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.