Holland: Brouwerij't IJ Ijwit

Brewed in a windmill on the banks of the river IJ in the centre of Amsterdam, Ijwit is a well balanced wheat beer with hints of lemon and coriander. The beer is unfiltered so has a distinctive cloudy golden colour and is a great accompaniment for a summers day.

This wheat beer tastes fresh and crisp, defying its strength of 7%, and really is a beer to be drunk slowly and savoured rather than a Heineken-esque session beer.

Brouwerij't IJ now brew all of their beers using only organic ingredients, and being unfiltered, unpasteurised and top-fermented gives Ijwit and the other Brouwerij't beers a distinct fresh flavour apart from other wheat beers widely available on supermarket shelves.

To taste Ijwit at its best a visit to the windmill brewery in Amsterdam is required to drink it fresh from the keg along the banks of the river IJ. Ijwit is difficult to get hold of outside of Amsterdam, but website www.bier-winkel.com sells Brouwerij't IJ beers when available.

England: Thwaites Nutty Black (aka Dark Mild)

Thwaites Champion beer has recently been rebranded as 'Nutty Black', but can still be found under it's previous incarnation 'Dark Mild' in the supermarkets.

Daniel Thwaites first began brewing Nutty Black in Blackburn in 1807, and as can be expected from it's title, Nutty Black is a dark ruby coloured beer. The beer isn't that simple however. Nutty Black has a surprisingly light finish, making this bitter and easy drinker. Together with the slight sweetness at first taste and expected smoothness of any northern bitter, Nutty Black provides a pleasantly unexpected flavour and weight compared with other real ales.

Thus, due to the unorthodox finish and 200 year loyalty to the original recipe of this 3.3% ABV bitter, Nutty Black is very much deserving of its status as one of only four beers to win CAMRA's Champion Beer of Britain more than once.

Being a dark mild, Nutty Black is well suited to red meats and the slight sweetness also compliments barbeques very well if the sun dares to come out.

A great patriotic beer of England, all it lacks is some novelty chainmail and a comprehensive defeat on penalties.

Available from good pubs across the country and in Asda (£2.57 for four cans)

32 countries, 32 beers (hopefully)

The World Cup is here and I intend to try and get hold of a beer from each of the participating nations. Granted, this may be difficult for the global dead zone that is North Korea or minor nations such as Honduras and Ivory Coast that tend not to export their beers to the UK, but I'll give it a go.

I also don't intend to go for the obvious global brands such as Carlsberg from Denmark or Budweiser from the home of 'soccer' as everyone knows how they taste like dishwater.

Being English and requiring alcoholic stimulus to numb the effects of watching England participating in any sort of competition, I'll begin with a local (in a global sense) brew from blighty.