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As CAMRA celebrates Mild Month, with the aim of promoting a style of beer that was in danger of disappearing from our pubs, it is perhaps a fitting time to point out another endangered species. While few of us indeed can walk into a pub as a matter of routine and order a pint of mild, how many of us can walk into a pub and make that classic order "Pint of Bitter please"? Chances are that unless you live near a pub owned by one of the Family Brewers, you can't. Or at least since bitter is a fairly well known generic term, you can't without further discussion as to which "bitter" you want. Now of course it may well be that you have no interest whatever in "ordinary" bitter, but I for one regard it as a classic English icon and it would be a shame to lose it as a widely understood term.There is something particularly "right" to me in ordering one, but then again, I'm a sentimental old git.

So when was the last time you walked into a pub and asked for a pint of bitter and were given a pint without further discussion as to what you actually wanted?

I do my bit to preserve it every Sunday of course. And the odd day in between. So it isn't my fault.


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