List of beers and how we sourced them

This may be our last beer post until the European Football Cup in 2012. Once the list of football teams that have qualified has been published we will embark on the beer qualifying rounds.

I have promised you some information on how we sourced our beers.

Mike started off by doing shed loads of investigations about what beers are brewed in the countries competing. Our aim was to find a lager (around 5%) for each country.

First of all, we went to Tescos. Surprising what you can get there.

Then we went online to Beers of Europe - got lots there. Beeritz is also good.

Mike did a lot of googling for obscure online outlets. This yielded the Serbia beer, and the beers from Cameroon and Cote D'Ivoire (but turned out to be from Togo but close enough). This method gave us false hope, though, for Honduras. We also found a site for a store based in Elephant & Castle that looked as if it would provide some of the South American beers but they decided that they couldn't fulfil our order. I wonder if we could have sourced the beer if we went there in person.

Mike then investigated restaurants - we sourced the Swiss and Ghana beers this way.

I think we could have worked harder at locating local stores in areas with a high population from the country we were trying to source. We knew of the Korean Supermarket in Centrepoint, there must be more stores like that.

We found that some local stores (for example, Westholme Stores in Goring on Thames and the out-of-date beer shop in the Cowley Road, Oxford) have really good selections.

If we still couldn't find the right beer, we then asked lots of favours from our friends. In this way, we managed to source 2 bottles of Taedonggang from North Korea and the Slovenian Zlatorog.

And then if we still couldn't find a beer then we picked substitutes from nearby countries (some nearer than others...)

Here's the list of contestants.

If any of our readers know where to source  beers from Uruguay, Algeria, Paraguay, Chile or Honduras then please let us know!

Over and out until Euro 2012!

Algeria: could not source Alga Power Beer
Argentina: Quilmes, from Beers of Europe
Australia: VB, from Beers of Europe
Brazil: Palma Louca, from Beers of Europe
Cameroon: Castel, from www.alterafrica.com
Chile: could not source Cristal or Austral
Cote D'Ivoire: Flag, from www.alterafrica.com (but small print on the bottle says it's from Togo)
Denmark: Elephant, from Beers of Europe
England: Hop, from Tesco
France: Kronenbourg, from Tesco
Germany: Bitburger, from Tesco
Ghana: Star, from Gold Coast Bar, Brixton (who charged us a full £5 per bottle, and the bottles were out of date. Beware.)
Greece: Vergina, from Beers of Europe
Honduras: could not source Port Royal Export
Italy: Peroni, from Tesco
Japan: Kirin Ichiban, from Beers of Europe
Korea (South): Hite, from Korea Foods, Centrepoint
Korea (North): Taedonggang, from Simon. Good luck finding this one!
Mexico: Bohemia, from Beers of Europe
Netherlands: Bavaria, from Tesco
New Zealand: Speights, from Beers of Europe
Nigeria: Star, from Beers of Europe
Paraguay: could not source Baviera or Cerveceria Paraguayana Pilsen
Portugal: Super Bock, from Beers of Europe
Serbia: Apatinsko, from Vardor, Askew Road, W12
Slovakia: Zlaty Bazant, from Beers of Europe (sadly only tins available now)
Slovenia: Lasko Zlatorog, from Simon. But may be available in the UK now.
South Africa: Castle, from www.buysouthafricaonline.co.uk
Spain: Alhambra, from Beers of Europe
Switzerland: Swiss Mountain Beer, from St Moritz Restaurant, Soho (who were very charming)
Uruguay: could not locate Nortena
USA: Dixie, from Beers of Europe