A Guide to English Beer

Most of the pubs in London and throughout the United Kingdom are “tied” to a particular brewery and sell only that brewery’s beers (you see the name of the brewery on the sign outside). Independent pubs can sell more brands than a tied pub. Either way, you still have to choose from what may seem like a bewildering variety. The colorful names of individual brews don’t provide much help — you can only wonder what Pigswill, Dogs Bollocks, Hobgoblin, Old Thumper, Pommies Revenge, or Boondoggle taste like. Depending on all sorts of factors — the water, the hops, the fermentation technique, and so on — the brewery crafts the taste of any beer, whether on draught or in a bottle. You can get a few U.S. and international brands, but imports are more expensive than the homegrown products.
When ordering beer in a pub, specify the type, the brand, and the amount (pint or halfpint) you want. Feel free to ask the bartender to recommend something based on your taste preferences. Just remember that pubs serve most English beer at room temperature.
The following brief descriptions of beer may come in handy in a pub:

• Ale: Not as strong as bitter, ale has a slightly sweeter taste. You can order light or pale ale in a bottle; export ale is a stronger variety.
• Bitter: What most locals drink. It’s a clear, yellowish, traditional beer with a strong flavor of hops. Real ale is a bitter that’s still fermenting (alive) when it arrives from the brewery; the pub pumps and serves it immediately.
• Lager: When chilled, lager is probably the closest you can come to an Americanstyle beer. You can get lager in bottles or on draught.
• Shandy: Equal parts bitter and lemonade (sometimes limeade or ginger beer), it’s for those who like a sweet beverage that only sort of tastes like beer.
• Stout: A dark, rich, creamy version of ale. Guinness is the most popular brand. A black and tan is half lager and half stout.

Visiting the Local English Pub

The pub (short for public house) is an English institution. England is awash with historic pubs, where you can sit all evening with a pint of ale, bitter, stout, or cider and soak up the local color (but not the smoke, since smoking is no longer allowed in pubs). No matter how tiny the village or town, you always find at least one pub. In London and larger towns, you can do a pub crawl, walking (upright) from pub to pub and sampling the diverse brews on tap. Although you can get a hard drink at both bars and pubs, when you’re in a pub, you’re better off confining yourself to beer.
Parliament has instituted the strict hours that most pubs adhere to:
Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 10:30 p.m. Americans, take note: In a pub, you never tip the bartender; the best you can do is offer to buy him or her a drink, an acceptable practice in England. Ten minutes before closing, a bell rings, signaling that the time has come to order your last round.

Dining with English Style

Once upon a time, you could always count on getting lousy meals in England. English “home cooking” — dull, insular, and uninspired — was the joke of Europe. That began to change in the 1980s, with the influx of new cooking trends that favored foods from France and Italy. Since then, London has become a major food capital, and the rest of the country has raised its food consciousness considerably. London is certainly the easiest place to find restaurants serving inventive Modern British cuisine, but you also encounter the new cooking style in smaller towns and even in some pubs. And don’t forget that spicy Indian cooking is England’s second “national” cuisine. You find thousands of Indian and other ethnic restaurants throughout the country.
But traditionalists have nothing to worry about. You can still get your hands on all those wonderful Old English faves — eggs, kippers, beans, and fried tomatoes for breakfast; bubble and squeak; roast beef and Yorkshire pudding; meat pies; fish and chips; cottage pie; sticky toffee pudding; and trifle. When traditional, non-fancy English dishes are done well, they’re super satisfying and delicious. If you travel around the country, look for local and regional specialties, such as sausage, lamb, cheese, and desserts.
While you’re in England, you can also look forward to the world of afternoon tea. In the West Country, you get a cream tea, which consists of tea; homemade scones; strawberry jam; and thick, rich, clotted cream from Devon or Cornwall. (You put the cream on your scones, not in your tea, and then top it all with the jam.) Elsewhere, you may find whipped cream in place of the clotted cream. You can have teas as simple or as fancy as you want.

An Overview of English Architecture

You can determine the period in which a building was constructed (or reconstructed) by its architectural and decorative details. In a country like England, where the age of buildings can span a thousand-year period (a few Anglo-Saxon churches are even older than that), many different styles evolved. The architectural periods are often named for the monarch or royal family reigning at the time. You can enhance your enjoyment of England’s abundance of historic buildings if you know a few key features of the different styles. The following list is a brief primer in English architectural history, from Norman to Victorian times:

• Norman (1066–1189): Round arches, barrel vaults, and highly decorated archways characterize this period’s Romanesque style.
• Early English Gothic (1189–1272): The squat, bulky buildings of the Norman period gave way to the taller, lighter buildings constructed in this style.
• Decorated Gothic (1272–1377): Buildings in this style have large windows, tracery (ornamental work with branching lines), and heavily decorated gables and arches.
• Perpendicular Gothic (1377–1483): Large buttresses (exterior side supports) allowed churches to have larger windows than ever before. Tracery was more elaborate than in previous Gothic buildings; the four-centered arch appeared; and architects perfected fan vaulting (a decorative form of vaulting in which the structural ribs spread upward and outward along the ceiling like the rays of a fan).
• Tudor (1485–1553): During this period, buildings evolved from Gothic to Renaissance styles. Large houses and palaces were built with a new material: brick. England has many half-timbered Tudor and Elizabethan domestic and commercial buildings. This method of construction used brick and plaster between visible wooden timbers.
• Elizabethan (1553–1603): The Renaissance brought a revival of classical features, such as columns, cornices (prominent rooflines with brackets and other details), and pediments (a decorative triangular feature over doorways and windows). The many large houses and palaces of this period were built in an E or H shape and contained long galleries, grand staircases, and carved chimneys.
• Jacobean (1603–1625): In England, Inigo Jones adopted the symmetrical, classically inspired Palladian style that arrived from Italy, but he used it in a freer and more fanciful way. Buildings in this style incorporate elements from ancient Greek and Roman architecture. Columns and pilasters, round-arch arcades, and flat roofs with openwork parapets became common.
• Stuart (1625–1688): Elegant classical features, such as columns, cornices, and pediments, are typical of this period, in which Sir Christopher Wren was the preeminent architect.
• Queen Anne (1689–1714): Buildings from the English baroque period mix heavy ornamentation with classical simplicity.
• Georgian and Regency (1714–1830): During these periods, elegant terraced houses were built; many examples survive in Brighton and Bath. Form and proportion were important elements; interior decoration inspired by Chinese motifs became fashionable. _ Victorian (1830–1901): A whole range of antique styles emerged —everything from Gothic and Greek Revival to pseudo-Egyptian and Elizabethan. Hundreds of English churches were renovated during the Victorian era.
• Modern, Postmodern, and Contemporary Architecture (1946–present): Massive destruction in World War II bombing raids meant rebuilding whole sections of London and other cities throughout England. International Modernism, adapted from European models, resulted in sleeker and simpler facades. The most iconic building from the modernist era is Royal Festival Hall, built on London’s South Bank for the Festival of Britain in 1951. Gargantuan and ungainly Postmodern office buildings went up in The City (London’s financial center) during the 1980s, borrowing architectural styles and elements from earlier and more gracefully coherent epochs. In the past decade, designer buildings by designer architects have popped up on the London skyline, most notably “the Gherkin,” a pickle-shaped City office tower, and the new London City Hall, a rounded glass building on the South Bank near Tower Bridge, both by Lord Norman Foster.

A Brief History of England

England’s history is an inexhaustible subject. Huge tomes have been written on individual monarchs, colorful personalities, architectural styles, and historical eras. But in this section, I’m going to be as brief as a bikini and give you a history of England that covers only the bare essentials:

• Prehistory: Beginning about 5,000 years ago, a Neolithic civilization was cutting and hauling megaton slabs of stone over dozens of miles and erecting them in elaborate geometric configurations. Stonehenge is the most famous example of their work.
• The Romans arrive: When the Romans conquered England in A.D. 43, they suppressed or subdued the local Celtic tribes. The legendary Queen Boudicca (or Boadicea) was a Celtic warrior queen who fought back the invading Romans. (You can see a statue of her on Westminster Bridge in London.) The Romans brought their building and engineering skills to England, and you can see the remains of Roman walls, roads, forts, temples, villas, and baths throughout the country — most notably in Bath.
• Northern invaders: With the Roman Empire’s breakup in A.D. 410, Jutes, Angles, and Saxons from northern Europe invaded England and formed small kingdoms. For the next 600 years or so, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms fought off Viking raiders. In the north, Eboracum, a Roman settlement, became Jorvik, a Viking city, and eventually York. _ William the Conqueror: The next major transitional period in England started in 1066, when William of Normandy fought and killed Harold, the Anglo-Saxon king of England, at the Battle of Hastings (the site of today’s town of Battle. William and his French nobles took over the land and built castles — Windsor Castle and the Tower of London are two examples — and cathedrals that still stand today. Every monarch up to the present day claims descent from William the Conqueror.
• Magna Carta: King John, a Plantagenet, signed the Magna Carta in 1215, granting more rights to the nobles. What about the common man and woman? As serfs and vassals in a closed, hierarchical, class-ridden society, their lot wasn’t an easy one. Geoffrey Chaucer (1342–1400) was the first writer to give us some recognizable portraits of folks who lived during the medieval period, in The Canterbury Tales.
• Hundred Years’ War: At home and abroad, war and bloodshed tore England apart for more than 300 years. The Hundred Years’ War between France and England began in 1337. During this same period, in the War of the Roses, the Houses of York and Lancaster fought for the right of succession to the English crown.
• Tudor and Elizabethan England: Henry VIII, the Tudor king famous for taking six wives, brought about the next great shift in what had been Catholic England. In 1534, he dissolved all the monasteries and became head of the Church of England. His daughter, Elizabeth I, ruled during a period of relative peace, power, and prosperity. The Elizabethan period was England’s Golden Age, the time when Shakespeare’s plays were being performed at the Globe Theatre in London.
• Civil war: In 1603, James VI of Scotland became King James I of England, uniting the crowns of England and Scotland. But conflicts between monarchs and nobles were endless. Charles I, seeking absolute power, dissolved Parliament in 1629. He was beheaded in 1649 after Oliver Cromwell led a bitter civil war between Royalists and Parliamentarians. Cromwell’s armies destroyed churches and royalist strongholds throughout the country. Cromwell was elevated to Lord Protectorate of the Realm, but by 1660 a new king, Charles II, was on the throne. This time, however, his powers were limited.
• Fire and plague: London, which had been growing steadily, was devastated by two back-to-back catastrophes: the Great Plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of 1666.
• The Victorian Empire: England reached its zenith of power and prestige during the reign of Victoria (1837–1901), who ruled over an empire so vast that “the sun never set” on it. The Industrial Revolution spawned another major change during this period, moving England away from its agrarian past and into a mechanized future. Charles Dickens and other social reformers exposed the wretched working conditions in Victorian England, where children as young as 6 had to labor in mines and factories. The late Victorian age was the time of Sherlock Holmes, a fictional detective created by Arthur Conan Doyle, and Jack the Ripper, a real-life serial killer who terrorized London’s East End.
• England in the World Wars: England suffered terrible losses during World War I (1914–1918) but emerged victorious. During World War II, from the fall of France in 1940 until the United States entered the war in 1941, England stood alone against Hitler. Winston Churchill was the country’s prime minister during the war years. With strictly rationed food, mandatory blackouts, and terrible bombing raids that destroyed cities and killed tens of thousands of civilians, life in wartime England had a profound effect on its citizens. Shortages continued for many years afterward.
• The welfare state: Another major societal shift occurred in 1945 when the Labour Party began to dismantle the empire and introduced the welfare state. Under the National Health System, every citizen in the United Kingdom can receive free healthcare and pension benefits. It wasn’t until Margaret Thatcher and the Tory Party came into power during the 1980s that England began privatizing formerly state-run agencies, such as the railroad (with what some say are disastrous results).
• Queen Elizabeth II: Queen Elizabeth II ascended the throne in 1952. The fairy-tale wedding of her son Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer was the last high point for the House of Windsor. Charles and Diana’s subsequent divorce seemed to unleash a floodgate of royal scandals, with the result that the popularity of the British monarchy reached an all-time low. In 2002, the queen celebrated her 50th anniversary on the throne. But the queen is no longer the richest woman in England: J. K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, now holds that title.
• New Labour: In 2001, Tony Blair was elected to a second term as prime minister, and New Labour, with its centrist approach, was firmly in control of the government. However, in the 2005 elections, the party lost one-third of its seats as voters expressed their discontent with Blair’s continuing support of the war in Iraq. Blair stepped down as prime minister in June 2007, and was succeeded by Gordon Brown.
• Terrorist bombings: In July 2005, a day after exultant Londoners learned that their city would host the 2012 Olympic Summer Games, terrorists detonated bombs in the London Underground and on a double-decker bus, killing 54 people and wounding hundreds more. Londoners stood together and carried on, showing the world that they would not be cowed by acts of violence.