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I didn't. Well, not until I first visited Prague. But that's a totally different story.

I asked this question on Twitter. Why? Because, in a comment on an earlier post about the price of Lager, someone mentioned that it was visiting the continent that gave them a taste for it. I'd heard the story before that it was foreign holidays that got drinkers onto Lager. And I'd been sceptical. Now someone said that had been the case for them.

I wanted to know how common this experience was. So I set up a Twitter Poll. Two polls, in fact, because four answers just wasn't enough. Winner was "all your mates drank it". Which is interesting. Basically, that's saying peer pressure.

It got me thinking. The UK way of drinking - taking turns to buy a round for the whole group - favours conformity. Especially with Lager, which was 50% more expensive than Mild. The people I drank with were either Bitter or Mild drinkers. There was only a small difference in price between them.

On the rare occasions when we had a Lager drinker amongst us, I wasn't happy at having to fork out considerably more for one drink in the round. But even worse would have been having two or three Lager drinkers in my circle. Inevitably, there was some pressure for everyone to order drinks of a similar price.

"Got a taste for it abroad", with over 10% of replies, did score reasonably well, coming fifth. Quite a long way behind "liked the taste". Which surprised me a little.

"Less bad than keg Ale" scored worse than I expected, with only five votes. Clearly not a major reason for opting for Lager. At least amongst my very unrepresentative sample. Trendy and advertising also scored very low. Though, in the case of advertising, if it was really effective, you wouldn't notice that it was prompting your choice at the bar.
Why did you start drinking Lager?
answer votes %
all your mates drank it 42 28.77%
liked the taste 27 18.49%
none of the above 25 17.12%
lacked moral fibre 20 13.70%
Got a taste for it abroad 17 11.64%
less bad than keg Ales 5 3.42%
it was trendy and modern 5 3.42%
advertising 5 3.42%
total 146
Source:
My Twitter poll.


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