"Guinness is not to be discussed in the same context as real beer."
All an acquired taste really.
I was in Oxford last year on a recording trip with a Irish friend and I introduced here to real ale - thought I was going to have to find her a sick-bag.
Takes all kinds.
One of the most memorable drinking nights Pat and I ever spent was when we were recording the Travellers on the Mile End Road in East London.
We invariably had to search for a pub that would agree to serve Travellers, usually only the ones were the dives that sold crap watered-down beer.
On this occasion, we found a real ale pub that had Watneys as a basis, but regularly brought in 'guest' ales'; on this particular night, it was Everards and Theakstons.
The company wasn't particularly discriminating and asked for "a pint of bitter" when ordering - the barman obliged with whatever was nearest to hand.
By nine o'clock, the place was like The Somme (not to mention a controversial subject) - minus the stretcher-bearers.
Jim Carroll