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

Aloha from Down Unda!
The most problematic part of buying beer in the cities in Australia, to me, is the necessity, in 'licensed' restraurants, to buy food! I was here at least two weeks before it 'sunk in' that I needed to find a bar & wouldn't be served at ANY 'sidewalk cafe' unless I ordered $15-25.oo (Aus) of food!
The bars, 'pubs' and 'clubs' have a VERY uncivilized culture of 'bellying up', exactly as unrulely as pigs at a trougth, because there is NO concept of waiters or waitresses, a pure fact which has been completely ignored by ALL Australians and most of the rest of Earth. Having lived in Europe & the USA all my life, it is still, 6 years later, a complete mystery as to why the concept of waiters & waitresses has yet to be employed in Australia.
The key words are "Schooner", followed by either "VB" for Victoria Bitter, "Four X" for Queensland's Castlemaine XXXX Gold, or the New South Wales version of Tooheys "New" or "Old". "Swan Lager" may be Western Australia's Brew but I drank a lot of "VB" when I was over there, along with "BECK's", the standard to which I am accoustomed! These standard beers 'on tap', (schooners) would equate to about $3-5.oo Australian, while a bottle of Beck's would cost minimum of $5-8.oo Australian, depending on where you were drinking with respect to local custom. I would imagin that some 'fancy' city places would get $10-12.oo for a Beck's, still, the best beer on Earth, IMHO!
Foster's? One of the biggest jokes in Australia!
New South Wales introduced new laws about 3 years ago which prohibited the sale of 'Pints' and 'Pitchures'.
Yeah, I'm just about feed up enough to return to Las Vegas where a waitress will serve a free beer for a small tip while I enjoyed slots instead of enduring 'pokies' with the 'piggies'!
K-den, M1/NSWMoke aka [email protected]
Thursday, 10:43 PM Nov 9th,06