I was out the other night and a friend of mine asked at the bar, "What kind of beers do you have on tap?" to the bartender. Normally, you would just pass this off as simple bar etiquette. I have been thinking and there is much more to it. We get used to having the typical beers on tap in our home towns, and many of the times this question gets asked because draft beer is the best deal.
This is a whole different thing when you are traveling. Especially when you first arrive. Most of the time, the beer on tap is the most popular beer in that country or region, so the breweries make so much of that beer that they put it in large barrels and send those around the region to all of the local drinking holes, yum.
Sometimes it is even a much bigger deal than that. What people drink and eat is a reflection of their culture and history. The flavors and types of beer and alcohol that a country or people drink is generally some result of what they were able to grow and what types of ingredients were available before modern technologies. Even though that is what is still produced and maybe even the new brews have the same flavors, that original recipe came from somewhere. That original recipe was not just some random gathering of ingredients, it has some link to the past and has stood the test of time.
When I was living in New Zealand, I was always quite pleased with the number of acronyms they had for the South Islands beer SPEIGHTS. Special Piss Enjoyed In Great Hotels Throughout Southland…was the main acronym, but every bar seemed to have their own version of this. It is fun and part of their culture, everything down there is like that, some joke to go with whatever you are doing. So when you go out and ask for a beer on tap somewhere, think for a second, because you just might be having a cup of history poured for your drinking pleasure.
Cheers,
Steve S.
