February 2026 – A Good Beer Blog

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… Finally… Here’s “The Baseball Is Back!!” Edition Of Your Beery News Notes

I mean, let’s face it. The Winter Olympics are all well and good. And the World Cup will fill that gap in June, sure. But… baseball. Baseball: the sport that demands the best in athletes and then asks them to sit around for half the game. When they aren’t standing around in the field. It’s great, isn’t it! Though, we should also take this moment to remember one of the great Olympic moments from, what, sixteen years ago now when Canada’s gold medal winners took the opportunity to turn the hockey rink into a tavern. And on that topic, here’s a Winter Olympics fact I hadn’t heard before and one that isn’t apparently winning any medals:

The only beer available for purchase at the 2026 Olympic Games is Corona Extra, a Mexican pale lager. This is due to the Olympics only allowing one company to sell its products at the Games, and this time it was Corona who was able to secure a deal. It’s a controversy that may hit closer to home for a lot of Olympic spectators, more so than a few foul-mouthed curlers ever could. It’s fair to say that Corona may not be the most popular beer for fans in Europe, as a photo of a Czech hockey fan went viral last week for his disappointed look while holding his Corona beer.

What a great choice. For the five athletes at the games representing Mexico, I suppose. What else is going on? Plenty to read out there on the chop-shop job coming for BrewDog but The Guardian had a good angle on the pending effect on those who each gave a bit when a lot was needed (or at least wanted with little or now strings attached) early on:

BrewDog’s army of “punk” shareholders have voiced anger and frustration after the Scottish brewer confirmed plans for a possible sale that could render their investments worthless. So-called “equity punks” who spoke to the Guardian or posted on BrewDog’s shareholder forum expressed disappointment and accused the company, which has traded on its upstart ethos, of treatment “bordering on contempt”. One said the plan showed that the small investors, who helped to kickstart BrewDog’s growth after it was founded in 2007, meant nothing to the company.

While the effect on individual EP investors can be quite significant, I mention this mainly as a pretext for posting that 2013 parody up there of the plan from one M. Lawrence at Seeing the Lizards. Speaking of just saying no, The New York Times has run a four-part series by Pete Wells on getting your consumption back to a healthier level and finished off with a back at life with alcohol as well as a look forward:

Sometimes it seemed to me that I had a richer, more rewarding relationship with alcohol than I did with all but a handful of humans. It was an inexhaustible field of study, an incandescent companion during great meals, a reliable consolation on dull ones. And it brought me close to my real friends, at least some of them, some of the time. Over time, though, the rewards had become more equivocal and harder to justify. It wasn’t just the weight I gained, a predictable result of having a cocktail each night followed by about three glasses of wine or beer. They were, by this point, undeniable signs that my liver was overworked. I slept badly with all that alcohol in my system, too, and it got worse as time went on. …

You may be happy to know that he still enjoys his martinis – even if there are fewer of them: “…feeling the hair on the back of my neck stand up as the first sip takes hold, I feel like I’ve been reunited with an old friend…” Another old friend, Liam, reached back just a few decades for his post on the earlier trendy years for NA beer in Ireland, Smithwick’s Alcohol Free Bitter:

The launch was accompanied by newspaper competitions plus promotions, and a strange and repeated focus on how the beer, at 0.5% abv, contained less alcohol than orange juice! Reviews of the product at the time varied a little but it seems to have been generally well received for what it was, with reviewers commenting on how it (ironically) ‘packed a real bite and had good flavour’ and how they could drink it in a pub all night, although it was also said to be ‘quite gassy and sweet.’ Others said it was ‘pretty good. Smells right and tastes of hops. Quite rich and smooth to drink.’

AKA gak. More positively, Matty C shared his thoughts on some upsides he’s seen in the brewing trade so far in 2026:

A couple of years ago, conversations in beer often centred around the idea that there’s “light at the end of the tunnel”. In reality, I don’t think that chance of daylight is coming anytime soon. Instead, we’ve got to admire the glimmers that are somehow managing to shine through the cracks in the walls around us when we can. Good beer is still being made, and good pubs are still open to sell it in – I’ve seen the proof!

One of his examples was the tenacity of Jaipur: “… beer, packed with flavour and served at a high strength – seemingly the antithesis of what you would expect to succeed….” Which reminded me of how, in response to recent racist comment from an English oligarch, in The Times Sathnam Sanghera wrote about one of the foundations of the Britain of today:

…the fact that it ran the biggest empire in human history explains lots about Britain beyond its multiculturalism. It explains the popularity of curry. A significant amount of the mahogany furniture, ivory and jewels in our stately homes and royal palaces. Our propensity to travel. A certain amount of our wealth. Our political posturing on the international scene. Our national drink in the form of tea, and our national tipples in the form of pale ale, rum and the gin and tonic. The fact that we don’t feel the need to learn foreign languages because we encouraged/forced large parts of the world to take up English.

Empire of booze! Which, in turn, reminds me of Manitoba’s fabulous Premier Wab Kinew and his cheery fight for my right to Crown Royal after a bit of internal trade tension with Ontario’s Uncle Doug:

Cheers to you Doug Ford for keeping Crown Royal on LCBO shelves . Thanks for doing the right thing. Just like Canadian whiskey, good results take a little bit of time. This is a good day for folks in Gimli, Manitoba and a good day for people in Ontario too. Standing up for workers together is always a big win for Team Canada.

PWK won a lot of support with this bit of good humoured social media savvy. Crown Royal also got about 5,783 times the value of yet another newsletter by email telling breweries about the importance of storytelling.

Note #1: a desperate plea for beer based salad dressings.
Note #2: pairing beer and cussing.
Note #3: democracy in inaction?

Speaking of newsletters by email about storytelling, Will Hawkes was back at the end of last week with his February edition of London Beer City in which he considered the concept of the Irish Pub as illustrated by one new spot, Moylett’s in Clapton:

…I’m confused. What’s Irish about it? According to a report in Broadsheet, the focus is on what owner Moylett calls “the holy trinity of food, music and socialising” – a worthy list, no doubt, although it does seem to be leaving out something quite important (Guinness is £5.50 a pint, btw). As a term, “Irish Pub” is surprisingly hard to define, and particularly in London (and other British cities, arguably, but we’ll put them to one side for now). In much of the rest of the world – indeed, even in London, particularly its once O’Neills-heavy suburbs – the Irish pub is a 1990s phenomenon: flat-packed dark wood decor, pints of Guinness and food options that are often only very vaguely Irish (satay sticks, curry, chicken wings of varying heat levels; Spice Bags are less common, although you can get them at Moylett’s). But Irish pubs in London are, historically at least, quite different, and much less easy to pin down.

Similarly but further afield, ATJ shared his thoughts on Cologne/Köln, the river there and its crossers:

…leaving Hauptbahnhof I crossed the Rhine, slow-moving, the colour of mud, upon which an elongated, snub-nosed barge was slowly making its way downstream. I stopped and took a photo, a snapshot of slothfulness perhaps and continued along the historic Hohenzollern Bridge. It was crammed with people through which bicycles and the occasional skateboarder cleaved their way, imperious and ‘get out of my way’ seemingly stamped on their features. Some people, were in groups whose colours defined their tribal affiliations — red and white for FC Köln, black and white for Eintracht Frankfurt. Sporting rivals presumably…

And here’s a new insult for craft beer. If Jeff’s exhaustive listicle is correct, IPA is what it is all about and what it says is “meh, new money..“:

When it comes to beer, the etiquette guru revealed that “new money” consumers “don’t touch the more traditional ales or stouts – it’s all about IPAs that set you back at least £5 a pint. Anything involving the word ‘traditional’ simply doesn’t feature in your vocabulary. “If it doesn’t sound trendy, artisanal, limited-edition, or come with a deliberately obscure name, you simply aren’t interested.”

I actually find it really funny that anyone thinks anything related to beer is about new or old money… other than owning the brewery that great-grandpa built I suppose. Almost as good as if grandpa owned a country… which is a seque to the next tale of skulduggery – perhaps – in China’s Jilin province:

The marketing materials identify the beer as produced by Rason Ryongson General Processing Factory in the Rason Special Economic Zone, located near North Korea’s borders with China and Russia. …[T]he Chinese distributor is Yanbian Xinyuequan Trading Co., Ltd. The company is based in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province, a key gateway for cross-border trade with North Korea. Additional social media posts show boxes bearing the Pado label being unloaded from trucks and delivered to local restaurants in Jilin Province, indicating the beer has entered local distribution channels “…[N]ame changes are largely driven by export considerations, particularly to reduce the risk of sanctions-related flagging when the product circulates in Chinese wholesale or grey market channels…”

Mmmm… grey market North Korean Pado beer… Quite the opposite in every way are Boak and Bailey who asked about what a drinker wants from a pub’s internet presence.

… we want to know what beer the pub is serving today, right now. Working that out can be surprisingly tricky. Again, Instagram or Facebook can help, but it’s often more reliable to snoop on Untappd and see what’s been logged in the past 24 hours. Pub websites are rarely of any use for this at all, presumably because updating a website feels like a big job, and a job for the Big Computer at that, so it just doesn’t happen.

Great comments followed… but I wonder if the easier solution is a camera aimed at the chalk board at the bar which is already updated daily… all sorta a la last week‘s remote pub experience story. It worked for the Cambridge coffee pot cam. The best way to get a job done is to find a way to make it a not-a-job job.

Finally, the Pellicle feature this week is accompanied by many photos with many many strings of bunting. It’s a story about Steam Machine Brewing of County Durham – but without saying the word it’s really all about the bunting. Not including reflections in the windows (which would be unethical, of course) I counted thirty-six strings of bunting. That’s a significant contribution.

That’s it! That is all for now. But we are one step closer to spring. Pre-season Grapefruit League baseball on the TV time. Huh. Zah. 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.

Your “The Thaw Cometh! The Thaw Cometh!!” Mid-February Edition Of These Beery News Notes

Now that the temperatures have moderated from -30C at dawn way up to -3C, the nation asks itself what the hell was all that? There is no answer to the question. Fortunately, there is a second question: how to still look dapper in a Canadian winter while lugging a lot of beer? Well, this gent can help. First, walk around in one of Toronto’s well loved black and white neighbourhoods where people must wear vintage clothing. Then, bottle your homebrewed beer only in second hand O’Keefe quarts you have nicked from the upper bric-a-brac shelves of old taverns. Finally, invest in an industrial quality paper packaging printing press you keep in the basement solely for the recreation of 1950s brewery boxes. Easy! Speaking of being on one’s feet, Boak and Bailey have written about how they didn’t do a Dry January so much as a very mobile one, a habit that has continued well into February:

We didn’t set out to make a mission of this, but we realised about halfway through January that, as it happened, we hadn’t yet made a repeat visit. That made us wonder if we could keep it up for the remaining few weeks. We were particularly conscious that we’d tended to stick to tried and trusted favourites last year. In fact, in 2025, over a quarter of our logged Bristol pub visits were to just two pubs – The King’s Head and The Swan with Two Necks. You might have noticed the word ‘logged’ and be wondering exactly what that means. Well, Jess, an accountant and spreadsheet nerd, of course keeps track of every pub we visit.

What a good realization! We have nothing like that possiblity here so much replicate 1950s Toronto to amuse ourselves but this comes a very good second. In the US of A, something else appears to be amuse or perhaps console according to BMI :

Beer posted positive $$ growth in 4 of the last 5 wks, and Jan 2026 is on track to be beer’s best monthly trend in years, at least in these channels. Including wine & spirit RTDs in the mix brightens the picture even more; broader beer + RTD category $$ grew more than 5% with wine & spirit RTDs adding close to 2 full pts in scans.

Booze up! And somewhat similarly Ed stood up for the honour of Guinness this week with a response to what he called a a hatchet job on the Guinness’ Open Gate brewery in London published by The Guardian:

For some reason restaurant critics put the boot in more than any other type of reviewer… I was going to the brewery as part of the CIBD Southern section’s AGM, but first we had to do the business part to do at Diageo’s HQ. I don’t know what deal the CIBD had done with Diageo or if we were subsidised, but we paid a tenner. This gave us pie and mash, which was nice, and a pint of Guinness (brewed in Dublin). I was keen to have somethng brewed on site though, so I had a hazy IPA next, which was nice enough. I think the ABV was a bit hefty, as on top of the three pints of Guinness I’d had I was defintely feeling pissed by the time I’d fininished it. So there you have it. The Guardian journo’s main complaint seemed to be that you had to take a lift to the toilets.

For others, the trip to the pub and then to the toilet is even easier. They are visiting the pub virtually from home, a remote non-work arrangement of sorts:

The 24-year-old from Yeovil, Somerset, regularly tunes into the feed from Morgan’s Arcade Bar in Carlisle, Cumbria – despite never having been there or anywhere near. What hooks Katie in is seeing different people come and go: the women enjoying a work party, the couple singing along with the musician, the young lad trying to chat up a girl at the bar… On some nights Morgan’s Arcade Bar, which can only fit around 60 people in it, has up to 5,000 viewers on its livestream at any one time. But like other bar streams, it has been subject to bans and restrictions for reasons they don’t quite understand. Bar owner Morgan Taylor has been streaming for nearly nine months. He noticed a huge rise in viewers over Christmas, then a few weeks ago his account was deleted.

Cass Enright got out of the house and on the road in his latest installment of A Quick Beer takes us to Montreal – a favourite destination of mine – and revisits some of the great brewpubs there in a video with this intro:

Join us on a step back in time as we have A Quick Beer at three of Montreal’s original brewpubs! Discover the enduring charms of Dieu du Ciel!, L’amère à boire, and Le Cheval Blanc, three spots that have been serving up delicious beer for decades. Although Montreal offers many modern breweries and taprooms nowadays, some of our fondest beery memories over the years have been here, and they’re all still going strong.

For me, it’s L’Barouf on rue St-Denis. If you are ever looking for me, check there. Also all about winnowing the better and the best, Pete shared some firm thoughts in his column in The Times this week, always welcome sight:

My beef is not with hazy pales — those original examples were pretty good. But if you don’t need to worry about balance or clarity in the beer, and you’re throwing in enough hops to cover up any off-flavours from brewing mistakes, a hazy IPA is very easy for a mediocre brewer to make. From a drinker’s point of view, if you grew up with soft drinks and don’t like the taste of actual beer, it’s perfect. It’s also great for Instagram — everyone can see you’re not drinking a boring, mainstream beer. But instead you’re drinking a boring craft beer. A boring, one-dimensional alcoholic fruit smoothie in a gaudy can with hop monsters or skeletons on it. If I wanted to drink sour grapefruit juice, I’d buy some Tropicana and leave it in the sun for a bit.

The many botches of “craft” is a venerable topic which even comes with its own primodrial gospel but it is true that for all its eager keener passion craft never seems to fail to find a way to fail. Nice to see that we have a paper of record confirming what Pete called the “sustained decline.” Viva crystal malt! Viva!! Viva!!! And Phil Mellows guided me to this article in The Caterer on the why to Pete’s what including this suggested impetus:

“…we are beginning to see the movement of some younger adult drinkers towards nostalgia brands, and given our history and heritage, we feel well-placed to meet this trend through some marketing and awareness driving activity.” Brookfield Drinks has launched a trial bringing long-established premium Scottish lager Kestrel back on draught. Brookfield managing director Nigel McNally says: “We’ve shown that a brand that’s nostalgic, like Kestrel, can be repositioned and revitalised. “Most pubs are serving the same products, and the trade’s been guilty of allowing brands which aren’t authentic onto the bar. Alcohol by volume (abv) have also come down, and I think overall customers feel they’ve been short-changed. A return to brands with heritage and nostalgia is offering customers a point of difference.”

Nostalgia and getting short changed? One must be on one’s toes. Which is related to Lars’ new maxim: “if you don’t know how the beer is made then, no matter what the beer is named, you have no idea what kind of beer it is.”

Speaking of no knowing, The Beer Nut made a confession this week that I suspect is made on behalf of many of us:

Anyone who pays attention to trends within microbrewing will have noticed in recent years the explosion in variety of proprietary hop products. I don’t think these assorted extracts and powders and boosters were ever meant to have a consumer-facing role, but brewers seem to love them, and love letting us know that they’ve used them. Does that get them a discount from the supplier? I wouldn’t be surprised. For my part, I can’t help wondering if these enhancers actually enhance the beers in any real way. I’ve certainly never identified any pattern among them: which ones to look out for and which ones aren’t worth the paper their patents were filed on.

Note #1: Ludlow prices!!!
Note #2: Laura’s top tap rooms.
Note #3: Jeff doxxed.
Note #4: Burton Union Pr0n!
Note #5: Actually, no you can’t. You’d die.

The British Royal Navy has recently announced it is cutting booze rations in the service, limiting intake to 14 unit per week while on board. The Telegraph in its emailed newsletter presented a few responses to the news from readers:

Jenny Jones, however, recalled an age of largesse: “Many years ago in Malta, my husband and I were invited on board a Royal Navy ship that was giving a party. The atmosphere was convivial and, thanks to attentive stewards, I was able to enjoy several gin and tonics before dinner. “On departing, it seemed to me that the gangway had become a lot steeper. Back on dry land, our host asked how many drinks I’d had. When I said three, he told me that in fact I’d had nine, as naval tots are about triple the size of what one would get in a pub.”

Ah, Jenny Jones… what’s that? Not the same one? Fine. Me, I was once invited with a gang up the plank and onto a Canadian navy ship helpfully docked a walk from the Halifax taverns by a pal’s navy boyfriend. Among the minty green paid we worked our way though a number of 25 cent beers. I expect that sort of service is no longer offered.

The feature this week at Pellicle was written by Newt Albiston who shares his thoughts on drinking in Epping, just north of Greater London the tough town where he grew up which lives with division:

The day I return to Epping, my first trip home in some time, I can feel the tension, and the hesitance. The high street is pretty quiet, and there are lingering looks as I make my way past the various coffee chains and charity shops. Signs of the change in mood are everywhere: Union flags fly at half-mast on lamp posts, as if to declare the death of Britain as she once was, shadowed by the residue of torn-off patriotic stickers. Although I am instantly greeted by familiar faces when I walk into The Duke, the tension is still present in the quietness of the venue.

I like this: “…no fancy ginger beer or small-batch kombuch…” Perhaps related to The Duke, Stan guided us to a question this week – “what’s that smell?” Or rather…

“Olfaction helps shape our cultures, although it often does so unknowingly or without us noticing,” says (Inger) Leemans, who led the Odeuropa project. “When we talk about cultural heritage, we can think about religious rituals, but we can also think about specific scents that we’ve been cherishing and living with for a long time.”

Cherish. Hmm… I spent a good chunk of my teens in Truro, NS where the smell wasn’t always cherished and I am mindful of that reference The Breweries of Kingston & The St. Lawrence Valley by Steve Gates to a brewery a couple hundred years ago near my current place of work at City Hall which doubled as a pig sty. The next brewery to the north itself had a manure pit. My point is that there were no scents without the full sensory array around it. Did 1890s Mild pair well with coal dust? Did Porter marry well with the pong of streets filled with horses? Perhaps we can never know.

And Charlotte Cook, brewer and scribbler, at took us along to Asturias, Spain for Everyday Drinking and shared her thoughts on the food and the cider:

When you taste the intensely rich stew, you can understand why cider rather than wine prevails in the north—the sour and fizzy is needed to cut through, cleanse the palate, and prepare you to dive in again. Cider is omnipresent in Asturias. As you walk around the town center of Oviedo on a Sunday morning, as families returning from church mix with football fans heading to an entirely different type of cathedra, cider is everywhere. Before 11 am, people will be drinking a bottle of cider for the table. Spaniards are famed for their ability to drink until the wee hours and still make it to work, school, or church as if nothing has happened. And having a little tipple of cider in the morning isn’t seen as such a stain on your character as it is at home.

Finally, some very heartfelt tributes were shared after the news of the death of beer writer Des de Moor like this from David J:

I think a lot about the pints we had one night in South London where he held court, sang songs and was so warm to everyone.

Pete also remembered Des the singer:

Des was a man of many layers. Years after the event, I discover my first interaction with him was buying the 12” remix of Charlton Heston by Stump – that was him, as half of the Irresistible Force. He made the Popbitch newsletter as Secretary of the Ramblers Association (moor, geddit?)… He was a great singer, a walking encylopedia. An absolute stalwart of judging the World Beer Awards. Never once heard him angry, pissed off, or anything other than kind and decent.

There are many more. His Wikipedia bio explains his musical side. Here he is singing Bowie and, here, an earlier solo album. By all accounts a wonderful guy. A sad loss.

Until next time, 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 Sunny Yet Still Cold But Not Standoffish Beery News Notes For Early February

February flies by. That’s just the way it is. Good time to take stock. Good time to eat the little chocolates filled with beer brought by a visitor from Belgium. Early review: the “…chocolate is dry and dark so a lack of sweetness in the kriek left it a bit stark but the Palm was that bit richer.” Not sure I am chowing down on these outside of a winter like this but all quite a bit better than expected. Paid endorsements welcome. Winter was also on the mind and under the feet of Jordan as he wrote about the weather at the end of last month or perhaps just his efforts to get about in it:

Monday, Jan 26th: The deep freeze is well and truly upon us, and looking at the forecast for the next couple of weeks, it looks like we’re in four-layer territory. If your primary mode of transport and exercise is walking, then -25 with the wind chill does you no favours. Besides, the sidewalks are not shovelled in any meaningful way. Dry and cold is a great combination to ensure you’re reminded of the various injuries you’ve had over the years. Sometimes I get the unprompted sense memory of an ankle ligament rolling.

Also looking at the world as it exists below the knee, Stan shared some research he has done on the word Hopfenstopfen and its relation to a certain pair of boots:

The shoes were worn by a worker processing hops. When a bag was filled, a worked would jump into it, stomping down the hops to make sure the bag was full. When I dug this out, I wondered if these could have been called Hopfenstopgen boots. That’s because in Hop Queries Vol. 4, No. 6, I wrote about dry hopping in Germany in the 19th century. That was called Hopfenstopfen, which can be translated at hop plug. Simon Moosleitner, a subscriber in Germany, suggested there is more to think about…

I won’t spoil the fun but speaking of getting the boot in, late last week in VinePair, Dave Infante wrote about the effect of the homicidal ICE intrusion into Minneapolis on the beer trade in the city including this from Drew Hurst of Bauhaus Brew Labs:

You can see it in the firm’s sales figures. Taproom sales are down 40 percent compared to January 2025. “It’s a wildly unsustainable thing,” says Hurst. “None of us signed up to have to live through a federal occupation and figure out how to run a business at the same time.” Not that it was easy before the onslaught: Bauhaus wrapped this month last year down around 30 percent from January 2024. Craft brewers have been struggling to find their way for years in the face of shifting demand, new competition, and rising costs. In Minneapolis and Saint Paul, they’re doing all that with the MAGA jackboot on their necks.

At first I thought it was an odd angle but then realized it illustrates the principle that beer prefers peace as well as how quickly that peace can be lost. Dave also shared in his email updates that he was told to “stick to beer” and that some paying subscribers to his newsletter Fingers canceled their subscriptions. Perhaps if those folk didn’t “stick to” amateur neo-fascism it might be better. Funny how the “stay in your lane” crowd don’t show up for this sort of politicization within the pub:

A beer tap labelled “Rachel Thieves” has appeared on the bar of a Hertfordshire pub protesting Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves introducing crippling tax hikes. Anyone ordering the beer will receive only water. The Green Dragon in Flaunden, which is run by publican Chris Ghazarian, has added the spoof cask ale pump badge as a protest – telling customers that pints of this particular beer are “very bitter” and cost more than anything else on the bar and anyone ordering it will receive only water. Speaking to the British national press, Ghazarian said: “They find it hilarious. I obviously don’t make them pay for it.”

On the other side of the planet, a very difference approach has been taken in Australia:

The Albanese government is seeking to put a hold on increases to the beer excise for the first time in 40 years. The Customs Tariff Amendment (Draught Beer) Bill 2025 seeks to pause the indexation of customs duty rates for draught beer for two years from August 1, 2025. Currently, the beer excise is indexed twice yearly to stay in line with the consumer price index, with Australian beer, wine, and spirit importers and producers saddled with some of the highest rates in the world… Addressing the House of Representatives, Anthony Albanese said he was “proud” to introduce the Bill, “one of the most popular commitments that we took to the election”.

Boak and Bailey also wrote about another sort of pressure to conform but the context was less confrontational – just writing about their thoughts on a craft brewery:

Maybe that post was a bit too snarky, with hindsight, but it certainly didn’t warrant trolling impersonation accounts on Twitter, general abuse that last for months, or a stalking campaign. That was, as you might imagine, quite traumatising, and probably did make us nervous about being critical of breweries in the supposedly cuddly craft brewing sector. It didn’t stop us, but it had a ‘chilling effect’ on how freely and frequently we felt able to express ourselves. It’s easy to say “Don’t mince your words” but minced words are less likely to lead to sleepless nights. We can totally see why some people might decide it’s not worth the trouble, and certainly wouldn’t judge them.

On reflection, I have probably benefitted from folk starting with the assumption that I am a bit of an arsehole. I lose my sleep over other things.

Note #1: Take a news event and ram it like a square peg in a round hole.
Note #2: Martin at another fabulous pub, this time inordinately bright.

Ron TV continues to impress. This week he’s been presenting an extended interview with Mitch Steele and, like the comment maker Oscar, I am drawn to the brief introductory electro-thrash almost as much as the subjects of these interviews. Part 1 of the interview is over thirty-seven minutes long with Part 2 clocking in at thirty-three. Set aside an hour or so of your time. More if, like me, you keep replaying the first six seconds and that mesmerizing theme music over and over and over. Good multi-media breakout for Ron – even if it likely doesn’t pay the bills. One a similar note, Ray of B+B on the prospects of a career in writing:

This is excellent. Depressing, but excellent. My response has been to give up, basically, and accept that writing is a thing I do on the side, while something else pays the bills. I also like that thing, so it’s fine, but I get sad thinking what I could have achieved if writing was my full-time job.

Perhaps also on the theme of less is more, Guinness 0 also continues to impress me and Pete‘s brief review does not surprise:

There are many great 0.5 per cent stouts from small indie brewers, but Guinness 0.0, which took years to develop, is indistinguishable from the real thing.

I noticed one thing when writing this. It is branded as “Guinness 0” in Canada but “Guinness 0.0” in the UK. Why? Is it a different formulation here and there? Whatever it is, I am finally seeing a point to NA beers. But things will be going in a slightly different direction in UK neighbourhood if one permit applicant has their way:

The shop also sought an amendment to the condition currently imposed on the licence… to “No super-strength beer, lagers or ciders of 6.5% ABV (alcohol by volume) or above shall be sold at the premises with the exception of Dragon Stout and Guinness Export beers.” The applicant’s agent, Frank Fender, told Bedford Borough Council’s licensing sub-committee (Thursday, January 29), that these “super strength” beers are not usually the “street drinkers’ choice of drink”. “They are they are widely consumed by members of the Afro-Caribbean community, and obviously this shop wants to be inclusive,” he said. This claim was backed up by Chris Hawks, the council’s licensing compliance and enforcement officer. He said: “What Frank says about Dragon Stout and Guinness Export is spot on.

For years, the word authentic was bounced around in the face of glitter and haze. That plan in Bedford sounds like authenticity to me. Similarly perhaps, crossing the Atlantic, Matty C has written some notes on the US beer scene for the supplier Get ‘Er Brewed‘s webpage and found something of a revivial going on:

Nostalgia is one play many breweries seem to be using. During my time in both Portland and in Colorado, (the latter of which I visit regularly to see family,) I noticed that many drinkers seem to be choosing the classics made by more established breweries. Allagash White, the Belgian style witbier from the brewery of the same name wasn’t just on tap everywhere in Portland, but it felt like everyone was drinking it too. The beer carries the kind of hushed reverence that money can’t buy, and demonstrated to me why establishing a core beer as part of your brewery’s identity is essential for longevity.

This is quite a reversal as, you will recall, in 2019 flagships were considered a dead concept: the “concept of a flagship in almost all ways maps to an earlier and obsolete way of thinking.” Futurisms rarely stand up to audit but it’s good to know, in an era too concerned with branding and other misinformations, that identity in the form of what is in the glass has made a come back. One never knows what is really going on otherwise. As with the news about the bills left unpaid and the suppliers left in the lurch by Rogue, James Beeson in The Grocer shared that the level of insolvency at failed Keystone Brewing had hit almost £15 million. Heavens! Remember when we all spoke of community?

Sticking with things in the USA, the feature in Pellicle is a portrait of Eckhart Beer Co. in NYC by Ariana DiValentino with its focus on central Euro lagers and foods that share the same theme:

The menu focuses primarily on Central European dishes that match the beers’ origins. There is a brat plate, and spaetzle gratin, and kartoffelpuffer (German-style potato pancakes), which you can order fried in oil or beef tallow. But there’s also a falafel dog, an Italian cold cuts sandwich, and a Moroccan-spiced ratatouille with vegan lemon yogurt. The variety of cultural influences feels very reflective of the brewery’s New York City context. “I wanted to offer food that supports the beer. It didn’t have to be Central European per se, but that felt like a natural foundation,”

Sounds like a great place for all. Not so in Japan where one establishment has embraced ageism:

The concept of age restrictions and minimum requirements is commonplace around the world. But have you ever heard of an establishment imposing a maximum age limit? Now, a Tokyo chain pub has set a ban on older customers – in order to try to maintain the raucous, fun atmosphere for which it is known. Tori Yaro Dogenzaka is an izakaya (an affordable Japanese pub) situated in Japan’s capital city. This year, the establishment propped up a sign outside the entrance, informing customers of the new rules. The sign said: ‘Entrance limited to customers between the ages of 29 and 39. This is an izakaya for younger generations. Pub for under 40s only.’

I wasn’t wanting to go there anyway. Screw them. That’s it. As as I sulk in a mode Japonais, please check out Boak and Bailey who continue to post every Saturday. 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.