"There seems to be a reluctance among you Brits to realize that you drink "beer" and by calling it "ale" makes it somehow better. Wrong!! Ale is beer."

I think part of the confusion comes from the distinction between what is termed "real ale" (as in the Campaign for Real Ale) in the UK and processed, carbonised "tap" beers. What we call "real ale" often IS a superior product. It is cask-conditioned. It is alive, and once delivered it has to be left alone to settle for a period of time before the cask can be tapped. It is a more artesan product. Even the way it is served - through hand-pull pumps - is different to the electronic taps for other types of beer. This is a very different product from keg beers, which are injected with chemicals to make them fizzy, and where the priority is in making the product as stable as possible for transport and convenience.

I would hasten to add that you can buy very nice hand-pulled, cask-conditioned lagers. You can also buy crappy keg bitters off the tap (John Smith's Smooth, anyone?). So it's not about style - it's about method.

The joy of real ale is that every pub is an adventure. You try different products with widely varying tastes and characters. Some are rubbish, I'll admit, but many are sublime.

Ron, the tendency to use the word "ale" or the term "real ale" is because, like folk, beer drinking had its own revival in the UK. From what I've been told it was in a pretty parlous state back in the 70s (I have heard of, but never experienced, the joys of Watney's Red Barrel and the Party Seven). The Real Ale movement was a concerted effort to bring beer drinking back to its roots and to rehabiltate the image and the culture of beers that were British in character, as the market was being overrun by homogenous imported lagers and poor-quality keg beers. So maybe that's why people seem a bit chippy. :)

I love real ale. I even love that it has its own mythology and heritage - has anyone ever heard of a thunderstorm turning the beer?