T he ‘special relationship’ is dead. We’re re-running the Revolutionary War, Frost–Nixon and Tyson–Bruno all at once and we’ll settle this thing once and for all. But instead of all that arguing, violence and mayhem, we’ll use beer this time.

British brewers gifted to the world some of the classic beer styles, and American brewers have pushed their boundaries to the limits. In beer terms we’re kindred spirits, yes. But we’ll all know where we stand when we can definitively say who makes the best beer, and then we can carry on with the important business of drinking it.

In this spirit of unnecessary competitiveness, patriotic tub-thumping and naked aggression, we have called upon two team captains to champion their home nations by selecting a crack team of beers to fight to the death in our tasting coliseum.

They are divided by the glittering expanse of the Atlantic, but united by their expertise and love of a good brew. Representing the United Kingdom is Yorkshire’s finest – the beer writer and broadcaster Pete Brown (www.petebrown.blogspot.co.uk). Representing the United States of America (and especially the state of Georgia) is Craft Beer Consultant and owner of The Beer Sommelier, Matt Simpson (www.thebeerexpert.com).

Each of our experts hand-picked a squad to compete in our five loose (and arguably slightly arbitrary) categories – lager, IPA, stout, wheat and a wildcard round where anything goes. Here, the captains explain what makes their beers the best examples of each style and then we recount how they fared when they went head-to-head in a blind taste test by our panel.

Let’s get ready to rumble …

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Windsor & Eton: Republika Pilsner Lager
Many beer drinkers think that British brewers simply can’t make lager, and that lager in Britain is tasteless yellow fizz. Windsor & Eton freely admit that they had some help from the home of Pilsner lager with this one, and it shows – side by side, it stands up to comparison with the best European lagers.

 Avery: The Kaiser Imperial Oktoberfest Lager
In true American fashion, Avery has taken the Oktoberfest style and ramped it up by doubling the original recipe. Not as sessionable as traditional Oktoberfest, a big bomber bottle of The Kaiser is enough for one person. A flavourful and bready lager, with a deep, rich copper colour and a bitter finish.

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Acorn: Gorlovka Imperial Stout
Slightly biased because it’s from my home town, but this rich stout, named after Barnsley’s Ukrainian twin town, sits nicely between the easier drinking commercial stouts and the thick, heavy monsters that usually go under the ‘imperial’ moniker. A beautiful blend of strength and subtlety.

Jailhouse: Breakout Stout
A hometown favourite made in Hampton, Georgia. Jailhouse is an exemplar of the American take on the umbrella-style ‘stout’. Rich, but relatively dry with some residual sweetness, this stout has a huge coffee note. It falls to the top end of the stout category without being an imperial stout.

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Camden Town: Gentleman’s Wit
Camden aren’t trying to shock or provoke they just make very good, flavoursome beers that reflect a broad range of influences. Brewed with roasted lemons and bergamot, this one combines everything that’s best about fruity, zesty wheat beers.

Two Brothers: Bare Tree Weiss Wine ’13
Wheat beer can cover such a broad range but this is a unique style with wheat, barley and German hops, which is aged in oak for over a year. Really complex with caramel, vanilla and a hint of banana. The flavours vary from year to year and if you can hold on to it for any time it will age in the bottle like wine for several years.

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Meantime: India Pale Ale
We all love a hop bomb, but the original IPAs were intended to be drunk once those hops mellowed out, leaving the beer more balanced and yet more complex. This is one of the very best iterations of what we think an IPA might actually have tasted like in the sweltering heat of Calcutta in the mid-19th century.

AleSmith: IPA
Perfect for what it’s supposed to be, this IPA is proof that Alesmith don’t make a bad beer. With big, citrus, piney, resiny notes coming from those west coast American hops and a nice caramel molten note, it really is a stellar pale ale – San Diego’s flagship beer.

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Wild Beer Co: Ninkasi
Experimental, but not for the sake of being so. The blend of New Zealand hops, wild yeast and champagne fermentation may sound like a tick box exercise in hipster beer fashionability, but with one sip you can tell it was the flavour reward that mattered most. A sophisticated, mature, elegant beer.

Lost Abbey: Cable Car (2009)
This is an American sour ale with lots of funk. A brewery-only release, Cable Car is very rare and hard to come by. Its cheese and lemon notes add a deep richness and the wild yeasts and bacteria – Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus and Pediococcus – add a huge complexity.

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S o, who to judge these proud warriors? Our five-strong panel, drawn from within and without the Hot Rum Cow stable, covered all the bases. Professionals and amateurs, men and women, Brits and Yanks (Red Coats and Rebels, if you prefer) and with a range of beer knowledge.

The beers were served blind, category by category with no steer given on where they came from. This was far from a clinical, scientific process – our judges were simply asked to score each beer out of 10 based on their enjoyment, how the beer fared as a flag bearer for its style and how it compared with its US or UK foe.

As with many good sessions, we launched with lager. Republika was praised for its subtlety, smokiness and above all how drinkable it was. But, for palates perhaps more familiar with the qualities of Pilsner, the shock of the new carried the Kaiser to victory thanks to the big man’s boldness and “sweet, sticky nose”.

And so to IPA. Craft beer’s poster boy beer, here represented by two very distinct interpretations. Alesmith IPA dropped the West Coast ‘hop bomb’ Pete Brown was wary of and there was no question among panellists that this was a classic US IPA (unless, of course, it was a devious UK brewer perfectly mimicking a classic US IPA). But the bomb went off and from the rubble strode the plucky, old-fashioned British underdog as Meantime’s subtlety, “malty whiff” and “crusty bread” laid the brash American low.

With wheat, while the scent of Camden’s Wit was for some “parma violets and perfume”, for others it was “a nineties hair salon”. Ultimately, the outcome of that debate was irrelevant as the London gent was overcome by the evening’s overall top scorer – Bare Tree’s Weiss Wine. “Mmmm, easy drinking, apricot jam, banana smells and tastes,” they said.

“Break out the stout,” they said next. This clash of the captains’ hometown brews was a hotly contested round with the most consistent scores across the judges and little to choose between the competitors. Gorlovka was “roasty”, “deep chocolate and rising sweetness”. But Breakout was “bold espresso”, “100% cocoa chocolate and nuts”, even “fresh paint”, and took the honours for Hampton, Georgia.

And so, bruised and bloodied, we staggered to the final showdown – the no holds barred wildcard round. The US were three rounds to one to the good, but on overall scores a sensational show from the Brits and the empire could be ours again. Wild Beer’s Ninkasi’s subtlety, fruit burst and “easy-breezy” drinking posted a big score. The evening’s finale, Lost Abbey’s Cable Car – easily the most divisive beer of the event – was briefly on the ropes as the sour naysayers weighed in. “Why would you make something like this?” pleaded one judge. But for the other half of the room this was the beer of the night – they hailed its mouth-pinching funk and its “lime sherberts and lychees”. The Cable Car forced a dead heat in the round and, with that, overall victory went to the USA.

So, what did we really learn? Certainly not that US beer is definitively better than UK or vice versa. The really bold and unusual beers scored well in what was an unusual drinking scenario, but perhaps if asked to sit down and spend an evening in a beer’s company our judges would opt for something more subtle and familiar. A few beers split the sexes, suggesting there may be something to the theory that women have a keener sense for certain smells and flavours. Lastly, our panel was surprisingly accurate in guessing the beers’ country of origin, which perhaps goes some way to counter any sense that British brewers are just aping the US craft scene. Rather, the best breweries are playing to their own national strengths and traditions. To labour the already stricken sporting analogy to an overdue death, at the end of the day, beer was the winner.

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