Some observations from Ireland and England -- may be applicable to the continent as well, dunno. It is just an observation ... nothing meaningful.
Coke is everywhere, Pepsi is pretty much MIA.
Every Pub has Bud ON TAP! **AND** people sit in Irish Pubs with Guinness, Murphy's, Beamish, etc and drink BUD! They also have Heineken in every Pub we saw ... so two taps pretty much down with beer that I don't want to drink when I'm across the pond. Fortunately, many places have a good number of taps, and the Guinness there is heavenly -- positively creamy, and the US Tenders really need to learn to put a shamrock in the foam!
Oh, I do drink Bud in IA when the choices are Bud Lite, Coors Lite, Bush Lite, Miller Lite and Nite Lite ... or Bud!
And JACK! Every pub had Jack Daniels -- and sometimes Makers Mark and usually Canadian Club -- which was enough for me to look up the list -- Jack, Johnnie Walker, Jameson, Canadian Club (that explains it!) ... interestingly, Ballantines, Japanese brands I'd never heard of, plus Jim Beam (expected it to be higher on list) as well as Crown and Black Velvet appear in top 10.
McDonalds is there of course -- isn't it everywhere? But I was shocked by the prevalence of KFC -- both in Ireland and England. Apparently the folks on the isles find it finger lickin good!
Oh, and at the Jamison distillery, Marla, who just isn't into even triple distilled ultra smooth whiskey neat, went for the Jamison, Ginger Ale and a lime twist ... Now THAT could get a person into trouble! Smooth Jamison with it's little appleish-citrus tang accentuated by the lime, plus the Ginger Ale light ginger sweetness ... very nice! But possibly a little TOO subtle!
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Hey Bill! Way back in '92-'93 when I was living in Nottingham and also toured parts of Ireland by "push" bike, American Bud could be found on tap everywhere in England but was not so prevalent in Ireland outside of Dublin. I suspect that the European owned AB-InBev being the world's largest brewing company holding most of the best known brands (Corona, Beck's, Stella Artois and of course American Budweiser) accounts for the global appeal. I'm guessing you could also find (but not necessarily on tap) MGD, which is honestly a pretty good Pilsner, but then again, I did come of age in Milwaukee, as SABMiller is also a global European owned brand.
ReplyDeleteAs for YUM! Brands--as a capitalist lefty I am an investor-- they are currently growing more rapidly than any of the other US fast food chains, so I am not surprised that you encountered KFC. I think I went to McDonald's once in Nottingham just to see how it compared to the US. Back in the 90s, the European chain Pizzaland was the primary outlet for Pizza, but I imagine with YUM! expanding you saw a few Pizza Huts.