Beer and Sovereignty

Today I got the latest issue of "Ølentusiasten" the members' magazine of the Danish Beer Consumer union Danske Ølentusiaster - an equivalent of the British CAMRA.

As this blog cannot allow itself to become to frivolous and detail how I get all sentimental when watching the long overdue 'Beer-revolution' in a hitherto monopolized Denmark and get a spring-like urge to go out and try new micro-brews in interesting places, I will just note that there is a curious connection between UK and DK when it comes to Beer and Sovereignty:

Both countries are reluctant towards the EU project and both have the largest memberships in the European beer consumer organization EBCU. In Britain it started in the 1970s, in Denmark in the 1990s. The British experience was linked to the perceived threat against Real Ale and was isolated to the Isles. In Denmark it was a revolt against the Carlsberg dominated monopoly and it has resonated in the other Nordic countries (for other reasons though).

Could it be that a reluctance towards the geopolitical Berlin-Paris axis shows itself in the revival of the drinking habits of olde? And could this connection explain why Denmark went to war in Iraq with the drinking-buddies across the North Sea?

Cheers and think about that!