January 2024 – A Good Beer Blog

The Slightly More Exciting But Definitely Final Beery News Notes For January 2024

Can you believe this month? What a month, you know, as months go. Last week it was in the -20C range with the wind chill but now it looks like we are preparing for spring. Nutso. Just remembered I planted tulip bulbs out there in the fall. Hope the squirrels enjoy them. What’s that? You don’t care about that and want some beer news? Let’s go!

Perhaps unexpectedly or at least unusually for me, a listicle of sorts right off the top. This week VinePair published a very interesting article which caught me eye. It proposed a list of “The Most Overrated Beer Styles” in which they included the following – hazy IPAs; heavily fruited smoothie beers; New Zealand pilsners; sweet, opaque double IPAs; non-alcoholic beers; lactose-heavy beers; pastry stouts, kettle sours, and sour IPAs. Notice something? I would suggest that these are also the most heavily promoted styles of beer over the last few years. This is not a list of obscure faddy fan favourites. This is sorta basically something like the US Brewers Association’s recommended focus in model business plan 2018-present. It is, isn’t it. “Brew these and you will hit the ground running!” Hmm. Isn’t that a little problematic?

Another interesting but problematico trendo to note – fewer people want malting barley:

Beer sales in the United States declined in 2023, and that, combined with a robust supply of barley on hand has resulted in a decreased demand for malting barley, Mark Black, Malteurop North American procurement and trial manager, told farmers… Younger people are drinking seltzer, mixed drinks and other liquors instead of beer, said Black, who works for Malteurop in Great Falls, Montana. Draught beer sales have decreased by as much as 20% and during the first half of 2023, craft beer sales dropped by 2% and commercial beer sales by 3%, he said. Malteurop had not yet offered farmers 2024 contracts as of Jan. 16, 2024, but that could happen “any day,” Black said on Jan. 16.

Whatever is going on… has gone on… it doesn’t seem to be really about Dry January. This was made even clearer by a comment made by Richard Hughes, head of the UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility as reported in The Telegraph this week:

Clean-living youngsters threaten to blow a multibillion-pound hole in public finances as alcohol and tobacco tax income declines, the head of the spending watchdog has warned. Richard Hughes, head of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), has questioned whether assumptions about future tax income from what are often dubbed “sin taxes” are realistic. He told the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee: “There are some bits of the tax system which are themselves not sustainable. In a few decades’ time we won’t collect any fuel duty because every car will be electric, and they don’t pay any fuel duty. “Nowadays, you have to ask whether young people are drinking and smoking enough for us to be collecting alcohol and tobacco duties at the current rate that we are.”

Wow. See also this story in The Guardian which leads one to consider how perhaps those pesky sober kids are further undermining the ecomomics of concert venues. With that as the background context, in their monthly newsletter Boak and Bailey asked about what they frame as a “healthy beer culture”:

When it comes to beer styles, despite the dominance of c.4% hazy pale ales, we reckon we could go out this afternoon and find decent, locally-brewed versions of almost any beer style we fancy, from best bitter to Rauchbier. If it feels unhealthy, despite all that, perhaps it’s down to how the direction of travel skews our perceptions. A growing scene feels healthier than one that’s consolidating, or shrinking, even if what’s left is objectively better (terms and conditions apply) than at any point in the preceding 70 or so years.

According to those sorts of considerations, I probably have never lived in a healthy beer culture. The selection just isn’t there. Which is fine. The considerations appear to be what you might find in a larger city than the one I live in. Plus brewery closing and consolidations give a bit of a tone to the whole experience. And perhaps the concept really doesn’t translate well as English-speaking Canadians are far more excited by the retro doughnuts at Timmies than any innovations in beer.

Perhaps considering a Dutchie himself, Jordan wrote somewhat relatedly about being an observer also looking for a healthy beer culture while at a no- lo-alc beer fest:

Entering the festival, I noticed something that bothered me: with a small amount of alcohol on board, a crowd undulates. There is a little flux to the crowd, and pathways form as people try to get to the booths. I would attribute this to the slight loosening quality alcohol has and the urgency of people wanting to use up their tickets. Because of that people develop an awareness of their surroundings. In this instance, people stood firmly planted and clear-eyed and generally didn’t get out of each other’s way. For the most part, they talked to the people they showed up with. There was live music, but not much toe tapping. It reminded me of nothing so much as a United Church Tea Social; a genre of social activity that certainly provides fellowship but infrequently gets referred to as a banger. It led me to wonder, “What is the purpose of a beer festival?”

And Ron was also waxing anthorpological but also in a sorta retro doughnut way when he looked back to what people in 1970 thought the futre fifty years out looked like for brewing:

…neither of those predictions turned out to be true. Whitbread’s ill-fated Luton plant probably wasn’t the best example of a new brewery to pick. Bass Charrington genuinely had a plan of serving the whole of the UK from just two breweries. Neither did concentrated wort factories appear. So, 100% miss in the first paragraph. The other extreme – small, local continuous fermentation plants – didn’t happen, either. Mostly because continuous fermentation couldn’t be got to work. At least, it couldn’t be made to produce beer people actually wanted to drink.

One thing happened this week that folk in 1970’s UK brewing industry may well have assumed would have been gone long before 2024. Carlsberg Marstons is mothballing the Burton Union system that had been been used less and less in recent years. As Ed reported:

I used to work with an ex-Marston’s head brewer. Even in his time most Pedigree was brewed in stainless fermenters. They kept the unions for yeast propagation but did use the beer too. Owd Roger was the only beer made entirely in the unions as they’re the smallest fermenters.

Jessica Mason summarized the situation: “The move by CMBC has been cited as a bid to cut costs, along with the decline of the cask ale market meaning that brewing using them no longer makes fiscal sense, is reportedly a way for the brewing giant to move with the times.” Plenty of outcry – but what is to be done with outdated tech? Is there anyone lobbying for the return of the “ponto” system? Nope. “Inevitable” says The Mudge. One of the things small scale brewers can do is replicate mini-systems like the one operating Burton Union left (we are told) that can be found at California’s Firestone Walker. It would be interesting to know if that is effectively subsidized by other forms of production.

On the upside, Jeff published a lovely photo essay of his wanderings around U Fleků in Prague and a bit of the Old Town neighborhood that surrounds it including the clickable one right there to the right. Next door, almost… not really, Will Hawkes wrote about Störtebeker Braumanufaktur for Pellicle this week:

This is a North German brewery, an East Germany brewery, a Hanseatic brewery, a brewery right on the edge of Germany—and yet, in a nation where per capita beer consumption has been falling for years, it is remarkably successful, having tripled production to 350,000 hectolitres (close to 62 million pints) in the past decade. From packaging to non-alcoholic beer, Störtebeker is as confident and innovative as many German breweries are conservative.

Speaking of the new, there’s exciting archaeological news out of the studies from the recently announced findings of a BCE Ecuadorian civilization. Along wih canals and public urban architecture, they found brewing as explained by James Evison in TDB:

…it is believed that jugs discovered were used to consume “chicha”, a type of sweet beer. The beer, which has a full name of Chicha de jora, is a corn beer which is prepared by germinating maize, extracting the malt sugars and boiling the wort, like a traditional barley beer, and then fermenting it in large vessels. These were traditionally large pieces of eathenware, and would be fermented for several days before consumption.

You know and I know that I do mention wine regularly. And not only because the Pope said so. No, even as a good Scots Presbyterian I regularly look to learn more and more from wine writers including from Jancis Robinson’s books and opinion pieces. And this review posted at her website of an unexpected restaurant experience really struck me as a warm and thoughtful bit of review writing:

Named after a city in the province of Shanxi, north China, the restaurant offers a broad window frontage (one panel of which had been smashed when I lunched there recently), and a sign for Hungry Panda riders (the Chinese delivery service) of which at least a dozen came in to collect their orders while I was there. The interior of the restaurant is long, deep and slightly more modern and comfortable than many in Chinatown. Although it was only 12.30 pm, it was already crowded with many Asians of whom the majority appear to be smartly dressed young women. The waiting staff are also young and, again unlike too many of their counterparts in Chinatown, smiling, extremely charming and willing to communicate.

More positivity in the Reuters report that the Austrian Beer Party is aiming at gaining a seat in upcoming parliamentary elections:

It ran in the last parliamentary election in 2019 and secured just 0.1% of the vote but its leader Dominik Wlazny, a 37-year-old doctor and rock musician with the stage name Marco Pogo, came third in 2022’s presidential election with 8.3%. To enter parliament, a party needs 4% of the vote… The Beer Party’s egalitarian message also appeals to left-wing voters: the leader of the opposition Social Democrats, Andreas Babler, has said he voted for Wlazny in the last presidential election.

Just for Stan: “16th Century Astronomer Tycho Brahe Had a Drunken Pet Moose“!

And some good health news from Polkville aka The Hammer where the Drunk Polkaroo discusses not being quite as drunk:

Somehow, fate intervened again, and I was let go from a toxic, degenerate workplace that had helped me manifest the very worst of who I was each and every day, a path leading me to an early end and a decidedly tarnished one at that. I took a few weeks this summer to just be, to let go of a lot of the internal self hatred that often manifested itself in way too many drinks and seek perhaps a new path forward. I found a job that was exactly what I needed, a place where my most valuable asset was myself and slowly began to climb up and poke my head out of the hole I had created over the last half decade. I felt that it was time to find a way to change my own relationship with this character I had created and when Covid finally came calling on December 9th, 2023, I put down my phone, my glass and stopped the tap for the first time in 8 years.

Good. Really good. We see a fair number of people in beer that are not doing well and the culture… well, the culture isn’t exactly about interventions… is it. Happily, we have watched Norm get healthy after a very close call. My own issues were not related to my innards so much as blowing out my knee and all the carbs. I’ve now lost over 10% of my total weight as I work away at being better to myself. Others haven’t been so lucky. All the best for the Polk as he goes forward. This stuff isn’t just messing around.

Finally and somewhat to the contrary (even if also in the eastern Lake Erie-Niagara-western Lake Ontario zone as Polkalopolis), your moment of zen from last Sunday night’s NFL game between the Bills and the Chiefs. Note: the gentleman featured in this excellent New York Post (…via USA Today via Reuters…) photo is (i) a pro football player himself as a Philadelphia Eagle, (ii) the brother of one of the stars of Kansas City Chiefs, the visiting teams but (iii) he still adopted the natural plumage behaviours of the fan base of the home team, the Buffalo Bills. Already a contender for the best beer photo of 2024.*

There. Sweet product placement, too. That’s it for now. So once again… roll the credits… well, the credits, the stats the recommends and the footnotes. There is a lot going on down here and, remember, ye who read this far down, look to see if I have edited these closing credits and endnotes (as I always do), you can check out the many ways to find good reading about beer and similar stuff via any number of social media and other forms of comms connections. This week’s update on my emotional rankings? Facebook still in first (given especially as it is focused on my 300 closest friends and family) then we have BlueSky (up one to 113 rising up to maybe… probably… likely pass Mastodon (static at 911) in value… then the seemingly doomed trashy Twex (4,438 – another week with a gain!) hovering somewhere above or around my largely ignored Instagram (creeping – literally – down to 164), with sorta unexpectly crap Threads (43) and not at all unexpectedly bad Substack Notes (1) really dragging up the rear – and that deservedly dormant Patreon presence of mine just sitting there. I now have admitted my dispair for Mastodon in terms of beer chat and accept that BlueSky is the leader in “the race to replace” Twex. Even so and all in all, while it is #Gardening Mastodon that still wins, I still include these links to these good folk over there waiting to discuss beer with you:

And remember to check the blogs, newsletters and even podcasts (really? barely! This era’s 8-track tapes!) to stay on top of things including the proud and public and certainly more weekly recommendations in the New Year from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan back at his spot for 2024 on Mondays. Look at me – I forgot to link to Lew’s podcast. Fixed. Get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by this year’s model citizen David Jesudason on the odd Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s now revitalised and wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is back with all the sweary Mary he can think of! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog in this weeks best medium as message news. Any more? Yes! Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good. And the long standing Beervana podcast . There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. All About Beer has introduced a podcast… but also seems to be losing steam. And there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube and remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water… if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!

*You may also play “Where’s Waldo” with Taylor Swift in the same image. She may be in there.

The 43 Days To March Edition Of The Beery News Notes

Can we call these the dog days of winter? The evil cousin of August’s dullest days? Storms and snows came this week with a keen intent this week putting the end of a rather warm and grey winter. Six weeks to March. Just about. Just six. I can do that. I hope I can. But how? Where to start? Well, Will Hawkes published the January edition of his newsletter London Beer City and reflected on a slightly surprising positive effect of the pandemic that he thinks he is seeing:

…amid this gloom something interesting has happened: I think London’s best pubs are as good as I’ve ever seen them. Covid-19 has done a lot of funny things to London hospitality – not least Heineken’s increasingly iron free-trade grip, a grip currently manifesting itself in a mini-Murphy’s revival – but one is the impact it’s had on our attitude to pubs. We missed them, and, as a recent Evening Standard list demonstrates, we’re keener than ever to celebrate the best ones – where hospitality, warmth, a sense of historical continuity and an unfussy approach to good drinks are the norm. After Covid, drinkers understand better this is what makes a good pub. Even service, that persistent bane of the London pub-goer, appears to have improved in our best pubs. Martin Taylor, pub-goer extraordinaire, wrote in December that “Pubbing in London is brilliant, and I can honestly say both the beer quality and the friendliness have got better since Covid.”

The Tand, no stranger to pubs, wrote about another sort of surprise he’s learned about:

Hot on the heels of me writing about the difficulties some pubs are facing, causing them to operate on reduced hours, I read with a degree of astonishment that the number of applicants to run pubs is running rather high at the turn of the year. It seems January is the peak time for this optimistic attitude, with, according to the good old Morning Advertiser, numbers up by over 50%. As the MA puts it,“New year, new me.

Martin found another critical factor in the sucess of a pub in these troubled times – brownness – as exemplified by the Royal Oak in Royal Tunbridge Wells:

I’d rather pay a premium for a top pint, and the symphony in brown that is the public bar is worth a quid of your money. That table of six was generating some proper banter. “Jane was standing there with her rolling pin“ “She should get off her ass and get down that catwalk“. Sorry, no context for Jane’s theatrics. In the back bar, billiards ruled.

Oh and one last thing as Jeff described found in a pub – others like you:

Mid-session, two of us found ourselves waiting in that orderly line. As you do, we struck up a collegial conversation with two women in front of us that lasted until they reached the front of the line. In an inversion of typical cultural norms, in drinking establishments it’s almost considered rude to ignore a stranger you’re standing next to. Bars encourage people to forge momentary social bonds, which make them quite special in a country where mistrust is increasingly the default position. In bars, you look for common ground, usually finding it through a joke or two.

So warmth, a convivial crowd with welcoming staff and keener management wanting their jobs and lots and lots of brown? Is that all it takes? What ever form it takes, it sure sounds good to me here stuck inside in the land of slush.

But apparently things are not good for everyone as the bad news for good beer (and allegedly good beer) has continued into the new year. Closings, sell offs and temporary renovations that just never quite end are all around us. We hear those damn kids are too damn sober, no doubt further turned off by drunk uncle’s bad language. Heck, even Uber is eating a $1,000,000,000 investment in an alcohol e-commerce delivery platform. But, if you think about it, those who spun on the way up are now just spinning in the other direction as we face the unravelling. Consider the situation at the makers of that 2007‘s special bottle in the stash, 3 Fonteinen: “It is with deep sadness that we announce that we are saying good bye to part of our team…” Sounds like a retirement party invite. Bummer. More so if it was 15 years ago. But is this the critical point:

Not to kick a brewery when they’re down, but I never warmed to 3 Fonteinen. Sky-high prices for product that I often didn’t think warranted it. They seemed happy to pursue a cult following, which is another way of saying small and of dubious economic viability.*

Me, I’ve been recommending less expensive gueuze for (soon enough) coming on twenty years. With 3 Fonteinen up to $15 bucks for a half bottle around these parts – when you can find it – I am quite content to pick up Timmermans when I am out and about for as little as half that price.

Speaking of the ghosts of hype past, here’s a name from the past – Mikkeller! Remember them? Been years, right? Bear with me as this takes unpacking. Well, just like they asked beer buyers to run through all their spare cash back then, it appears – background care of Kate Bernot in GBH back on New Years Eve 2021 – that they had taken the business model to heart and had found themselves short on dough. So they sold off some of the family silver – maybe:

What this multimillion-dollar infusion from Orkila means for Mikkeller—a global beer company with dozens of locations worldwide—is made less clear by the company’s ownership structure. In a 2018 analysis, Good Beer Hunting found dozens of different companies had been formed over the years, each with varying degrees of ownership in different bars or businesses under the Mikkeller banner. This expansive network is presumably necessary given the company’s different owners, partnership structures, and the many countries in which it does business. At the time, Bjergsø described the number of companies he owns around the world as “more than 25.”

I say “maybe” (having stirred the corporate law pot a bit in private and public practice) because with a nutso corporate model like that who know what was bought for what – and who know who’s left in charge! As far as the “presumably” goes, sounds to me like someone along the way met a clever corporate lawyer who knew a clever corporate accountant. And then they went to work on Mikkeller. It is all a lovely opportunity for holiday second homes for consulting business professionals. And perhaps it is happening again. Anyway, now over two years later Jessica Mason for The Drinks Business seems to now have had more luck finding folk to speak on the record** as well as off the record, too, to explain what’s really been gone on behind the scenes since then:

Speaking to the drinks business, Mikkeller CEO and founder Mikkel Bjergsø, said: “We can confirm that Carlsberg has acquired a 20% stake in Mikkeller. Carlsberg has bought the primary stake from our current co-owners, Orkila.” The sale, which was made for an undisclosed sum, has been rumoured by insiders close to the scene as a significant amount, but nothing compared to the amount that Carlsberg offered for the entire Mikkeller business. According to industry sources: ““Carlsberg offered DKK1 billion (£115 million) for the lot [but] the US company which owns 49% weren’t prepared to sell their shares just yet… the insider hinted that “regardless, Mikkeller becomes a Carlsberg brand” and “Mikkel walks away with a big wedge and still owns shares”.

Carlsberg! So… a frankly tired brand with a confused corporate structure, likely fleets of professional consultants and a lot of baggage is being taken over effectively by a big brewery no doubt care of a carefully crafted shareholders’ agreement. See, shares aren’t equal if the shareholders’ agreement makes some more powerful than others.

Note: before there was Boak and Bailey there was…

And I was a bit surprised by comments related to the UK government not offering beer in diplomatic settings as I am pretty sure that was not the point about this story on the government’s wine cellar:

The report in The Guardian on the UK government’s wine cellar was published on Thursday after repeated delays. It showed that 130 bottles were consumed during the year to March 2021, while a further 1,300 were drunk during the year to March 2022. The consumption was a drastic drop compared with the 3,000 to 5,000 bottles of wine and spirits usually consumed in a year as the government scaled back its activity during lockdown and the lack of international travel. The cellar is meant to “provide guests of the government, from home and overseas, with wines of appropriate quality at reasonable cost”. But a large amount was still spent during the Covid crisis on topping up reserves. From March 2020 to 2021, £14,621 was splashed out on 516 bottles of red bordeaux wines, costing about £28 each.

What the report in The Guardian misses is that for 12 or 13 years, the government wine cellar has largely paid its own way. How they do that? Mine doesn’t! But by selling of some of the old stock that’s been selected and stored since 1908 of course – as the government report itself explains:

The first sales from the cellar stock took place in March 2012, delivering a £44,000 return to off-set the 2011 to 2012 purchases of new stock, which totalled £48,955. The difference was covered by additional funds paid back to Government Hospitality by other government departments for work under-taken on their behalf. Between 2011 to 2012 and 2018 to 2019, the cellar was self-financed through sales and additional funds paid to Government Hospitality for work under-taken on behalf of other government departments. Sales were not possible in 2020 to 2021 due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in February to March 2020. Sales resumed in 2022 to 2023 and we anticipate further sales during 2024

What an excellent government program! Self-supporting, generous as well as prudent. And, as was pointed out, Bordeaux averaging £28 a bottle is pretty savvy buying. Oh – and no one wants ancient cellared beer at the diplomatic reception. Except if it’s a beer trade association lobbying effort. Speaking of Bordeaux, The Beer Nut went a visiting and tried the beer:

Bordeaux was not as I expected. My assumption was that a city so closely associated with one particular product, one which has an arcane and highly-specified quality control procedure, would be a bit of a monoculture as regards food and drink. Far from it. There is a vibrant, varied, multiethnic food scene, although of course high quality French food is very easily come by. And the wave of microbreweries that began to sweep the country a decade ago is very much in evidence here too. Though the city is easy to get around, beer places tend not to open until later afternoon, and several were taking an extended January vacation, so what follows is a very far from comprehensive guide to the Bordeaux beer scene.

Far less tempting but even way more surprising for the fact that it is extremely odd to be asked to read about the drinking habits of Russian and Belarussians without any real mention of, you know, the frikkin’ genocidal war to explain why the story was published … aren’t tomato beers a pretty clear signal we have entered another sadder phase of post-craft?

The tomato mix includes both puree and ketchup, and it goes into the tank post-fermentation. “We found that using tomato puree solely [gives] us too bitter and sour a taste,” Vasin says. “Adding ketchup to the mix [smooths] things out. We source it in bulk, so it’s easier to use with our volumes.”

Mmm… ketchup. Bulk Belarussian ketchup beer. Newsworthy for sure. I remember when I worked in Poland back in 1991 there was Albanian carrot jam still being sold at the state run grocery store. For more appealing was the news that The New Scientist reported on the make up of Guinness yeast strains this week:

The Guinness strains were also found to produce a specific balance of flavour compounds, such as 4-vinyl guaiacol, which produces a subtle clove-like aroma, and diacetyl, which imparts a buttery taste. The team also found that the two strains currently used by Guinness are descendants of a strain used to brew the stout in 1903… “What is particularly unique and exciting in this work is that the company has quite detailed records on the historical handling of the strains,” says Brian Gibson at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany. “This information could potentially be used to further develop these yeasts or other yeasts used in industrial applications.”

Great point, Brian. Lars took the time to get into a little (…well, a lot…) more detail than that, unpacking and unpacking like… like Lars. And then Martyn jumped in too:

Between 1810 and 1812 alone, the St James’s Gate brewery pitched with yeast from seven different breweries (David Hughes, ‘A Bottle of Guinness Please’: The Colourful History of Guinness, Phimboy, Wokingham, Berkshire, UK, 2006, p69)… according to a writer in 1884: “Mr Edward Purser [one of Guinness’s senior brewers] informs me that yeast from Bass’s brewery at Burton on Trent is extraordinarily active when transferred to Guinness’s fermenting vats in Dublin, but in time its action becomes tranquil, being… modified by the surrounding circumstances and probably by some difference in nutrition.” (Journal of the Society of Arts, London, England, vol XXXII, no 1,659, Friday September 5 1884, p998)

And as we near the end this week, speaking of Guinness, and perhaps nearing his own end if he keeps this sort of behavious up, the tale of “man drinks 81 pints of Guinness“:

A Guinness-mad bloke who went viral for bragging that he downed 81 PINTS in one weekend has shrugged off those who branded him “moronic” for risking his life – claiming he didn’t even have a hangover… The 33-year-old says he began drinking at 1pm on Friday December 29th at his local boozer and continued over the next two days finishing his 81st pint at 9pm on New Year’s Eve – before heading to bed before midnight. Sean said he spent a whopping €400 on beer across the three days and says Guinness is his favourite alcoholic beverage.

Pfft! Try that on thick Belarussian ketchup beer. Finally, Pellicle utterly refutes the notion of the phrase “not a sausage” this week with a story of the links, a personal portrait by Isabelle O’Carroll:

Although pork is an ideal candidate for a sausage (because of its flavourful fat which cures well,) the earliest kinds of sausages tended to be a blood sausage, a plentiful byproduct from the slaughter of animals. The infinite types of sausage that exist attest to the creativity of humans. There are dried types, like the French saucisson or Chinese lap cheong, fermented, such as Italian mortadella or German Bierwurst, and smoked, such as Corsican figatelli, a sausage made from pork liver which is smoked for four to five days. “Chopped or ground up, mixed with other ingredients, and pressed together, meat scraps can provide one of the heartiest parts of a meal—and even one of the most luxurious…”

And so say all of us!!! And now, once again – roll the credits… well, the credits, the stats the recommends and the footnotes. There is a lot going on down here and, remember, ye who read this far down, look to see if I have edited these closing credits and endnotes (as I always do), you can check out the many ways to find good reading about beer and similar stuff via any number of social media and other forms of comms connections. This week’s update on my emotional rankings? Facebook still in first (given especially as it is focused on my 300 closest friends and family) then we have BlueSky (up a nudge to 113) rising up to maybe… probably… likely pass Mastodon (holding at 911) in value… then the seemingly doomed trashy Twex (still at 4,434) hovering somewhere above or around my largely ignored Instagram (hovering at 164), with sorta unexpectly crap Threads (43) and not at all unexpectedly bad Substack Notes (1) really dragging up the rear – and that deservedly dormant Patreon presence of mine just sitting there. All in all I now have to admit my dispair for Mastodon in terms of beer chat and accept that BlueSky is the place in “the race to replace.” Even so and all in all, it is #Gardening Mastodon that still wins but here are a few of the folk there perhaps only waiting to discuss beer:

*And… is there really “a big difference between having a private conversation and publishing a statement on a public microblogging website” these days? Gotta think a bit about that.
**See in GBH: “…Madsen declined Good Beer Hunting’s request for a phone interview, and did not address specific questions about the transaction posed to him by email. Orkila Capital also did not respond to a request for an interview…” Gotta love that J. Jonah Jameson tone but the transparency is most welcome.

The Mid-January Blues 2023…Errr… 2024 Edition Of The Beery News Notes

You know what is weird? I write these posts weekly but because of that my mind frames the passage of time in thirds of a month. So today is the eleventh which means we are in the second-third. Freaky, right? I can’t figure out if it slows or speeds the pace but with this messy weather week happy to have a sense of moving on. Even with a bracing feed* at No. 900 on Notre Dame the night before, as illustrated with the Habs looming in the background, I had a bit of another sort of moving experience getting back from Montreal where we bid bon voyage to the eldest who is now the blog’s Euro-correspondence for the winter. Maybe I’m just getting old but I don’t recall speed racers on the highway coming up from behind as I am passing and then passing me on the outside shoulder. In the slush and low visibility on the Ontario-Quebec border I actually had to hit the gas to given them enough space without hitting me as they performed their Grand Theft Auto XXIII fueled manouver. I clearly don’t know what it means to be cool these days.

Where to begin? Talk of the town! Especially if your town toddles, the talk was was the price of a pint in one Chicago establishment, as noted in Paste magazine:

Well, the one really catching people’s eye does seem to jump off the page: $16 pints of many of the beers on tap, including not only DIPAs but a few single IPAs as well. Suffice to say, that was more than some of the local beer geeks could stomach, and the idea of a $16 pint immediately raised a plethora of questions. Why, for instance, does it seem that Other Half prices in Chicago are significantly higher than what the company charges for the same beers in its other taprooms in New York, Philadelphia and Washington D.C.?

As Paste wrote, the price in question was questioned by Chalonda White and got pretty swift response as noted by HopNotes himself:

The short-lived $16 pint thing at the Other Half/Ramova taproom was weird, and kudos to them for fixing it so quickly (those pints are now $8 and $9). Seems like that was rooted mostly in being a concert venue and thinking they could get away with airport/stadium pricing.

At the other end of the scale, ATJ posted an exploration of intoxication** as a concept on his newsletter:

It is perhaps the moment when your voice seems to become distant as if being spoken by someone else, though sometime during the next day we will hopefully feel patched, retreaded, and approved for the road, but you do wince at the behavioural altitude you reached.

Conversely, on the health beat as always The Mudge has been tracking the interesting angle on NA beer that has come into the news recently – that it’s got an issue with wee bit of the old switcheroo:

The annual Dry January campaign inevitably turns the spotlight on non-alcoholic beers, which in recent years have been the subject of a growing amount of publicity and hype. Obviously in terms of the specific objective of reducing alcohol consumption they have an undeniable advantage. Many people, though, have come to see them as being a healthy option in a wider sense. But does this belief really have any substance? A recent study has found that many of them in fact contain considerably more sugar than their normal-strength equivalents.

This is going along with another bit of recent news that there may be more than sugar to worry about in them there NA beers:

The experts investigated the survival of bacteria like E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella enterica, and Listeria monocytogenes under different conditions. They found that while L. monocytogenes eventually perished, E. coli and Salmonella could thrive for over two months, especially in non-alcoholic variants. These findings point to non-alcoholic beer as an especially conducive environment for pathogen growth, though bacteria managed to survive in both non-alcoholic and low-alcohol beers under various conditions. By contrast, regular beers, with higher ABV percentages, didn’t exhibit this vulnerability and are often safely stored at ambient temperatures in stores.

Yik. Or is it a “yikes!!”? The authors stressed the necessity of pasteurization along with the use of sterile filtration and preservatives might be prudent. Might be nice to confirm on the label, too. Also, The Times reported that Dry January may be triggering some price hikes:

The average price of nine brands, including Birra Moretti Zero and Guinness Draught 0.0, have increased by 22.3 per cent at Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons and Waitrose since the start of December, according to research by The Grocer magazine. The biggest single increase was at Waitrose, where bottles of Erdinger Alkoholfrei Wheat Beer increased 75 per cent from £1 to £1.75. At Sainsbury’s 12-packs of Heineken 0.0 jumped 64 per cent from £7 to £11.50. The trade magazine noted that the average price of low and no-alcohol beers had risen faster than full-strength beers over the past year despite not being subject to any duty increases.

I do get most aspects of the NA thing being at least aimed at a generally healthier yet tasty (but, as illustrated, not always) outcome (even if I am very rarely going to participate given cheaper tasty options) but I really struggle with non-alcohol spirits and resulting cocktails. Pretty much spiritless by definition for me but you be you if that’s something you like. This was a handy if code-laden primer that passed by my eye this week:

Long derided as “mocktails,” alcohol-free cocktails (aka NA, zero-proof, or spirit-free cocktails) are increasingly stepping into their own, driven by changing consumer behaviors, a surge in alcohol-free alternatives, and good old creativity. But what distinguishes a great NA cocktail from a run-of-the-mill soft drink? “There are plenty of nonalcoholic drinks—but why is tea or juice or soda alone not a nonalcoholic cocktail?” asks Derek Brown, a longtime bartender and bar owner in Washington, D.C… “It’s because a cocktail is something specific, and there are sensory characteristics we assign to it that are really important.”

Convinced? Important? Speaking of posi-comms, here’s a good example of potentially unnecessarily creep in the scoring of wines which, as with beer PR, actually may not assist some of the wines in question.

Excitement and quality abound, Canada saw its best Gold (95-96 points) performance to date at the 2023 competition – dry and sparkling wines carrying a mass of the nation’s 19 accolades in the category, with the provinces of Ontario, British Columbia and Nova Scotia represented. ‘These days, Canadian wines are getting a lot of attention,’ explained DWWA judge and Ontario native Andrea Pritzker MW. ‘There are some really excellent smaller regions, both in southern Ontario and of course British Columbia, that are really producing some phenomenal quality wines, white and red.’

Don’t get me wrong. There are many excellent Canadian wines and I am lucky to live near one of the primo regions – but how helpful is a “96” for a sparkler relatively speaking when this is the price of another with that same score? And, for present purposes, will good beer ever get anywhere near these sorts of relative value considerations?

And, speaking of wine, next time someone uses wine terminology like terroir to describe beer, here’s a handy primer from Eric Asimov of the NYT which explains the clearly distinct concept as well as a number of other things:

Jean and Pierre Gonon make the highly coveted Pierre Gonon wines in St.-Joseph, in the Northern Rhône Valley of France. Jean once explained to me the difference between Gonon’s St.-Joseph, made from an excellent terroir that requires arduous farming, and its Les Îles Feray, a wine from the easier-to-farm flatlands in the Ardèche. The Îles Feray tasted like syrah, he said, while the St.-Joseph, also made from syrah, tasted like the place in which it was grown. The wines provide different experiences for different occasions.

That’s terroir in a nutshell.

CNN has a story about a pub that surely must always get top marks from the customers:

At first glance, The Keys looks just like any other much-loved UK pub, with leather banquettes, rectangular wooden tables, and an ornately decorated carpet. But its décor boasts unique regal features, including a 16th century ceremonial ax and cabinets displaying Yeoman Warder uniforms. The pub is run by the Tower’s 35 serving Yeomen Warders, who get their “Beefeater” nickname from the daily meat ration they were traditionally given. Only they and their invited guests are allowed to enter. With lodgings for resident Beefeaters and their families, a doctor’s office and a chapel, the Tower can feel like a village for those living there. And like any proud village, the pub is an important part of the community – a place they can go to celebrate special occasions or unwind after a busy day.

I’ve bought a beer on a navy ship and walked into a pub built into a veterans’ hospital but sitting down for a pint there would be rather special.

Strangest boozy Scots law news of the new year: “Port Glasgow man acquitted after telling of cheese taunt.” We are assured that drinking was involved. As it so often is when the taunted with cheese defence is raised. The actual not at all strangest Scots boozy news is that BrewDog continues to refine its craft as little more than a personal money machine.

The better sort of beery news from a Scot is from Alistair who wrote about that big rauchbier revival… no, not now… that’s never happening. He wrote about the oen that could well have happened 115 years ago:

…smaller breweries in Bavaria were going back to malting their own grains because the cost of the raw materials was sufficiently low to make this economical again, rather than buying their malt from the likes of Weyermann, whose maltings is massive pile right next to the railway station in Bamberg. What jumped out most to me though was that the relative low cost of barley could lead to the return of “the old Bavarian smoked beer”. This raises the question then, did rauchbier die out in Bavaria in the latter 19th century and only revive when breweries starting taking back the ability to make their own malt…

Finally, two questions about forms of writing as illustrated by two unquestionably reliable sources. First, notice the structure of the paragraphs… call and response… lob and hit to the outfield. Not necessarily my favourite type of article but clearly open about what it is. Second, for Pellicle Matthew revisitied, rewrote and greatly unpacked a previously published piece according to the emailed newsletter:

…a Director’s Cut of sorts, a longer, more detailed version of Matthew Curtis’ erudite love letter to RedWillow Brewery. First published in a more curtailed form in SIBA’s “The Independent Brewer” industry magazine…

Also not fully compelling to me. But no one other than Jeff likely gets that interview. And no one other than Matthew should unpack that story even if it is a brewery bio, admittedly not my thing. (Or, as we saw before, perhaps should.) And both clear about what was happening. So… i say how they developed does not matter as each expands the whole of the written beery record. It is not like the old K-9 v. Turner and Hootch problem or anything. Or is it? Or is it the post holiday publication cycle reality? Or is it filling in info gaps?

Ponder that would you? And now, roll the credits… well, the credits, the stats the recommends and the footnotes. There is a lot going on down here and, remember, ye who read this far down, look to see if I have edited these closing credits and endnotes (as I always do), you can check out the many ways to find good reading about beer and similar stuff via any number of social media and other forms of comms connections. This week’s update on my emotional rankings? Facebook still in first (given especially as it is focused on my 300 closest friends and family) then we have BlueSky (up eight to 112) rising up to maybe… probably… likely pass Mastodon (911 – back up one) in value… then the seemingly doomed trashy Twex (4,434 – another week with a gain!) hovering somewhere above or around my largely ignored Instagram (creeping – literally – down to 164), with sorta unexpectly crap Threads (43) and not at all unexpectedly bad Substack Notes (1) really dragging up the rear – and that deservedly dormant Patreon presence of mine just sitting there. Stan’s take on it all?

I look at X once most days, which means I only see a sliver of what I might. Plenty of interesting people are still there, and I wish they’d move to Bluesky. I occasionally will retweet something to be polite, but I’m doing my best not to post

All in all I now have to admit my dispair for Mastodon in terms of beer chat and accept that BlueSky is the place in “the race to replace.” Even so and all in all, it is #Gardening Mastodon that still wins but here are a few of the folk there perhaps only waiting to discuss beer:

*Unfrikkin’ believably good! That little black pan behind the pizza is creamy polenta with gorgonzola and a spicy sausage all as a dip. Servied with little herby cheesy buns. Twelve bucks but everyone scraped their pizza crusts through it. Fabulous addition.
**Not in the legal sense. This is a bit of an exploration of that around these parts: “Canadian law recognizes three degrees of intoxication for the purposes of the intoxication defence. Mild intoxication, if raised, might be useful for attempting to mitigate the severity of the offence but has no bearing on the mens rea intent needed for a conviction. Advanced intoxication can be used for specific intent offences to raise reasonable doubt about the mens rea. Even when successfully used as a defence, offenders are often found guilty on lesser charges. For example, if successfully used to secure an acquittal on murder charges, offenders are typically found guilty of manslaughter, a general intent offence that cannot consider the intoxication defence. Extreme intoxication refers to intoxication that puts an offender in a state of automatism in which they are lacking self-control and self-knowledge. When successfully used as an affirmative defence, it effectively negates the mens rea intent and renders a conviction impossible. While Section 33.1 of the Criminal Code had dictated that this intoxication defence could only be applied to non-violent offences, that requirement was nullified by the recent Supreme Court decision.“

The “Look Maw I’m A Futurist!” Edition Of These Beery News Notes

It takes a lot to be a really good futurist. First, a short memory so you forget all the failed claims you’ve made. Second, a globe and a flashlight. That’s it. Makes sense as every January, tryptophan-fuel prognostications by holiday break junior interns flood the media as we seek to live in an alternative reality. Beer is no different but just because the filla is flowin’ doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean there’s nothing interesting being said. I think of it as fan fiction. As we canvass those who took the time to mail in a “best of what’s never gonna happen” listicle, let’s just recall how we were promised in 2019 the best has yet begun for Brut IPA, in 2020 White Claw and Truly had established themselves as cool in a can and in 2021 more and more young drinkers would become fans of craft. Yup, there is a definite skill set behind the beer futurists.

UPDATE: despite the footnote below, GBH seems to have woken from its slumber and posted David Jesudason‘s piece (adding to a theme this week) on the traditional Belgian brewers of Hof ten Dormaal:

Since its founding in 2009, Hof ten Dormaal—located on a 12th-century farm in the village of Tildonk, deep in rural Flanders—has charted its own stubborn course and defied expectations. It’s not just that unusual founding story that defines it. The brewery’s perspective is informed by its owners’ strong opinions about what it means to make and sell “farmhouse” beer, and the beer they produce reflects their characters as well as their struggles.

First, however, a little tidying up with noting Ed posted his Golden Pints with a special nod to his final category for I suppose three distinct reasons:

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer: Sadly the decline of twitter is continuing but I think Jessica Mason has been best for news this year so @drinksmaven

And, speaking of tidying up afterwards, The New York Times posted a piece on the history of the word “toast” in the drinking sense:

The word came to us through the Middle English “tosten” in the 12th century. The noun, meaning bread that had been browned with heat, and the verb, “to brown bread,” may have derived from the Old French toster, “to roast or grill,” or the Latin torrere, “to burn”… But in the Middle Ages, toast was used to flavor a drink… the practice of “toasting” someone stemmed from the days when people would put “pieces of spiced toast into your mead or your wine.” Toasting a person, he said, is like “putting their name in your glass,” as if they add spice or sweetness.

And Martin posted his awards for the best experiences and the best pubs of 2023 including this transporting revelation:

The rail companies are my Villains of the Year. Which is a shame, as I’ve used rail a lot this year, as relentlessly slogging up and down the A1 to see parents has taken its toll on my desire to drive much at all after taking the campervan round the UK to complete the Guide last year. I wondered if I’d get a bit bored of this blog after finishing the GBG, but it started as a travel diary and I still love the writing, and your comments, and the views from (nearly) all over the globe. 813 posts this year, scarily that’s 3 less than 2022.

So… unless I have missed anything else that is soooooo last year… what is the story of 2024 for the perspective of all we all standing here in week one? First, Matthew shared his thoughts for the newsletter of homebrey supply shop Get ‘Er Brewed including this theme I’d be rooting for personally – a Belgian beer revival:

Purists may argue that these sorts of beers haven’t gone anywhere, and they’re probably right. But I don’t think the excitement around Belgian beer is what it was five or ten years ago. In my early days as a beer blogger, I’d enthusiastically take trips to Brussels and Bruges, merrily sipping away on strong beers inside the country’s famous brown cafés. I don’t quite have that same spark at the moment. Although, the other week I got myself a bottle of Oerbier from De Dolle brewery, and thought to myself “I need to start drinking more of this again.”

And Eoghan Walsh shared some thoughts actually from Belgium as well:

A crunch looks to be coming, and soon. It’s not a radical prediction to suggest that some of the first places to go will be the zombie businesses – those that have survived the post-pandemic recovery in a sort of a limbo with their base motor functions intact but without much prospect of a meaningful revival. In 2024, expect the definitive blow to arrive for more of these kinds of bars of cafés. For some of these, time was already called in 2023. The Old Hack, in Brussels’ European quarter, was one such zombie put out of its misery for good.

Sweet anecdotes about needy Nigel Farag hovering included! And Richard Preiss of Escarpment Labratories, perhaps a bit of a cheat given his access to commercial orders and in house R+D, presented his own set of predictions including one that fully deserves the label – “rent beer”:

The idea here is to ensure that your brewery’s lineup has a “rent beer”, a beer that helps pay the rent bill (or mortgage, or glycol chiller maintenance bill). It might not be the top seller, but it’s beer you can produce and sell in volume, with low production costs. This means it shouldn’t be aggressively full of hops or malt, shouldn’t take 10 weeks to ferment and condition, and shouldn’t require any excessively complex processing methods. Luckily, a lot of styles fit into this mold. And luckily, there’s probably not a “go to” option in your local market for all of these styles, so you can carve out a new niche.

Next, WineEnthusiast finally broke with what I had long presumed was largely a dour Scots Presbyterian base with this prediction:

Saturdays traditionally have accounted for 28% of the total weekly value in the market. However, Fridays, Saturdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are all losing their share to Sundays. In other words, more people work from home on Fridays and Mondays, returning to the office during the middle of the week. “People seem to be more inclined to enjoy themselves on Sundays—perhaps because they don’t have to worry about work the next day…”

And Michigan business writer Abby Poirier nibbled around the idea that chasing the tail of a new flavour every week is no longer going to be enough:

And finally the Tand has forecast something very exciting for the next 12 months – more Tand!

The blog will certainly be back a little more often, and I’ll be returning to short sharp posts like I used to. I’ve been reading a lot of my previous stuff, and you know, it isn’t that bad. I recommend particularly my stuff on Sam Smiths, and I’ll be resuming my trek round the ones here and those I visit in London. I’ll also tackle the issue of what might be called “opening hours deficit”. I note quite a few pubs here, have simply closed for parts of January, and while understandable, it isn’t really a healthy sign.

Is any of that going to happen? Some of it will… some won’t… but none of it not one bit of it is going to happen if you all take January off from your boozing!!! Dryuary or whatever it is called is reliably the biggest threat to the world of beer again this first week of the year. Aspects of post holiday season return to common sense sobriety include: (i) CAMRA asking “charities running challenges or fundraising: please ensure your messaging doesn’t encourage people to avoid pubs and social clubs altogether” because it is not “responsible or evidence-based“, (ii) Mudgie proclaming “it’s a deliberate, calculated attack on the pub trade“, (iii) from the Irish Independent: “I don’t know anyone planning to drink more in 2024 than they did in 2023” with “planning” doing a lot of lifting there, (iv) And on Twex “Not January! It’s dark and cold and this is when we NEED alcohol!” which is probably the most honest response. Always the voice or reason – or close enough to one for jazz – Jeff suggests an alternative:

Make this month #PubJanuary. Stop in for a quiet pint, grab dinner out, spend the afternoon playing a board game. It doesn’t really matter what you do—you don’t even have to drink alcohol—but if people kept up their July pace of pub-going, it would make a big difference. We’re not talking the salt mines, either; going out is fun! Consider it a vacation in an evening. In fact, January is typically the deadest time of the year—a perfect opportunity to connect with friends. Enjoying other humans is good for your soul.

Perhaps indicating that there might be another reasons for the problems breweries may be facing, venerable Mid-Atlantic craft brewer Flying Fish seems to be going under weighed down by an incredible level of debt compared to the value of its assets:

Flying Fish Brewing Co., a Pennsylvania brewery that operates in South Jersey, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after a deal fell apart that would have seen the company sold to Cape May Brewing Co. Flying Fish “listed $1.3 million in assets and $9.3 million in liabilities in its Chapter 11 petition, which was filed in late December in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey. The company is owned by Elk Lake Capital, a capital investment firm in Scranton that acquired Flying Fish in 2016,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Wow. Now that is an assets to liability ratio! Never one for the liable, the award for the first best bit of beer writing of 2024* goes to Katie Mather in Pellicle:

Clouds hang low in the grey of March midweek, obscuring the peaks of New Mills’ surrounding cloughs when we arrive. Through a hollow of rich black soil and slippery rocks is a barely-contained river, pouring its peat-bronzed waters white over weirs, down past the Victorian mills that gave this town its name. Across this gully is where the monsters of Torrside dwell, by the still channels of the canal marina, restless and glimmering in the gloom. The owners of Torrside—a brewery founded here in Derbyshire’s High Peak in 2015—are also its brewers, a team of best friends and their partners. .

From our overseas desk, we learn from Uganda that one form of traditional beer is under threat:

At least once a week, Girino Ndyanabo’s family converges around a pit in which bananas have been left to ripen. The bananas are peeled and thrown into a wooden vat carved like a boat, and the patriarch steps in with bare feet. The sweet juice he presses out is filtered and sprinkled with grains of sorghum, which converts the juice into ethanol, and left to ferment for up to a day. The result is a beverage Ugandans call tonto, or tontomera, a word in the Luganda language that alludes to drinkers’ poor coordination… But its production is under threat as cheap bottled beer becomes more attractive to drinkers and as authorities move to curb the production of what are considered illicit home brews, which have the risk of sometimes deadly contamination. And because tonto production takes place outside official purview, authorities are unable to collect revenue from its sale.

Errr… drinking like Mummy and Daddy is exactly what the pub manager said it is – whether you care or not is another question:

Dr Renée Hoenderkamp, the television doctor, was dining in the restaurant at the Old Bull & Bush in Hampstead, north London, on New Year’s Eve with her husband and daughter when she made a request for all three of them to clink their glasses. She and her husband were drinking wine in champagne glasses, so they asked a waiter for apple juice to be served in one too so their daughter could join in the celebrations at around 7pm. But Dr Hoenderkamp, an NHS doctor who hosts a show on TalkTV, says that a manager at the gastropub told her “it could encourage her to drink alcohol and it’s not a great look” and served it in a tumbler instead.

Of course giving a kid something in a wine glass is mimicking wine drinking. Me, I actually thought the parents should have then ordered Manhattans and let that kid something something in a similar tumbler, too.

There. I said it. Time to get real. Get a move on. The darkest month of the year are now past us. Yes, the days are already really getting longer. And remember, ye who read this far down to see if I have edited these closing credits and endnotes (as I always do), you can check out the many ways to find good reading about beer and similar stuff via any number of social media and other forms of comms connections. This week’s update on my emotional rankings? Facebook still in first (given especially as it is focused on my 300 closest friends and family) then we have BlueSky (up three to 104) rising up to maybe… probably… likely pass Mastodon (910 – down another one) in value… then the seemingly doomed trashy Twex (4,430 – one more week with a gain!) hovering somewhere above or around my largely ignored Instagram (creeping – literally – up to 165), with sorta unexpectly crap Threads (43) and not at all unexpectedly bad Substack Notes (1) really dragging up the rear – and that deservedly dormant Patreon presence of mine just sitting there. All in all I now have to admit my dispair for Mastodon in terms of beer chat and accept that BlueSky is the place in “the race to replace.” Even so and all in all, it is #Gardening Mastodon that still wins but here are a few of the folk there perhaps only waiting to discuss beer:

And remember to check the blogs, newsletters and even podcasts (really? barely! This era’s 8-track tapes!) to stay on top of things including the proud and public and certainly more weekly recommendations in the New Year from Boak and Bailey every Saturday and Stan at his spot on those Mondays when he is not SLACKING OFF! Look at me – I forgot to link to Lew’s podcast. Fixed. Get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by this year’s model citizen David Jesudason on the odd Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s now much less occassional but always wonderful newsletter, The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword is back with all the sweary Mary he can think of! And check out the Atlantic Canada Beer Blog‘s weekly roundup. There is new reading at The Glass. Any more? Yes! Check to see the highly recommended Beer Ladies Podcast. That’s quite good. And the long standing Beervana podcast . There is the Boys Are From Märzen podcast too and Ontario’s own A Quick Beer. There is more from DaftAboutCraft‘s podcast, too. All About Beer has introduced a podcast… but also seems to be losing steam. And there’s also The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast. And the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube and remember BeerEdge, too, and The Moon Under Water… if you have $10 a month for this sort of thing… I don’t. Pete Brown’s costs a fifth of that. There was also the Beer O’clock Show but that was gone after a ten year run but returned renewed and here is the link!

*Perhaps it would be more of a contest had GBH not apparently taken all those weeks off (and still not updating the home page from the Signifiers of 2022 by January 3, 2024 even though the 2023 version was posted over ten days ago.)