May 2026 – A Good Beer Blog

Another Fabulous Set Of Thursday Beery News Notes For The Marvelous Month Of May

Was I always a May-man? Attending graduation ceremonies were never my thing when I was young or when the kids were. I spent most of the time, as with the movies, counting up the crowd’s investment in cut flowers… coming as I did from that family business. But it is otherwise extremey pleasant, what with the windows open and the furnace off, the idle mowing and the slow pace of digging and planting as well as the imagining (but not yet doing) of projects needing to get accomplished before the snow flies. The weeks before the biting bugs, the forest fire smoke, the doing of the projects. The weather now warm enough for a beer outside. Or, you know, maybe a bit of gin… Ahh… gin time.

What else is going on. What’s that? WHAAATTT IS THAT ?!?!? Freakish news out of France this week as reported in The Times:

For centuries, wine drinking has been at the heart of French identity. Now, however, in a development that will have traditionalists spluttering, it has emerged that last year for the first time, the French drank more beer than wine. Beer consumption outstripped that of wine by ten million litres, according to figures released this week by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine… Martin Cubertafond, of Sciences Po university, said wine was usually served at formal family meals at home, but the number of single-parent families had risen. More than two thirds of households now consist of only one or two people. Big Sunday lunches at which a bottle naturally appears are less common. “Wine isn’t an option with takeouts or lunches that take less than 30 minutes,” Cubertafond said.

I suppose that is a point – gathering around the table is less of a regular occassion – but France’s wine industry was as much built on workers drinking it out of jam jars as the haute stuff. Me thinks there needs to be a “Viva Les Plonks!!” ad campaign. Everywhere. All the time.

Tighten your seat belt. We are off on a bit of a quest this week. Where else in the world are we headed? Next up, Ed wrote us all a note this week, telling a story of Ried brewery in Ried im Innkreis, Austria in which he shared many pictures of stainless steel objects before disclosing this vital bit of information if you were to follow in his footsteps:

We stopped for refreshments after the tour in the bräustüberl (brewery tap). I can’t say I was disappointed the grey sausages ran out before I got to them, the brown sausages I had were fine. They looked like frankfurters to me, but having once caused outrage in Italy by incorrectly calling something salami I’m not taking any chances.

When have we all not been disappointed with the grey sausages. Moving along and further afield, Ruvani has also been on the road and reported back this week in great detail on her trip I believe in April to Tblisi Georgia including these notes from Agara Brewing:

Beer styles keep it straight with two notable exceptions: the ubiquitous tomato gose (the owner tells me the style originates from Russia) and a tarragon sour whose moss-green appearance may be unusual but harbours an exceptional gentle umami flavour that had me coming back for more. Tarragon is, we are told, a very popular flavour here and it works perfectly with a subtle kettle sour base. While the WCIPA was a bit on the heavy and sweet side, the tomato gose leaned into a strong garlic-herb profile giving it full gespacho characteristics. While pretty far out of the way, I’d consider this a must if hitting up the incredible Abkhazian regional cuisine at nearby Amra, the only restaurant to serve this variety of food from this contested area in Tbilisi. Being in the sticks isn’t always a bad thing (Londoners will know the importance of having proper local craft beer sources) and while you can Wolt it, it’d definitely recommend a short taxi ride out to the mothership. Side note, this is not a tourist area – be prepared for some staring.

“Ubiquitous Tomato Gose” would make for a good folk tune title. No really. Now… have you been in the Faroes? I haven’t. My ancestors may have but I have no record of their wanderings that a’way. Well wonder what the wander would be like not more as Knut has reported from the scene:

There are towns with a more thriving nightlife than Torshavn in the Faroe Islands, so don’t go there for a stag weekend. But I found a little gem of a café that combines local food and drink with international inspiration – and a nod to big brother Denmark… Think upmarket versions of Danish smørrebrød. There are vegetarian options, roast beef, cheese – and my favorite, Fiskaflak vid turrum fiski – Fried fillet of haddock, remoulade, pickled onion, capers, dill, and a lovely and tasty garnish of shredded dried fish.

Mmm… a tasty garnish. Sounds a bit “grey sausages” to me. Similarly perhaps, wine in cans has apparently discovered a need to tell its own happy story* which is definitely veering off the “Viva Les Plonks!” initiative:

Some of my favorite accounts are, like, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is one of our best accounts. It’s such an amazing cultural institution, and it’s so cool that people are walking around seeing the greatest art of all time, and drinking our wines. We’re in places where it’s really fun for people to drink. And we’re in alignment with our target customer: a cool, interesting person who likes cool, interesting stuff, and is involved in cool, interesting cultural or social events.

I too like cool interesting stuff. And bottles. From a single vantage point, Emma Inch revisited a space in 2006, 2016 and 2026 and found traces as well as distinctions:

Sometimes, it’s in those places where there is the most life, that the most phantoms are to be found: the pubs in which you waited alone for a lover who no longer loved you back; the pubs in which you laughed out loud at the joy of discovering an understanding of new flavours; and the pubs in which you found a surge of celebration and a sense of belonging. Some pubs – given time – can do all of those things, but maybe not all at once. Because the truth is, though very different pubs, The Princess Victoria, Craft Beer Co., and Crossbar are, in fact, the same place. They each have the same walls, the same doorways, the same windows, and they each occupy the selfsame patch of ground. I don’t just mean metaphorically: they’re spatially identical though, of course temporally, they might as well be eons apart.

A bit further west, Liam posted a lovely vignette on settling into another unfamilar pub in Cork … errr Carlow on a Saturday night, giving this photo of the banal a lovely context:

Decompressing in the ‘oldest’ pub in the town, after trying 3 others for a quiet seat. My Macardle’s is pushing it on the best before date, and why I normally go for one from the fridge these days. At this stage it could be Pliny the Elder for all my palate would know, so it’s back to rituals. Two little old ladies have joined me, pleasantly smelling of lavender and gardenia. I think I may be in there Saturday night spot! They are drinking Coors from the bottle and bitching about other pubs, and I think they’re great…

Viva ladies smelling of lavender and gardenia! Speaking of which in words but perhaps not in experience, Matt Gross introduces us to the prospects of what is unexpectedly presented as a favourite NYC bar:

Until a few years ago, there was a bar in my Brooklyn neighborhood called Lavender Lake. It was named, of course, for the adjacent Gowanus Canal, famous as one of the most polluted waterways in the United States, where we treat polluting our waterways as a competitive sport, like baseball and tax evasion. For well over a century, nearby oil depots dumped their waste into the canal, hard rains pushed sewage overflow into it, and generous citizens did their part by tossing in handguns, bodies, and automobiles. Over time, the Gowanus developed an unmistakable aroma, not to mention a variety of hues that earned it that nickname: Lavender Lake.The bar was about what you’d expect a canal-side bar with a name like Lavender Lake to be. Affordable, dark, crowded, with a back deck that looked out on the canal, suffused with various odors.

Perhaps also suffused with odors, from late last week (and for Stan) in France the deer are drunk and causing traffic issues as reported in The New York Times:

It is inebriation season for wild animals, according to the agency, the Gendarmerie de Saône-et-Loire, which is based in a rural region in central-eastern France. “In the spring, some wild animals consume buds, fermented fruits, or decaying vegetation — and may exhibit completely unpredictable behavior,” the agency wrote last week on social media. The police force noted that tipsy animals can quickly cause collisions if humans are not vigilant. To prove this point, the authorities in the picturesque Burgundy region, known for its berries and wines, posted a video of what appeared to be a very drunk deer that has captured international attention.

I think in my youth, “inebriation season for wild animals” meant something different. Here’s some notes:

Note #1: doesn’t this look a lot like this?
Note #2: “…the low-priced, unprofitable, “unpretty,” côc…”
Note #3: “…Nielsen data that shows a 6% drop in beer for 4 weeks thru 5/2…“

Building on that last point, I saw this interesting admission and even a fresh new retroactive pivot at Food in Canada in this story on the challenges facing brewers including this passage focussing on Toronto’s Collective Arts:

“We started in craft beer 13 years ago, but from the get-go, we always believed our brand would expand beyond craft beer,” says Toni Shelton, VP brand and strategy. “We have options for everyone, wherever they are in their drinking habits.” Today, Collective Arts’ portfolio includes craft beer, non-alcoholic beer, ready-to-drink cocktails, spirits, cider and wellness beverages. Its foray into the latter started with sparkling waters that were initially designed as mixers. Positive feedback led the company to position them as standalone refreshments, which eventually evolved into Botany, Collective Arts’ functional wellness brand.

This seems to suggest that the way forward for craft beer is to make “not craft beer” and that, in fact, that was always the understanding as in 2013 it was possible to guage the market and plan for the future. I seem to have misplaced my Believe-o-Meter so I will have to get back to you on that one.

As foreshadowed, I went out a bought a bottle of gin last Monday, reminded by this comment below in The Telegraph’s “Devil’s Advocate” column** by Evgenia Siokos:

Gin can’t even defend its own integrity. You would never have it neat, as you would a good reposado or even, in exceptional circumstances, vodka; I recommend Black Cow or Tito’s. From the hobgoblin-green shape of Gordon’s – loved by Queen Elizabeth, the late Queen Mother; hated by teenagers left hanging over the porcelain – to its other wily guises – sloe gin, pink gin, dry gin, craft gin – all gin is beyond salvation.

Heavens. You would think Ms. Siokos was thinking of Sambuca. No good has ever come of Sambuca, as one old pal says. The eldest is in the Western Hemisphere for the next ten days so one must have gin. May, after all, is the beginning of gin season.

Further back in time and perhaps due to the news that Jeff shared, from the archives attentive readers will recall a few posts on a 1600s beer called Lambeth Ale which left a bit of a puzzle as to what it was. It was included in lists like that of John Lock from 1679 but I believe I found only a few references to what it tastes like other than coy mentions like “she is pert and small like Lambeth ale” and that it may have been bottled and kept like champagne. Lordy. I’ve come across one more reference in The Marriage-Hater Matched, a rude Restoration comedy by Thomas D’Urfey from 1693 where the character Lady Bumfiddle vigourously objects to be being served it:

Lady Bumfiddle: Deliver me, what’s this? [Makes faces and spits.] Egad. Mrs. Commode, prithee what hast thou given me here ? Egad!
Commode: Lambeth-Ale, Madam.
Lady Bumfiddle: Lambeth Ale, what a plague came into thy Head to give me Lambeth Ale?
Commode: T’is fresh and good, Madam.
Lady Bumfiddle: To give one the gripes! Egad, fresh and good, said she. Puddle for Frogs, as I’m a Protestant. Go, prithee, fill it me with sherry, sugar and nutmeg, according to the ancient, laudable custom, Fool.
L. Subt: Ha, ha, ha, this Lambeth Ale has mortified her strangely. Go get my Lady some sherry, you know what she drinks well enough.***

Is “puddle for frogs” a slur for drink fit for a Frenchman? It was, after all, the middle of the Nine Years War.**** And is Lambeth so fresh light and bubbly that it is newish and continental and not at all an ancient custom? Is it… hipster beer circa 1693? Seeing as Pepys drank it in the 1660s I don’t see that being the case but I’d love to learn more.

Speaking of sherry, in 2005 – that’s (yikes) 21 years ago – I joked about starting another blog on the benefits of that fine wine. And here, just like that, Pellicle is featuring the drinking in its natural setting with this piece by Michael Fabro reporting from Jerez:

I arrive at half past one on a mild spring afternoon. Javi, the bartender, taps his knuckles on the old wooden bartop, a bulería—the last act of a flamenco show—still sounding in his ears. “Copa de fino, porfa,” I ask. I’m a bit early and the impending rush has not yet begun. For the moment, it’s me and a group of three Spanish guys, content with drinks in their hands after slipping out of work early. Some traditions haven’t changed. The walls are decorated with metre-high posters of bullfighters and portraits of great flamenco singers from decades gone by, alongside religious imagery. The Virgin’s weeping eyes stare back at me as I sip fino from my small vasito.

One last thing. Again a reminder that there will be an edition of The Session next month celebrating Martyn Cornell’s final book Porter and Stout: A Complete History. Boak and Bailey will share an update soon on when you need to get your thoughts organized in preparation. Which means you, please, need to keep an eye on Boak and Bailey postings every Saturday and adding to their fabulously entertaining footnotes week after week at Patreon. And do look out for more of Stan’s new “One Link, One Paragraph” format. Then hunt out something in someone’s archives! Leave oblique comments on someone’s post from 2009!! Listen to a few of Lew’s podcasts and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on certain 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 wonderful self-governing totes autonomous website featuring The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword remains on pause but there is reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? We have Ontario’s own A Quick Beer and All About Beer is still offering a range of podcasts – and there’s also Mike Seay’s The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast! And there’s the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube as well as the archives of the Beer Ladies Podcast.

*“Happy stories!” is the gift that will give all year.
**Shared via the free daily newletter summary.
***Yes, I modernized the puncuation and replaced the long “s” with a standard one. My BA’85 in English complained but shut up after I asked what it had ever done for me.
****Fine – I missed the whole “Nine Years War” stuff, too. 1693 was not exactly when one would be chucking around Francophile sayings.

A Magnificently Monarchist League-less Mid-May Beery News Note Extravaganza For Victoria Day Weekend

Victoria Day weekend.* A most welcome springtime Canadian holiday about something and someone not a lot of Canadians take much time thinking about but, still, many don’t mind it – as long as we don’t pay the bills. And more birds are back as my new pal, one of a pair of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks proved. Aaaannnnd the weather is looking warmer than earlier in the week, which is good. Those are all good reasons for a long weekend in my books. Me, I shall sing the fabulous song about her by the The Kinks to myself as I go about doing nothing all holiday Monday:

Canada to IndiaAustralia to CornwallSingapore to Hong KongFrom the west to the eastFrom the rich to the poorVictoria loved them all

Speaking of the Victorian, first up we have Chris Dyson of Real Ale, Real Music starts us off this week with a pretty detailed description of the interior architecture at the Agricultural Inn of Penrith:

…one of the finest surviving Victorian shuttered and panelled bar serveries in the country with working sash screens which reach right up to the ceiling. It is two-sided, of three bays length, two bays on the return, and has a curved bay at the corner. The five main bays have lower sliding screens with the corner bay and upper ones having fixed glazed panels. The bar-back fitting is mainly old with some wood and modern colourful stained glass.

My main concern would be whacking my forehead on the screen but he didn’t have good luck with the beer on the day… but at least he got full pints. Does the average beer drinker even care if they get a full serving anymore? Stan guided us to this story which lead to this study out of HaaaVaaad which may indicate little consumer pressure to pour correctly:

The investigation began in November 2025 in Harvard Square, Cambridge—about three miles from home, a short bicycle ride or an easy trip on the bus. The first round of measurements surveyed the pubs of the Square: Charlie’s Kitchen, Grendel’s, Felipe’s, Toscano’s, The Sea Hag, Russell House, and McCarthy’s… The original plan was to survey all the squares of Cambridge, but as the investigation progressed the strategy shifted to breweries. McCarthy’s, in Porter Square, was the one measurement taken outside Harvard Square before that pivot. The realization came quickly. Most bars in Harvard Square used the ubiquitous shaker pint glass, and it was clearly a short pour by design. Charlie’s Kitchen gave me one as full as could be—right to the brim—and it still came up short.

Hmm… that’s one way to make an extra buck. Relatedly, does the beer drinker care if pub chain profits are somewhat moderated? Not eliminated. Just not earning as great a profit. The alternative would be paying more, right?

Pubco JD Wetherspoon has warned profits could come in slightly below expectations after a fresh surge in costs hit the pub giant, despite continued growth in sales. The group, which operates 794 managed pubs and 21 franchise sites across the UK, said it had experienced “substantial increases in costs” in recent months, putting pressure on margins even as trading remained broadly resilient. Chairman and founder Sir Tim Martin (above) said the rise in employment-related and regulatory costs could result in “profits slightly below market expectations”, marking a cautious tone from one of the UK’s best-known pub operators.

The same story could be shared as a good news piece: “Wethering the Storm!” Speaking of moderation in all things (except for the seating) Retired Martin has also been avoiding the inflationary effects of today’s economy in London reasonably successfully:

… the Pelt Trader under the arches at Cannon Street is possibly the ugliest pub in London, though the Spoons in the station runs it close. It wasn’t heaving today, which presumably is because Thursday is the new Friday but Wednesday is the old Thursday, or something profound. You’ve no doubt read about the £10 pint in London, which is nothing as Sheffield has £27 pints; Sheffield leads in all things. Well, the pint of Southwark Porter here was £5.20, which would have been even more of a bargain if it had that last degree of crispness it patently lacked…

As beer in pubs moves up in price point for those paying less attention, an interesting observation by guest writer Caroline Lamb at Everyday Drinking in response to a piece in Wine Spectator on Gen Z and wine:

…the elitism framing is just lazy—a tired recitation of wine culture’s snobby past. The real barrier is economic. Wine is expensive to experiment with on the average young person’s income in the age of inflation, tariffs, crushing housing costs, and student debt that undermines discretionary spending in ways previous generations simply didn’t face. That is a fundamentally different problem than intimidation, and conflating them leads the industry exactly where it keeps ending up: Apologizing for wine’s depth to people whose real problem isn’t that wine is too elitist—it’s that it’s too expensive to gamble on.

Ten years ago or so, craft beer was doing its best to go in the opposite direction, creating complexities that weren’t really there** to manufacture a boosted price point and all they got in the end was sell outs and years of samey fruit gak IPAs. See also premium name brand boredom. Will US craft beer learn? Or… happy stories! *** Perhaps as illustration is a piece B+B drew my eye to in their footnotes last weekend, California-based Sayre Piotrkowski arguing folk complain too much without understanding the realities:

If beer is consistently framed as a struggling industry, a re-consolidating market, or a category in search of its next gimmick, then it becomes easier to believe that our best days are behind us. But that is simply not true. The quality of American beer has never been higher, and it has never been easier for consumers to access beer in brewery-fresh condition. The same is true upstream: hops, malt, yeast, and process have all improved in ways that would have been hard to imagine just two decades ago.

The problem with that reach for the happy story is that fewer problem actually care. That’s not negativity. It’s reality. By the end of this year US craft production may well be down over 20% from 2019 and it’s far too late to blame the pandemic. There is no analogy to the airline industry’s rebound as illustrated by the graph under the thumbnail to the right. Somethings just go away. There may be a welcome upturn one day soon but that will not be based on replicating the factors that led to the downturn.

One way good beer could boost revenues is to go old school – as in Sammy Pepys old – and reintegrate beer back into the workplace. For Esquire, Eric Fransisco explores the opportunity for NA beer as part of a rebalanced work experience:

Despite NA beer’s explosion in popularity, I never thought about drinking it during work hours, let alone at the office. It seemed harmless on the surface. But something changes when you march past your bosses in the mid-afternoon with a Heineken in hand. Suddenly, I felt 13 again, absconding to my room with a nudie mag in my jacket. Little did I realize that what I was doing wasn’t all that out of the ordinary.

To be fair, I have never assocated porn and being a tween with NA beer. But, unlike the author, I also don’t sweat consuming the 69 calories per can which convinced him to give up the habit. Also considering a balance act, Pete Brown’s column this week was about the ups and downs of the manners of those who bring dogs into a UK pub and shared some clear guidance to why its not always a great idea:

Dog owners are also guilty of forgetting that some people in the pub might be allergic to their little darlings (Captain was and Mildrid is non-shedding and hypoallergenic). If you’re sitting there enjoying a pint and suddenly you’re sneezing and your eyes are streaming, your haven from the world has become a hostile environment. Ditto if you’ve discovered too late in the pub garden that an owner forgot to bring poo bags. Perhaps the most persuasive argument I’ve heard against dogs in pubs comes from a publican I spoke to recently. “I don’t like dogs and I don’t like kids,” he said. “We allow both, but neither are coming to the bar to buy drinks.

Not being a fan of dogs, my face having an encounter with a husky forty years ago, I could offer an additional category but I would add one more argument against them which was shared by Clarissa Dickson Wright in her book Spilling the Beans**** at page 130 which you can see under that thumbnail. Oddly it seems to be presented as a jolly positive.

Note #1: A discussion of XPA.
Note #2: Brew a Victorian Mild.
Note #3: Knut in Stockholm.
Note #4: Toronto’s Left Field Brewery makes the New York Times.

There are questions being raised which may lead to pointy fingers, too, about the proposal to stop unlimited 24 hour drinking at UK airports:

This week Michael O’Leary, the boss of Ryanair, made a bold suggestion. What if, he said, we applied the law that exists outside airports, inside airports? “I fail to understand why anybody in airport bars is serving people at five or six o’clock in the morning,” he said. Too often, he said, his flight attendants had to deal with drunk passengers. “Who needs to be drinking beer at that time?” Well, Lindzi Percival, 34, for one. The bride-to-be — who swears that is her real name — has arrived from Oxford, bound for Tenerife. She is wearing a wig with a bald patch, and is using a wheelchair thanks to a drinking-related injury at a recent wedding. The pint, for her, is a signal that the holiday has begun. “You start getting relaxed at the airport,” she says. “Also, it helps you not to feel silly wearing this outfit.”

Or wearing that wheelchair, Lindzi! Note also how the word “needs” is doing a lot of work up there. The UK opposition shadow transport secretary, called it all “slightly draconian” which is sorta like saying slightly murderous if one knows one’s Draco. Wetherspoons’ profitable cash receipts depositor-in-chief, Timbo, is nearly apoplectic, describing the plan as “an overreaction”!!! Lordy, what language…

Conversely perhaps – and certainly calmer – from Imran Rahman-Jones at Edinburgh Pub Reviews, we have a keen eye on what makes a good pub like the Iona Bar special:

…there’s no real ale here. In fact, I can only really see two drinks wherever I look: It seems we’re all either seeing to a portly, white-haired Guinness, or a rakish tower of Tennents, its loops of bubbles excitedly rising. The lady sitting at the bar gets up to put something on the jukebox and Lola Young starts playing. The music causes everyone to raise their voices a few decibels and the atmosphere livens. It’s nothing too raucous, still being early in the evening before the football’s started on TV. But we’re all in a good mood sharing this living room-style space. The decoration is limited to a dart board, a few tasteful framed beer posters on the white walls and a swirly red and yellow pub carpet.

Ahh, that’s better. Plus, a very deft placement of the word “swirly” if you ask me. And, finally, just a reminder that there will be an edition of The Session next month celebrating Martyn Cornell’s final book Porter and Stout: A Complete History. Boak and Bailey shared the news in an update last month and this is another heads up that you need to get your thoughts organized in preparation.

That is it for another week. What will havoc will the new rules cause for Victoria Day celebrations this year? Will the North American edition of the World Cup wise up and lighten the burden placed on fans in response to low interest? Will I finally stop running the furnace? For these and many other stories ,hceh in next week. In the meantime, please check out Boak and Bailey who are posting every Saturday and adding to their fabulously entertaining footnotes week after week at Patreon. And look out for more of Stan’s new “One Link, One Paragraph” format. Then hunt out something in someone’s archives! Leave oblique comments on someone’s post from 2009!! Listen to a few of Lew’s podcasts and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on certain 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 wonderful self-governing totes autonomous website featuring The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword remains on pause but there is reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? We have Ontario’s own A Quick Beer and All About Beer is still offering a range of podcasts – and there’s also Mike Seay’s The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast! And there’s the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube as well as the archives of the Beer Ladies Podcast.

*Previous observations on the observations from 2025, 2024, 2019, 2018, 2011, 2008
**“Please sir, may I have some more off-flavour seminars? I’ll pay…“
***For all the alt definitions of craft, this is a new one: “…some weirdo somewhere is the only person carefully preserving the memory of a particular technique or flavor profile is the essence of craft…“
****She of Two Fat Ladies Fame. A book that will convince you that you may not have an alcohol problem after you read of what gin meant to her from age 25 to 40 or so. Which may lead you to believe terriers pissing on the clientele is a good thing for a pub.

It’s A Thursday In May And Here’s Your Greener Than Green Cheery Beery News Notes

The tide has turned. The seasons have shifted. The dandelions have popped. The penny has dropped. It is time. So the Beast has been released. I say Beast but it’s really Beast II, Son of the Beast. The Beast is still back there, there at the back of the shed. An over a decade old rotary mower that took five times longer to do the job, was a pain to sharpen and was retired last spring. It’s a terrible thing being cheap and lazy for so many years. Now, my lawn is mowed care of a combination of hydroelecric and nuclear power. Science.

What is going on? Well first up, Alistair is about to travel from Virginia back to the UK and shares a complaint that’s been complained since time itself began – how to narrow down where to go for a pint when the information online is just not there:

My biggest challenge though, and I am sure there are reasons for this, but with so many tied houses in the English part of my trip, it does get really frustrating when there is a shared platform with generic information, and almost universally no list of what is on cask in a given pub – this goes for chains like Wetherspoons as well. Yes, the many Fullers pubs in the city have elegant, beautifully designed websites, but again I can’t find out which beers of the Fullers Brewery range are available, making it pot luck to stumble across less regularly seen beers (at least from what I have been told) such as London Porter. I don’t want to single out Fullers, as I have seen the same with Shepherd Neame, Greene King, and Nicholsons, though several Young’s pubs tend to have at least a list, and occasionally pricing as well.

Is it a realistic expectation after decades of this sort of thing to expect every pub to logging what’s on tap? I dunno. The failure seems to be the proof. Elsewhere, Pivní Filosof® is back after a few years of quietude. And Max is again on the move with his second post of spring 2026 looking for good beer by tram, with all sorts of obstacles placed in the way… like bad beer scenes:

Here comes the first tram, #5 heading to Vozovna Zižkov. I get on and start counting the stops. Fuck! Hlavní nádraží. All I can remember around there are the two overpriced spots in the station itself, and U Staré Pošty in Opletalova, a hospoda I’ve never liked for some reason. I get off, already resigned to the idea of having a Pilnser Urquell U Staré Pošty, when I tell myself ‘fuck it! I will cheat’, and change direction, towards the the tunnel that now connects the train station with Žižkov and the new building complex that has sprouted there in the last decade or so. Yeah, I’m cheating, in my own challenge, which I play alone – if you disapprove, good luck finding a better beer blog…

[Ed.: I thought he was talking about me. He wasn’t!] Offering a definite upgrade in locales, David Jesudason has the feature in Pellicle this week, a portrait of The Golden Smog of Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, a pub which started life under the current owners with its own set of more serious challenges:

Their eyes even passed over the anti-fascist football sticker saying “our club, our rules.” When they spoke of how local shops were closing, they didn’t blame globalisation, politicians, or even the internet—the fault was with “immigration”. It was 2014, and owner John Christie sighed after overhearing their chat, wondering if this was the life he had now forged for himself. He had trained as a mechanic and joined the army; after leaving, he opened the pub in a former headstone shop. His goal was building a welcoming, inclusive space founded on his socialist ideals. Was he about to be dragged into their world First, he considered kicking them out. Then he paused. It dawned on him that if they went to another pub, their views would likely be re-enforced, or amplified in an echo chamber. It was at this moment that the unwritten manifesto of the Smog started to take shape in his mind.

On a larger and indoubtably less successful scale of internationalissimmo, we are all now just a few weeks away from World Cup madness. Perhaps not surprisingly, hotel reservations are below expectations. Here in Canada, we have a few of the games – and there’ll no doubt be any number of beer related stories in the coming weeks as there usually are when this rolls around – but this one about Ermedin Demirovic is one of the best so far:

Back to Demirovic. As everyone will remember, before his country’s World Cup qualification play-off final against Italy at the end of March, Stuttgart’s Bosnia and Herzegovina international forward promised to buy everyone in the city a beer if he and his team-mates made it through. They did, beating the Italians on penalties following a 1-1 draw, and last Monday, Demirovic kept his promise. The event was staged near the Neckarstadion in collaboration with a local brewery, and more than 2,500 people turned up. “I didn’t expect so many of you to come,” Demirovic told the fans who took part.

Sticking with the people of the grassy pitch, Boak and Bailey unpacked their findings on the disappearance of the retired fitba player as publican:

Historically, you could expect to retire from football before you were, say, 35 years old, with a lot of life left to live. And unlike today, even top flight footballers probably wouldn’t retire rich, even if they did have a little money put away. So, you’d need to find some kind of work. We can well imagine that running a pub was appealing because it’s a job that seems fun adjacent. Back to those headlines above: there’s also a sense that you could parlay your fame as a footballer into publicity for your new venture. Who wouldn’t want to be served pints by a local hero? (And perhaps tut at their fall from grace, and marvel at how fat they were getting, how red faced…)

I guess a key difference between then and now are the far higher wages paid to players in recent decades during their career. As a late teen, my father started out his working life at the firm of Hasties, a marine engineering firm in Greenock. In the lunch room he sat at the same table as local hero and Scottish national team star Billy Campbell whose career was cut short by illness and was given a job. A kindness from the owner, a local supporter.

Something else that is also retired but more often noted is a well priced pint in an London pub. Perhaps a well-trod topic but there was an interestingly specific grip in Tuesday’s daily (free) newsletter from The Telegraph:

We all knew the moment would come, but it was still a shock to read that we had entered the era of the £10 pint. Long gone are the days of venturing out with a tenner, sure of enjoying a few pints of bitter, and perhaps even having enough cash left over for a scallop from the chippy. No, bars in London today are charging as much as £11 for a pint of Moretti and £8 for a half of Heineken. There’s probably no going back – the rising cost of pints is an irreversible trend, like SUVs or smashed avocado – but mercifully you can find relics of the old, pre-£10 world, mostly outside London. Indeed, soon after the news broke, I raised a £3.50 glass of Gunpowder Mild in honour of reasonably priced pints in a pub in Clitheroe, Lancashire.

Hmm… how long ago a scallop and chips was going for the price of the leftovers from a few pints? I also wonder what the price travel to Clitheroe from London is, you know, to save that £6.50. Here are a few notes:

Note #1: Beer skates and sabres.
Note #2: Sue them, Yoko. Sue.
Note #3: Data-less trends are the best trends.

And Ray of B+B has done some solid hypothesizing over at Patreon in a piece entitled “Beer from the Witchwood” about the meaning of Jethro Tull’s album Songs from the Wood:

It’s from an article by Nick Freeman about music inspired by the mythic power of English woods and forests and it feels like a missing link between the Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood and Ray’s suggestion from a couple of years ago that real ale and folk horror feel somehow connected: “I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the Campaign for Real Ale, The Wicker Man and the English Morris dancing revival all landed at about the same time.” We think Freeman is right: the title of the album is a definite reference to the concept of ‘beers from the wood’. And on the cover, Ian Anderson looks like an extra from The Blood on Satan’s Claw or Witchfinder General.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think he’s on the right track. But… I am not sure. Not sure of the directness of the relationship* even if an indirect** one could be perfectly admissible. With something of a similar theme, ATJ has been making things up, including his recollections of a perfect beer fest:

I will admit that this summer beer festival is a composite of several I have attended. Some had great lagered beers and well-conditioned cask and an encouragement of children to play and provide a lightness of being, some had excellent food and at one even the Morris made sense to me. Then there was the one which included a beer garden, plus shaded woodland and a cooling river running alongside, plenty of sunshine, a genial intoxication and the amity of friends as well as meeting new people, children and dogs. So if you do know of a beer festival in the summer that has all of this please let me know.

And there is some odd financial news out of Belgian based macro gak producer ABInBev which has been finding sofa nickles and dimes in unexpected places:

Shares in AB InBev gained as much as 6.8% in early trading, adding to a more than 14% rise over the past 12 months. Strong beer demand in Mexico, Colombia and Peru drove volumes in the region up 4.8% in the period, offsetting a 3.1% decline in North America and a 0.4% drop in the region that includes China, amid a broad-based reduction in drinking. Revenue also rose in no-alcohol beer and in the non-beer segment.

Speaking of what is or is not, legal steps are being taken in Montreal to fight against a scourge… or perhaps a few scourges:

A Montreal microbrewery owner says he is being unfairly targeted by Quebec’s Alcohol, Racing, and Gaming Commission (RACJ). Le Saint-Bock, on St-Denis Street, brews specialty beers infused with candy flavours. The commission is accusing him of marketing to minors. “People like this kind of beer,” said Martin Guimond, owner of Le Saint-Bock. “It’s different, but there’s a market for people who don’t like beer and want to have a beer that tastes like candy.” Candy flavoured alcoholic drinks is a trend that other major breweries are hopping on as well. Coors has released a line of slushie flavoured seltzers, and the SAQ now sells a Popsicle vodka soda. “They have never been sued. But me, yes,” Guimond said.

Candy beer. Really? It’s this sort of thing that does make one wonder if there is anything left that can reliabily be called craft. And, speaking of which, Jeff posted about the latest move by the BA to buff up the image of US craft’s prospects, reporting (under a somewhat sheepish portrait of Bart Wilson) on a presentation by his leadership himself:

Two comments struck me. In his opening statement, Bart tried to strike a positive note, saying “This year the vibe is positive. It feels like we’re coming out the other side.” Then, near the end of the breakfast, he encouraged us to consider writing more “happy stories.” For the most part, the session yielded little new information. And, despite these comments, I wasn’t picking up a lot of positive news. Bart is no longer the just-the-facts BA economist who reports the numbers. Now he’s the head of a trade organization in a wobbling industry.

Wobbling indeed. I expect there are still some experts who will be moved by such puff even as production is down 17% over a five year trend to the end of last year.*** But the vibes? They are good. We read “… going to see growth this year – very, very strong growth…” Oh, that was 2021. And in 2024 it was all about “mood management” and the niche. Heavens. Stan connects more dots. And Brew York shares another observation:

One of the most positive numbers in the report — that independent breweries’ market share increased by 0.1 percentage points over last year — should be taken with a grain of salt. The Brewers Association’s classification of craft beer means that three breweries owned by MillerCoors for most of 2024 are now considered craft in 2025 after being acquired by the large but independent brewery holding company Tilray. Niche brands that are more likely to market themselves like big beer, like Garage Beer and Outlaw Light, are also defined as craft.

That reference to Tilray is interesting. Fourth biggest US craft brewer in 2025. But we must remember that according to the current version of the shifting sands that are the BA’s definition of “craft brewer” the requirements of actually being, you know, a “brewer” includes the principle that a firm must have “have as its primary business purpose the resale of the brand or brands it controls.” Primary. According to Tilray’s most recent financial statement, its craft beer holdings represent 27% of its activities after its cannabis (31%) and pharmaceutical operations (40%). So… not really that primary. Probably fits squarely in the definition, however, in special BA-nglish. But, you know, happy stories!

That is it for now. Let’s keep an eye out for happy realities instead. With any luck, the tomatoes will start finding their place in the garden and please check out Boak and Bailey who are posting every Saturday and adding to their fabulously entertaining footnotes week after week at Patreon. And look out for more of Stan’s new “One Link, One Paragraph” format. Then hunt out something in someone’s archives! Leave oblique comments on someone’s post from 2009!! Listen to a few of Lew’s podcasts and get your emailed issue of Episodes of my Pub Life by David Jesudason on certain Fridays. And Phil Mellows is at the BritishBeerBreaks. Once a month, as noted, Will Hawkes issues his London Beer City newsletter and do sign up for Katie’s wonderful self-governing totes autonomous website featuring The Gulp, too. Ben’s Beer and Badword seems to be on pause since November but there is reading at The Glass which is going back to being a blog. Any more? We have Ontario’s own A Quick Beer and All About Beer is still offering a range of podcasts – and there’s also Mike Seay’s The Perfect Pour. Plus follow the venerable Full Pint podcast! And there’s the Craft Beer Channel on Youtube. Check out the archives of the Beer Ladies Podcast.

*Ian Anderson, creative lead of Jethro Tull had a busy 1976. In addition to making (and producing) Songs from the Wood, he got married a rather rich lady and moved into lodgings at Pophleys Estate which sat on 500 acres. The main house was up for sale in 2009 on a lot of 13 acres and was described as being supprounded by “a large belt of woodland” so it could be in addition to the era’s folk-rock theme these songs of his might also be from his wood.
**According to Richard Boston in “Beer and Skittles” at page 95 the Society for the Preservation of Beer from the Wood was founded in 1963. Songs from the Wood came out in 1977. So a bit past the folk-rock revival and four years after The Wicker Man hit the cinemas. During this time – and here is the thing – we move from the era of the First Doctor to Fourth. From Gerry and the Pacemakers to the Sex Pistols. My birth to my teens. Yet if detective shows set in England have taught us anything, it’s always the green man behind the scenes and everyone is down the pub sonner or later.
***And… the numbers are already again down another 2% in 2026, just one third into the year.