Which is the odd one out: Bamberg, Bruges, Antwerp, London, Düsseldorf, Brussels or Cologne? The answer is London because a beer aficionado's tour of Europe does not typically involve a visit to the UK's capital.
London has many historical links to beer production, but in recent times these appeared to have faded away. Now the breweries are returning to the capital, with a significant rise in the number operating within its boundaries.
Phil Lowry is managing director of Beermerchants.com and part-time brewer at Brew Wharf in Borough Market. He is convinced the days of beer fans from the US jetting over and spending more time in Belgium's West Flanders than in London should be at an end.
To ensure this happens, he is the leading light in the recently formed London Brewers' Alliance (LBA), which intends to return the capital to its rightful place among the world's leading centres for high-quality brewing and beer-drinking.
His inspiration for the venture came from frequent visits to San Francisco, where Lowry says there is a strong camaraderie among brewers, who help each other and collaborate on activities such as the annual San Francisco Beer Week.
"I sent out a cheeky email to 15 brewers inviting them for dinner and I also mentioned that it would be lovely if John Keeling [brewmaster at Fuller's] could turn up," he says. "Incredibly I nigh on had my arm ripped off and we ended up with a table full of brewers."
Along with Keeling, the other brewers enthusiastically involved at this embryonic stage of the LBA are Redemption, Sambrooks, Kernel, Camden, Twickenham, Zero Degrees, Meantime and Brodies. To get Keeling and Derek Prentice, Fuller's brewing manager, involved was particularly important to Lowry as he says it has "given the group some standing and a true weight to it".
The general consensus among these brewers is that after many years in the wilderness London now has a thriving beer scene, but it needs publicising. Andy Moffat, brewer at Redemption Brewery, says: "It's an opportunity to promote good beer and re-identify London as having a great beer heritage. It's been lost for many years and getting this back is the main thing for me. There is a group of drinkers who know about beers in London but beyond them there are probably very few people who know about it."
Having previously brewed in Munich for Paulaner, Simon Siemsgluess, brewer at Zero Degrees, agrees that London needs to promote itself now that there are so many interesting beer styles produced in the city.
"It had not been on my radar because the UK [as a brewing centre] had disappeared. But now there is a feeling of bringing back something that is traditional. Brewing in London had been globalised and this [the LBA] will help bring back more of the localised aspect. It's exciting to be part of it," he explains.
Moffat says the remit of the LBA will not be limited to promoting the capital's beers to tourists. The body will also seek to raise awareness among Londoners and licensees in the capital who have failed to recognise they have many great beers on their doorstep. "How many people in Bermondsey know about Kernel and how many people in Tottenham know about my brewery?" he adds.
Although the LBA is still at an embryonic stage, Lowry does not want to create a club "where brewers simply meet and get drunk". So among his grand plans is a London Beer Week that will bring together London's great beers. "We want to stun the world with the diversity of London brewers - in size, age and style - from the smallest, Kernel, up to Fuller's," he says. "It's incredible what we now have in London and it is a relatively recent phenomenon."
Time constraints mean it is not possible to host a London Beer Week this year, so the first is planned for spring 2011. For this year there is a one-day event pencilled in for September 17, when the enormous room above Brew Wharf will showcase London beers. This will be open to the trade - beer buyers, pubs and other venues - for the first hour and then to the public.
Another element of the event will be a collaborative beer, brewed at Sambrooks Brewery in Battersea with the input of various brewers. Lowry also foresees the week including pub-based events such as meet-the-brewer nights, debates among brewers and exclusive beer tastings.
This involvement of pubs is vital to the LBA, according to Lowry: "Pubs are integral to London's beers and nobody is currently highlighting the venues where you can drink the capital's beers."
He suggests there are probably 50 great beer venues in London that need better promoting, including the Pembury Tavern in Hackney, the Bricklayer's Arms in Putney, the Rake in Borough Market, the White Horse in Parson's Green, the Southampton Arms in Gospel Oak and the Royal Oak in Borough.
Another key aspect of the LBA is the networking opportunity, and this is why Lowry is ensuring a seat around the LBA table for a member of the London Amateur Brewers homebrew group, with each meeting open to a different member. "There is a group of 25 to 35-year-olds in there who see brewing as a career, and we want to offer them this great chance for networking," he explains.
Even in these very early stages of the LBA, networking and collaboration have been taking place. Lowry recently shared a journey to North Norfolk with Siemsgluess to buy some high-quality malt and Evin O'Riordain, brewer at the Kernel Brewery, says he helped out Moffat with bottling some of his cask beer.
Such collaboration was commonplace in his previous job: "I used to work at Neal's Yard and I knew 50 cheesemakers who would all help each other, and I assumed brewing was the same. Now with the LBA it will be very useful for gaining help in the future."
Lowry is quick to point out that collaboration is not only beneficial to newer, smaller brewers gaining advice from the more experienced operators. "Fuller's is after innovative new products. If John Keeling wanted a hoppy US beer, he'd never produce a double-hopped IPA like I've just brewed, so there will be an opportunity for us all to compare notes," he says.
The smaller brewers and members of the London Amateur Brewers will also be able to help the larger players with the trialling of small batches, with Lowry revealing that one brewer recently gave a small batch of malt to another LBA member for testing in small volumes. So it seems there may indeed be strength in numbers.