Alcoholic drinks in Britain

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There are a number of alcoholic drinks that are popular in Britain.

As well a being a major location for beer for centuries, Britain has developed other alcoholic drinks such as the spirits gin and whisky, and cider or scrumpy. More recently Britain has started to make wine natively alongside continuing imports of wine from abroad.

1 Wine
2 Beer
3 See also
4 References

[edit] Wine

See also: Wine from the United Kingdom

For centuries, the British market was the main customer of sweet wines like sherry, Port wine, and Madeira wine. English wine has been available since the Roman era, and the historical view that it was of poor quality is still held by some wine critics.^[1] In recent years, however, this opinion has softened.^[1] In 2004 a panel judging European sparkling wines awarded most of the top ten positions to British wines - the remaining positions going to French Champagnes.

[edit] Beer

Main article: English beer

Main article: Welsh beer

Main article: Scottish beer

The majority of British beer tends to be bitter, with domestic pale lager brands generally serving the lower end of the market.

However, any establishment catering for the middle of the market will tend to have a range of continental-style lagers available; the Belgian-owned Stella Artois brand, for example, is one of the most common. Some of these lagers are, despite their Continental origins, brewed under licence in the United Kingdom with others, such as Budvar from the Czech Republic, being imported.

Organisations such as the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) believe that the limited quantities of beer produced by the growing number of 'independent' British breweries and microbreweries is of higher quality to that produced by large corporate brewers who formerly dominated the market, and CAMRA have been instrumental in supporting the smaller brewers.