h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Two things:

1. By personal experience, I can say that, in Germany also, almost every type of beer has its own glass. Mind you, Malzbier (very sweet stuff, almost nonalcoholic and suitable for children) is (or, at least, was in the café I visited) served in the same glass as pils. Comments from Germans on this topic are welcome.

2. According to the Lonely Planet guide to Germany, 80% of all breweries in Europe are in Germany.

Number 2 is a very hard staistic to believe, there are well over 600 breweries in the UK which is a pretty impressive figure in itself. I wonder how many there are in Germany then?

Just found out, 1277!! Holy Smeg!

Mind you, if Germany has 1277 then the UK has half of that. So, followingthat logice, there's no way that Germany can have 80% of European breweries. I wonder where Lonely Planet get their information from?

ok, belgium's just a little bit smaller than uk and germany, and they got only about 300 breweries, but hey, all together they make about 3000 beers. some 400 of them have their own character and are worth tasting. now what?

If they exclude Britain from their definition of Europe, the other 20% is 320, so there are about 20 breweries in the rest of Europe... perhaps other countries aren't interested in beer. But surely there must be a fair few breweries in the Czech Republic, seeing as they invented pilsener? Hmmm.