Don't mention ze bar
Think Blighty is a beer drinking nation? Think again. When the planet's football fans converge on Germany this summer, there will be more than 5000 different varieties of the good stuff to go blind on.
Each is brewed according to a 1516 law that states that the only ingredients allowed are malt, hops, yeast and water. Playtime is over!
And, what with crippling unemployment and being David Hasselhoff's favourite singing spot, who can blame the Germans for taking the ultimate mind melt so seriously?
More than 80 per cent of booze drunk in Germany is good old beer, and they had monks cooking up homebrews in – deep breath – Weihenstephan back in 1040.
There's strong beer, light beer, smoked beer – all with regional favourites. Homer Simpson's paradise is made flesh and on the end of a cheapo plane ticket.
Us Brits can't even lay claim to the word 'lager' – it's from the German 'Lagerbier' – beer that was brewed strong enough to survive being exported abroad. Take that, national identity!
This is a country that runs two-week festivals to throwing back the lagerbier – with Oktoberfest in Munich first kicking off in 1810. This siren-like carnival of good brews pumps out six million litres of beer in a fortnight, enough to fill a small lake – where are my trunks?
And let's not forget the beer goggles - in Munich you can tune them up on curvy waitresses kitted out in traditional Bavarian outfits. The fact that they can carry up to 22 litres of beer on one tray may also help focus your attention.
But back to the strong stuff, if you can handle it they say Kulmbach is the strongest bock lager in the world at a stonking 9.2 per cent – again from the recipe books of monks.
So, this summer, charge your glasses and repeat after us: "Einz, zwei, drei, suffra!" (One, two, three, chug it down!)