it they do – my local while at Queen Mary, a JD Wetherspoon franchise called The Half Moon, or, often, just “Spoons” – stocks nearly 50 varieties on any given day [1]. The English relationship to beer in the public house is an interesting one, and very different from American drinking culture: across the pond, it is completely normal to stop by and have a pint (or a few) after class or during lunch, whereas stateside, regularly drinking at two in the afternoon might be cause for a bit of alarm.

But the regularity with which beer is consumed in England lends it a special function not found elsewhere: it is an entirely social drink, and a unifying one at that. The English, as a whole, take real pride in their beer, in how it’s brewed and aged, how it’s bottled and served, how it looks and even how it feels [2]. Its continuous presence in the daily lives of Britons – at meals, at parties, in the garden, anywhere – gives your average pint a strangely comforting quality. There’s a familiarity to the ritual of pouring a pint, especially from the tap; a familiarity to the aroma and the way the foamy bubbles settle. Pouring or buying a pint for someone is an act of love – it’s a shared history, an acknowledgement of kinship, and a mutual point of pleasure. Even better if you do it in your local pub, because sharing a local means sharing a bond: you are family there.

While I never learned to love lager, an anguishing fact for most of my British companions, I certainly learned to love what it stands for. And if half a year of bonding over beer happens to leave a better taste in my mouth than the drink itself, well – that’s alright with me.

[1] If you are interested in English pub culture, I highly recommend a sojourn into the world of Wetherspoons – with nearly 1000 distinct locations across the UK and Ireland, the idiosyncrasies of a Wetherspoons pub are fascinating.  

[2] Investigate the English tradition of Real Ale if you’re curious!

 

Emma Mooney is an Art History major and Landscape Studies minor in her final year at Smith College. She enjoys writing and editing, graphic and interior design, and dissecting the inner workings of the pop culture world. After she graduates from Smith in May 2016, she tentatively hopes to begin a career in publishing.

 

 

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