LOL, thanks for all the reviews and recs! I will keep this in mind should I ever end up drinking in Scotland. I also love scotch but can't seem to afford anything better than the blended variety....will have to save up for the higher quality stuff.

he was a member of his uni's real ale society, and quickly told me that he didn't like to see women drinking ale, and certainly not by the pint. Well, after that I'd be damned if I wasn't going to spend the evening quaffing Hobgoblin out of a tankard.

I heard something like this before from a friend of mine, that it was considered very unfeminine for women in the UK to drink beer and not wine or a least a shandy. Beer is definitely not a girly drink in the US but you don't get strange looks for drinking it.