Scotland – A Good Beer Blog

The Thursday Beery News Notes For The Week We Are All Cape Verdean

We need a new anthem:

Let’s root root root for Cape Verde
If they don’t win it’s a shame…

Actually, that tie will do just fine. Just fine. Still, Uruguay has have the best strip. We remember the Graf Spee after all. Isn’t it fun how many old simmering bigotries and grudges come out during international sporting events! Speaking of fabulous cups, Lars shared that image this week: “… carved by a Norwegian farmer… The king bought this mug in 1798 for 60 riksdaler, an absolutely wild amount, equivalent to roughly 10 cows.” The Scandenavian bovine value (SBV) scale to the rescue… again.

How many cows is the World Cup worth? [Ed.: “…crickets...”] Studies have shown that a beer at the stadium might cost you about one-third of a cow. On the other hand, it is pretty clear what inviting the Tartan Army to your town is worth to breweries:

The Tartan Army chartered dozens of school buses from Boston and Providence to get to the game. On the ride with the Scots were many father-son pairs, kilts and even more beer. Organizers brought 10,000 cans of Narragansett Lager for the Foxborough-bound buses from Providence alone. None were left by the end of the night.

Wow. The call has gone out for an extra 100,000 more! My own wee cousin** is out there representing the fam. Seems like the Army is working hard to beat the English in Spain in terms of fluid input, according to one French news source. And Ruvani has also been on the World Cup beat and shared the thoughts of opinions of commentator Roger Bennett what makes for a great fitba focused bars in the US including this good point:

Bennett is keen to emphasize that there are aspects of great American soccer bars that are both unique and essential to the U.S. In other countries, “you commune with fans of your team and everyone else is the enemy, but in the U.S. most fans are young and have come in since the Premier League started being broadcast by NBC in 2013,” he said. “Their discovery and passion have created a unique culture that’s not divided into us-against-you.” This difference means that bars must be ready for and welcoming to multiple fan groups, fostering an inclusive spirit.

Speaking of welcoming, Ontario’s fading but venerable former retail monopoly The Beer Store is doing something very unusual the days – opening two stores as it closes many more. But its doing so seemingly primarily to receive back more empties as much as to sell beer:

The Beer Store has closed dozens of retail locations across the province over the past two years, citing changing market conditions and the expansion of beer sales to convenience stores, more grocery stores and gas stations. Many of these retailers do not accept empty container returns… As Ontario’s largest beer retailer, The Beer Store recently unveiled a new “Take back what’s yours” campaign aimed to boost awareness of the province’s deposit return system. A recent analysis by the Toronto Star suggested Ontario consumers lost more than $60 million in unredeemed deposit refunds last year by placing empty alcohol containers in their blue box or the trash instead of returning them to The Beer Store.

And Stan has issued his latest Hop Queries and you are all well advised to govern yourselves accordingly. And he’s used a concept that’s been unfamiliar in the brewing world in recent years – stabilized:

After reducing acreage from 60,872 acres in 2021 to 41,654 in 2025 (that’s 19,218 acres), American farmers indicate that total acreage will remain basically the same in 2026 (at 41,642; 12 fewer acres than in 2025, less than three-tenths of one percent lost). The German Hop Growers Association reports that farmers will harvest 5.8% fewer acres in 2026 after slicing 6.5% in 2025 — leaving 44,117 in 2026, compared to 50,136 in 2024…. It should not be a surprise that a press release from the German hop growers about acreage states, “The mood in the hop market is currently poor” and “the oversupply of aroma hops had made production cuts necessary for several years.”

In amongst some cheeky chat about NA beer, Andreas Krennmair stood up and sensibly explained with semi-cited research why it is that German NA beers are better than elsewhere in the world:

I’m sure the technology will eventually cross the ocean. From what I’ve been told, all the Bavarian breweries launching new and better NA beers basically comes from one guy’s PhD thesis at the Technical University of Munich at Weihenstephan. I’m not sure the thesis has been published yet, but… here’s one paper from the same guy about the impact of different NA production methods on aroma compounds.

Here’s Dr. Guy’s paper. I like the acronym they use too, NAB. Suits my feels as a consumer some times. Andreas also shared the best beery gross out of the tournament so far, the drink to accompany an early match:

If you’re looking for the perfect drink for today’s Germany-Curaçao match, here’s a 1970’s beer cocktail for you: Isarwasser. In a 1 litre Maßkrug, combine a bottle of Bavarian wheat beer, half a litre of orange juice or orange soda (e.g. Fanta), and a shot of Blue Curaçao liqueur. Enjoy!

I’m all for fighting the hegemony of homigeneity but… I was sure he was joking. Here, however, is independent evidence of this crime against the clinky and the drinky.

Matty C had a good go at the numbers behind the lack of a GBBF this year, the reasons for which have become clearer with time:

… attendance was way down, with 13,000 people attending over five days – far short of the event’s apparent 23,000 target… both the main GBBF and its winter equivalent have been cancelled. According to one discussion on its members internal forum, the festival made a staggering £320,000 loss. This feels significant, because you don’t plan the largest beer festival of the year and then move on after losing more than a quarter of a million pounds. A loss of this magnitude isn’t made simply by mismanagement – it’s gross negligence.

Wow. Wowsie-wow-wow even. Knut‘s written about another sort of challenge facing those in the trade – finding yourself brwing quality niche brewing in an isolated location. He noted a few interesting strategies to deal with that reality:

Carl brews beers inspired by Belgian classic styles, usually with malt from the Trøndelag region and with Belgian organic hops. I am lucky to have a designated driver, as we sit down to sample a few of his saisons. It’s a tough market these days, there are some beer bars in Oslo and Trondheim who sell his beers, but not many. He has teamed up with a local company that sells high end salmon fishing in the nearby Gaula river, probably a wise choice with guests paying good money for a quality product. The lower alcohol beers are available directly from the brewery, get in touch with him if you are passing by.

As you consider your route to the Gaula River, here some notes:

Note #1: this vid on UK pub habits also is about Canadianness.**
Note #2: “…BUD stock up 29% yr-to-date…”
Note #3: Ron on Scottish Sweet Stout.
Note #4: “…stuck in 2016 for a moment… Just like DogHouse Edinburgh.“

Question. Horse brasses – history or heritage?*** Boak and Bailey were on the case this week:

Newly built pubs on housing estates and new towns across Britain, desperately in need of instant personality, also often came with horse brasses fitted as standard. For example, when Scottish & Newcastle built The Moorcock at Peterlee, County Durham, in 1973, to provide a “tinge of country atmosphere… in a tasteful blend of ancient and modern” they fitted it out with “beams and timbers and rustic brickwork and horse brasses, sporting prints, and game birds”. (Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 15 November 1973.)

So a bit of each. And Alistair has been back home in the UK and has started sharing his thoughts on what he’s missed, starting with a day in Windsor waiting for his flight on to Inverness:

I had been to Windsor all of once previously, but I may have been about 12 years shy of being able to drink legally, and as such I don’t remember much about that visit. There is though a family legend/inside joke that at some point whilst wandering near the castle, I asked my parents why it wasn’t finished yet given the scaffolding that surrounded many of the buildings. I was then somewhat keen to walk by the castle to check up on progress in the intervening 40 odd years – there was still scaffolding to be seen, still not finished then I guess. It was getting pretty bloody warm by this point of the day, even though it was only 9.30 by now, so I took myself off along the river to get to my first planned stop of my tour of the town’s hostelries.

Alistair, being the good saintly lad he is, was well advised to leave out the visit to the city if the latest edition of London Beer City where Will Hawkes explains something I, also being a good saintly lad****, was not aware of… the class of establishment known as the strip pub:

Now – a bit like the Ploughman’s Lunch – strip pubs have almost entirely disappeared. This week the owners of The Nag’s Head in Aldgate submitted plans to Tower Hamlets council which would see this long-established strip pub turned into a “traditional pub” and 24-room hotel…. For younger Londoners – who make up the bulk of my readers, naturally – it must seem incredible that so many pubs once featured women taking off their clothes, but the past was a different country. What was most remarkable, actually, wasn’t the stripping – that still exists, albeit largely in glitzier surroundings – but the low-key, unglamorous, seedy-in-a-specifically-British-way nature of it. No stage, no pole, pounds-in-a-pint-pot for payment… Crucially, these strippers moved whilst naked…

Heavens. Naked people just wandering around the pub among the drinkers? Yik. These places probably reeked of Isarwasser. Speaking of another form of the unfortunately unsavoury, Lesley Chesterman wrote about criticism this week:

When reviewing dishes like that, you can’t lie and say everything was great just to keep things positive. I saw this in my time as a critic as well, this idea of being “mean” when criticizing professionals cooking. People obviously focus on the negative side of criticism, but the truth is, it can be beneficial too. How will any chef improve if you don’t give it to them straight? And how will we uphold a high level of gastronomy here in Quebec if we’re all afraid to call out mediocrity? It is constructive criticism after all, and the goal in cooking should always be excellence. Undercooked frog’s legs and rice are not excellence.

Agreed. In one of the sillier examples of forecasting yet, the International Wine and Spirits Record (now IWSR) has predicted what the world will be like in 2035… without any reference to the coming global resource wars:

According to the findings, the stabilisation in global volume from 2031 will be driven by two main factors: a “substantial rebalancing” of the global market, and continued growth in the worldwide drinking age population. Over the next decade, the global beverage alcohol market is, according to the analysis, anticipated to be “shifting away from China, North America and Europe to India, South America and Africa”. From a global perspective, this is said to be “most clearly illustrated by looking at consumption by servings” with the research highlighting that “the different serving size volumes of different categories” is a factor to consider.

Serving size? I might have thought fire spewing drones sweeping the landscape into a hell zone might have been a more important factor in the future to come… but I’m like that.

On a similar sort of standard, some attention was drawn to a PR infographic calling itself a summary but being held out as a research study about the NAB drinking habits of the British. Example: “New research from non-alcoholic brewery Athletic Brewing Company and KAM Insight shows that 94% of alcohol-free beer drinkers also consume alcohol.” There seems to be no statement of the research’s definitions, the methodology or the manner in which data was collected. Noce. I’d move to know the criteria for establishing whether one is or is not a “highly active, performance led consumer“! The 94% to 6% split on “alcohol-free drinker” habits is a head scratcher. Is anyone who ever had a NAB included in the 94%? One wag commented that it was akin to this sort of statement:

The Benson & Hedges Wellness Institute reports filtered cigarettes offer a smoother more pleasurable smoking experience.

Oh. That was me! Still, this sort of effort seems to discredit itself from the start. By the way, I’ve been “Zebra Striping” regularly for about four decades. It’s called water.

There you go. That’s enough for now. Another jam packed week in beer and brewing… and the World Cup. As we wade through more and more matches, please take time to check out Boak and Bailey posting on 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 including this week’s wisdom: “People need to get out from behind their phones, go to a bar and talk to each other.” 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 (but always never with this week’s NSFW warning) 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.

*The young lad possibly as illustrated on a FB page name of The Boston Calendar. I tihnk that the the City Hall plaza if I remember correctly.
**H/T Gladman. Note the dropping of the terminal consonant at the ends of syllabels.
***Heritage being that approved part of history promoted for present purposes.
****Apparently, according to a key word search, I’ve never told you how at the dinner table one evening when I was about 15 my mother out of the blue advised me “oh, and if you ever think of going to one of those stropper places think of me up there!” She may have pointed her fork at me as she said that. I never have cross the doorstep.

The Charming Disarming And Slightly Alarming Beery News Notes For A Thursday In June

The nice thing about the youngest kid having a job with shifts that end at 11 pm is a fella like me can stay up late for the NBA Finals, listening to 660 AM every second evening when I am waiting out in the parking lot for the kid’s shift to end.* I am not saying I am some sort of “Mr. Knicks” but this run has been fun. But that’s ending soon and it’s all going to be World Cup naptime late afternoons for the next few weeks. It’s exciting be this idle. And when I am not fixated on bandwagoning basketball or ignoring what FIFA actually stands for, I fill the empty hours with social media where this week I saw that shard up there, a bit of a jug pulled from the mud of the Thames by the ever excellent Nicola White on FB. Obvs I noticed what you notice. Mr Lovibond? Turns out John L. was (maybe*) the father of Joseph L. who was the inventor of the Lovibond scale used to describe the colour of beer. Neato. That jug is no more 150 years old given the trademark registration of 1876. I am but a pup.

What’s else up? Well, for starters, we are coming up is the 150th edition of The Session as Boak and Bailey explained:

On Sunday 28 June 2026 we’re going to post something inspired by the late Martyn Cornell’s final epic work of beer history Porter and Stout. We’d love you to join us. The first problem is that the book is quite expensive. The second is that it is large and intimidating. To make this easy for ourselves – and for everyone else – we’re suggesting that you can join in the Session even if you haven’t read the book. Your post just needs to be in some way a response to it, or to Martyn’s previous work on the subject of porter and stout. If you can read some of the book, though, even if it’s just a few pages or a chapter on some aspect of the history of porter and stout that particularly interests you, that would be great.

Excellent. Perhaps as an aid in your considerations, reflect on what Dr Christina Wade posted an excellent post this week on the need to be aware that choices are made when topics are chosen:

I love beer, in particular, and most especially, I love craft beer. And to add an additional layer to that, I love history. Adore it… So, to be able to combine those interests together into a research topic is a personal favourite of mine. I love both of these elements so much. History and beer. And I have decided, because I love them, that everyone else should as well and I am going to write about them in a way designed to convince you of that. This doesn’t sound particularly sinister, but it can be. Think of all the ways people write to try to convince you of a certain standpoint, or view, or historical ‘fact’. So when you are reading, and indeed, when you are writing yourself, keep this in mind. But even choosing the topic can be this way.

And, perhaps reflecting that, Jeff did just that when he applied a little mathematics to do a fact finding exploration of the obvious this week with his description of the state of big craft breweries since 2021:

Behold this table… The list excludes companies like Tilray, with many brands and breweries. The “Change” column on the right-hand side measures the breweries’ five-year performance. An asterisk indicates a brewery the BA does not designate as “craft.” As you can see, one-third of these larger breweries grew, while two thirds shrank. If you remove Athletic, which actually produces a different product, the overall performance of these big breweries worsens considerably. It’s a collective loss of around 2.2 million barrels, an overall decline of 16%.

You can follow that link to Beervana to check out that table but while Jeff says he didn’t provide any analysis in his post the fact is he didn’t need to. The math is the math. You know, it’s not fun to keep pointing it out but it is necessary given how many trade officials and some trade writers aren’t addressing, aren’t really admitting. But “chef’s kiss” to that comment about the Athletic… that’s funny… and correct.

And over at the Cleveland Prost, Will Cleveland has provided us an extended explanation of the origin of Genessee Cream Ale, the best old school beer brewed on the south side of my very own lake:

In the late 1950s, Geminn was working with two offerings that each had a ceiling: Dickens Dry Ale, available between 1956 and 1958, which consumers found too spare, and 12 Horse Ale, popular but heavy in a way that limited how much you wanted to drink of it. He needed a middle ground. The influences pulling at him were multiple. Genesee had deep German roots, but brewery owner Louis Wehle had long been drawn to English ales and Burton-style brewing systems. “Clarence was looking for a lighter-drinking traditional ale,” says Tyler Muhs, Genesee’s brewing manager. “We had that German heritage, but Wehle was infatuated with those English ales, Burton systems. So I think that’s what they were looking for when they came up with it.”

And remembrances have been shared for Rob Jones of Dark Star Brewing, that started out at the Pitfield location that I visited back in 1986, hauling back polypins and two of Dave Line’s books on brewing across the ocean in my backpack. Phil Mellows shared his thoughts in the Morning Advertiser:

Rob Jones, the founder of Dark Star Brewery and landlord of the Duke of Wellington pub in Shoreham by Sea, Sussex, has died following illness. A quiet genius of modern brewing, Jones shot to fame when he became the first independent microbrewer to win the Supreme Champion title at Camra’s Champion Beer of Britain contest in 1987 with a hard-to-classify strong ale called Dark Star, created at his Pitfield Brewery in Hoxton, east London.\nHe had started that brewery in 1981 with his schoolfriend and fellow home brew enthusiast Martin Kemp.

Speaking of a classic brewery, Ed visited Sarah Hughes and shared his findings this week:

Having been a fan of Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby Mild since I was a teenager I was determined to visit the brewery when I heard that the Brewery History Society AGM was being hosted by Bathams. Sarah Hughes and Bathams are only six miles apart so it seemed like an ideal opportunity. It took a bit of organising, and I was so looking forward to it I was nervous something would go wrong. But the people at the brewery were very helpful and it all went fine on the day. Is it’s a small brewery we were taken down in several groups and I wasn’t in the first group. This did make me a bit twitchy as I waited for my turn. But it wasn’t for long.

Twitchy. Ed has been on a roll recently. I have often wonder what causes a revival of bloggy scribbly but brewing equipment that’s made of wood and copper is one good reason. That and the twitch.

Care of Laura H, we read that the fine municipal curatorial authorities in Wolverhampton have made an excellent decision:

The history of one of the West Midlands most important businesses is being preserved for future generations by Wolverhampton City Archives… Beer was first brewed in Newbridge in 1874, before the Park Brewery was established in Wolverhampton the following year…. When Park Brewery closed last year, the importance of preserving its history was recognised, and a large and varied archive relating to the brewery and its associated companies has now been donated to Wolverhampton City Archives. The collection spans from the late 19th century through to the early 21st century and… includes a wide range of records, such as brewing and stock books, ledgers, minute books, maps and deeds, annual reports, photographs, packaging and publicity material. There are also employee records including wage books, pension scheme information, and a First World War roll of honour.

Good job. Back to the scene today, Coors Light has rarely been on my radar as a particularly clever culturally sensitive brand but this new use of Québecoise slang in their regional ads is just that:

The campaign, ‘T’en veux une frette?’ (Want a frette one?) leverages a local slang term for ‘colder than cold’ – frette – to remind Québeccers that they don’t just want a cold beer, they want a frette beer, through a series of humorous vignettes showcasing Québeccers’ strong preference of frette. The situations pay off with a twist to the brand’s current tagline, ‘Want a cold one?’ with ‘T’en veux une frette?’

See, me? I would order une frette but never a Coors Light. Sticking with me, once upon a time, I got to negotiate part of a verticle interior leafy greens farming deal. Faces challenges bit it can make a lot of sense in northern Canada where something like a railway container can pump out the stuff of salads when it’s below freezing outside. Interesting, then, to see the idea adapted to hops:

Ekonoke started life as a leafy greens operation, but shifted gears long before that part of indoor agriculture started its brutal and ongoing correction… As with outdoor production, hops inside Ekonoke’s farm grow vertically, wrapping around trellis-like structures that climb eight to 10 meters high. The process is significantly more complex than growing leafy greens indoors, says Sagrario. In addition to longer crop cycles, the process requires constant updates to the nutrient formula pumped to the plants, based on the stage of the crop. Humidification control is also a constant challenge…

All of which is to say that there will be fresh hop beer on Mars in 2063. Again with the me, Knut has written about a Norwegian brewery using Norwegian ingredients and somehow I show up:

There is a side story here. Back in 2007, we were a handful of beer bloggers scattered across the globe. I had the pleasure of having frequent contact with Alan McLeod, who continues his beer writing to this day. I’m thought his blog posts from that golden age were long gone – but look what I found.. He had a bit of advertising on his blog, and decided to spend some of the money to buy a few bottles of Westvleteren 12 from a Dutch web shop to send to a few of his contributors. I was one of them.

Aaaahh for the days of paying ads on a beer blog. And for customs documents with Belgian ale, shipped from the Netherlands to Norway to pay for the price of an ad on a Canadian beer blog. As you wrap your mind about the way we were, here’s some notes:

Note #1: “Thanks. I hate it.”
Note #2: Australian wine prices have collapsed in China.
Note #3: Is beer losing out to wine and spirits?
Note #4: Pellicle’s portrait of Purple Moose Brewery in Porthmadog.

Sausage meat!?!? Mr. Gladman says it is a you thing, not a gin thing:

Sweet summer child, do you know how many shit whiskies there are? Nor is it necessarily any less industrial than buying in and redistilling neutral spirit may sound. I mean good God, some Scotch giants pump the stuff out like so much sausage meat. So no, gin isn’t “just” flavoured vodka. Gin is gin. Like it or don’t like it, that’s up to you, but please don’t kid yourself it’s an inferior category just because it’s not for you. Maybe you just don’t have the palate for juniper.

What’s that? Where’s the World Cup beer news? I can’t find the link to the story that some educator posted “Ten Pastry Stouts to Pair With Haiti v Scotland!” but, yes, Voodoo Rangers is likely the proper order to make on Saturday. “No Scotland No Party” is the song that I have just learned my traveling first cousin (once removed) will be (drunkenly) singing:

… they live by the motto: No Scotland, No Party. “In Munich (during those Euros two years ago), you saw the impact the fans had. People just seem to love Scotland,” says Duke… People seem to feel at home with us because we don’t take ourselves too seriously”… They thought the estimate of 100,000 travelling Scots was a joke until Munich, the beer capital of the world, was drunk dry before a ball had even been kicked. It was a similar story in Czech capital Prague for a European Championship qualifier in 1999. The Scotland fans had congregated in the old town square, so when the area’s bars ran out of alcohol, the riot police arrived expecting trouble. Instead, when the lorries arrived with more beer, the Scots hopped aboard and helped unload the kegs themselves.

For some of the Home Guard who can’t travel, Imran has shared the best pubs to watch in Edinburgh. Elsewhere, England’s Gus bought beer from every nation. Here in Ontario beer stores’ opening hours have been extended just as have restaurant hours in Boston. Expectations are high for mass consumption:

To reach its 1bn pint estimate, analysts from Jefferies extrapolated beer consumption data from previous World Cups. The extra sales equated to a 3 per cent uplift during the 39-day tournament, which Jefferies annualised to 0.3 per cent, equating to 5.9mn hectolitres, or an extra 1bn pints. Analysts expect the World Cup — which is being hosted across three major beer markets: the US, Canada and Mexico — to boost sales volumes by between 0.2 and 0.3 per cent for 2026. Jefferies analyst Ed Mundy said “match timing is the unsung hero of World Cup beer consumption”, pointing out that games featuring countries in Europe and the Americas had largely been scheduled to coincide with peak local drinking hours of between 5pm and 11pm.

Sadly, as CNN reports, Michelob Ultra will adorn an MVP trophy given to a player after every match. Hopefully that side of the trophy can be turned to the wall. Now, where is my tartan scarf and my copy of that 1978 Scotland World Cup LP?

That is it. A jam packed week of news and cogitations. As you soak it all in, don’t forget to check out Boak and Bailey posting on 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.

*Now, I hear what you are saying: “WTF? New York isn’t part of Canada, Al?!?” But for 23 years I could see the northern edge of the state out my office window. And I’ve listen to WFAN sports radio for decades and, yes, the game is on 880 AM but the freaking fan DJs are on 660 AM. Plus OG Anunoby was my favourite Raptor who went to the Knicks so…
**what about Henry?

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.

Your Thursday Beery News Notes For The Week Of The Green And The Black

It’s that time of year. When being born of Scottish parents means nothing. Nothing!!! I think that is what Governor Kathleen Mary Courtney was actually saying when my FB pal (and fellow garlic grower) Sean took this photo at the Executive Manstion in NYC the other day. The Governor even has a pint of stout. Stout is in. Everybody says so. And see me, I am buying that black can of the 0% stuff quite happily. But what even is a stout? Does the Beer Nut have clarity on the question he might share? Let’s see:

Though a full 7% ABV, it looked a little thin on pouring, and is red-brown in the glass, rather than black, with a fast-fading head. The aroma is sweet, with lots of caramel plus an aniseed-candy herbal side. It’s not thin, I’m happy to say, but it doesn’t quite reach the realm of creaminess, and I wouldn’t have guessed it’s as strong as it is. The flavour is plain. Chocolate forms the centre and then doesn’t go anywhere especially interesting from there. There’s a little buttery toffee and a slightly acrid smoky side. Some coffee roast would have been nice; likewise proper hop bittering to take the edge off all the sugar, but neither materialises.

That’s helpful. It’s not that. It’s not that. And it’s really not that. But still it sells. One question we saw this week on the question of stout is this: why are the Irish turning to Beamish in their hunt for stout? Well, one reason certainly makes common sense:

Another undeniable draw is that Beamish is often the cheapest stout available in pubs. A pub in Dublin, a county where pints have become infamously expensive, recently advertised a pint of Beamish for only €5.40. Ciarán said the drink is generally at least 50c cheaper than other stouts, one of the reasons he said students have always been fond of it. Another Beamish fan, Richard, thinks the popularity of the stout solely comes down to its price and availability. “It’s consistently €1 or 50c cheaper than Guinness,” he said, adding that as it is owned by Heineken it is also widely available in bars. “I don’t think they’re doing anything special other than being a small bit cheaper,” he added.

Always looking for value is The Tand who has found renewed blogging energy with five posts so far in March after taking a break since last November. Which post to choose as a classic of the man’s oeovre? Consider these comments on the Hand and Marigold in Bermondsey and how they reflects both his careful observations and his established standards:

The pub itself is handsome, well laid out inside and the staff in my experience are helpful. Glasses are oversized ensuring a full pint and the cask beer is well-chosen, and by and large has been in very good condition when we’ve visited. Perhaps it is the times we’ve chosen, but it hasn’t been very busy when we call in, but us being a bit older (ahem) it tends to be during the day. They are however extending it by opening a room downstairs, so hopefully it is doing fine. One observation is that twice we’ve called in winter and both times the pub has been pretty cold. Maybe that’s a money saving exercise, but it doesn’t really do it for me. I expect to be warm in the pub.

It’s good to know what you want and what you like. Conversely, a check with the archives tells me that as early as 2011 I was somewhat ambivalent when it came to Innis & Gunn beers. After fifteen years, has the rest of the marketplace has caught up? We have learned that the administrators have begun to break up the assets:

The brand and its intellectual property has been included in a £4.5 million sale to Tennent’s lager owner C&C Group. However, the Perth brewery at Inveralmond Place is not included as part of this deal. C&C Group was a minority shareholder of Innis & Gunn and brewed its lager. Administrators said the collapse of the company was due to a combination of factors including a “decline in consumer spending and rising cost pressures”. “It is with deep regret that redundancies will need to be made,” they said in a statement. “The administrators would like to thank all the employees of the companies for their hard work.”

Imran Rahman-Jones had fonder memories from a happier time for I&G:

My introduction to craft beer came from my eldest brother. In the late 2000s, when I was still a teenager, small brown bottles started appearing on the top shelf of the fridge. He’d discovered this Edinburgh brewery called Innis & Gunn and their bourbon barrel-aged beers. I was allowed to try a few sips and was surprised at what hit my tongue. My experience with beer up until then had been the odd warm can of Carlsberg in the park, or a taste of my dad’s bitter, which rarely breached the 4% ABV mark. This stuff was intense and alcoholic, like drinking boozy butterscotch. I could only really get through half a glass.

Maybe it was the moment. Boozy butterscotch was sort of where I was going, too. Was I wrong? Or was it an acquired taste? What even is that?

Is there a more backhanded compliment, a more passive-aggressive judgment, a more of kiss-of-death phrase, than “Well, I guess that’s an acquired taste”? It’s also rather centering of a certain type of American suburban taste mindset. I mean, if you grew up in another culture, black salty licorice, anchovy, sea urchin, espresso, fish sauce, huitlacoche, kimchi, vegemite, lutefisk, curry and scores of other so-called “acquired tastes” would not be acquired tastes at all. They would be innate. I grew up eating Scrapple, for god’s sake—an “acquired taste” for anyone but a person born in the Philadelphia metro area. Anyway, my point is this: Try pastis. Open your mind. Grow up. Make peace with your childhood dislike of black jellybeans.

I had no idea. I thought everyone went through a boring sophmoric late teen phase, reading Hemingway and drinking Pernod in the 1980s. You know, the one that preceded the boring sophmoric late teen phase, reading Waugh and drinking Pimms in the 1980s? What!!?!! It was only me?!?!? Time for notes as I cope with that realization.

Note #1: “Drinking trash NA beers so you don’t have to…”
Note #2: no, not regulations and, no, nothing set.
Note #3: “…it is just a widget.“

It may be just a widget but the unexpected upswing in widgettery seems to be continuing according to BMI:

…craft beer remains up 0.3% by $$ with volume down just 1.6% yr-to-date thru Feb 22 in Circana multi-outlet + convenience data. That’s still lagging total beer, which grew 1.6% by $$ with volume off just 0.1%. So craft shed 0.1 share. But trends are much healthier for craft and total beer than they were thruout last yr…

Still… “where’s the Allagash White?” asks Michael Stein in DC:

So what’s replaced Allagash White? Hard to say exactly. What wasn’t there in 2021? Unsure. And what’s there in 2026? Now that question I’ve got answers to. There’s Mickey’s Fine Malt Liquor and there’s Schlitz Bull Ice. There’s Coors Banquet and Coors Light. There’s Pabst Blue Ribbon, and there’s Steel Reserve. And while I just listed six brands, there’s only two breweries that own these / have these brands as subsidiaries: MolsonCoors and Pabst. There’s Modelo, Modelo Michelada, Budweiser, Bud Light, Busch Light, Michelob Ultra, Devils Backbone, and Stella Artois. These are all owned by Anheuser Busch InBev. Then there’s Lagunitas, Tecate, Heineken, and Heineken Silver. Guess who owns all these?

That’s a bit of reality right there. But not everyone wants the real when it comes to drinking, as B+B found out:

We were astonished recently to see someone sitting in the pub wearing a virtual reality (VR) headset waving two controllers around to manipulate objects in a virtual world.It just looked so weird and incongruous. His eyes were covered for one thing which immediately gets you into uncanny territory. Then there was the vigour and weirdness of his movements… At one point, he got up to go for a cigarette while still wearing the headset. We later learned that he could, in fact, see the entire room through the magic of augmented reality – something subtly different to virtual reality. But in the moment, it really looked as if he’d just decided to stroll through a busy pub while effectively blindfolded.

Young people today! At least this isn’t the sort of thing that’s being seen in Bermondsey according to The Londoner:

If you speak to any of the owners on the mile, they now draw an almost church-and-state style separation between the “beer people” and the “Saturday crowd”. The former are who the Mile first started for: the craft beer nerds who can tell the difference between different subspecies of Sussex hops. The latter come in and ask for eight pints of lager before throwing up in your urinal. The problem is, the latter far outweigh the former — to the tune of thousands a week. The chaos they bring can be extreme: swastikas carved into toilet doors, glasses filled with vomit left on tables, old ladies in dry robes getting into fights. One bar manager tells me they’ve dealt with at least two different punters defecating on the floor, in one case in protest at being denied service.

It’s enough to take a pass. Speaking of which, has the era of a dry generation youth moved on, leaving their kid brothers and sisters the opportunity to redefine their lifestyle? The Guardian reports from the UK:

Binge drinking rates among gen Z have risen sharply since their teenage years, according to research that challenges their reputation as “generation sensible”. Almost seven in 10 (68%) 23-year-olds reported binge drinking in the past year, while nearly a third (29%) said they did so at least monthly, up from 10% at age 17. While drug use is relatively limited in the teenage years, by their 20s almost half (49%) have used cannabis and a third (32%) have tried harder drugs such as cocaine, ketamine and ecstasy, analysis by University College London (UCL) found.

Assumptions refuted? It isn’t always that clear. Whenever that old myth is trotted out that before a certain point beer was foul, smoky and dark – despite all evidence – I wonder what people are missing. Well, not dissimilarly, science has now determined that contrary to previous assumptions, early humans were good cooks:

… at least some people living in Europe between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago were deft chefs. Stone Age cooks skilfully combined meat, fish, fruit and vegetables in cooked meals that followed local recipes, according to new research. Using chemical analysis and sophisticated microscopes, researchers… examined residues found on 58 pieces of pottery unearthed at 13 sites across northern and eastern Europe dating from the last millennia of the Stone Age, before the dawn of the Bronze Age. The residues survive as charred “foodcrusts” left on pots and bowls. Mixed in with meat, mainly freshwater fish and shellfish, scientists found “wild grasses and legumes, fleshy fruits or berries, green vegetables and roots/tubers from plant species”. These plants included barley, wild oats, types of brome grass and other wild greens such as goosefoot, pigweed and saltbush leaves, as well as viburnum berries such as guelder rose berries.

An interesting perspective. And, from the “too much fucking perspective” file, human trafficking in the fields of Champagne has hit the courts in France with sentences upheld on appeal:

Convicted in the first instance to four years in prison, two of which were suspended, the main defendant, who headed the former wine service company Anavim, had her sentence confirmed for human trafficking, concealed work, and employment of foreigners without authorization. This woman in her forties from Kyrgyzstan was kept in detention. Her lieutenants, two thirty-somethings mainly in charge of recruitment, saw their sentences slightly reduced to one year in prison with a suspended sentence each. The court of appeal ordered the defendants to pay 4,000 euros to each of the 53 victims for their moral damage. However, the company of the winegrower who had called on Anavim for harvesting, the SARL Cerseuillat de la Gravelle, was acquitted on appeal.

While one can acknowledge the acquittal, one would also want to ask whether there has been an unjust enrichment of all those who received the benefit of the trade in these slave-made wines. Especially as inspectors had “found conditions that seriously endangered workers’ health, safety and dignity. The local prefecture later closed the site after finding makeshift bedding, filthy toilets and common areas, and dangerous electrical installations.” Bastards.

Finishing up on a happier note, the feature in Pellicle this week is by Will Hawkes, a portrait of the Sutton Arms in Clerkenwell, London:

The door at the Sutton Arms swings open and six Americans come bounding in like cocker spaniels just off the leash. After securing a table in the corner, they send emissaries to the bar. Lunchtime food options (“I’ll do a minted lamb pie”) and beers, from pints of cask ale to a half of Vault City’s triple-fruited mango sour, are discussed, and promptly purchased. Landlord Jack Duignan, who has stepped behind the bar to help out, takes in the scene. “Where are you from?” he asks, his gaze focused on the pint he’s pouring. “America,” one replies, perhaps a touch cagily. A pause. “Well I didn’t think you were fucking French!” Jack retorts. There’s momentary silence, then a burst of exuberant laughter, then clarification: Missouri, “right in the centre.”

Such language! And me a preacher’s son. I don’t know how people cope. As you consider that, 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.

Your “Don’t Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out, February 2026” Edition Of The Beery News Notes

February does one decent thing each year. It is short. We were also one goal short the other day. But that is a different thing. Canada is outraged to the point of almost saying something. In our house, the cat spoke for us all. Stunned disbelief twinned with a day dream about what was in the food bowl in the next room. I hope we get over it …soon. Even Trump was oddly gracious. In passing during the State of the Union he said of the gold medal win “…they beat a fantastic Canadian team in overtime, as everybody saw. ” Hardly triumpalist gloating. The cat’s reaction was the same: “…food bowl… food bowl…”

Let’s jump into it, shall we? Katie M has shared thoughts over at The Gulp on her return to a favourite spot, The Highland Laddie, in the perhaps less than loved city of Leeds. Being related to generations of Highland laddies and perhaps being accused of being one on occassion, I am won over by the headline. But there is more, a hidden elder gem amongst a brutalist landscape:

The room smells of the woodburning stove and warming comfort food, and as the rain sets in for the night outside, I get the distinct feeling I could spend the whole evening here. But it is 4.30pm and I have somewhere else to be. My evening plans end earlier than I expected them to, and so instead of heading back to my room at Leeds’ premier drag showbar directly, I pop into The Highland Laddie for another pint. I like to play-act at being a regular in pubs that make the effort to make me wish I was one. I order a pint, poured just as black and white as the last, and watch the pub slowly close down around me with the exercised ease of a team who have hospo work in their bones. The rush is over and the tables are free for all until closing; a small group of students are drinking cider on the table opposite and talking about current affairs in broken soundbites. I get my book out and settle into my corner banquet for a cosy hour before heading back.

Lovely. Bear with me. More on pubs. It’s a bit pub heavy this week. Frankly. Let’s move to a happy sort of seasonal note from Sean of Tom’s Tap in Crewe:

I must say the sun being out and being able to pay suppliers is infinitely preferable to it pissing down and having to ring them to say you can’t because it rained all weekend. Thanks to everyone who came in this weekend, you made a difference.

Sun’s out, sales up. Interestingly, the effects of the poor weather elsewhere in England had another decidedly opposite result:

After a record-breaking start to the year for rainfall, some businesses in Richmond, North Yorkshire, claim that rather than deter customers, the weather has encouraged them to spend time inside and open their wallets. Daniel Williams, landlord of The Town Hall pub said takings at the start of 2026 were up 20% compared to previous years. “The weather being as terrible as it is has really helped us – people are looking to escape the horrible weather, so we certainly can’t complain at the moment,” he said. “We’ll get massive groups in because they’ll have come out for a walk, got sick of the walk and then come into us, so it’s been very positive for business I’d say.”

Pouring rain? Sales… up. David J wrote excellently for CAMRA’s publication What’s Brewing about the theory of social cohesion and the British pub:

Alcohol has its many downsides as I can attest having a childhood punctuated by my father’s alcoholism, but it lowers people’s inhibitions making them willing to talk. It’s why you’re more likely to spark up a conversation over an interesting cask beer instead of waxing lyrical to the person next to you about the smooth flavour of an Arabica coffee bean… The other argument that “local shops perform similar functions” to pubs may have an element of truth. I do chat a lot with a friend who works in a deli near me and I’m very fortunate to do so. And fortunate is a key word because this is a rare gift that not many areas have: a thriving high street with varied shops.

Got the urge to chat? Go to the pub. But cultures differ. We still have towns with maybe fewer shops but there are some plus active bakers and butchers over here as well as a cultural cornerstone of a coffee chain. One unexplored question that always nags me about the argument is this: what’s with all the inhibition in Britain? I’ve never been more accosted by conversation sparkers than at a church supper – but maybe that’s because I was a minister’s kid and was an easy target. Outside of session, even court work was always a chatty chummy time when I was a young lawyer… even if the humour leaned towards the grim. I wonder if there is a causation question at play. Yet… David also recently wrote about the pub in a time of mourning and it may help answer it from a subtler point of view: it is the place, by choice or tradition, where such things happen so that is where they happen. See? I get my learning from my reading.

So… don’t know what to say? The pub helps. Yet, and perhaps again conversely, Pete B. wrote a great piece in The Times on the joy – and value – of cans of beer at home:

“The 4-pack pint can is most popular format for lager buyers in convenience stores, growing at 9.4 per cent over the last year. People in convenience stores are usually on-the-go. The pint can feels like good value, especially as they’re quite often price-marked packs.” This value deal seems important. We are spending less on alcohol, something which applies to our supermarket shopping too — beer sales at the supermarket were down £371 million to £7.37 billion last year. And drinkers know that beer in pubs is more expensive than in supermarkets. If you can see that four pints is costing you £6.95, it brings a pint in a pub — which in the UK costs on average about £5 — into much sharper perspective…

To review. Highland Laddie? Comfy. Sun’s out, sales up. Pouring rain? Sales… up. Got the urge to chat? Go to the pub. Don’t know what to say? The pub helps. If you have the means. If not? A tin at home. An antidote to funflation.

Note #1: Tune in later today for Jeff’s talk in US beer.
Note #2: Sharps Brewery in Corwall to close.
Note #3: “…disturbing accounts of industrial accidents…”

Terroir in cider? NO! There is clearly an “i” in the sentence. Not terror. Terrior. That’s the theme of the article what Barry himself guided us all to in Cider Review which wonderfully traces the history of the concept in depth, like in this passage which reveals the hidden truth:

Terroir as a term also took a sharp diversion through the 17^th and 18^th centuries. This is why, despite their veneer of modernity, a gulf of time and meaning separate early references to regionality in cider from the modern cider terroir conversation. To taste terroir – linguistically still a reference to land – was to experience a crude character shaped by natural setting. Even for Le Paulmier, it was often something inelegant or dirty; gôut de terroir, lauded by vintners today,was essentially a mouthful of soil. Provincial vineyards, at the mercy of their rural, unsophisticated settings, could only ever offer ‘terroir wines’ fit for the peasantry, themselves made rude and rough by that same land. By contrast, the carefully cultivated vineyards of the Île-de-France (the area around Paris) were free from terroir, producing elegant ‘cru wines’ reserved for the nobility.

Hah! Terroir meant dirty after all!! And, sticking with the agri, Laura Hadland wote about sustainability in the British vineyard for The Vinyard including this from Gary Smith, CEO of Silverhand Estate, the first UK vineyard to reach carbon-negative status, without the use of any carbon offsetting:

… we wanted to do more to ensure our land was at its absolute optimum. That meant going one step further and educating ourselves on regenerative farming. The sustainability aspect plays a huge part in this because through the work we do across both the vineyard and our arable lands we are acutely conscious of the impact each has upon the other. Learning how to work both business and land harmoniously has seen a huge benefit to our estate’s ecosystem. As a result the quality of all of our produce has improved – not just grapes, but our lamb, beef and estate-grown fruit and vegetables from our kitchen garden.

That’s how I run my 65 x 100 foot estate. Tomato seedlings are doing very well, thanks for asking!

Remember a few weeks ago when booze was back? Apparently, like the steady rains in Richmond mentioned above, things can change – if BMI is correct about the US beer market:

After a strong first 4 weeks of the year, with $$ up 3.5% and even volume up 2%, trends got considerably softer in the last 2 weeks in Circana multi-outlet + convenience data. Volume down 4.5% in latest week thru Feb 8, Super Bowl Sunday, following a 6% drop the week before. By 6 weeks in, sometimes trends for the year are already well established. But with these big early gyrations, that’s not the case so far in 2026.

In the follow up to the unendingly uninteresting story about the garage sale of the bits and pieces of BrewDog, there was a bit of a flitter on the social medias about (i) I told you so in 2011 and (ii) when was it exactly that the brewery defined itself as a den of arseholes? My candidate is this from July 2010:

Am I supposed to cheer along with the giving of the finger to 99.998% of customers for the sake of marketing? Or is this supposed to be Dada beer? Who cares. All I know is I am far less inclined to buy any BrewDog beer. Why? Because of this short sentence:

A response to the haters.

“Haters”? Good Lord. Are you twelve? This has to be the stupidest new usage of a word that has been imposed upon the language and there is far too much use of it in craft beer circles. It denies the right to disagree. It tells us to stop thinking and start following. You call in to question my freedom from being your sycophant, I call into question your business model.

While it is not important as to this moment, it is interesting to see how the co-opting of language was so contrived at the time… so curated. “Haters” as a term was a bit new to the mainstream. The comments in response noted the novelty. And a year and a half later, NPR wrote about how “haters” had become common, an appropriation from hiphop. Not quite a coining but planned. Probably triggering the criticism loop was itself the plan. Which led to the unhappy fanboys which led to the “investing” which led to the fat bank accounts for owners of what was in the end an unprofitable brewery. Quite a business model.

Speaking of my people, over on FB at the Scottish Rugby Family page which I have followed since seeing the tartaned ones thrash Canada in 2024 and meeting the admins in the pub, there was an important question asked of the group ahead of another Six Nations game away:

How’s the principality for getting a hip flask in?

I say important because not enough is written about sneeking booze in where it is not welcome. It’s part of the culture. Comments ranged “give it to your child to carry in” to a discussion on the various characteristics of the sporran. My favourite example is from 1977, I witnessed a gent in wide leg jeans semi-disrobe the there before we his neighbours at the goal end stand at Rugby Park in Kilmarnock. Concern was soon lifted once we realized he was not planning a career as a streaker but had duct taped two 1.5 litre bottles of Mateus to his calves. He soon drained the lot (which much impressed my Rev. Dad) and was arrested on the pitch early on in the second half – but that is beside the point. The point is we need a body of literature around this. An Oxford Companion to Sneaking In Booze.

Pellicle‘s feature this week is bay David Nilsen. It’s a visit to a Chicago landmark and homage to Belgium, Hopleaf Bar:

Michael didn’t want to recreate Cadieux Cafe exactly, but he did take it as proof that a bar cut from a different cloth could succeed if it found its audience. He took a design cue from European bars when laying out the space, a labyrinth of brick and burnished wood that’s adorned with signs from Belgian beer brands, both extant and erstwhile. He decided to install bookshelves rather than televisions. He subscribed the bar to periodicals like the New York Review of Books, Harper’s, the Atlantic, and London Review of Books. Essentially, he decided to create the anti-sports bar.

Finally, for Stan… a drunk chimps story:

There are many reasons why you might not want a wild chimpanzee to be operating heavy machinery. Now scientists have uncovered a new one: the ape may well fail a sobriety test. A study has shown that chimps living in the forests of Uganda regularly ingest enough naturally occurring alcohol to register levels that, in some workplaces, would trigger disciplinary action. The findings offer the strongest physiological evidence yet for the theory about why humans like alcohol, known as the “drunken monkey hypothesis”.

Having lived through two rounds of Planet of the Apes movies, I can confirm that I do not want chimpanzees on heavy machinery for any number or reasons. That it is for now. Until next week, 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.

And Just Like That Here Are The Quite Frosty And Fully Final Beery News Notes For January 2026

It’s been a quiet week in the beer world with distractions aplenty in my real world. Like the Arctic vortex. To be honest, I’ve always preferred the Caribbean vortex whenever it pays a visit. Thankfully, once upon a time I lived up in the upper Ottawa and have experienced the refreshing zing of -53C so knew enough to break out the heavy tweed and big boots. Dashing yet completely unable to dash. Elsewhere people are embracing the deep chill as well. Will Cleveland reporting from Rochester, NY has news of the return a winter beerfest this weekend;

This isn’t a gimmick festival chasing the beer-du-jour; it’s a gathering rooted in the style that got a lot of people into craft beer in the first place—before haze became a default setting and before “imperial” stopped feeling like a warning label… DiCesare remembers the first year clearly, mostly because it was about 10 degrees outside. This year, the ask is similar but the hope is different: dress for the weather, embrace the winter, and lean into the fact that January beer festivals are better when they stop pretending they’re outdoor concerts. Fire pits and outdoor heaters will again be part of the setup, encouraging that specific Rochester ritual of standing outside, beer in hand, nodding knowingly at strangers like, yes, this is happening, and yes, we chose it.

What else has been going on? Well, it was Rrrrrrrabbie Burrrrrns night last Sunday and all around the world folk reacted to the plate of haggis, neeps and tatties set before them. Unless, as Katie M explored in Guts magazine, it perhaps wasn’t really haggis:

Learning how important lungs are to the recipe of a traditional haggis, a vegetarian version seems like sacrilege. The whole point of haggis is that it’s offal, a sausage or boiled pudding made with waste-not, want-not diligence to keep Scots fed throughout the winter and leaner times. The very idea of a vegan haggis is deeply inauthentic—offensive too, if you were to read the comment sections on any clickbait story about the dish. But if you’re appalled, you’re forgetting the accommodating nature of the Scottish people. Do you think my Grandma would have anyone going hungry in her house? The very origins of vegetarian haggis was borne from hospitality…

As the good author noted, the very prayer one prays before we got to the “O what a glorious sight, Warm-reekin, rich!“* includes the line “some hae meat an canna eat…” so there is some authority for this. Is there another dish that so inspires? Speaking of how others live, in the Globe and Mail, Drew Shannon wrote about finding a beer in Kazakhstan:

I broke up with craft beer a long time ago – back when small-brand breweries went from niche and interesting to eye-rollingly ubiquitous. Of all places, I didn’t think I’d run into my beverage-ex in Kazakhstan. I assumed either big conglomerate brands would still dominate the former Soviet state or there’d be no beer at all. Finding a pint in some parts of the Islamic world can lead even the most well-travelled tourist on a fruitless quest. It turns out, I was dead wrong. My impromptu evening of bar-hopping around Almaty, the country’s largest city, started after a long day of trekking the Turgen gorge. On the way back to my hotel, I noticed Privychki Bar. I pushed open the front door to find a gaggle of young Kazakhs perched on vintage armchairs, sipping cloudy pints.

Mmm… cloudy pints. Never less than clear, Stan, in his concise one paragraph way, directed me to a bit of resurrectionist thinking over the cool corpse that one was Rogue Brewing. How in its haydays it didn’t have managers, it had ambassadors: “That is why Rogue was kicking ass in those days is that felt that they were ambassadors to craft beer.” Yikes. I had a sudden unsettling flashback to the bad old irrational – if not greedy – days of craft and reminded myself of this from 2012:

To hell with that. Passion is that employer of the young who saps their joy for life. Passion offers periodic Google ad cheques in return. It asks you to be the unpaid brand ambassador. On Wednesday night, a intelligent and eager young person suggested to me that my interest in good beer was pure passion with a certain honest excitement. I took the time to gently crush that moment like a mouse under my heel. It was information, I said. Information and interest. Passion? I have children for that.

The children? They are 14 years older now and each of an age when they might be expected to buy the beer as much as have it bought for them. I trust that now not-so-young person has found another moe successful career – and that’s probably for the best for all.

Note #1: Twenty years of Ron!
Note #2: Maureen asks … in the end… is a brewery just its trademark?
Note #3: Stout-flation strikes.

Heavens! I missed the news when The Beer Nut issued a new beer style alert right around when the update when to the presses last week. He was reporting from the front lines of recent holidaying where and when he encountered:

… the rarely-seen style of imperial sweet potato amber, and I had no idea what that was likely to mean. Beniaka is 7% ABV and a cola brown colour in the glass. Although fizzy, it’s plenty thick and feels luxuriously “imperial”. Can’t say I tasted much potato, but there’s a pleasant woody spice: nutmeg, sassafras and liquorice. It’s fairly sweet with it, showing a little Scotch-ale-style toffee, with the herbs helping balance it. This is interesting, with lots happening, but it’s not a daft novelty, and makes for a very civilised digestif.

Not at all in response, Sophie Arundel was given a fun topic over at the Drinks Business – the dead end trends of 2025:

Several alcohol formats once framed around lighter, functional or lifestyle-led positioning are now in sharp decline. Hard kombucha now holds a 0% share of social discussion, down 29.8% year on year. Hard tea has slipped to a 0.01% share, falling 33.79%, while hard seltzer sits at 0.02% share, down 33.67%. The contraction extends beyond these formats. Craft beer, often seen as culturally resilient, is down 16.52% year on year with a 0.84% share, while generic IPA beer has fallen 17.28% to a 0.38% share. Tastewise’s data suggests the broader “better-for-you drinking” narrative is losing attention. Products that relied heavily on pseudo-functional positioning are struggling to maintain relevance, pointing to a need for clearer occasions, flavour-led propositions and tighter ranges.

(“Pseudo-functional” was the name of my folk-punk band back in ’93.) At least craft beer fans can take comfort that their drug of choice is going better than hard kombucha. There are still some hangers on that are telling craft to repeat its errors… but it is true, isn’t it – when things are going down the proverbial shitter, not one really is working to improve so much as find themselves quite happy to tread water.** Perhaps coversely, BMIs seems to be seeing at least a stall in the slide when it comes to US beer:

NBWA released its Beer Purchaser’s Index reading for Jan early touting a “significant bump” from December. After 5 mos in a row of readings below 30 (including several lowest ever around 25), BPI jumped to 39 in January. Not exactly great shakes, and 9 points below Jan 25, but still 14 points better than Dec 25. (Recall, BPI below 50 suggests beer distrib orders are contracting, while above 50 signals expansion.)

So less of the lessening perhaps. But in western Canada, there was actually an increase in beer sales through 2025. So who knows! Well, at least we know one thing. I think we have established that not being very profitable at all is actually not a good business plan:

BrewDog has announced that it is closing down its Aberdeenshire distillery and ceasing production on all spirits. The craft beer company said it had decided to abandon its state-of-the-art distillery, which opened in 2016, and axe the brands after “careful consideration”. The move comes after the company posted losses of £37m in 2024 and announced job cuts across the business, including at its head office and brewery in Ellon.

Conversely (at least in San Francisco) not doing well enough to even attract a proper buyer can have its advantages:

During that massive blackout on December 20, every business but one in the Lower Haight had to shut its doors because they had no power. That one would be Toronado, which still uses an old-timey, non-electrical cash register with punch buttons and a hand crank, still takes only cash, and beer taps don’t require electricity. Cheers to ancient technologies. The story was left hanging last summer after a new crypto-bro owner had stepped in looking to take over the bar — and launch a Toronado-themed coin! — and after that deal appeared to be in jeopardy once longtime owner Dave Keene discovered these details and looked to cancel the deal. But SFist can confirm now that the deal was, indeed, canceled, and everything remains as it was at the bar.

That’s nice. Unless the owners really hate the place and want to move on I suppose. Can you own an iconic institution that people flock to and really hate it? If someone does something well I would hope that there is joy in the doing.

Note #4: The many beards of Polk.
Note #5: What friends of beer writers think they do…
Note #6: …all day long…

Joy in doing? That’s a bit like this week’s feature in Pellicle by Imran Rahman-Jones about the making of liquor from what’s to be found right there in Edinburgh’s urban orchard:

As Chris continued to tweak his distillations, and source new apples for each batch, he began to reflect on the fruit’s beguiling quality. “[There’s] something quite magic about an apple tree in the street,” he says. Neighbours will leave out boxes of fruit for one another, or swap recipes. “It tends to pull the whole street together at a certain time of year.” What Chris didn’t know when he started the process of developing Pochle was that he was tapping into a lineage going back centuries in Scotland. The enchanting ability of an apple tree to gather and unify in fact has deep roots in the country’s traditions and folklore.

Lots to like there. And just look at the people working to get that bit of writing onto your screen. The fine folk keeping Pellicle going, the author Imran Rahman-Jones, the semi-sticky handed Chris Miles who gathers and also those who let the foragers be – not to mention those who planted and tended to the apple trees. Doing is a wonderful thing.***

And on that very subject – the doing of things – Boak and Bailey were out there again in their monthly newsletter for January doing a great job encouraging more writing about beer. What to write about:

There are local drinking customs and cultures that probably seem unremarkable to people who know them but which would interest people like us. Flat Bristol Bass is one that fascinates us but there must be others all round the country, and certainly around the world. Alex, our favourite beer blogger of 2025, goes to three pubs and writes about what he sees going on there. Adrian Tierney-Jones (a pro, not a blogger) takes a similar approach. Now, you could write tasting notes of every beer you drink but, honestly, that’s probably the hardest thing to make interesting – unless you are a skilled, creative, and/or amusing writer like The Beer Nut. It can still work if your tasting notes find a theme or tell a story, though.

Do it! I like it – but do note that “blogger” and “pro” are not comparable categories and neither term speaks all that much to the quality of the writing. “Pro” is code for paid writing which can be compromised even just by editorial restrictions**** though, more to the point, too often not all that good. And “blogger” is a reference to a class of medium, not a sign of quality of the writing and not necessarily code for an amateur though some of the best beer writing is actually provided by people who earn their living otherwise. Ray and Jess themselves are proof of that. Better to think of adjectives like interesting, inventive or even valuable when weighing the cred. Then notice where they don’t apply!

I would also add, don’t worry too much… unlike Mikey Seay who has shared what strikes me as quite an odd thought:

I always shy away from reviewing beers for two reasons:
– Lack of skill to do it properly.
– Beers can be too regional to make a review relevant to a global newsletter audience.
That said, I feel a new beer from Sierra Nevada is available enough in most places to make it worthwhile to mention.

Seeing as thinking and writing about your taste perceptions takes about as much skill as running a vacuum cleaner, I don’t think this is a particularly useful standard. But then again you may be crap at vacuuming, too. Do you worry about that? Just type. Be patient and get those keyboards clicking. It’s a lot like planting a seed and also, if nothing else, it’s good for the knuckles.

Where will it take you, all this clickery? Well, as we wrap up this week on the note of the haute in beer writing, this is your final call for a fully self-funded trip to Bordeaux in June:

This is the FINAL REMINDER about the 2026 Beeronomics Conference, which will take place at ESSCA School of Management, Bordeaux, France, 24-27 June. Main panels and sessions will be held at the ESSCA Bordeaux Campus. The Conference Organising Committee, led by Gabriel Weber and Maik Huettinger, welcomes all high-quality research on the economics of beer and brewing.

The deadline for submissing an abstract is Sunday. Send me a card. Fine. Fin. As I said, a bit of a quiet week. 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.

*Just in case someone out there never had a tea towel.
**No, smoothies will not save brewing.
***This is your reminder that now is the time to start planting those seeds for your own garden. Seeds and soil and time. Have a go. This tomato from last November’s final harvest was from a seed planted in my basement in February. Easy. Almost as easy as typing.
****“It’s only a trade mag article…” is as often much the case.

Welcome To 2026 And To The Exciting New Format Of The Thursday Beery News Notes!!

How’s your skull this New Year’s Day? Are you OK? Are you ready for some questions? Questions like: “is this the optimum alignment of the holidays?” Seem to me that a Wednesday New Year’s Eve pretty much guarantees that this week and last are a total write off work-wise. Unless you are in hospitality, of course. I am sure, by the way, that Sunday Christmas Day is the worst. Gotta put some sort of effort in the week before and you just get Monday off the week after. Glad I won’t have to deal with one of those weeks, when it’ll next shows up in 2033 when I will be long retired. That photo up there? A submission for the 2014 Holiday Beery Photo context received from Aaron Stein of Oregon. Aaron won the “Surprise Twist” award that year.*

First up, as we put 2025 on the shelf, it’s good to carefully consider your “best of” lists. It’s a tricky business finding the best of “best of” with plenty of the dubious. There are great ones like the Golden Pint Awards like this quite expansive one from Lisa Grimm that shares some happy news along with the useful insights:

… half of the family now Irish citizens (delighted!), and the rest midway through the naturalisation process, plus a book manuscript finished and in the production pipeline (finally!), as well as some exciting news on the employment…

Fabulous! And not just because of the heads up to my old hometown’s Garrison Brewing. And it doesn’t have to be all good news. Jeff posted his thoughts on 2025 and declared it “the worst year in my lifetime” with solid evidence supporting that view, before he moved on to the upsides, including:

The blog has been relatively healthy as well. Thanks to AI, online media sites are in real trouble. Google’s new AI summary means people don’t click through to websites, and traffic at some sites has fallen up to 50%. Traffic here, thanks to a strong finish to the year, has been basically flat—which is a lot better than I expected. Moreover, comments on the blog are way up, and it feels a lot more interactive these days. Thanks so much for contributing to the site!

But all lists aren’t all great. And there’s one category of useless which demands a PSA: the list of the unattainable. Not the luxurious as once in a while everyone can get their hands on something rather nice. No, I mean the sort of lists exemplified (but by no means limited to) by the beer writers’ short-run sample gift packs. Someone made 100 gallons of inguana poop stout and then couriered them to the gullible / needy / starving? Who cares. But this next sort of list, this here list of the 35 best pubs in Edinburgh? The best. Accessible. Useful. Helpful, even. And should be prepared by every topic hobbiest out there for their fair city or region.** Just look at the common sense info succinctly provided:

4. The Holyrood 9A – Round the corner at the bottom of St Mary’s Street towards the parliament building, a surprisingly bustling beer and burger den, with impressive selections of both. Food is prepared in the tiniest kitchen somewhere downstairs and served in the packed backroom or bar itself. Huge range of draught beers but also wines by the glass. An all-round good pub. Details: 9a Holyrood Road, theholyrood.co.uk

I know this is correct as I’ve been there, the cousins being just a route 128 bus ride away. One of my great regrets is not getting a photo of that kitchen as I walked out. I know, I let you down. But it is so small that you’d have to have the camera in their face. Little more than a cloakroom by the front door.

Another great format for the best of is the “stashkiller” mode, this week deployed by Barry Masterson in Cider Review:

There’s nothing new about this, we’ve all been there. You get a nice bottle of cider, or maybe it’s a beer or wine, and you think to yourself “yeah, I’ll keep that for a special occasion”. And this happens again and again, ad nauseam, until you’ve got a stash of special bottles built up that you’re almost afraid to dip into it as that special occasion just never came. It’s a funny thing, really, that with some things we think we need an excuse, when the fact is they have been made to be consumed, enjoyed, shared. In my case, when prowling the cellar for a drink at the end of a day’s work, I usually end up just reaching for a bottle of pils from the stack of crates because I feel I should be sharing the large bottles of cider, or if I open one I must be making notes, and that sometimes feels like work. It’s a terrible attitude when you have a cellar full of cider; it’s made to be drunk!

JD TBN has shared his extensive Golden Pint Awards, with characteristically impressive level of detail in the 25 categories including ten related to specific beers as well as others such as:

Best Beer Blog or Website: The Drunken Destrier – I had this flagged for greatness since the spring, but the flurry of entertaining beer reviews petered out in late May. In the hope of some revived activity — I mean, how hard is it to drink a beer and write down what it tastes like? — I’m slinging a Golden Pint in Kill’s direction.

Simon Johnson Award for Best Beer Twitterer: barmas.bsky.social – Yeah, it’s mostly for the dog pictures, but you knew that.

I think Simon would have accepted the broader application of the otherwise tightly defined term “Twitterer”. In DC, Jake Berg of DC Beer published his annual top beer and top music of 2025 – in not that order at all:

How this works: I pretty much only use the blog for this yearly post. I’ve got a bunch of music I liked this year with pithy comments that may or may not make sense to outside readers, interspersed with some songs I liked. Then I’ve got beer. You like beer, don’t you? This year there’s a pretty clear top two for me; both of these are excellent. After that I’m less sure, but tried to settle on an order because ranking things is fun.

On thing we see less of in these annual lists (that itself needs a comeback) is the the in and out list or what is hot and what is not, like the one suggested at Everyday Drinking. But maybe that’s because I know what black currant tastes like. And here’s another sort of handy guide, particularly useful on this New Year’s Day. Lew Bryson on his podcast “Seen Through A Glass” on all your coffee booze options:

So I’m here with a whole bunch of coffee drinks to get going this morning! I didn’t know what to do for a relaxed post-Christmas episode, and then I remembered this interview with John Mleziva of State Line Distillery. They make a great coffee liqueur, and we talked about that. I knew we’d be just sitting around drinking coffee on that morning after Christmas, so I made that into an episode. Then I told you more about the press trip to Mexico I took back in 2011 to see how Kahlua is made, with all the feels, and all the delicioso, and the extra-special cocktail we learned how to make. And the donkey herb moonshine we had. Yeah, not a typo.

For what it’s worth, get a nice winey coffee blend, add 10% cream and a splash of Chambord. Or maybe Cointreau but that’s sorta a regular Saturday thing if you ask me. Black coffee though the week, by the way.

Boak and Bailey helped put things in order in a different sense with their post on what beers for Christmas mean to them now:

There were a couple of factors behind our decision. For a start, there’s the question of what’s easiest for non-beer-geek family members to acquire and look after. We don’t want to be pains in the arse. We also find ourselves thinking about relatives might also actually enjoy drinking with us. Normalish ale and normalish lager are easy sells to almost anyone, and stay out of the way of conversation, board games, or Lethal Weapon II on the telly. Maybe nostalgia and sentiment kicked in a bit, too. Ray’s dad got quite into Cheddar Gorge Best in his final years and it was nice to feel that, in a way, we were still able to share a beer with him. We raised our glasses in the direction of his photo.

I am with them. I saw someone recommend a beer store somewhere where the cheapest offering was two and a half times the price of a very good Belgian ale and, being in the holiday mood, though to myself… WTF!! I think there may be a bit of embarassment about the sucker juice era but rather than knaw at one’s innards about the waste of a decade, do what B+B did and think of what the company you’ll be in. That’s what actual beer as social lubricant means, after all. Now… some quick notes:

Note #1: Ron pointed to a news item on the end of corked Guinness.
Note #2: Liam then explained the news item on the end of corked Guinness.
Note #3: read Bounded by Buns by the noted beerman… as, frankly, you really need to add some solid food to your diet.
Note #4: needing something to do on Jan 11th? Tune into Desi Pubs.

More news out of Britain on the relaxation of concern related to drinking and driving. In The Times this week we read:

A survey of more than 2,000 adults, including 1,300 drivers, found that 37 per cent of Generation Z believed it was more socially acceptable to drive when marginally over the legal limit, compared with 9 per cent of baby boomers. Across the population as a whole, only 21 per cent of people agree… The survey showed that more than a third of young drivers believed driving while slightly over the limit was acceptable, but also that they were twice as likely to think that alcohol did not impair their judgment. [Ed.: thankfully…] The number of young drivers obtaining their licence is at its lowest level for generations, partly because of the cost of lessons and the difficulties in getting a test.

Much is made of the lowering of the blood alcohol limit in England to match the rest of Europe but that last stat up there may indicate a truth – there might also be a general level of ignorance related to the risks of driving itself at play. And now… some more quick notes:

Note #5: a collab on the bit heading to the recycling bin?
Note #6: “RESIGN!!!”
Note #7: “…number of pubs in England and Wales… fell to 38,623 from 38,989 a year earlier…”

Not at all related, the business resource The Street has chosen “the craft beer apocalypse” as its descriptor for 2025, illustrating that claim with a couple of non-bankruptcies:

One of the most recent closings was Miamisburg, Ohio, craft brewery Entropy Brewing Company, which revealed on social media that it would close down its business permanently on Dec. 27, 2025, with no plans yet to file for bankruptcy… And now, New Mexico-based Bosque Brewing Company is closing down all of its taproom locations and ending its business after a federal judge dismissed the brewer’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case on Dec. 22 because it had too much debt to reorganize, KOB-TV 4 in Albuquerque reported. The dismissal of the Chapter 11 case will likely prompt the brewery company to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation unless it can settle all of its debts with its creditors out of court.

AKA no hope of resuscitation. It seems to me that there might be a role for a bit of bankruptcy trustee advice for breweries in trouble at an earlier point in the downward cycle than “too much debt” but there seems to be a bit of a theme if we consider how late Rogue played along. Before perhaps hitting the intersection of economics and ethics. Perhaps related (but only if you glean more from this passage than I do) is this offering from Gunnar Rundgren at countercurrents.org:

…society, human expression and technology develop in tandem. And in order to be strong they need to reinforce each other. And one technology assumes, or dictates, that many other technologies are in place and that society is organised in certain ways. Even something basic as beer assumes agriculture, and agriculture assumes and requires a sedentary culture. Sedentism, in turn, implies a lot of things, even though I don’t subscribe to the idea that agriculture and sedentism is the fall of man, the cradle of tyranny or the broken link between humans and nature. Some claim that beer preceded or even initiated agriculture and sedentism in that case means that it is beer that is the culprit, quite an entertaining thought….

So… if beer created civilization*** then beer is also complicit with the end of civilization. Perhaps. Shifting gears and in sensible rejection of last week’s sharing of bad advice about Dry January, this article in the New York Times may illustrate how dry does not need to mean no customers if there’s an application of a little planning to serve those cutting back:

Given that drinking — on the slopes, at the pool, or at the hotel bar — is for many people a staple while on holiday, forgoing the ritual leaves time for other activities. Here are six hotels that have devised alternatives to drinking, from snowshoeing to aerial stretching; from making mocktails to simply sipping them… The 54 rooms and suites spread across seven lodges are light-filled, with neutral-colored linens, Hästens beds and natural oak wood floors… A sustainable ethos guides the vision for the property, including its three restaurants. The extensive mocktail menu, which features zero-proof counterparts of its signature cocktails, leverages local ingredients and scraps from the kitchen. A mocktail called Too Hot to Handle, for example, is a umami-forward mix of Rebels Botanical Dry, a nonalcoholic gin; lemon; bell peppers; tomato and smoky housemade bitters.

Horsehair beds? Kitchen scraps in the drinks?!? OK… fine… maybe not so much… Speaking of retreats, like you, I read the Luxembourg Times. Where else can I catch up with the regional news of the Trappists fame… republished from Bloomberg… including some interesting technical insights from Westmalle:

The idea is to hold profit and production stable, to provide for the abbey, give to charity, and reinvest where necessary in the business. Westmalle’s bottling plant hums and crashes with life during the day as bottles are washed, labeled, filled and prepared for delivery. At maximum capacity, 45,000 are processed per minute. But the production line lies idle outside its one day shift, and doesn’t operate on weekends, as the monks want the staff to work sociable hours. It’s set to be replaced by 2030 with a new modernized facility through a major, self-funded investment in the brewery.

Mod-ren. That’s what the future will be. Mod-ren. Speaking of which… that is it for this first update of 2025. Frig. I forgot to use the new format. Oh well. Have a great New Years Eve and Hogmanay, too! Excitement builds as it’s not yest been announced if Boak and Bailey are posting this Saturday but make it your New Year’s resolution to sign up for their fabulously entertaining footnotes 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 2007!! 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 has returned from his break since April so you can embrace the sweary Mary! 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.

*From the Wayback archives, here is the explanation of the Surprise Twist: “I feel a 1980s power ballad coming on. I can’t fight this feeling anymore. Maybe I was just so damn tired. I was checking out all the entries and just like that I heard a voice. It said: “Hello, is it me you’re looking for?” I dunno. This time I wanna be sure. Suddenly, it’s touching the very part of me. It’s making my soul sing. It says the words that I can’t say. Maybe little things I should have said and done. I guess I just never took the time. When it was thinking about prize giving this was always on my mind… always on my mind. I’m never gonna dance again if I don’t make this right. Aaron Stein of Portland, Oregon wins. Not sure what he wins. But he wins the book I need to dig out award for the overlooked image of 2014.” That’s… a lot. Wow. Was I drunk?
**Consider B+B’s Bristol or (for the double!) Lisa’s Dublin.
***Didn’t.

The Beery News Notes For That Post Canadian Thanksgiving Emotional Letdown

Actually, it’s been a good week this week. Forget that headline. While not at the level of “I’m a traffic cop in Spain under Franco and it’s Christmas so give me gifts of booze” good (as illustrated to the right) it’s been good. Week off for yard work. And Monday’s Thanksgiving turkey came out of the oven in fine shape. We even had a last minute guest which meant we had to be on best behaviour and, get this, I couldn’t even each over the table for seconds of stuffing bare handed. Sheesh. And my vote for the Cardinal* even tied my preferred runner up the Crow** so that worked out well. Annnnd it was heartening to see the fans of the Blue Jays not repeat past bad behaviour when the Mariners took the first two games on the road care of, in part, a great Canadian.

Where to begin? The past! Last Thursday after that week’s edition went to… well, after I clicked on “post”, Liam shared an interesting piece on the joys of finding an excellent set of observations from the past:

While trawling through newspaper mentions for old pubs for yet another historical project, I came across a smattering of repeats in numerous papers in 1908 of a piece of pubcentric prose under the title, ‘The Delights of an Old Alehouse.’ It really gripped me as I read it and brought out some of the emotions mentioned above, but it wasn’t in any way familiar to me which seemed odd, as it was extremely well written and clearly done by someone with a lot of talent. Luckily, at the end of the piece the author – Charles Hugh Davies – was credited as well as the source of the original publication, which was The Pall Mall Magazine. Some sleuthing and searching finally led me to the piece, which is actually just a small part of an article titled ‘An Essaie in Prayse of Beer’ which is a much broader love letter to beer, and especially old ale, as was hinted at in the excerpt I had read. I can’t find it in any other source (apologies if it has been covered by others and I’ve just missed it.)

Good work. Sadly, the hunt for information on line has become harder as sources are removed from public access. It’ll only become harder as A.I. search narrows what you need to know. Which really was the underlying point about brewing history that Pope Leo was trying to make the other day.

And Gary has been digging into the old records this week, too, focusing most recently on Old Vienna beer – both Ontarian and Ohioan – and some almost eerie machinations on the part of my personal hero E.P Taylor:

Since Ohio was ground zero to market Red Cap Ale and Carling Black Label beer made in Clevelend, it makes sense that Canadian Breweries wanted to add Old Vienna to the American portfolio, at least initially as an export. If Canadian Breweries bought the rights to Koch’s Old Vienna from the receiver, a potential obsacle to such marking would be removed. Presumably O’Keefe Old Vienna did reach Ohio, as it did other states in the north. in the 1950s…

While E.P. clearly had a thing for Ohio, there are still questions questions questions and he’s on the hunt. Fortunately there are also answers at least etymologically speaking! On “steaming“…

The word ‘steaming’ for being drunk stems from when people in Scotland used to circumvent Sunday licensing laws by taking to the water. Public houses were closed, but steamships weren’t. To be ‘steaming drunk’ made its way into public parlance.

Also on another aspect of the question of “what is history,” Chalonda White of Afro.Beer.Chick posted about the meaning of National Black Brewers Day and how it is still not properly appreciated:

National Black Brewers Day isn’t just about history. It’s about continuity. It’s about connecting ancient African fermentation to modern Black ownership. It’s about giving credit where it’s long overdue. When I pour a pint on this day, I’m not just thinking about the beer. I’m thinking about the people. I think about the enslaved brewers whose hands shaped the recipes. I think about Theodore Mack Sr., who bet on himself when no one else would. I think about Celeste Beatty of Harlem Brewing Company, who became the first Black woman to own a craft brewery in the U.S. and did it with unapologetic Harlem pride. She turned her love for the culture into liquid storytelling.

In another context of the search for authenticity, Ron shared his experience of attending the Norsk Kornølfestival in Ålesund, Norway over a series of posts including breakfast photos as well as observations on framhouse brewing:

The house is a log cabin with one of those turfed roofs which are pretty common around here. Next to it is a roofed fire pit, where a cauldron of water and juniper twigs are bubbling away over a wood fire. They never brew with pure water. It’s always juniper infused. The farmer, his brother and a mate are doing the brewing. Occasionally, giving the water a stir with a long wooden stick. Mashing takes place in a stainless-steel tub. Though they have some wooden tubs to show us how they used to do things. Water is transferred in buckets to the mash tub. To which the malt is later added. No measurements, either of the temperature of the water or the weight of malt, are made. It’s all very casual. Done by eye and experience. While the mash is standing, we go off for lunch. Which is more potatoes and cold cuts. It fills a hole.

As a bonus, there was also some sensible maritial fest-going advice from Ron like when he made: “…some cheese and salami sandwiches to eat at the festival. I saw the price of the food they’re selling there. I’d never be able to look Dolores in the eye again if I paid that much for nosh.” As always, I am with Dolores in these matters. Less realistic is the news out of the GABF last week… if BMI is to be believed:

At Boston Beer’s annual GABF brunch Oct 10, it felt like a throwback to the heady days of early craft, an optimism that might’ve seemed defiant if it hadn’t had receipts from the night before. BA prexy Bart Watson opened the event by noting that despite the “gloom and doom” in craft, Thurs night’s crowd had produced a “lively festival” with “not a phone in sight.” Bart said “that’s the spirit we need to find – people connecting over great beer.” Boston Beer prexy Jim Koch echoed Bart, saying GABF’s opening “was an illustration of the creativity and vibrancy of the craft beer movement and our ability to evolve, change, add more layers to what we do.”

You will remember Boston Beer, the firm that one is advised now makes 30% of its revenue from beer making. Clearly not part of the post-passion universe. More connected to the reality-based reality is Mike Seay who visited an old friend – a brew pub:

In this era of Craft Beer, with more places closing than opening, my area got a nice boost with the return of a local brewpub chain that is tied to the original microbrew wave in the 90s. That place is Sequoia Brewing in Fresno. It closed for a while, lost owners, and felt like it would not return. But it did return, with new owners. Thankfully. Brewpubs fill a gap for most of us beer geeks. The gap of having kids. Or a partner that isn’t into going to taprooms. With a brewpub, both can be happy. Food for the ones not really into beer, and craft-style beer for us beer geeks. Usually, brewpub beer rises up to a respectable level of beer, but not a “I want to buy this in a store” level. That there is the rub for us.

And (also) out and about but farther afield was Retired Martyn as well as Mrs RM who’ve (also) been looking for happiness care of a beer and a bite in Romania and found it at the Grand Café Van Gogh:

We’re in a modern apartment near the University, Romana a mix of youth and decay… Appropriately, the city is full of umbrellas, in Umbrella Street and the Grand Café Van Gogh which is one of Mrs RM’s ticks. Obviously those paintings aren’t all original Van Goghs, that would be silly, but they are high quality prints and this is the classiest place in Old Town by a distance. Big brewery beer, CAMRA would be appalled, but a black lager is matched expertly with…. Papanasi, your Romanian mix of doughnuts, cream and fruit.

I hope the service was up to scratch. I’ve done service – missed putting in the order, dropped the beer, invented “diming” to maximize the tips, took shit from the kitchen staff – but I never had to work it like a waitress. For Pellicle, Rachel Hendry discussed the role in pop culture and her own life:

What is it that you want from your waitress? Efficiency, charm, a smile, care, attention to detail, an attractive physique, a winning personality, a sense of humour, wisdom, empathy, experience—the list goes on! All of that flair! No wonder she’s so popular! But how much of a person are you really entitled to? The Waitress moves among her audience members, weaving her way past tables and into their lives. She works within her community—there’s that animation, there’s that exposure—performing for them as is the requirement of her work. How much should The Waitress give and how much should she restrain? How much are you paying for?

Excellent stuff. And from India, we learned there was much surprise on what people found out their drinks tab was paying for:

A liquor bill of a restaurant in Rajasthan has been going viral on social media. But why? Well, it levies cow cess among other taxes, including CGST and SGST. The tax, which was introduced in 2018 to support cows and cow shelters in Rajasthan, has triggered a debate online. One user said, “As much as I want the welfare of cows (or all animals for the matter), I don’t understand the concept of cow cess.” Another said, “The irony is the Jaipur-Jodhpur highway, which is littered with cattle loitering on the road, making it extremely dangerous for commuters. Rajasthan govt is barely doing anything for the rehabilitation of cattle/cows.”

Sticking with news from India, there is a shortage of aluminum cans for the domestic brewing market that strict regulations are making worse, according to Jessica Mason:

Domestically, aluminium can suppliers such as Ball Beverage Packaging India and Can-Pack India, have revealed that they have already reached maximum capacity at their sites and will not be able to increase supplies for at least 6-12 months unless production lines are added or expanded in some way… At present, due to the QCO, the beer industry cannot import cans from foreign vendors as BIS certification can take many months to process. To avoid a shortage in beer supply, local reports have outlined that the BAI has lobbied the government for a “short-term regulatory relaxation” of its QCOs to ensure uninterrupted supplies from other countries.

Interesting then that Canada is courting India as a market for the supply of our metals. We make a lot of aluminum that could suppliment local production. If, you know, Mr. Trump lets us…

And then… there was much response to that nice light piece in the NYT by Mark Robichaux originally titled “Opinion – How to Save the Craft Beer Industry“*** on what US craft beer can do to save itself. Some sensible… (…maybe…) Others not so much**** or worse. Me, I wonder if it can be saved as the taint of “your uncle’s drink” is now so well upon it. Not to mention the whole general slump of interest in booze thing.***** But what I liked most in the piece is how it makes an attempt too rarely seen with the general topic – an attempt to set out a reasonable argument. Four arguments in fact… of varing decrees of validity. The best one is the third of the four:

Craft beers also need smarter labels. The industry built its identity on personality, with quirky mascots, puns and inside jokes as logos. It was fun — until it became clutter and noise. My beer aisle now looks like a vertical Comic Con merch table. Today’s overwhelmed consumer doesn’t have time to decode a beer called Sour Me Unicorn Farts (a glittered sour from DuClaw), Purple Monkey Dishwasher (a chocolate peanut butter porter from Evil Genius), or Hopportunity Knocks (a perfumed, piney I.P.A. from Caldera Brewing Company). They want to know: What does it taste like? Will I like it? Design matters, yes, but clarity matters more. Make labels that tell drinkers what’s inside, not just what’s funny at 2 a.m. in the brew house.

Certainly a point we’ve heard, agreed with or disagreed with****** over the last few years. Consumers (not nerds, not trade staff, not beer writers) are not aided by in joke branding design. AKA the exploding bubble gum machine effect. But he misses the mark for me on issue #1 on the IPA problem, complaining that “…most taste like pine resin…” and not that anything that tastes like anything can be called an IPA now and that it loops into issue #3 above. Issue #2 is an observation on strong beer that is both true and also a bit dated by, you know, fifteen years. While it’s sorta true there’s plenty of beers being made which are not like that so, you know, buy those. Issue #4 is just a sensible observation that good beers should come in smaller cans… but plenty do. One take away for me is this: if a reasonable writer and a reasonable publication like this is suffering from as serious a misunderstanding of the whole topic as a number of beer writers allege… have the last twenty years of public writing about good beer been an utter and too insular failure?

That’s it for now. Not as long as last week but that was nuts. While you beg for more more more, please also check out the below mentioned Boak and Bailey every Saturday and sign up for their entertaining footnotes, too. Look out for Stan when he feels the urge now that he’s retired from Monday slot… maybe … maybe not. Then listen to a few of that now newly refreshed 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 has been on hiatus since April but the archives are out there with the all the sweary Mary! There is new 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. That’s quite good and after a break they may well be are back every month!

*The bird so nice they named it twice, cardinalis cardinalis!
**HARBINGER OF DEATH!!!!
***But then on Tuesday the title was altered to the less serious “Wacky Labels and Silly Names Are Killing Craft Beer” after an intense intimidation campaign by about 13 craft beer nerds that would have left even a Trump bootlicker impressed. Please don’t tell them about SNL’s non-non-alcoholic beer ad. Don’t make fun of poh widdle cwaft.
****Leaving out words like ““… as many have…” which undermine your point is not a strong move.
*****An interesting description of the loss of interest in booze can be found at UnHerd where “Is it last orders for German beer? Disaster is brewing in Bavaria” by Ian Birrell was published this week with this odd scene from Oktoberfest: “Not that everyone is into wellness. In one tent, I come across a lively group snorting what I presume was cocaine from the top of a bald man’s shiny head. One gives me a big grin as he sniffs deeply, then wipes his nose. Two tables down, another ebullient gang of pals pass around a mirror with chunky white lines laid out on it. Minutes later, I pass yet another high-spirited gaggle tapping small piles of powder onto their clenched fists.“
******It’s good to have a good civil disagreement. Stan misses them. I once recommended a client sign a document in addition to a contract called a “Letter of Disagreement” to clarify what was and wasn’t acceptable. They didn’t.

The Delightful Yet Pensively Penultimate Beery News Notes On A Summer’s Thursday For 2025

It’s been a busy week but not really in the beery sense. Guests and heirs have come and gone – and even bought a $14.99 beer on the way out via an airport bar at Montreal, as illustrated sub-wonderfully perhaps. A last bit of summer visting and the shedding of the last loonies and twoonies. Which means the home is quieter here at this end of the week compated to the other. Which is good. But quieter. At least I have my tomatoes. Did I mention my tomatoes? Definitely illustrated sub-wonderfully, that yellow one in the upper left weighed in a 1.7 pounds. And I did nothing to make it happen. Which is my favourite and most common form of success. Six varieties left to right ish clockwise: Chiltern’s Blue Bayou, Baker Creek’s True Black Brandywine, Chiltern’s Golden Sunshine, Baker Creek’s Kentucky Beefsteak, Chiltern’s Beefsteak and Baker Creek’s Orange Icicle. Picked from the catelog based on the “pin tail on donkey” method. All started from seed last winter and soon getting turned into sauce. That True Black Barleywine is the best tasting tomato ever – like it has built in balsamic vinegar. Thanks for tuning in to Tomato News Today!

First up in the world of beer, the Tand himself has also been out and about on travels and has reported back on the scene in Munich – and found out that certain things were not to be found:

Sadly, you can’t find Pils on draught anywhere, and for reasons best known only to themselves, Spaten insist on offering the dreadful Beck’s as their bottled pils in their most prestigious outlets. It appears Spaten Pils, which I recall was a lovely beer, is no longer brewed. A real shame. In fact, Spaten it seems, only brew Helles in both normal and alcohol-free forms and, of course, an Oktoberfest. It gets worse. The whole shooting match of Spaten-Franziskaner-Löwenbräu-Gruppe is owned by AB InBev, who presumably have streamlined the brands available, though under the Franziskaner brand you’ll also find weissbier and a kellerbier. Like Spaten, the rather delightful Löwenbräu Pils has been dropped. It is a pretty grim picture as the odd hoppy pils provided an alternative to Helles, which in its Munich iteration, can be a little sweet, and dare I say, bland? (The locals call it “süffig”, meaning “easy to drink”. And, in fairness, it is.

And over at Pellicle, Matthew assumed the role of player / manager and reported on his travels to the French & Jupps Maltings in Hertfordshire where he found a hidden truth:

Its long history stretches back to 1689, and for more than a century the maltster has been based in the twin Hertfordshire towns of Stanstead St. Margarets and Stanstead Abbots, bisected by the aforementioned Lea, some 30 miles north of London as the crow flies. There are a few reasons for its relative anonymity—I myself hadn’t heard of them until I was invited for a visit in February 2024. One is due to the fact its malt was (and often still is) bought in bulk and rebagged by various distributors before being shipped out to breweries. And so, it might bear the name of a competitor—although in this context it’s perhaps more accurate to refer to them as partners—in the US, for example, the malt is typically sold under the William Crisp banner.

Sneaky sneaksters! Did you know? (Did I? Never mind that… let’s make this about you.) Did you??? Speaking of hidden truths, Pete Brown had a has retrospective on BrewDog, now well in to the post-Watt era and even into the post-Dickie, published in The Morning Advertiser that he unpacked into something of an obit:

To me, they always felt more like a band than a brand – not least because they wanted to be seen as punks. Bands are different. When none of the original members remain, many former fans insist that it’s simply not the same band any more, and that the newcomers who have taken over, singing songs they never wrote or had hits with, are no better than a covers band. The departure of Martin Dickie feels like the last member of the original line-up has left the building. The entity that remains may own the rights and assets of BrewDog, but it has lost the spirit and soul that once defined it… Dickie remained silent throughout. The initial allegations referred to a “cult of personality” built around both men, but specific personal allegations were focused on Watt’s behaviour. After Dickie’s departure, some former employees took to social media to say that he was “part of the problem.”

Wonderful. I have never understood how Dickie, co-exec past and board member still, has had the teflon wrapper that he has enjoyed through downturn after downturn on what must be one of the most note worthy financial flops in recent brewing history. But perhaps it’s been a case of not noticing that scratch on your hand due to the nail in your foot.

Speaking of endings, Ed the Beer Father has shared his thoughts on the closing of Banks of Wolverhampton, mapping a fairly complex set of international bobs and weave that led to the end:

Eleven years ago the two companies with rights to San Miguel beer, San Miguel Brewery (Philippines) and Mahou San Miguel (Spain) signed a cooperation agreement to promote their international businesses and position San Miguel as a global brand. To further its growth they had already partnered with Carlsberg to contract brew it in Britain, and it was a large part of the output of the Northampton brewery. But for a brand with global ambitions partnering with the world’s biggest brewery seems like an obvious match… So, as what I believe is part of a global realignment, last year San Miguel moved its contract brewing in the UK from Carlsberg to ABInBev. Losing the San Miguel contract left Carlsberg in the UK, which owned one giant factory and two large regional breweries, with a lot of surplus capacity. The giant factory wasn’t going to go and Marston’s has the small pack facilities, which left Banks’s. So a contract change for a Spain and Philippines based international lager brand closed a 150 year old brewery in Wolverhampton that didn’t even brew it.

Lordy. Speaking of things making one’s head spin, I totally missed Stan‘s post before the Labour Day weekend on the nature of beer bubbles so I will correct that error now:

There is more to monitoring beer foam than counting bubbles, although they are the foundation. They result from nucleation, and as those bubbles climb to first form or then replenish the foam head, proteins and bitter substances are carried into the bubble wall, forming a matrix that holds the skeleton together. In his doctoral thesis, “Beer Foam Physics,” A. D. Ronteltap calculated that a foam 3 centimeters high (a bit less than 2 fingers) in a glass 6 centimeters wide (a bit less than a Willi Becher) made up of bubbles with an initial radius of .2 mm (twice the width of a human hair) would contain 1.5 million bubbles distributed over about 100 layers.

Over a million bubbles! Not quite millions and millions but more than one million. And, while the numbers aren’t quite confimed yet, Jessica Mason pulled out the stats as she reported on the question “Can Gen Z save cask ale from extinction?” for Drinks Business:

Statistics from YouGov for the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates (SIBA) have shown 25% of 18 – 24-year-old beer drinkers regularly order cask ale. The figures mark an increase of more than 50% on the previous year… Digging deeper into the SIBA figures, there are also statistics that support the opportunity that women present in the future of cask ale’s revival. For instance, the data revealed how 22% of female beer drinkers regularly order cask ale, compared to 43% of men. But, as Corbett-Collins noted: “It would be great to see even higher numbers, but the glass half full fact is that men and women of all ages are enjoying cask beer.

Out and About Update: Max mapped a 29 km(!) pub crawl he took through the Czech countryside to plant himself in front of a beer at Únětický pivovar, Zdibský pivovar and Polepšovna ducha as well as a few other spots. I marched about a tenth of that the other weekend and my left knee let me know about it for more than one day. Good thing Max kept up a good pace because apparently, according to the white coated eggheads in the Netherlands, beer drinkers are a prime target for mosquitos:

To find out why the blood-sucking critters prefer some people over others, a research team led by Felix Hol of Radboud University Nijmegen took thousands of female Anopheles mosquitoes to Lowlands, an annual music festival held in the Netherlands… Participants who drank beer were 1.35 times more attractive to mosquitoes than those who didn’t. The tiny vampires were also more likely to target people who had slept with someone the previous night. The study also revealed that recent showering and sunscreen make people less attractive to the buzzing menace. “We found that mosquitoes are drawn to those who avoid sunscreen, drink beer, and share their bed…”

Speaking of getting bled, I received the alert from Will Hawkes: “Sorry to be right about this. No GBBF next year as it made ‘a substantial loss’, according to CAMRA.” As per usual and FOR THE DOUBLE!!!… Jessica Mason has more detail:

CAMRA chairman Ash Corbett-Collins explained how “at Members’ Weekend earlier this year, the national executive presented finances that painted a stark picture. As your chairman I was open with you; we were facing significant challenges… Corbett-Collins lamented: “Sadly, this means I must tell you that: The Great British Beer Festival and its Winter counterpart did not attract enough visitors to cover the cost of holding them, resulting in a substantial loss.” Added to this, he revealed that CAMRA’s membership figures “are simply not growing” and confessed that “the hard truth is we are unlikely to return to pre-2020 levels”… and noted how “the cost of running a membership organisation and business is also increasing”.

This is a pretty serious situation as it really looks like a broader issue than just the fests. The organization itself seems to be at risk. I expect more information to be flowing in the coming days.

In the “WAR ON SCIENCE” folder, we read the news out of The New York Times that everyone’s favourite slowly exploding head in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services has pulled the US government’s pending report on alcohol as part of a healthy diet:

Mike Marshall, chief executive of the U.S. Alcohol Policy Alliance, a nonprofit that aims to reduce the harms of alcohol, said H.H.S. was “doing the work of the alcohol industry.” “They’re burying the report so the information about the health consequences is not widely known,” Mr. Marshall said. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has decried a “chronic disease epidemic” sweeping the country. But he has said little about alcohol’s impact on American health since taking office. Consumption of both alcohol and tobacco was absent from the first Make America Healthy Again report released in May. Mr. Kennedy (like his boss, President Trump) has said he does not drink.

It’s important to note that Mr. Kennedy, unlike his boss, does not wear makeup preferring to gain his particular rusty orange hue through a natural process.

Finally, just before this organ went to press, the dynamic duo B+B posted a piece under the fabulous title “Customers Have Always Been a Problem for Pubs” which illustrates the truth based on a sppech given in 1933 by one Lieutenant Colonel E.N. Buxton, director of the East London brewery Truman, Hanbury & Buxton:

The talk finishes with a few more rebukes for the drinkers. First, the reason pubs often look so ugly, and are so sturdily built, is because “you do not treat them so kindly”. “Walls and furniture are roughly treated”, he says. “As for the outside of public-houses, I agree that some of the houses in London look perfectly ghastly. Hard wear, however, had to be the first consideration.” This was addressed, remember, to a room full of people from Bethnal Green. We’re picturing the crowd when Bertie Wooster sings ‘Sonny Boy’.

Fabulous. There. That’s a lot for a busy week but probably less than all the stuff our there to read so please also check out the afore mentioned Boak and Bailey every Saturday and sign up for their entertaining footnotes, too. Look out for Stan when he feels the urge now that he’s retired from Monday slot… maybe … maybe not. Then listen to a few of that now newly refreshed 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 is out there with the all the sweary Mary! 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. Any more? We have Ontario’s own A Quick Beer featuring visits to places like… Michigan! All About Beer offers a range of podcasts and there’s also 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. That’s quite good and after a break they may well be are back every month! Such is life. Such is beer podcasting and newslettering… which, as Ray says, are blogs! And he’s right.