US beer vs UK beer

I like to believe that I deal with all the weighty cultural issues in this British expat blog and what could be of more import than the relative merits of British and American beer?

The first thing that I would say is that the almost universally negative image of American beer that exists in Britain (and Europe too for that matter) is certainly too simplistic.  (The negative image is summed up by the old Monty Python joke: “American beer is a little like making love in a canoe.  It's f**king close to water.”)

The problem for American beer is that the only brands that you tend to see in the UK are the awful ones like Miller Lite and Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch).  These really are bland, watery beers.  Like in the UK, however, the better American beers tend to come from the smaller, local breweries, rather than the leviathans.  (To some extent, the US has similar problems with beer as the UK did in the 60s and 70s with aggressive major breweries [with crap beer] trying to muscle out the smaller and medium-sized breweries [with good beer] with the intention of creating local monopolies.)

Because of the localized nature of brewing and the size of the US, plus my own admittedly limited experience, it would actually be ridiculous for me to even attempt to give a comprehensive major overview, so instead I will just settle for giving my personal experiences of living in north-central Florida. 

My favorite (big brewery) US beers that I drink regularly here in North Central Florida:

 

Shiner – brewed in Austin, Texas is easily my favourite that I've found.  It has a strong and distinctive taste.  When I used to visit Florida, I couldn’t believe how dirt cheap it was in the store.  By the time I’d moved here, however, they’d bumped up the price!  They only sell Shiner in certain US states and luckily Florida is one of them - I was disappointed to find that I couldn’t get hold of it up in New York.

Blue Moon – A Belgian-style wheat beer which is very palatable (despite being a Coors product!)  Belgian-style wheat beers (think Hoegaarden) seem to be fairly common here nowadays (I believe that US breweries started making witbeers about 10 or 15 years ago), but German-style, tarter wheat beers are generally rarer, it seems.

Sam Adams produce reasonable beer and I enjoy some of their selection packs - some of these beers can be a little gimmicky but it’s fun to try them.

Yuengling is for me just on the right side of the line between the watery American beers and the good ones in my opinion.  I will drink it sometimes, however, because it’s often cheaper(!)

Most British/Irish beers are relatively specialist in the US in my (limited) experience.  The most commonly available ones in the bars and stores where I am are Newcastle Brown Ale and Harp, which seems a little bizarre to me, as these drinks were common in the UK back in the 70s and 80s but have largely waned in popularity. 

The best British beer, the real ales, aren’t really available in draught form, which is a pity, but no surprise.  You can get a limited but reasonable range in the bottled section – although the US tends to put everything into small (approx 300ml?) bottles, which still irritates me a little.  I still find it strange seeing a US miniature, differently shaped version of the iconic Newcastle Brown Ale bottle and there is something sacrilegious about seeing hefeweissen sold in bottles below 500ml in size (although you can buy the ‘proper’ German 500ml bottles in the specialist stores!)  ;-)

European beers are also fairly widely available in the US in my experience and I drink a lot of Becks Dark, Warsteiner, and Heineken here.  I have also found a couple of outlets locally that sell my all time favourite (more specialist) European beers, which tend to be from Germany*, Belgium, and Central Europe.  German hefeweissen will always be one of my favourite tipples.

Cider

Cider isn’t a beer, of course, but it’s drunk in a similar way, so I thought that I would give it a mention.  I actually love cider as a refreshing alternative to beer and having cheap, available cider is something that I miss here in the US, especially when you’re on a limited budget (cider is often the cheap drunk’s tipple in the UK!). 

From what I gather, cider wasn’t particularly common in the US (compared to the UK) until relatively recently.  Now it’s easier to get hold of, but the ciders tend to be the big Irish brands that are advertised to be drunk over ice, such as Magners.  American ciders often seem to be sweeter and relatively weak, compared to the stronger and drier British ones, in my experience. 

Scrumpy style cider is pretty specialist in the US, although it’s difficult to imagine that it doesn’t exist in a rough form somewhere in the USA? 

The good news is that do sell Strongbow on draught in some bars of the bars around here – hurray!

*German bars are quite possibly the best place in the world for drinking draught and bottled beer, in my opinion.  Mainly because they are scrupulous when it comes to storing their beers at the correct temperature.  This is why Germany is generally known to be the best place for drinking draught Guiness methinks (even better than Ireland, ironically).  The sad and slightly strange fact is that in places like the US and Britain, bars will quite often undermine a great beer by storing, or serving it too cold or too warm in my experience.

British Expat Blogger Reflections

Looking back over the past six months, I think I was a little naïve when I began this British expat blog.  I just thought it would be a bit of fun and that I might get some views and interesting comments from around the world, as well as keep in contact and report back to friends in the UK about living in the USA.  It has been fun, of course, but after a while you also realize that the topic area can be a bit of minefield.  That’s because you are dealing with issues of national identity and people can get very passionate about that stuff – hell, people have fought wars over it throughout the ages!

I have at times been accused of making sweeping generalizations, getting my facts wrong and being deliberately provocative– all of which are probably true to some degree.  I will admit that there is a streak in my character that makes me want to poke things with a big stick sometimes, just to see what happens, even if I risk getting bitten.  My priority has always been to try and make my blog engaging, however, even if I risk ruffling feathers on occasion, as the thing that I always fear the most is my blog being bland.  I do love getting comments from different corners of the world and hearing other experiences and viewpoints and see the comments as being integral to the blog’s success, as they can often be as or more interesting than the actual original blog post!

I have generally tried to skirt around politics and race, so far, though, which has probably helped me to avoid any serious controversy.  I was genuinely taken aback by the depth of anger expressed against African Expat Wife in her post: Busman’s Holiday Travel Writing.  Sure, I know that there is a negative legacy from British colonialism and I am in no way qualified to talk about the rights and wrongs of Kenyan issues, but it did all seem a little harsh.  Anyway, African Expat Wife wrote a second post clarifying her position and that seemed to clear the air.

Returning to my own expat experiences.  I do have American friends that I know, or have known over the years back in the UK who have experienced a similar thing to me in reverse – dealing with the British visa bureaucracy, moving to Britain, adapting to British culture etc. and, of course, I do read American expat blogs about their experiences of the UK.  British expat experiences in the USA and the American expat experiences in the UK are like strange mirror images.  I thought the American comedian and expat, Reginald D Hunter gave some pretty astute and hilarious interpretations of British and American differences in his Live at the Apollo stint.

You can pretty much reverse the experiences of Reginald D Hunter, if you want to know what it’s like to be a Brit in the USA.  As he points out, English people have a tendency to say one thing, but mean something completely different, which can certainly cause misunderstandings.  I am fairly confident that the people who know me well, such as my wife, usually have a grasp of what I am getting at and can distinguish when I am joking and when I am serious - but I sometimes wonder if Americans who don’t know me so well walk away from our conversations with a completely different impression of what we’ve just been talking about to my own.

10 completely untrue sheep facts

Having gone on rather a lot about alligators since I started living in the USA, and given that this British expat blog is called From Sheep to Alligators, I thought that in the interests of fairness if I should dedicate this post to those splendid woolly quadrupedal, ruminant mammals from the North of England, otherwise known as sheep.  Rather than risk boring you with reality, however, I thought that I would amaze you with my 10 completely untrue sheep facts!

 

1.  Sheep are predominantly nocturnal animals with specially adapted eye lids that help them to identify their favorite prey in the dark.  Their diet typically consists of worms, spiders, hedgehogs, and men walking home from the pub. 

2.  The Eiffel tower in Paris, France, is made entirely out of wool.  It was knitted in 1872 by Marie LeBouche, wife of the famous Belgian biologist and philosopher, Francois LeBouche.  The design is based on pattern from Scotland.  

3.  We all love to open our electronic mails and surf the interweb, but did you know that the “http” that begins each website address was invented by a sheep called Tony? 

4.  Sheep were valued in ancient Japan for their physical dexterity, ultrasonic hearing abilities and basket-weaving skills.  They were also believed to possess psychic powers! 

5.  The sheep mating season occurs in late July and early August with a typical ewe (female sheep) laying somewhere between ten and twenty eggs.  Young sheep, known as lambs, build intricate webs which they use to catch flies, which they live on until they are old enough to leave the nest. 

6.  The oldest male sheep ever known was called Franklin, who reached the ripe old age of 87 years old.  After opening a successful chain of health food shops during the 1970s, he  died tragically in 1983 after being implicated in a financial scandal. 

7.  Sheep have existed since the time of the dinosaurs.  Ten million year old sheep fossils have been discovered as far a field as the deserts of South Yorkshire and swamps of North Wales.  Ancient sheep possessed elongated canine teeth which they used to inject a venom twice as potent as that of the black widow spider into their prey.  These “saber-toothed sheep” grew up to 3 metres (10 ft) tall. 

8.  Tough guy actor, John Wayne was phobic of sheep and once refused to go out on a film set in New Zealand because of his fear of being savaged.  “It is the way that they look at me,” he told one Aukland reporter. 

9.  Gambling is a serious problem amongst young sheep.  Although exact figures are difficult to collect, it is thought that as many as 75% of lambs have addiction issues. 

10.  Black sheep were the victims of prejudice in the 19^th and 19^th centuries with their dark color being labeled as the mark of the devil…  Hold on a minute, this fact is true!

British and American differences part 4: Driving in Florida

Everybody knows that Brits drive on the left hand side of the road and everybody else drives on the right.  Let’s get that one out of the way before we even start.  Having said that, not a lot of Americans know that there are many major countries where they also drive on the left, places like, urm, Nepal, Trinidad and Tobago.  Okay, I admit it, driving on the left is just plain strange.  But regardless, I intend to continue my theme of British and American differences with a blog post about driving in the Land of the Free (aka the USA), specifically, driving in Florida.

Disappointingly, apart from some old people, certain black people, and a few weirdos, nobody drives those enormous American cars that the world became familiar with in tv programmes such as “Starsky and Hutch”, “The Dukes of Hazzard” and “Dallas”, which, if you were a Briton born in the mid sixties like myself, were your main source of information about American culture.  Americans generally drive pretty similar cars to the Europeans nowadays (many Japanese models especially), which is kind of a let down.  I suspect that one reason is because the American car industry rivaled the British one in terms of producing poor quality vehicles, so most of their cars were in reality more crap than classic, and they fell apart years ago.  Plus those American cars needed 10 gallons of fuel just to get started and travel to the end of the driveway, which isn’t much use in the modern world. 

Despite all the similarities however, there are a several areas where there are British and American differences, certainly here in Florida.  For one thing, Americans are particularly fond of their trucks.  Especially their pick ups.  Big open backed things.  I am not convinced that all their owners need them for work purposes, they seem to be as much an expression of manhood and lifestyle, but you will see many of them on the roads.

Americans are fond of their bumper stickers too, which indicate everything from religious and political affiliations, to places where the car owner likes to eat, their favourite sports teams, and sometimes just jokes or plain silliness.   

To be a true Floridian, however, you need to forget four wheels altogether and buy a motorcycle, preferably a Harley with chopper handlebars and a dropped seat.  As you’re not legally obliged to wear a helmet down here, you might as well just dispense with long trousers too, and a jacket – heck, I saw a guy riding a motorcycle the other day who wasn’t even wearing shoes!  He was barefoot, in his shorts and cut-off t-shirt, cruising beside us on two wheels, indifferent to all the skin and brains that he might lose should he be unlucky enough to be parted from his machine while in motion. 

I am still waiting for my first sighting of a start naked motorcycle rider, it is probably only a matter of time… 

(ps If you like this British expat in the USA blog and you are a facebooker, please consider going to its new facebook page and clicking the ‘like button’.  Ta.)

Sunshine, lightning, an alligator and snake

Today was another sunny day here in Florida, but then pretty much every day is sunny, that’s why they call it the Sunshine State, I guess?  The weather is very different from my home town in the North of England, but so far, I am adapting well to the lack of dark, cold, grey, rainy days that go on and on and leave you feeling melancholy, grim and forlorn.

As well as the sunshine, they do have hurricanes here, of course, though I’ve yet to experience one of those.  I’ve endured a few serious electrical storms, however.  They are certainly dramatic and I am reminded why this area of the world is known as “Lightning Alley”.  The rumble of the accompanying thunder can be very loud too, though interestingly because Florida is as flat as a pancake, it never has that echoing-through-the-valley sound effect that you get in the Yorkshire Dales and Cumbria.



My running shoes

With no job to sap my time and energy and needing to keep fit, I have been going out running every day.  This past week I’ve been encountering some of the neighbourhood wildlife at what the locals call the “small pond”.  A pond is generally a rather tiny ornamental thing in England, but this stretch of water is about the size of a running track with brush and a stagnant stream running along its far side.

Anyway, for the past few days I’ve been seeing a small alligator in the pond.  It’s only about 4 foot long which makes it very much a youngster in gator terms.  They are remarkably good at camouflage, having perfected the art of making themselves look like pieces of partially submerged driftwood and vegetation, whilst they wait for their prey to come to the water’s edge.  But as this gator hangs out in almost exactly the same spot every day, it’s not been too difficult to locate, once I’ve trained my eyes.  He’s scared of me though, and when I get too near, he panics and splashes off under the water and away from the pond side.



I'm only a few yards away but he's not easy to see!



Let's zoom in a little and catch him lurking.

 After two days of good sightings, the gator wasn’t there when I went past today.  Maybe he’s moved on to greener pastures (or swampier waters), or maybe because today’s been cooler and he’s cold-blooded, he’s decided not to venture out?  Whilst I was looking for him, however, my eye was drawn to what I believed to be a bicyle inner tube that somebody had dumped by the water’s edge.  The way it was curled up looked funny somehow.  As I moved in closer, I noticed that the “inner tube” had a head – it was a large grey snake looking straight at me!



(When I described the incident to my wife later, she informed me that I needed to watch out for poisonous snakes when going near the pond.  “They won’t harm you unless you approach them quickly, or step on or over them,” she told me.  Which is not exactly reassuring advice for a runner, who is by nature, approaching everything pretty swiftly and stepping on or over things, as a matter of course!)



I guess I’m in two minds about the “exotic” local animal life that you find here.  On the one hand, I find it exciting and amazing that some creatures that I would only have been able to see in a zoo back in the UK are running around freely over here.  On the other, I really don’t fancy the idea of being bitten, or having some huge spider drop on my head when I’m in the woods, or suchlike, that would be Nature getting too close-up for my liking!

It’s a dichotomy I could ponder for some time.  But all in all, I guess the alligator and snake were here first (the gators have been around since prehistoric times) and there’s enough sunshine around in Florida for everbody, man or beast, to share.





All I want is a non US citizen bank account!

You’d think it would be easy!  Having jumped through all the hoops presented to me by the USCIS in order to get my immigration visa, I rather naively expected it wouldn’t be too much of a problem getting a non US citizen bank account.  Especially as all I wanted was to be added to my wife, Abby’s account as a joint account holder.  But when Abby rang up her branch’s information hotline to ask them what I.D. we should take along to our local branch, the people at the other end seemed bewildered.  Yes, I was a resident but not a citizen, she told them.  No, I didn’t have a social security number, but I could prove my identity and legal entry to the country with my passport and visa stamp.  Yes, we had a marriage licence to prove that we had recently been married in the US (Florida).

After a conversation that went on for nearly thirty minutes, with Abby being passed around five different departments, she was finally told that provided we took along my passport and visa, plus our marriage certificate and my wife’s social security card, the branch would add me to her bank account.  As Abby works fulltime, the only time we could make it to the bank was Saturday morning.  We got there, with all our documents and information not foreseeing any problems, but the young woman who served us seemed completely confused and uncomfortable.  We went through the same questions that my wife had answered during her 30 minute phone call with our young server getting more and more uneasy.  You’ve heard of the expression, “rabbit in the headlamps”?  Anyway, eventually she disappeared for ten minutes.  When she came back she told us that she’d spoken to the deputy manager and I couldn’t have a bank account unless I had both a US Social Security Card and a US green card, because of the Patriot Act.  That was it.

I looked it up when I got home, using the expats.com website, which is my bible on immigration matters.  Rather than going into the ins and outs of the Patriot Act, I’ll quote from britishexpats.com: “Under the Patriot Act, banks are required to 'know their customers' as part of anti-money laundering provisions. Most banks have adopted policies that require at least a Social Security Number before you can open a bank account IF YOU ARE A US CITIZEN, along with some other forms of identification and proof of residence. Citizens of other countries have different procedures, such as passport numbers or drivers licenses or other things to prove they are who they are.”  According to Britishexpats.com the problem of immigrants wrongly being turned down for accounts is really common, with lots of American bank workers not knowing their own rules!

Me with my British bank card.  I naively expected that getting an American one wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

There is no direct equivalent of a social security number in the UK (where I’m from).  The nearest equivalent is probably our National Insurance number, but we only really use that for when we get a job, pay tax, or claim benefits.  The US social security number (SSN) is used much more extensively.  As well as being used for jobs and benefits and tax, the US Social Security Card is also used as proof of ID for many, many things, including opening a bank account, if you’re an American citizen.  I decided to go about getting one.

The Social Security office was pretty similar to a British one in most respects, with an atmosphere of dowdiness, boredom and despair hanging over it.  The only two differences were that firstly you are checked over for guns before you entered (I am beginning to realise that this is a regular occurrence in USA, they even made us go through airport-style security before we were married!) and secondly, the overwhelming proportion of claimants were Afro-Americans (which maybe says something about the general structure of the US socio-economically?).  Anyway, after a long wait, they called my number and all went well.  I received my social security card 10 days later.  Yippee.  But what I really wanted was a bank account!

Three weeks after our first attempt to get a joint account and armed with the same I.D. as last time plus my brand new social security card, we set off to Abby’s bank.  Following our treatment the last time, however, we elected to go to a different branch on this occasion.  The difference in our experience was remarkable.  Our server this time was a friendly chap called Marcus.  He was relaxed and seemed to know what he was doing.  He photocopied our forms, got us to sign some printouts and that was it.  Apparently, I will be sent a bank card very soon.  I won’t believe it until I’m holding it in my hands though!