Gonnae gie's a wee swally...?

One of the things that Europeans like to do is look down on America as uncultured and lacking a certain refinement that comes with having about 1000 years of history behind you. The election of ol' George Dubbya did nothing to dispell this. One way in which this European disdain for America comes out is in beer and cheese snobbery, something I also have been guilty of in the recent past.

This snobbery, at least on my own part, was based on the "big" American beers like Miller, Coors and the Bud family. Although a sample size of 3 is sufficient to calculate a standard deviation and allow statistical inferences to be made, it is not necessarily a representative sample. So, purely in the interests of science, I have spent much of the last 5 weeks expanding my sample size to try and allow firmer conclusions to be made about American beer. Some people would call this being a piss-head, but as I was drinking in the innocent pursuit of fundamental truth, I call this field-work. In fact, I am doing field work right now, with a rather delicious Porter made locally at a wee brewery in Virgina. Below is a picture of my lovely field assistant, Dr Chaput, assisting me at one of our field sites.

The field site shown above is from a pub called Rock Bottom which, bizarrely, is one of a chain of microbreweries  - only in America could you take something which is supposed to be grassroots and turn it into a chain! On our first visit to this field site, we saw that there were 7 or 8 different beers on offer - a brown ale, red ale, run-of-the-mill lager, an IPA, a I-can't-believe-it's-not-a-German Weiss beer, and a couple of others. Each of these beers were actually rather tasty, apart from the brown beer which tasted just a little bit too much like brown ale for my taste (I hate Newcastle Brown Ale). What was even more surprising was that Dom enjoyed most of these beers as well, her favourites being the red ale and the blonde beer.

Further field trips have yielded a very interesting and delicious ale made from pumpkins, from the very oddly-named Dogfish head brewery, found in Delaware (east coast, roughly in the middle). There have also been some good offerings from a wee Brewery in Colorado with the slightly country & western sounding name of Blue Moon Brewing company. Although the name of the brewery puts me in mind of a guy called Hank singing Honky Tonk blues because his dog shat in his pick-up truck and his wife ran off with his brother, the beers themselves are quite pleasant.

So far, I've only had a chance to sample maybe 1 or 2 dozen different beers, so this research project is still in its infancy. However, preliminary findings indicate that some very agreeable beers can be found in this oversized country of extremes, if you're willing to take a bit of time to explore and talk to people. I've head of more microbreweries nearby which I will have to seek out and sample (research often involves personal sacrifice), but so far so good...

P.S. Bud and Miller are both carbonated, chilled urine, but most Americans would agree.
P.P.S. In the US, Budvar is called "Czechvar" in this country. Ridiculous, but funny.
P.P.P.S. I can't report much about USian wine yet, because I've been too excited trying all the South American Malbecs...

Wid ye credit it!?

Hi, I'm Mick. I've just moved to the DC area and it turns out that the USA is actually a completely foreign country and feels far more alien than France, Germany, Spain or, yes, even more alien than Oxford!

So, the economy in the USA is based on credit. In order to get credit, one must have a good credit history, but to get a good credit history, one must first get credit. Coming from the UK, where I have quite an awesome credit rating, it was a bit of a shock to learn that my UK credit rating counts for exactly nothing, even with companies with whom I have had a relationship in the UK for many, many years (fuck you very much, Barclaycard!). It turns out that data protection laws generally prevent EU-based companies from sending your credit file abroad. That's the excuse anyway.

I tried being extra-prepared and bringing my credit report with me but this also didn't help because I assumed that the bank folk would have an ability to think and act independently. However, if the computer says no credit, then that's pretty much that. What I found really weird though is that I was offered a car loan before a credit card....

Bank: "Oh, Dr Craig, I see you're a fellow at the NIH. Would you like an auto loan to buy a new car, as you just got here?"

Me: "No thanks, we've decided that we won't need a car: our bikes and public transport should cater for all of our needs."

[stunned silence]

Bank: "Oh, well, I guess that's one way to live. Erm, is there anything else I can do for you?"

Me: "Actually, yes, a credit card would be helpful."

Bank: "No, sorry Dr Craig, you don't have a credit history so we can only give you a secured card where you give us $1000 deposit, and we give you a credit card."

Me: "What would the limit be?"

Bank: "Why, $1000 of course."

[....]

Me: "So. I give you $1000 of MY money which you then lend back to me, and both use my money to invest and make profit, and charge me for the privilege?"

Bank: "Yes, that's one way to look at it, I suppose. But this is AMERICA. You NEED a credit card even more than a car..."

[sound of head being banged against a wall]

Secured credit cards are my favourite new thing to hate. Basically, banks will offer you a credit card if you give them a deposit to secure the card. Which sounds fair enough. Except that the deposit is expected to cover the entire credit limit. So you give the bank, say, $500 or $1000 of your cash. They then hold on to that and give you a card of the same limit, with a very unpleasant interest rate. The idea is that you demonstrate your ability to maintain a line of credit by your responsible use of the card. The reality is that you give the bank an interest-free loan for a year in order to bribe them to say you're creditworthy. And that's assuming you're not daft enough to actually leave a balance on the card and be billed >20% interest when the bank LENDS YOU YOUR OWN CASH.

Crazy. Absolutely mental. And don't get me started on cars...