>>I'll keep my opinion on the american so-called beer to myself :). OK, Schiner and Negra Modelo are fine, and the americanized versions of a few european beers aren't bad.
>
>Never seen a problem with drinking on my own. Sometimes its nice to sit in the garden with a glass of something nice and watch the clouds go by for a bit.

I guess it's a cultural difference. We probably drink as much as the Irish, and for so many different occasions, that this almost taboo of drinking alone is possibly one precaution against going over the edge. We are almost exclusively social drinkers - and the sheer diversity of socially acceptable times and places where having a drink is anywhere between accepted and mandatory is staggering. I've seen a CEO of a small enterprise, a then customer of ours, fall off his chair at noon.