7 Ways British and American Pubs Are Very Different

in the u.s this varies by state but there's not a single one in the union that mandates that pogs close as early as that [Music] hello i'm lawrence and i'm on a quest to uncover all of the memos that britain and america lost in the pond and one of those memos pertains to pobs pubs where would we be without them a question that's been decisively answered in the hellscape that is 2020 in fact while we're on the subject of the pandemic do keep in mind uncle toby that a lot of what you're about to hear in this video might temporarily not be true that doesn't mean that it's not ordinarily true it just means that pubs have had to make a lot of changes on either side of the pond and the key word there is either i think before i moved to the united states i was under the assumption that america didn't have pubs but specialized instead in bars but america does have pubs sometimes they'll be the kind of pubs that are looking to mimic those in britain or ireland and those ones are easy to spot because they'll say something like johnny's irish pub all the elephant and castle an allusion to britain's many castles and elephants but then america does have pubs in its own right usually called something along the lines of merv's tavern and since i'm now familiar with how pubs operate in both countries i thought this would be a great opportunity to talk about seven ways that british and american pubs are very different so go and order yourself a pint of fosters or miller lite as we order in the first round the story of my drinking life goes a little bit like this at the ages of 16 and 17 i could waltz up to the bar of any british pub and order myself an absinthe and that's not because 16 is the legal drinking age in britain it's because a door security is usually pretty lacked as in there is no door security and b i've always looked four years older than i am no the legal drinking age in britain is 18 so imagine my surprise on my 18th birthday when me and a few mates went to paint the town red not literally that's another story and i got carded for the first time in my entire life and the problem was i didn't have any id with me fast forward nine years 27 years old and i've moved to the united states of america what's the first thing that happens as i enter a pub i get carded but then depending on the state it is not unusual for people that are much older sometimes 70 years older to be carded at an american pub trust me saw this with my own eyes it happened to dick van dyke of course by then i learned my lesson and i did indeed have some id ironically i get carded a lot less these days one of the perks of being a youtube sensation and 38 years old so nationally the legal drinking age in the united states is 21 but that hasn't always been the case in some states it was even once like britain a pub could legally serve somebody who was 18 years or older in 1969 while neil and buzz were landing on the moon teenagers could legally land themselves a glass of blue moon but only in the states of louisiana and neil armstrong's home state of ohio and then something changed by 1975 the number of 18 states had risen to 23. this was a domino effect following the recent change of the voting age from 21 to 18. the belief being that if somebody's old enough to vote they're old enough to drink the problem is legislators didn't stop to think about what would happen if these two things happened at the same time by 1983 the numbers plummeted as states moved to increase their drinking age once more to 21. this was seen as a response to an increase in drunk driving incidents and the domino effect was complete in 1984 when president ronald reagan signed into law the national minimum drinking age act which outlawed the purchase of alcohol by individuals under the age of 21. in 2020 one or two parental loopholes notwithstanding the legal drinking age remains 21 in all u.s states and territories except puerto rico and the u.s virgin islands where it's 18. pubs what are they good for well the answer to that question could be different depending on which country you are in i mean sure in both countries one of the chief aims of pubs is to give customers a place to get pissed until the cows come home and if you've ever been drinking with me that happens regularly but the main difference here lies in their purpose in the middle of the day in britain if we go to the pub in the middle of the day often this can take on a quiet but social tone we just go to talk over a pint in a way it's like how americans go and grab a coffee coffee why am i saying it like that one country emerges from this scenario drunk on caffeine the other drunk on the street apart from that it's the same thing if you go into the pub in the middle of the day in america you can usually expect that to be coupled with a sporting event and that doesn't mean you yourself get drunk and start playing polo it means you enter a pub that's simultaneously showing about 28 different sports in order to do that said pub would need to have a one of these that's right in america the term sports bar is almost redundant though i'm finding first hand the same is not true of the term sports bra don't ask one word tequila but the reason that the term sports bar ought to be redundant is that just about every pub and bar in america is worthy of that title in other words it's incredibly common to walk into an establishment and be surrounded by television sets and these television sets don't typically show repeats of happy days but of the cubs losing or at least when i'm around in british pubs you will occasionally find a tv but the emphasis is not on consuming television but rather on consuming alcohol and the words of your friends that sounded weird earlier in the video i joke that we ourselves don't play sports while down at the pub but in either country this isn't strictly true of course in britain this depends on whether or not you class darts as a sport especially when you're at the pub because you've got a drink in your hand which i've just realized is also true of professional dance players either way darts are an incredibly popular sport in british pubs in american pubs even though you will occasionally encounter the odd dartboard sometimes very odd dartboard they're just not as big a part of the pub going experience and when you think about the sentence drunk people throwing sharp objects that probably makes sense i'm often reminded of those stories of american tourists who enter a british pub sit at a table and wait on a waiter to wait for them here's the truth you could be waiting a long time because unlike the united states british pubs tend not to employ table service and this can be a problem particularly when the pub is heaving heaving in the sense of crowded not throwing up you want to make sure you get a seat i understand that right so here's what you do if you're there in a group one of you go to the bar while the rest of you claim the seat the one at the bar orders all of the drinks and then it's his or her responsibility to carry them to the table just don't use the term double fisting in america things are different even during the super bowl which is not a national dish you can fully expect to receive table service in most pubs throughout the land of course this could be partially dictated by the tipping culture that exists in america and fellow brits that's not the same thing as fly tipping at the end of the day we go to the pub to get absolutely rat assed or to have a casual drink and so to some degree it's going to vary from country to country as to what is on tap there are some crossovers and i dare say some exceptions to what i'm about to say but there are lots of differences in the beers that are served and this can vary from pub to pub or even region to region any pub british or american worth their salt will feature a comprehensive list of local beers naturally these are going to be different between britain and america but also between regions within each of those countries but then you get down to the big names too in britain you're far more likely to be ordering the australian beer fosters than you are samuel adams if that's not your bag there's always carlsberg or carling in america budweiser or miller light and if you want one that unites the two countries you could go for the belgian beer stella artois which in britain is trashy and in the u.s it's classy and then of course there's the pint size itself let me go back in time and hand you over to lawrence from a few months ago great britain might be unfairly known for its warm beer but at least you get more bang for your buck or should i say quid you see a british pint is larger than its american counterpart to some that might sound like something that i cooked up after you know four pints of stella especially since each country defines a pint as 1 8 of a gallon but here's the catch gallons are different too in the u.s a gallon is equal to 3.79 liters in britain it's equal to 4.55 liters so 1 8 of a us gallon gives you a pint of 473 milliliters a good old british pint clocks in at 568. and this is great news for american beer fans in britain because it means that six american pints are equal to five british ones you'll be slaughtered before the pub quiz starts aside from the fact that you now have a particular song stuck in your head you're probably asking the question what's the difference between british and american closing times you see in britain right up until about 2005 it was mandated that pubs had to close at 11 pm on the one hand you could get around this by starting your drinking session earlier say it's seven o'clock in the morning on the other given the time difference you couldn't stay around long enough to watch wrestling pay-per-views but then in 2005 a law was passed that said that pubs could stay open 24 hours so long as they had a specific license but by all accounts it looks like most british pubs haven't applied for this license because they still shot at 11 pm in the u.s this varies by state but there's not a single one in the union that mandates that pubs close as early as that in fact 27 states in the union permit their pubs to stay open until 2 a.m and it's usually at that time after tequila that my voice really does sound like that now there are some notable exceptions to this rule alaska and hawaii are to drinking times what puerto rico and the us virgin islands are to the legal drinking age in other words they're so far away from the mainland they can sort of get away with it what can they get away with staying open until four and five am there are state and local exceptions to those rules just in case you were thinking of moving to either of those states that's closing time on this episode let me know in the comments below your experiences of pubs in either country don't forget to follow me on twitter where you can read some of my admittedly drunken sounding ramblings you can do so at lost in the pond at us and don't forget to subscribe to my channel so that my videos don't get lost in the pond a big toast to all of my patrons who continue to support what i do despite the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic that means the world to me certainly means the world to this channel if you would like to support lost in the pond you can do so at patreon.com lost in the pond until next time cheers [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Lost in the Pond

Views: 460,162

Keywords: Finding America, Laurence Brown, America, Britain, pubs, beer

Id: hzu-NfP2IX0

Length: 11min 30sec (690 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 26 2020