Pubs, Tavs, Diners and Restaurants

Your Sweaty Dog Days Edition Of These Beery News Notes For Mid-August

Well, it’s gone quiet around here again. The Euro-branch of the clan has moved to the other end of the lake before taking the skies and heading home. But first they took in a game Wednesday between the Jays and the Sox, as illustrated. $17.28 CND with a bit of a tip for that Bud. Lordy. No wonder I stick to high end rare vintage ports. Long time readers will recall that we are a Red Sox family due to the Boston branch of the clan so it’s good that the seats up there are empty around the fam. Hissing carries only so far when one is in enemy territory.

Enough of that. There must be some news to share. Let’s see. First up, how about some old beer… really old beer:

A sealed bronze bottle placed in a tomb in northwestern China more than 2,000 years ago has yielded something archaeologists rarely encounter: not a stain or microscopic residue, but 3.74 liters of surviving liquid.

And upon the news of some not quite as old but still old beer, Liam shared some fine responsive research related to the discovery of a bottle of Guinness in a 162 year old shipwreck and word of some plans to recreate something from the contents:

As to the beer itself, a lot has been made in the recent news regarding the plans to harvest the yeast from the bottle in order to rebrew the beer. This would be impossible to do from just regenerating or even matching the yeast for a number of reasons, not least being that it probably contained not one yeast strain but several, including less conventional brewing yeasts such as Brettanomyces and Lactobacillus… In order to explain why the yeast is just a small, if important, factor in the beer’s recipe we need to look at what exactly constituted Guinness Extra Stout in the 1860s, and luckily, we have a good and reliable second-hand source for that…

Liam goes into some detail to show how both the ingredients and processes of the time differ greatly from those used today making a replication perhaps impossible. Gotta love a post with twelve footnotes and the trust they provide.

And with similar authenticity, Boak and Bailey are fine purveyors of quality positivity and that integrity serves them well in their piece this week on how they have seen some solid professional behaviour from the staff in pubs lately:

We’ve long said that the main thing we want from bar staff is to feel as if they’re engaging with us like fellow human beings. We try not to be annoying, no doubt we fail from time to time, and no doubt customers collectively are an infuriating bunch. But people who are able to come to each interaction with the slate wiped clean, assuming the best, make for the best bar people… [W]e also get the impression that this particular barperson is adept at matching the energy of the customer: want to talk, they’ll talk; want to keep it business-like, that’s fine, too. This is another great skill and one that requires a significant degree of social sensitivity.

That’s a great point. Both the high energy guy and the quiet inside joke clique can get irritating quickly. Staying with news from the tavern, there’s some surprising legal news out of Germany as youth may not be having its way any longer:

The German government said Wednesday it would scrap a legal provision that has allowed 14- and 15-year-olds to purchase and consume alcohol with their parents. The government said the abolition of so-called “accompanied drinking” would “protect young people from the considerable health and social effects of alcohol consumption”. The minimum age for drinking beer, wine and champagne is 16, rising to 18 for spirits and other harder drinks.

Fourteen? Just to be clear, a form of this sort of thing in the family home is also one of the little known permissive laws of Ontario* – but I don’t know anyone who would exercise that right with 14 year olds. Full disclosure: I assure all that I am quite sure I fully abided by the law with the greatest care during the tender teen years in my own life. Definitely.

Note #1: a desperate attempt to coat tail on yesterday’s PR?

What else is going on? Well, out on the road… or rather the rails… Ron’s maple-laced holidays in central Canada with his sons continues with reports from both Ottawa and Montreal published now. It’s always interesting to experience your area through the eyes of another. At one of the capital’s Royal Oak pubs he found yet another disappointing IPA:

We kick off with onion rings and poutine. Which are pretty good. After the first round I switch to whisky. I’ve had enough of hazy IPA. “All the IPAs seem to be sludgy here in Canada.” I say forlornly. “That’s what the kids want nowadays.” Andrew replies. “They could have at least one normal IPA for oldies like me.” “Any excuse to switch to whisky, eh, Dad.” Alexei remarks cynically. “It’s their fault for an uninspiring beer selection.” “Not yours for being a pisshead?” Alexei asks. “Fuck off.”

He’s encountered the sludge at a number of spots. The trail of sludge, this vacation of his. Educational for we Canucks, as The Bard hissell would have wanted.

Note #2: is “mid-strength” some PR committee’s phrase for “weaker”?

Now some politics. First, click for a “no standing pub” joke. See, people are reacting to suggestions that “standing pubs” or “vertical drinking” in London get banned. I think the phrase really means “standing around outside the pub while drinking” pubs but happy to be corrected. Speaking of correction, Westminster City Council has released a myth bustin’ communiqué:

You may have read media reports suggesting Westminster City Council is planning to ban people from standing up in pubs, or ‘vertical drinking’. This is completely untrue. There is not, and never has been, a plan to stop people standing in pubs to have a drink. We want people to enjoy our fantastic pubs and bars, and we want them to do that safely. Our licensing consultation is asking people about the best way to ensure our venues can serve the millions of people who visit London and the West End every year.

Note: the word “in” is carrying some weight there in that press release. What about out on the pavement? The Telegraph‘s daily newsletter included some responses on the issue this week including these two observations:

Alan Hanna added: “Some of us have spent the best hours of our lives standing outside pubs moving between groups of friends, sharing rounds, smoking and having a wonderful few hours to let off steam before going home. I am so pleased that my adult children and their wives enjoy the same. This is one of the highlights of London.”

Not everyone was a fan, though. One reader countered: “Pavement boozing directly outside a pub is one thing but, human nature being what it is, people push the boundaries, literally and metaphorically. The anti-social aspect affects nearby residents, and why should their quality of life be considered less important?”

Being dull and helpful (in addition to sludge brewers) we don’t do this in Canada. I have done it myself, however, in Syracure NY in the before times when one went south for fun and freedom but it’s a bit unnerving when you don’t know the unwritten rules about when and where it is OK and when it’s not.

And still more sides of the politics of beer have been discussed on both sides of the Atlantic this week. In England, real or cask ale has become associated with the right wing of the political spectrum. With a H/T to David**, Michael Deakin of Caskapital found an ominous note in an SNL UK skit:

The clip showed a dystopic future in which Nigel Farage had become Prime Minister. He sat at a desk in No.10 flanked by St. George’s cross’ and to his right was a hand pull beer engine, from which he helped himself to a decidedly flat looking pint of golden ale. Whilst this scene is disturbing in a number of ways, the presence of the hand pull really made me think. How often have I seen Farage portrayed like this, and when did real ale become an icon of fascism?

Err… cause fascists prefer their symbols and icons given the associated distasteful substance? And at the western end of the USA, Jeff discussed the holding of a political event at a local bewery for a national Republical leader and Trump ally:

…Trap Door is not some rando brewery. They are a darling of the increasingly robust Vancouver corps of breweries, and have won tons of medals, including back-to-back golds in the fresh hop IPA category at GABF. Whether this will, ahem, take the shine off the brewery long term is something we’ll have to wait and see. Many of you know my politics, which I haven’t hidden. Nevertheless, I’m a little uncomfortable with the idea that the mere act of hosting a political event becomes such a polarizing act for a brewery. They have become community meeting places, which is fantastic, honestly. Hosting political events is a democratic act, and I am loath to punish a brewery for it. But in this case, the owner is a political actor, and he’s using his brewery to advance a political agenda.

I don’t know if I can separate the two like that. But that’s me. First, I don’t really care what the politics of a brewery or pub owner are… as long as they aren’t any sort of authoritarian dictatorial militaristic criminal cabalist of any stripe. I am also sure I do not want to share space with any political rally that doesn’t not match my personal preferences – and even then the rally, if we are being honest, really should be held someplace else. Frankly, I don’t care for any sort of group meetings taking over part of a pub or restaurant or shop or, you know, parking lot in which I find myself located at any particular time. Pubs especially need to be reserved for disorganized noisy wild drunken fun or quiet less drunken yet still disorganized fun – or, sure, disorganized events falling somewhere in between. But no pamphlets. No speeches. No thanks.

Speaking of the holding of little meetings to get everyone on the same page, this preemptive messaging over on LinkedIn from the BA last Tuesday was pretty odd. Apparently anticipatory angst about Wednesday’s Gallup polling on US alcohol use was expected to be so neg for the booze trade that the poll needed to be discredited before it was released! As you know, rooting for booze is a weird thing… but if that thing is your job I guess it’s gotta be your thing, right? Still, for a booster organization that’s seen consumption of its particular sector of booze drop almost 20% since 2019, it’s also a pretty weak stance. I mean, I have been on trade association boards, radio station boards and counselled many government and administrative bodies and I can’t imagine ever recommending directly mocking obviously correct stats. Find another way in at the root cause, if you need to. Or accept the numbers and advise accordingly, perhaps. It’s big boy pants time. But in the booze trade? Never.

Finally, here’s an interesting development. We are told that as of 2 August, the EU Artificial Intelligence Act now has new provisions at Article 50 which obliges those using A.I. (to develop text and images along with other content) to disclose that activity if the context is available in Europe. Even if the author isn’t in Europe. For me, that means I have to look out for readers like The Brew Nut to make sure things stay pure. So… could cutting an pasting wicked (pittui!!!) A.I. text in one of the paragraphs quoted above leave me at risk under the new law? Well, fortunately for me acknowledgement is something of a defence, if not an excuse, so I will be adding my note right here right now to confirm that I have no idea if the above cited sources violate EU law but offer no comfort that they don’t. In fact, I don’t believe any of it. Not a word. You shouldn’t either. Beware! Take heed! Govern yourselves accordingly.

That’s it for now. Another shortish week as I gained back the full array on napping spots in the house. Until next week, as I doze please 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 “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. 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.

*Section 34 of the Liquor Licence and Control Act, 2019 prohibits underage drinkgin but states this at subsection 34(5): “This section does not apply to the consumption of liquor by a person under 19 years of age who consumes liquor in a residence or in a private place as prescribed by the regulations, if the liquor was provided to the person at that residence or private place by a parent of the person or by a person having lawful custody of the person.“
**And for a rare triple play!

The Perhaps Abbreviated “Who’s That In The Kitchen?” Edition Of Your Beery News Notes

You know how it goes. August means guests. So I have not been as idle as it relates to the beer reading and the beer writing. These are pastimes which demand a special type of slacking. One cannot succeed as a dedicated beer scribbler without setting aside the time to be inordinately idle, what in any other pursuit appears to be the disfunctions of a wastetrel.* Plus, when not hosting I have spent much of the week working with the twine and the secaturs. That right there? That was my view Wednesday morning. A deeply woven mess of tomato plants stuck on hands and knees in the patch where I had poured four year old kitchen compost. Lordy, how it grew. Now the tangle has been untanged and all they need to do is produce fruit. Let’s go bees!

There was possibly tougher news in Bigger Ag than my aching back from Stan this week as the forest fires in the Pacific Northwest are threatening the hop crop:

Monday, the Oregon Hop Growers Association issued a press release that began… “’After a few tough years with hop acreages declining as beer sales dipped, Oregon hop growers are especially excited about this year’s hop harvest. The mild spring resulted in ideal growing conditions for the hops, meaning we’re expecting great flavor and aroma,’ said Michelle Palacios, executive director of the Oregon Hop Growers Association.” What could go wrong? Smoke, as growers and brewers learned with the 2020 harvest. Wildfires in Central and Eastern Washington triggered an air quality alert in the Yakima Valley this week. It is also higher today in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, although forecasts are for more favorable conditions soon.

With that difference of focus, I’d say Stan’s concerns might not lead to the hoped for great flavour. Drew, exercising his wag skills, suggested “Celebration might have to be a rauchbier this year.” Speaking of is / not is, Pellicle‘s feature this week is by Martin Dixon, the story of one of the more venerable NA beers, Maisel’s Weisse Alkoholfrei which has been produced for over twenty-five years:

Instead of choosing between the two commonly used methods to create alcohol-free beer—removing alcohol by an industrial process, which is straightforward but can be harsh; or stopping fermentation early, which gives the beer a fuller flavour but leaves a sweet, worty taste—the brewery used both approaches. Today, two beers are brewed (one a dealcoholised version, and one a lower-strength version) and blended to create Maisel’s Weisse Alkoholfrei. The beer is now roughly a third of Maisel’s business, and its surprise success has given the brewery new financial freedom.

Relatedly perhaps, here’s a new angle on beer and health – beer mats for better mental health:

Man Time’s Flip the Mat campaign is now under way, with the first mats being delivered to pubs, clubs and community venues across Stone and the surrounding area. Volunteer Allan has been visiting local venues with the mats, including The Poste of Stone in Granville Square, where Man Time holds its weekly meetings. One side of each mat displays the Flip the Mat campaign message. Turning it over reveals information encouraging people to talk about the difficulties they may be facing. The reverse also carries a QR code linking directly to the Man Time website, where people can find details about the group and a range of local and national support services.

And on a similar theme, in the weaving back and forth on the question of booze and health, the question of merriment as health pops up as a foundational principle on the pro side. They never seem to interview the hungover** when making these arguments but it has gotten to the point that The New York Times itself has undertaken some investigative journalism on the point sending Ginia Bellafante into the heart of Bourbon country:

“You’d be surprised by how many people around here don’t drink,” our waitress shared with us later. My dinner companion worked for the Louisville mayor’s office. She had given up drinking several years ago in the name of better sleep and general well-being, leaving her vulnerable to the joke that she was part of the problem in a city where the national retreat from alcohol was driving a list of anxieties. I had come to Louisville to gauge the collateral effects of this growing aversion, a reality propelled by science, supported by surveys and punctuated by my own experience as a host who had noticed that a longstanding dictum of entertaining — the allotment of a half bottle of wine per guest — no longer applied. For all the benefits of cutting back, certain rituals were vanishing…

The Beer Nut, of course a ritualist if ever there was one, is having none of it and took the time to examine the offerings from Marks and Sparks this week, with some observations on the claims made on the packaging:

First it’s an extremely straight-up Helles Lager, stating what it is in large capital letters on the 33cl can. It’s brewed by Cornish brewery Harbour, which does a few contractual things of this nature, as I recall. 4.5% ABV seems a little inauthentically low, and it poured without a proper head, which it definitely should not. There isn’t much aroma, but it seems broadly on-style: a snap of cracker with a hint of lemon zest. I was thirsty, so half the glass went in one gulp… In all honesty, how it tastes was not a major concern for me, but out of respect for you, specifically, I will say that it’s very plain stuff. There’s a slightly hot fruitiness, suggesting the same sort of careless brewing flaw that made it headless, but you’d barely notice that. I can’t remember how much it cost, but I’m assuming not much. Drink it cold; lie back and think of anywhere but Germany.

Cold is good. Are we prisoners of the archetype? Is a pub ever modern? To me a pub needs pubbiness or its a taproom, bar or gastro to one degree or another. B+B, however, have been more seriously on the case and reported back on refurbishment and what is considered by the redevelopers as key these days:

… when they do try to lean into the history of their buildings, they do so without much taste or sensitivity. These days, that means whacking “Ye Olde Pube” and “Gin Emporium” on the walls in bad fonts that come preloaded with Microsoft Word. The other key component of a modern old-fashioned pub is, of course, decent beer. The Kings Head, The Crown Inn and The Pembury all have interesting ranges, served in great condition, often in particularly nice glassware. The 10-sided 1930s-style pint glasses with which The Kings Head relaunched seem to have disappeared (stolen, we assume) but there are a couple of authentic 1930s half-pint glasses in the same style.

As you think on that, here’s some notes:

Notes #1: “…and commissioned by AB InBev…”
Notes #2: Half price beer with a Mitch obit.
Note #3: A beer drinking elk?!?!

Ron himself as well as his sons have traveled to my fair neck of the woods – or at least he’s been neck adjacent – recently and has begun to report on holidaying in a forest fire smoke zone, wanders Toronto, finds a diner that also sells gin and goes to a cellar dweller’s ball game where Chicago beats the hometown Blue Jays badly:

It’s another high-scoring game. The White Sox get five runs in one innings. Then three in another. Then four. The Blue Jays hit several home runs. But with no-one on the bases, they only get a single run… A bloke a few seats along does try to get a chant going a few times. “Let’s go Blue Jays.” He shouts. It’s not the most inspiring of calls. A couple of times he does get others to join in. Until the stadium starts blasting music out again. With the Blue Jays way behind, the crowd starts thinning out after the seventh innings. We leave during the last innings. Mostly because I wanted to be sure of getting to the Steam Whistle Brewery over the road before it closes.

Ron and Sons will report on stops further east in the coming days.

The Guardian published a very handy primer on how the UK is going through a shrinkflation related to beer – now dubbed a but clumsily as “drinkflation” even though it does not relate to all drinks – and especially handy as it relates to the economics involved:

I don’t know what that amounts to. For a 4.0% beer it’s about 41p a pint. Whereas a 3.4% beer is subject to a duty of just £9.96 per litre of pure alcohol, or about 19p a pint.
That’s quite a difference, but what if people don’t like Carling’s new weak beer? The company claims the 3.4% version actually ranked “higher for overall taste” in consumer tests. It also laid the groundwork for the reduction by introducing a stronger and more expensive Black Label version in February, at 4.7%, creating a “value-premium price ladder” within the brand.
Do say: “Alcohol duty must strike a difficult balance between raising revenue and improving health.”
Don’t say: “3.4%? My urine is stronger than that.”

But, see, you said it, Ms. G. You can’t really say “don’t say it” and then go ahead and say the exactly that one thing you say you shouldn’t say. Really. You might say there ought to be a law about these things in Britain but we also learned in that self same publication this week that:

Parliament is “Britain’s last alcohol-soaked workplace” where MPs are offered free drinks as early as midday despite alcohol-related scandals, a report has revealed. Drinking is commonplace and some MPs have had their stomachs pumped after consuming so much alcohol that they ended up in hospital, one disclosed.

Yikes! So… maybe less booze is not such a bad thing in one’s glass. Is there less booze in Maryland? Michael Stein in DC Beer went on an interesting investigation and reported out this week on the unused 100,000 barrels of capavity left behind when Flying Dog was bought by FX Matt who shut down the Maryland brewery and moved production to Beautica… err… Utica, New York***:

So, did those 100,000 barrels of 2017 go to the macros? Some did, some didn’t. The Brewers Association of Maryland’s latest data has just under 7,500 barrels brewed in Frederick County in 2025. That’s less than 10% of what Flying Dog was brewing by themselves when they left the state. Maryland not only lost 100,000 barrels of Flying Dog, they lost DuClaw, and much of Guinness’ Baltimore Blonde production. In The New Brewer, DuClaw was listed in 2020 as brewing 18,250 barrels. That is a sizable amount for the majority of 9,578 craft brewers today, who annually make significantly less than that.

That’s it for now. Not a big week, I gotta get back out to the yard. As I struggle, please 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 “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. 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.

*So you know what that means? Yup, extended quotes. Cut and past. That’s my game. Anything to nudge the weekly work past 2300 words. There, 1322 words to Tuesday at 7:45 am. It’s all on track.
**As I tell the kids, one borrows joy from the future to have boozy joy in the present. With diminishing effect over time.
***I keep telling them that I have the perfect slogan for the city!

The “Gee, I Wonder What Mbappé Is Up To Now…” Edition Of The Beery News Notes

Well, it’s done. I enjoyed it all. And I am glad it is done. In fact, on reflection, I like how the World Cup becomes a process of a sparcer and sparcer schedule that end in a boring game. You are left without any wish for more. Time to go hang out in the garden and study for my second career as a hand model. You know, the first two rounds of the group stage are the best, when the players aren’t exhausted and the managers are’t scared of losing. Was it worth it all for the US beer trade? BMI reports:

Even with auspicious weekend timing of July 4, big celebrations for America’s 250th and the World Cup tournament taking place on US turf, total beer $$ fell 1.1% and volume dropped 2.4% for 1 week thru July 5 in Circana off-premise channels.

Soooo…. maybe not so much.* Final numbers yet to come. Next up? It’s wheeeeeeee…. baseball all the way to the first frosts. And hand modeling. [BTW, before we move on, Eoghan has mapped his 48 multi-national stops around Brussels if you want to recreate his World Cup hometown studies.]

And now…. it is official! Beer blogging is back baby – as The Tand has declared:

Ah the good old days. Back then when I used to post a lot – and I’ve been having a look at my old stuff and you should too – it’s great stuff and a lot of it short. A remark about a pub or two, or a beer, or a little industry comment. Maybe a longer piece about a more complex subject. Much more enjoyable and frankly a lot easier to do. It doesn’t take much to see my enthusiasm for blogging has slowly but surely declined and actually I’d like to arrest that. I’ll never get back to the heady days of hundreds of posts, but on the basis of little and often I think I might manage a few more.

Makes sense. We yearn for the recent past. [In fact, our own youngest has dug out one of the old digital cameras from the dawn of this very blog to take out to the bars when she’s on a crawl with her gang.] And just to prove his point, The Tand posted his thoughts about one scene he encountered him this very week:

Speaking to various landlords and landladies too – even handed me – the picture is again rather mixed with pubs with beer gardens or at least usable outdoor space doing well, though inside has been quieter. Just as you’d expect I suppose. My own observation backs this up. Approaching pubs I’ve noted the busy exteriors and the not so busy interiors. It is difficult to tell whether those who would normally sit inside have just decanted to the outside, but chatting to the bosses, trade is slightly up with a noted shift to lager, soft drinks and rosé wine.

Boak and Bailey, leaders of this retro-nuevo, came to a similar conclusion from the different entry point of two particular beers that sat before them – as they explained in their beers of the weekend post:

They were both very chicken-soupy-looking, and both had that familiar combination of fruitiness and onion. The stronger beer had quite a burn, too, almost as if it had been dosed with raw chilli pepper. But, for all that, we enjoyed them, because they were also (a) cold and (b) bitter – perfect for yet another warm evening.

Time for some money talk. If you have a cellar, there is a very good reason why it makes sense to stock away bottles there to age as opposed to buying them later when you want to drink them, as explained by Sara Danese at Everyday Drinking this week:

A good barrique costs around €1,000 and can be used new or seasoned. Assume it’s used once: after losses you get 200 liters of wine, so the barrel cost is €5 per liter. Labour and electricity add €0.40 per liter. Storage costs €6 per month per barrique — about €0.40 per liter per year. Financing adds another €0.30 per liter if you borrow at 5% on €5.80 (barrel + handling + storage). That’s roughly €6 per liter, or €4.50 per bottle. If you use the barrique three times, the additional cost drops below €2 per bottle. Bottle aging is cheaper but still significant. Storage might cost €6 per month per pallet (600 bottles), or €0.12 per bottle per year. The real cost is the so-called opportunity cost: if a wine could sell now for €10 but doesn’t, the producer must finance that cash flow, adding roughly €0.50 per bottle in interest. The total cost for an extra year in bottle is around €0.62 per bottle.

Speaking of the economics, bottled Old Speckled Hen will be a thing of the past in the not so distanct future and Le Protz explains why with characteristic restraint:

Writing in What’s Brewing, CAMRA’s Roger Protz called the move “a shock decision” resulting from the “rapacious profiteering of giant supermarkets”. He added: “Old Speckled Hen is one of Greene King’s major brands but the income from sales to the off-trade is tiny as a result of the deep discounts demanded by the retailers. “Greene King owns a massive estate of 2,600 pubs, restaurants and hotels. It supplies those outlets with draught and packaged beers.

And in a piece pushing 2,500 words, Laura Hadland has explored in depth the pros and cons of how some smaller British breweries are taking advantage of the tied networks yet still retaining a degree of their independence, all as illustrated by a deal entered into by Jamie Lawson of the SALT Beer Factory :

In 2021, [Molson Coors] approached Jamie, with a view to distributing some independent craft beers through their wholesale network. An agreement was struck to trial the arrangement in bars in the north of England. At first, two beers were used for the pilot – SALT’s flagship session IPA, Jute, and its NEIPA, Huckaback. The experiment went so well that Molson Coors were keen for a national roll out. Jamie jumped at the opportunity and ultimately the partnership was invigorated by the signing of a 3 year deal in 2023. … The macros want the indie brewers to retain that independence. Their authenticity is the thing that makes the relationship profitable for both sides. But it also flags a potential downside. Some drinkers, seeing SALT or Northern Monk beers so widely available, think that the breweries have been taken over and worry that the beer’s quality will change for the worse.

Excellent stuff. Similarly excelling is Lars who wrote about an eastern Latvian farmhouse style from the Latgale district for Craft Beer & Brewing, explaining the locale this way:

Latgale is somewhat different from the rest of Latvia. It had an earlier stint as part of Russia in the 16th century, and the people here speak a variant of Latvian that the rest of Latvia sometimes has a hard time understanding. Latgale also has a larger Russian population than the rest of Latvia—including a group known as the Old Believers, who broke away from the Russian Orthodox Church to escape religious persecution in Russia centuries ago. Today, the Russians in Latgale mainly make moonshine, while the farmhouse brewing is very clearly Latvian.

We also have Old Believers in Canada, a community that first moved here in the 1920s. Not sure about their moonshining. Lars also explained that the local malt drying technique in their saunas:

Their saunas included a small hatch in the ceiling, which they would open when drying the malt; that hatch allowed the smoke and heat to waft upward into the drying box (āznīca) on the floor above.

I mention this as it is necessary to remind folk that not all ale was smoky in the past before a certain point. As shared in 2014, smoky ale – at least in medieval England – was considered a fault and other means of drying the malt were available, like in kilns or cooling bread ovens where the heat and smoke were separated. People in the past were resourceful and could control variables through trusted technologies to suit local taste. So both sauna smoked or pale sweet kilned malt were possibilities. Just don’t dry it over ferns. That’s just gross.**

Note #1: “…would you care for some blouge?”
Note #2: Ballast Point’s whimper soon to be whimped.
Note #3: Jeff provides a fine remembrance of the late Alan Sprints.***
Note #4: Gary reported in from Oxford, England.

And Max has reported in from the Czech Republic describing a march of more than 20 kms to put himself in the comforting arms of Pivovar Kladno Kročehlavy, a walk he undertook on a tender ankle hoping to find a few beers along the way only to find many spots on his path had shut:

I don’t care, most of the way is either along fields or in the shade of trees, far from any roads, and once I set my pace, I soon enter an almost meditative state, with my thoughts running free while I pay close attention to everything that surrounds me, sounds included—birds, trees, the wind, a creek, the rhythm of my footsteps, the flowers, the houses and the few people that cross my path. That idyll lasts until I enter Kladno, under the watchful eyes of the cooling towers of the local heating plant, and the route takes me through the remnants, if not the carcass of what once was one of the hearts of Czechoslovak heavy industry. It is quite disheartening, but it doesn’t affect my spirits, because I’m getting closer to my destination. My legs are beginning to feel heavy, but they quicken the pace regardless, because they reward is near.

And, closer to his home, Retired Martin shared some shocking personal admissions this week:

Back in Sheffield from a cruelly curtailed Cask Camino (CCCC), a man’s thoughts turn to tomato gose. I constantly read how exciting (ugh) the UK beer scene (ugh) is these days, how folk who drink Bass are to be ridiculed etc etc. But can you be a proper country without a brewer of alcoholic gazpacho ? I think not… We don’t drink at home, bar Mrs RM occasional pint of Malbec with Crispy Beef, so I rarely visit the specialist offies. But I was sad to see the closure of longstanding Beer Central mentioned by Chat GPT.

I hadn’t expected that a pub man was practically dry at home but it makes sense. Focus. Makes more sense than any tomato gose did, too. Speaking of odd drinks, The Beer Nut encountered a Triple IPA Quebecois – as if it was 2014 or something – and his conclusions neatly identify a number of issues:

You get a dash of vermouth or madeira in with your hops here, and I’m not convinced that that’s a good thing. The sticky finish coats the palate with marmalade and triple sec: Paddington’s breath on Saturday night. I guess it passes muster as a triple IPA, but it tastes a little elderly and overwrought. Maybe as an end-of-the-night finishing beer, but even then I suspect it’s better in smaller doses than this. I don’t make a habit of buying the double-digit-priced cans, and this is a prime example of why. It’s just not worth the risk. Beer of better quality is available from breweries much closer to home at significantly more reasonable cost.

Conversely to such exactitude – but sadly customary – a certain type of inflationary take plays an unfortunately regular role in drinks reporting. So it was with some suspicion that I met the headline at BrewBound “Gen Z’s Moderate Drinking Reputation ‘Conclusively Debunked,’ per IWSR Survey” this week. The IWSR is/was International Wine and Spirits Record, a London based publisher of trade data and opinion founded in 1972 that is now known as IWSR Drinks Market Analysis Limited. BrewBound led its summary of the report with the statement “The bev-alc industry can no longer blame Gen Z for slowed sales…” but, oddly, James Bayley (no relatyon) in the Drinks Business quoted IWSR president and managing director Marten Lodewijks who said:

Although Gen Z participation has risen, the generation continues to approach alcohol differently from its predecessors. More Gen Z consumers reported drinking cocktails during the past six months than any other age group, with 84% choosing the category. They were also the most likely to follow government health guidance on alcohol consumption, with 49% saying they paid attention to official advice. The generation was also more inclined to drink in larger social groups, with 18% reporting their most recent drinking occasion involved five or more people…. ****

Which means… they drink less leading… to slower sales. Unless they are still buying but just sticking it in the shed. Is that it? The study seems to mix participation rate (not much lower) with consumption levels (lower). Leading to the headline… I suppose.*****

That’s all for now… well, not counting the footnotes below. As you chew your way through those over the next few days, please 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 – but it may not be pay per view. 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.

*Yet locally… also according to BMI: “…Burke Distributing sold 600 bbls of Tennent’s Lager in Boston, 10x its annual vol, as the Scottish “Tartan Army” descended on the city. Burke saw a 20% vol lift for Jun, with on-prem up 46% and draft up 53%. “The two weeks the Scots were playing were two of the largest weeks we have had in decades,” said chief growth officer Kristen Burke. At the Sam Adams downtown taproom across town, which almost ran out of beer on the first weekend, “we were pouring them a Sam Adams Boston Lager every 12 seconds,” said ceo Jim Koch. In Philadelphia fans drank 290K beers across six games in the stadium alone, FIFA reported.“
**See me in 2011: “In an edition of A Way to Get Wealth by Gervase Markham from 1668, a book first published in 1615 or about 200 years before the start date picked by Horst, we have an opinion on the preference for straw… and not just any straw: ‘ …our Maltster by all means must have an especial care with what fewel she dryeth the malt; for commonly, according to that it ever receiveth and keepeth the taste, if by some especial art in the Kiln that annoyance be not taken away. To speak then of fewels in general, there are of divers kinds according to the natures of soyls,and the accommodation of places-in which men live; yet the best and most principal fewel for the Kilns, (both tor sweetness, gentle heat and perfect drying) is either good Wheat-straw, Rye-straw, Barley-straw or Oaten-straw; and of these the Wheat-straw is the best, because it is most substantial, longest lasting, makes the sharpest fire, and yields the least flame…’ ” Note again. the Maltster is presumed to be a “she”!
***My interactions with Hair of the Dog twenty years ago were both entertaining and scientific. Ron Jefferies laughed out loud when I told him how the yeast had saved the day.
****Furthermore: “Lodewijks believes this reflects a long-term shift rather than a temporary response to economic pressures. “The number of people drinking remains consistent, but the frequency with which we drink and the amount we drink per occasion is dropping,” he said. “The moderation trend increasingly appears to be driven by lifestyle choices, resulting in a structural, rather than cyclical, change.” Again, they drink less.
*****All of which allows me to reference my quote of the week from an asrticle in June 29, 2026 issue edition of the The New Yorker, “Something Is Very Wrong with Modern Longevity Science” by Dhruv Khullar describing how data can be extremely skewed yet accepted: “Okinawa was the site of a devastating American bombing campaign during the Second World War; much of its infrastructure and essentially all its civil records were destroyed. U.S. authorities reconstructed the civil registry by asking survivors to report their age, a process complicated by language barriers and a traditional Japanese calendar that differed from the Gregorian. The country’s postwar welfare system distributed some benefits based on age, and many Okinawans requested that their records be updated. There is a strong correlation between the number of requests made in a village and the supposed life span of its residents.” The longevity miracle of Okinawans is a fibber-fibber-onie based on fibby-bibsters.

Your Clear and Crisp Mid-July 2026 Beery News Notes For A Smoky Smoggy Thursday

Wednesday morning news said that Toronto had the worst air quality on the planet. Around here at the other end of the big lake, Tuesday at 11:30 pm was a bit nuts, too. Getting out of the car after picking up the kid from work, it was like I was leaning right over the BBQ as I was smoking ribs. Good enough reason to stay in and watch whatever was on TV yesterday afternoon. Oh, the Falklands Friendly was on. My linguistic imperialists against my hemisphere mates. Unlike others, I stuck to water and the other NA stuff myself.

You know, Eoghan has done an excellent bit of work with his series on the nations of the World Cup as can be spotted in his city of Brussels. He is coming soon to the conclusion and, on Tuesday, he turned to… Belgium itself! But where to look for the heart of Belgium in Brussels?

It was obvious. Here is a street, a narrow alley that rolls down a steep incline from Gare Centrale before skirting the Grand Place and emptying out behind Boulevard Anspach, charting centuries of Brussels history, architecture and patrimony. A street that might once have been the core of a Brussels nightlife district centred around the Îlot Sacré (the Holy Islet) – frequented by Jacques Brel, Jan Mulder, and the rest of the city’s post-war demi monde – but which has long since been converted into a holding pen, a quarantine zone, for the tourists that visit the city so that the rest of us can get on with our lives unencumbered by their nuisances.

And, keeping with the games, Boak and Bailey looked back to the World Cup of 1966 and found the promise of a financial boom from those games faded fast:

In 2026, it’s quite normal for pubs to have television screens and for people to gather there to watch big football matches together. Last night, even our local craft beer taproom was rearranged to accommodate an enormous screen. Back in 1966, though, the idea of TVs in pubs was fairly new, and pubs with TVs were relatively unusual. As a result, one story at the time was about how the tournament was causing pubs to lose business.

This is something that seems to have repeated now sixty years later in Toronto: “… demand for accommodations in the city is down as more rooms stood empty during the first two weeks of the World Cup than in the same time last year….” The Guardian reports things have gone a bit better for British pubs if card use stats are to be trusted:

Pubs have experienced the biggest boost, thanks in part to football fans taking advantage of extended opening hours, Barclays’ consumer spending report found. England’s group stage victory over Panama emerged as the busiest day of 2026 so far, with takings five times higher than the daily average for the year. On a year-on-year basis, England’s draw with Ghana resulted in the biggest uplift, as card users in pubs spent 244% more than they did on the same day in 2025, possibly because of a relative lack of action that gave fans time to go to the bar. The round of 16 victory over Mexico registered a 201.5% increase, measured over Sunday and Monday to reflect the game kicking off in the small hours.

US sales also have increased but by a much more modest 5.5%. But at least there seems to be actual interest… as opposed to the new beer out of Belarus:

“Minsk Capital,” whose design incorporates Belarusian state symbols, received contradictory reviews from buyers. Some consumers praise the drink, while others, on the contrary, criticize it for “excessive lightness and dilution.” “Light beer water from Trokhsosensky, but without the taste of socks and other drawbacks,” user Dmitry shared his opinion on the website of the “Krasnoye & Beloye” online store.

Speaking of authoritarian regimes, this week’s story in The Times on the health and safety record at BrewDog* surprises me in a couple of ways:

The company complied with the enforcement orders in 2023, but former employees allege that previous instances, where rules were broken, were not reported to the authorities. These allegations are denied. Watt’s lawyer stressed that under the former chief executive’s tenure, BrewDog’s safety records were better than the industry average. With respect to the enforcement notices, the lawyer said that BrewDog worked constructively with the HSE, invested several millions of pounds, implemented required improvements and that both notices were complied with and subsequently closed.

First, if as the story says, Watt was terminated in 2024 it strikes me as odd that his personal lawyer in 2026 is commenting on corporate activities prior to the termination. Does he have access to the records? Second… again… where is Mr. Dickie in all this? Why is his view never sought – let alone his role referenced. He was CEO at the time in question.

UPDATE: Watching CBC late night news at the end of Wednesday, this story out of Nova Scotia caught my eye:

Alcohol producers in Nova Scotia will soon have more options to get their bottles and cans into the hands of consumers after the provincial government said Wednesday it would be loosening restrictions on the industry. Under the changes, wineries, breweries, cideries and distilleries will be allowed to cross-sell as of early August, meaning they can stock their stores with products from another producer. The second change, expected this fall, will allow producers to open retail stores without having a production facility on site.

This is a great set of regulatory amendments that should put a lot of good drinks into the hands of a lot of curious people. I really like the idea of local wines being sold in brewery taprooms for takeaway as well as vice versa.

Elsewhere, recent reputable talk of the pub in a Lidl grocery store in Northern Ireland inspired Cian Duffy of Every Pub in Dublin to explore the history of drinking in such shops due to the local licensing laws:

You can try cut the definition of a “supermarket pub” lots of ways, but I can assure you that Ireland has had basically all of them; with Dublin covering most bases. Even after deliberately excluding the extremely common (but not in Dublin) pubs-with-shops where the shop is now quite big, and weird cases like a co-op supermarket with an actual but rarely open bar (Inishkeel co-op Glenties); we have lots of examples. These include the direct equivalent of Lidl Dundonald – a supermarket chain opening a pub to run as an off-licence; but also a supermarket chain operating multiple pubs while awaiting redevelopment, a supermarket chain running supermarkets *in* pubs; and some edge cases including Lidl themselves holding planning and a licence in Dublin.

Interesting stuff! Here’s some notes:

Note #1: Laura has been keeping her eye on the Crooked House story.
Note #2: “Dangerously sessionable, as they say in all the best beer bars.”
Note #3: The best no-alcohol beers really should have a bit of alcohol.
Note #4: Clearly a definitive guide…

There were some interesting reactions to one brewery’s initiative on cask ale as discussed in the Morning Advertiser by Nick Payne of Brains:

…people want change. Now, if you sign a deal for four or five years, you’re not changing that keg range. What does cask give you? It enables you to change your beer and, potentially, you can have a different beer on every three days.

Nigel Stadler shared that when I left brewery sales in 2015 “a lot of cask customers were actually fed up with constant rotation of beers” and John Keeling added “Agree. I like staying on the same beer.” I would have thought that one of the great lessons of US craft beer’s years’ long contraction is that chasing the tail of change is not a winning route to building loyalty.

Aslo learning lessons, Alistair has done his “oft, when on my couch I lie” looking back at his recent trip home to the UK and has shared a few conclusions:

The main thought that has pottered and re-pottered around my noggin is just what a fantastic place the British pub is, whether that incarnation is in Inverness or Westminster. Of course every serious beer drinking country has it’s pubs, from Ireland to Czechia, and all stops in between, people love to drink in communal locations rather than just getting battered at home. Perhaps it’s that there isn’t an undercurrent of puritanical shame about going for a pint or two and just hanging out, there doesn’t need to be a purpose or an excuse to go for a drink. Anyway, back to British pubs – and of course this is all just subjective – but being, still, even at nearly 51, a rather introverted person, I find it interesting that going into a British pub is the easiest thing in the world for me.

Over at his newsletter, Knut has been praising the updated ninth edition of the Good Beer Guide Belgium by Tim Skelton – and shared this bit of a tid, more nug than nugget:

Yvan de Baets, brewmaster at Brasserie de la Senne, outlines the changes in the Belgian beer scene over the years since the last edition of the book. “There are way too many beers,” he says. “Around 40% of the brewers in Belgium are fake, contract-brewers or bierfirma’s….. By taking no entrepreneurial risks themselves, the imposters are further flooding an over-saturated market, hurting the real honest brewer…”

Never the fake, Jeff has been reviewing the latest policy statements from the succinctly named Oregon Health Authority (OHA) on risks associated with alcohol intake and sought to leverage what I might suggest is a difference without a distinction, finding space between these two statements:

“…the more alcohol one consumes, the greater their risk of cancer…“

“…risk may start to increase around one or fewer drinks per day…”

For him, the first from the OHA indicates “gone is any talk of moderation” while the second from the US Surgeon General indicates is “quite a bit different.” Me, with respect, I seem them as being pretty similar statements. The constituency that may inhabit any gap between the two would be those who drink less than a drink a day. Fortunately, that includes me according to my stats. Most people involved with beer at the key personal identifier level, however, aren’t like me. Jeff was clearly saying that the harms of booze are real, don’t get me wrong. But it is not the job of organizations like the OHA to balance health interests against the goals of other community sectors. Does one consider the possible slur by association against the poor pumpkin growers of the early 80s? No.

One last thing. Ron is treking through central Canada looking for the Laurentian Elite of beery experiences.

I’ve only been to Toronto before so I’m totally clueless about the other three cities. If you fancy meeting up and buying me some beer, get in touch. I’,m a sociable fellow and always enjoy meeting new people. Hopefully, it’s not going to be too warm in Canada. Andrew really doesn’t cope with heat well. When we were in Japan a few years back, several times I thought he was going to drop dead.

I gave him some suggestions (did I?… Irene‘s in Ottawa after that CFL game, Ron!) but do add a comments or two under his post if you can think of anything else he could do. Err… I hope the smoke clears…

That’s it for now. When next we meet, the World Cup will be a memory just like the breathable air of yore. As you think on that, please 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 – but it may not be pay per view. 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.

*PS: who cares…

Your Frankly A Bit Too Humid Post-Canada Day 2026 Doldrums Edition Of The Beery News Notes

Happy day after Canada Day! I’ve been hiding in the basement near the air conditioner outlet myself. Because Wednesday days off are the worst of the days off in the schedule, aren’t they. But it’s still a day off for so many so we should not begrudge the lack of mail delivery and all that does along with that. We should, in fact, celebrate the fact that our country was built on ale. It’s always worth raising the flag in honour of that. I stole this photo off the internets over twenty one years ago so I have no idea who the heck they are* but the bowties and that Budweiser is too sweet not to repeat.

What else is going on? First up, there was a good response to the latest edition of The Session hosted by Boak and Bailey on the topic of Martyn Cornell’s last book Porter and Stout, all leading to this encouraging summation of the discussion:

Martyn Cornell was not often wrong and enjoyed a scholarly argument. At the same time, our impression is that the truth was more important to him than his ego. With that in mind, we think he might be pleased to see people spotting gaps, arguing points and generally building upon a work that, as Phil Cook points out in his Session post, could never really hope to be a ‘complete history’. Writers like Liam K should take heart: this is not a full stop; there is still research to be done; and Martyn’s book presents many new avenues for investigation. We shouldn’t look at tomes like this and think there’s nothing left to write but, instead, let them inspire us.

I would add to my post that it was nice seeing Martyn identify that once upon a time this very part of the world had its own version of Porter.

And, yes, it is still the time of the World Cup. Canada is through to the round of 16 after a match with the 54th ranked team that was being reported as being very dull and disorganized until a fabulous goal made the team national heroes forever… apparently. Joining the ranks of the performative perhaps. Me, I’d save that label for something past the first came of a five round playoff myself – and I live in hope – but, suffice it to say, the World Cup has fostered some interesting thinking, such as in Boston as Lara Wildenberg for The Times discovered:

Much to the offence of the English, The Dubliner, which had been the epicentre of Scotland’s party in Boston, closed for the day of England v Ghana to recover after nearly a fortnight of the Tartan Army. At least one other bar closed straight after the match “to give staff some rest”. American women, however, have already expressed their grief at having to part with the Tartan Army. Talking to the women in the Boston area, I met one who started a relationship with a Scottish fan, becoming inseparable and sobbing when he left for Miami. They are hoping to continue long distance.

A less attractive sort of experience was described by Jen Blair who published an interesting piece on the approach of males at the table in beer judging this week:

I’ve judged with this specific judge before and enjoyed it. We were both first-year judges at GABF when we met. I was happy to see him at my judging table because I remembered him being warm, funny, knowledgeable, and thoughtful. He still is! Which is why I feel pretty comfortable inferring that, if you asked him, he would loudly and proudly say that he supports women and denounces sexism. You can imagine how shocked he would be to hear that he’s failing at a very basic level. Back at my judging table, while the judge was technically correct in agreeing with me, if I asked him why I thought the beer in question should not advance to the next round, he would not be able to answer truthfully. Why? He never listened to my answer. Actually, I never answered. I was interrupted before I could, and neither of the men with whom I was judging noticed.

Perhaps relatedly, I’ve always liked the formerly regular Sam Smith’s Christmas special box set offered at the LCBO most years years ago so I really can’t personally add anything to the better informed folk who found him a miserable brewery and pub chain owner. But… he has left us as reported in the York Press:

The owner and chairman of the Tadcaster-based Sam Smith’s Brewery was well-known for his ‘traditional’ policies as well as his private nature. Smartphones, children, dogs and swearing were all banned from his pubs across the country, policies which attracted much controversy but also much support. However, this was widely blamed for causing around half of the brewery’s 300-pub estate remaining empty. The role of the 81-year-old at the brewery has also been the subject of much speculation, with reports he has been seriously unwell for some time.

So… something of an anti-capitalist in his own way! The Tand has shared his thoughts on the man’s passing:

New to me yesterday was that he was an old Etonian, which I suppose explains a lot – or doesn’t depending on your point of view. While it has been seen before in smaller measures, there was a fair old outpouring of support from him from some former colleagues and pub managers, mostly along the lines of “If you obeyed the rules, you got on fine with him”. The consensus, such as I could make out is that those who fell foul of him didn’t think highly of him at all, while those who hadn’t did.

And Matt L adds an unexpected angle:

….Sam Smith’s owns the Fitzroy Tavern in Soho and for many years from the early 1990s it was the main meeting place of the capital’s Doctor Who fans. And there in their dozens they would drink cheap lager and plot and plan for the day they would take over the show and make it in their image. And, yes, the last three showrunners of Doctor Who – Russell T. Davies. Steven Moffat and Chris Chibnall – were regulars at the Tav. And sometimes, there may even have been a woman there, but sources vary as always.

Elsewhere, there are other correlations between brewing and… other sorts of bad stuff as illustrated in Mexico:

The problem, Gomez says, originated about a decade ago when Grupo Modelo, a Belgian-owned brewing company, installed a sprawling $328-million complex of hangar-like buildings on the outskirts of town. The third-largest brewery in Mexico, it uses over four times as much water as the entire population of Hunucmá. Soon after it was completed, residents began struggling to draw water from their pumps, and what water did trickle out contained evidence of salinization and agrochemicals, some of which have been linked to cancer.

So it’s not just A.I. data centres that are sucking the lands dry. Are we on the cusp of a larger eco-movement? And does the continuing slump make Mother Earth happy if, you know, we were to believe the big numbers from BMI this week:

Stack population growth on top of beer’s 5% volume decline in 2025 and average beer consumption per 21+ adult fell by a tuffer 5.6% in just one yr. The avg US legal-age adult consumed just below 22 gals of beer last yr, or about 4.5 cans per wk. Back in 2020, it was more like 5.3 beers per wk (tho a solid chunk of that was hard seltzer that yr). And 5 yrs before that, avg consumer per person per yr was up over 27 gals or 5 oz shy of a six pk per wk. So beer’s dismal 2025 capped a 16% drop in avg consumption over 5 yrs and over 20% decline in the last decade.

It will be interesting to see what BMI’s numbers** will look like deeper into the World Cup period – and see if they bear any resemblance to claims seemingly to the contrary. As an aside, it’s always interesting, too, to see “not beer” being categorized as “beer” to prop up actual beer. Do we expect beer trade consulto-experto-amateur MDs to issue responses claiming again that the numbers are rigged? Of course we do.

Speaking of “less than beer”, the continuing trend to make sure beer is less than beer continues as Jeff reports from the front lines of craft’s battle to emulate 1970s macro beers:

We certainly have abundant evidence that Americans love low(ish)-alcohol beer: most of the beer America drinks is light beer. There’s a fair amount of evidence that calories are a big part of drinkers’ motivation. Getting a beer down below ten calories an ounce really helps move product. Breweries post calories as prominently as they do alcohol content right on the package. So again, on paper, all of this suggests a potential new market in 3% beers. And yet, it just doesn’t quite make sense to me. I’ve been pondering this for some days now, trying to figure out where the disconnect lies. It has to do with price. Are Americans really going to pay $12-14 a six-pack to buy a 3% beer so they can drink three or four beers when they could buy a 5% beer at the same price point, drink two or three and save money.

Sounds like the consequence free marketing futurists (a separate but related class compared to consulto-experto-amateur MDs mentioned above) the have been let out again. But, as Jeff said, why pay more for less? Seems like a downward spiral. Do all these brand extensions and small shift variants bolster or weaken the trade? Is it possible that poor decision making has contributed to a consumer confusion that has turned into disinterest?

Perhaps relatedly, this is your annual reminder that if you ever hear a member of the consulto-class suggest exported beer has a great future in China as they periodically do, it might be wise to see how the wine trade has done. Consumption is at 70% of the 1995 rate of intake. A weak long term economic forecast could well be the main drivers but nationalism and a shrinking population is at play as well. The good news is that prices have dropped for everyone else. Here’s some notes:

Note #1: Lars explains Satan’s key role in brewing.
Note #2: “…Parisians… restricted from drinking alcohol in public…”
Note #3: Craft beer slump worries craft coffee.
Note #4: Is “drink whatever you like” bad for wine?
Note #5: Gary has expanded upon his cheese spread discussion.

OK, where were we? Cheese spread? Check. Humph dead? Check. Oh, did you know that there are wine danger zones?

Wine’s danger zones include long-haul flights, gallery openings, ethnic restaurants and other miscellaneous cultural events. All situations that could be improved by a glass of the good stuff – and all situations where it will most likely remain a distant dream. The seasoned wine professional knows when they are beat and will swiftly order a beer. But if the pleasures of the grain aren’t for you, is there a way to make things more bearable?

Are there beer danger zones? Around these parts, there’s always rye and ginger when all else fails. And from the law files, we hear of trouble in Thailand for the ownership of Singha:

A multi-billion-dollar beer dynasty is being torn apart by explosive allegations of assault and a century-old law that is designed to protect parents from neglectful children. The Bhirombhakdi family founded the Singha beer company and has an estimated wealth of $US1.75 billion ($2.5 billion). Forbes lists the family as Thailand’s 15^th richest. But allegations of sexual assault have prompted a mother to sue her own son in a rare case involving Thailand’s “ungrateful child” law.

Glad we don’t have a law under that name! Apparently it came into force in 1908 and reflects long-standing cultural values of Thailand that place strong emphasis on filial duty.

OK, enough. Some happier stories about pubs to round out the week. First, Imran Rahman-Jones has shared his experience getting view of Scotland’s play in a packed pub:

The Finch is buzzing nicely this evening. It’s warm, I can hear Friday after-work chatter from the garden as I enter, and there’s just space for one or two more tables before it’s standing room only. The sun is setting and the candles on each table are already lit, gently flickering and ready to welcome the night. There’s a sense of anticipation – not just for the start of the weekend, but because Scotland are playing in the World Cup. We manage to squeeze into a tiny table inside what must have been a storage cupboard at some point – The Finch is full of reminders of previous pubs in this building – but soon move for a better view of a screen.

And for Pellicle, we’ve been given a portrait by Fred Garratt-Stanley of a small English village enjoying a good beer revival:

There’s a train station, a post office, a tea room, and a stately home. The latter hosts Glynde’s primary claim to fame: the annual Glyndebourne opera festival, held since 1934, which sees scores of out-of-towners wearing black tie descend on the village every summer. Apart from that high-cultural aberration, this is twee English country living personified. On paper, Glynde really shouldn’t have one of the most exciting small rural beer scenes in the country. But it does.

And, finally, Katie on holiday in Spain has found her beer:

In all of our 330ml can adventures so far on this journey, the best by far has been Voll-Damm by Estrella Damm. We’ve been trying to buy local fridge-stockers where we can, but when you’re in Catalunya, that’s actually Estrella. So don’t berate me, this is me being accurate. You may be forgiven for thinking I’m on the payroll over at Damm. It’s true that they sent me to Primavera last year, and showed me around their brewery—just as Guinness did some years ago. I’m not too bothered about any perceived association with them because until I hear otherwise (and I do ask) Damm seem like a big beer company that actually looks after their people. And crucially: I like Estrella. It’s one of my favourite “everyday” beers, and it’s why I’ve chosen to promote them a couple of times. I don’t do that with brands I don’t rate. Whether you believe me or not, Voll-Damm is a delicious beer.

I’m convinced. If you are one of those who rummage in my recycling blue box by the curb in the middle of the night, you will find cans with DAB. A well placed tasty beer on a hot summer afternoon. What’s your version of the guilty pleasure big beer brew?

As you think on that over the week to come, 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. 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.

*I do know they are Neil and Larry… but which is which. And the image is from a 2005 post on the old alt blog Gen x at 40 where I had a bunch of other k0o-Kee Canada Day photos. Thank God for the Wayback Machine.
**And other data sources.

Welcome To Summer 2026! Here’s The Thursday Beery News Notes That I Dug Up

Taking a break from the TV and all the fitba, I was out and about this week doing a bit of visiting and looking for ice cream. Fields of grain. Sunny skies. I heard Indigo Buntings on separate country roads. Had me a mango sugar cone, thanks for asking. And no brain melting heat like the reports from elsewhere. Mr Protz took an keen interest in my dirt digging skills the other day, too. Know your strengths. Still, the World Cup is on and we can’t avoid it. As I type Canada is down 2-1 to the Swiss, previously only know for other things. [Will they be commiserating all night at The Duke?] This in The Athletic is my favourite World Cup headline so far, though my own effort deserves honourable mention. I have to thank Pellicle for the Fantasy Premier League pool that I’ve been playing for three seasons now. It’s certainly helped me recognize so many players in these games.

“But what about the beer news, Al?” I hear you say. Fine. First up, Lars has been at it again, making the scientific studies available to mere English majors like me:

Most people have probably heard that Indians in the Andes are divided between those who malt the maize for chicha, and those who chew it, letting enzymes in their saliva make the sugar. An interesting new paper has some surprising results that are relevant. They’ve looked at the human gene AMY1, which makes the amylase enzyme that breaks down starch. The more copies you have, it’s thought, the more enzymes in your saliva… Andean Indians have more amylase enzymes in their saliva than most human populations. Is that why they chose chewing as their saccharification method, and stuck to it until today? Because it works better for them? It seems to have been rare elsewhere, so that would make sense.

One thing that I note is that chewing and saliva are two separare functions. Could it be that chewing generates more saliva? Or is the crushing function itself beneficial to the enzyme’s effectiveness. I have visions of a spittoon collection system at some point becoming a social circle. [Ed.: …”aaannnnnd… that’s it for saliva based journalism for this week.”]

There was drier but still much well deserved excitement over the news on the next book by Andreas Krennmair on Bavarian White Beer. Me, I am as or more impressed with this announcement they made on Bluesky:

When Alan posted this snippet of a colorised drawing of the old Schneider taproom/beer hall in Munich, I loved the idea so much I turned it into a sticker design and got 500 of them printed.

“Cork Head!” forever! Speaking of new books, Eoghan highlighted recent books on Belgian beer:

I tell you what, Belgian beer (writing) is not doing much to beat the charge that it’s a closed-shop old boys club for retired journalists and people say they drank with Michael Jackson like they’re the guys who “shook Sinatra’s hand”. Anyway, if you’re in the market for a recently-published book about Belgian beer, get Tim Skelton’s Good Beer Guide or Sofie Vanrafelghem’s monumental book about the Belgian cafe (or Breandan’s about hidden beers). Because at least they are good, well-written and do something new…

Skelton’s for sale here, Vanrafelghem’s is here and Breandan’s is here. Notes? Notes!

Note #1: celebrity gets news coverage for situation affecting millions.
Note #2: Katie’s dream beach vacation.
Note #3: “Punctuation counts!” say Alan, Alistair, Alice, Alfred and…
Note #4: Twenty-six pints.

Unlike you, I have been replaced on a municipal alcohol policy working group for having an opinion on alcohol. But even saying that, I find the reaction to this news out of Bristol a bit odd:

The Bristol and district branch of Camra has hosted its annual festival in City Hall for many years. It cancelled the event last year after the council contracted out the management of some of its venues to a corporate events company, which brought in a large rise in the hiring costs. When an update on the catering contract was given to councillors this week, Mack told the strategy and resources policy committee that hosting a beer and cider festival at a discounted price for Camra could fall foul of the council’s rules on promoting alcohol.

It’s not that they are banning the event. It’s not that they are charging a high fee for the event. It’s just the recognition that having a discount for the clinky drinky event might actually conflict with another existing policy on alcohol promotion. Fortunately for us, we have the “no bonusing” rule which means it’s the promotion of commercial business below market cost that would be the basis for objection. Question: why give what is effectively a trade show a discount?

Pellicle‘s feature this week is a portrait by Paddy Gardiner of McMullen AK Mild, an ale with the ability to attract fulsome descrption:

“It is unique. I’ve never come across another beer that tastes like that,” he says. Les emphasises its nutty aromas, which arise from the blend of Halcyon pale, crystal, and chocolate malts. What really entices me are the slightly less earthy, more ephemeral flavours that develop in the glass as the pint diminishes. Red berry yeast esters mingle with oily citrus and dry grass notes from the Whitbread Golding hops, culminating in a comforting impression of summer pudding, blood orange marmalade, and dry autumn leaves. The initial mousse of carbonation, which first refreshed the parched palate, dwindles over time so that the last few sips leave an oily slick of gently astringent bitterness.

And Knut has been Düsseldorffing which may or may not lead you to want to dorf the Düssel yourselves based on his handy feet on the ground advice:

The standard beers are quite similar, and don’t expect much in the way of special brews. They are happy to sell Uerige Sticke and Doppelsticke to any bottle wholesaler, but they are only to be found in the brewpub at certain times of the year. I even had to drink the Sticke out of a bottle on the sidewalk some years ago, as it was only sold as take-out. The waiters are impeccably dressed, but service can be bordering on the unfriendly in case you ask for something not on today’s menu. But that’s part of the mythology.

Not ever one to be left behind, Martin is on the road too and finds himself on the far side of the Black Sea in Armenia where, it would appear, the toes sweat and no one sleeps:

… if I had to describe a country in one word it would be COFFEE. On every corner, a machine taking your 100 dram coin, often with Hi-Vis maintenance staff on hand, and once you work out how to tell the machine YOU DON’T WANT SUGAR you can have a quality (hot and chewy) espresso for twenty pence (20p). OK, a cappucino is 50p, but what fool orders a cappucino from a machine? I’ve never seen so much strong coffee drunk, long into the evening. That 100 dram espresso is as much a human right as the 1 euro equivalent in Naples. Except it’s just gone up to 150 drams in the newer machines in the city centre. The main difference between Yereven and the rest of Armenia is 10p on an espresso.

Also off and away from home, Alister reported being disturbed when he was recently at the Westminster Arms in London by an influx of… Americans:

It was during my second pint that a group of Americans made their way down to the basement, and proceeded to make me almost despair that real ale will ever be anything other than a niche in the US, so embedded is the collective ignorance of cask ale in the popular consciousness. Yeah, sorry folks, we writers can blather on as much as we want about places doing real ale, but it’s not getting outside of our bubble. One of the group approached the bar and ordered a Spitfire, but a lady sat in the booth they had plonked in yelled across the bar to “make sure you get the Spitfire lager, not the cask, the cask is warm”.

To be fair to the group he also heard them say “don’t tell the pastor we are in a pub drinking beer” which means they are hell-bound hypocrites and falsifiers clearly within Satan’s grip.

Here’s an idea: ban booze in the hottest stretches of summer:

Sweltering temperatures have prompted “red alert” warnings for heat in France. Throughout Europe, heat-related fatalities are growing, train services are being disrupted, and events are being canceled. During France’s annual Music Day, the French government actually banned alcohol consumption in “red alert” zones, according to media reports. The rationale was that limiting booze would free up emergency services for the most vulnerable members of the community.

Is that realistic? As you think on that, here’s a couple of recollections about the hayday of beer blogging. In their weekend footnotes on Patreon, Boak and Bailey noted that a certain bit of reading was:

…a blog post responding to an article. This feels like a wonderful reminder of 2008 when this kind of thing used to happen all the time. Beer blogging was fuelled by responses to other people’s posts, which often felt like conversation starters rather than broadcast media. Ray also observed something similar this week in his area of interest, horror films and fiction.

Some blame Bluesky: “…seems that BlueSky isn’t, you know, as exciting for beer discourse as Twitter was.” Me, I blame the broader decades-worth of the “irrational exuberence” culture that paralleled the rise and fall of craft myself. But now when all the trade’s wants and needs are reduced to “happy stories!” and statistics as creative writing which get shamelessly leveraged to distract from the near 20% contraction in US craft beer production (and therefore consumption) since 2019, well, it’s become all a bit… what… truthy. Harder to have a chat in that sort of context. Yet we still read this sort of thing:

Whether it’s the elevated interest in flavor, rotation based on different moments and needs, the ability to express oneself through their beverage choice, or limiting drinking occasions to experiences that include friends or family, craft beer’s value proposition actually holds up quite well. Craft just needs to shed some baggage to bridge the gap between the original craft beer fans who remain engaged, and those newer consumers whose priorities may look a lot different.

Now that‘s a bit of a word salad. Experts, eh? Perhaps relatedly, not sure there’s a lot to comment upon in the breaking news in VinePair that TV ads by US beer companies ain’t what they used to be. Jeff‘s thoughts are more to the point. And it’s not all that unexpected seeing as, you know, TV ain’t what it used to be… and advertising ain’t what it used to be. With this World Cup, the key point is well illustrated:

The decision makers for the beleaguered brewing industry may feel like the moment calls for fiscally conservative marketing — and politically conservative, too, in ABI’s case. But just like in soccer itself, there’s risk in playing it too safe on the marketing front. For example, one of the most viral stories of the tournament so far is the sheer decimation of Boston’s beer reserves at the hands of Scotland’s fearsomely thirsty “Tartan Army.” It’s a funny story, at ABI’s expense: “The Scottish fans just drank the place dry, and all they had [left] was Bud Light,” one eyewitness told the local news.

Let’s be honest. Other than avoiding that crap, the indifferent fitba fan is just going for the alcohol. Like all those Coca-Cola ads at Christmas, the particular brand of beer doesn’t have anything to leverage from the bigger transient story.* But FIFA needs it’s money so exclusivity alone becomes the commodity, the illusion acting as distraction from the real, the bowels of the beloved being mined for gold.**

There. I need to get out in to the garden and start digging again. As I do 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. 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.

*Compare to the “No Lays No Game” ads which are reasonably entertaining while executing a clear and topical appropriation.
**Finally, my favorite Milton passage gets included.

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 Most Moon In June-y June June-ster Set Of Beer New Notes Of The Year So Far

It’s been a fabulous week hereabouts. Hard to suggest otherwise. A whole twelve days since the last close call with frost means I have about 45 tomato plants now out in bigger pots and into plots, one seen above. Last year’s dried garlic stems are one trick to keep the bugs away. You… are welcome. These are the sorts of things that occupy the newly retired mind. Mulch options. It’s a lot like that last summer before I had a job, the one after grade eight. Not quite mindfulness. More like mindlessness. But I suppose that’s the point after 46 years at the coal face. Or I suppose the keyboard. I am betting 50-50 that I will be driven nuts by this idle stuff come September. Maybe.

10 am EST: HOLD THE PRESSES!!!

There’s been a couple of updates arrived in the inbox after the deadline for this here Thursday beery news notes to be released to the unsuspecting.

First, Ron P. has posted a video that debunks a number of Scottish brewing myths. This is an excellent public service which I expect you will fully embrace… but… I have to note… he has chosen the oddest intro theme. Now, to be very clear Ron is a man who has not only excellent taste in music but has been to more concerts of every band I loved as a kid than anyone I have ever met. So… I am not sure why he chose a short tune that sounds like teenage whales practicing new ways of vocalizing while one fin has been clamped into a medium sized vice.

[UPDATE UPDATE: see the comments… Ron is the artist. I am reevaluating my appreciation…]

Then, more seriously, David J. has published a newsletter with his thoughts on the relationship between gambling addiction and drinking:

“Gambling was causing me pain and drink became the thing to numb the pain,” Harj tells me. Harj isn’t a one-off. There’s thousands like him who have been exploited by betting companies and have lost everything. Some have committed suicide because of their addictions, while many have hurt their loved ones by their actions; Harj tried to kill himself in August, 2020 by driving his car into a road’s central reserve. I say thousands of addicts but it’s probably much more than we realise because—guess what—betting companies won’t provide data that could lead to us being shocked into calling for radical reform. They won’t even release information on how much revenue they gain from the highest volume gamblers.

There are two things I am eternally grateful that I have not taken up: gambling and smoking. David’s subject Haji is now a spokesperson against gambling addictions and notes that there are few controls around betting machines in pubs where the connection between booze and betting is most direct. Have a read.

[Ed.: Update over. As you were…]

What is going on? First up and in anticipation of the World Cup that starts next week, Eoghan is visiting and establishment of some sort representing each team in the competition – all of which are located in his home of Brussels. The first stop on the tour was an ersatz US diner or milk bar which reminded him that “American cultural hegemony is ebbing” which is fair. But next up was a trip to the “Canadian” site, the qualifications for which is always interesting to a Canadian:

It’s important from the outset to say that La Luck is not a Canadian restaurant, nor does it have I think any pretensions to being Canadian. If it is known for anything, it’s as a board game bar, with the upper floor reserved for game players. There are no Canadian nods in the place’s décor – no maple leafs, no elongated hockey sticks, and certainly no well-loved photos of Wayne Gretzky or Alanis Morrissette. Instead, La Luck’s owners have gone for the vintage market bric-a-brac look, with it stuffed with old mirrors and picture frames and sundry recycled wall decorations. In the hour and half I was there, I failed to hear any Chad Kroeger or Avril Lavigne on the bar’s soundsystem. And the service, of which I will speak of more later, does not appear to reach the level of North American efficiency, or overt Canadian friendliness.

I like it. That is an entirely Canadian approach to Canadian-ness. Wouldn’t want to make a show of oneself. Not to mention they lost his order of poutine for over an hour. Does that speak to my nation? I dunno. Still, my own country is in fact hosting World Cup games and the Old Country has finally made it for the first time in decades… and, even with that, I think the argument made in The New York Times this week is all booze industry wishery:

…for beer manufacturers, the World Cup is a giant, multiweek, Olympics-meets-Super-Bowl sporting event that FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, projects will draw a global audience of six billion. There are early signs that beer orders will rise during the World Cup. In April, a forward-looking indicator of beer purchases expanded for the first time in 21 months, said Lester Jones, the chief economist for the National Beer Wholesalers Association, in an email. “Host cities for World Cup events will certainly experience an increase in both on- and off-premises beer sales as consumers enjoy the games,” he said. Beer industry analysts say Americans’ attention to the tournament will depend, in large part, on how far the U.S. team advances.

I am aware that forecasting and futurism sits somewhere between fantasy and fraud so we will have to see how this all plays out… but… BMI does have some stats that put the anticipation of a bump in context:

Beer industry volume down 6.1% for 4 weeks thru May 16 in NIQ data. That’s far worse than 3.3% drop yr-to-date. So this is yet another data point strongly suggesting industry got much softer in Q2, as consumers undoubtedly feeling the pinch from higher gas prices, among other factors.

Focusing on the smaller scale, Franz D. Hofer welcomed the new month with a post on the smaller beer gardens of Munich including one with bees:

A few beers later I headed west into the woods toward Aubing in search of a fabled beer garden surrounded by beehives. Passing a pond here and a few ducks there, I eventually found this little gem in the forest — Waldwirtschaft Bienenheim, the place where the bees live… About a hundred and fifty years ago, King Ludwig granted this plot of land once used for brickmaking to the Obst und Imker Verein (Fruit Growers’ and Beekeepers’ Association) of Aubing. And the Wirtshaus with its beer garden? It’s the former clubhouse of the beekeepers’ association. To this day the beekeepers of Aubing still hold their club meetings at the Wirtshaus.

And, somewhat similarly but with less charming results, Lisa shared thoughts on Token, a re-opened Dublin bar that left her searching to put a finger on a categorization that fitted the place. Previously at the old spot…

…it felt like a neighbourhood bar that offered something of an alternative to simply ‘sitting at the bar,’ though you could do that as well, if you preferred. This Token, however, feels very much more transactional, and much more, well, bro-y. And it may be that this vibe is a direct result of this new space: surrounded by bland offices and corporate apartments, it now feels like an after work ‘enforced fun’ spot for company meetings. The prices certainly fall into the ‘someone else is paying’ category with an ambitiously-priced pint of Scraggy Bay on offer for €8.20 (and a service charge added to food orders, despite it being relatively difficult to find someone to take your payment when you want to leave, even at the bar).

A “someone else is paying” bar is an excellent label. Hotel bars near industrial parks perhaps? Staying in Dublin, Cian Duffy has described another class of drinking hole, the neo-thatch:

Dublin has a reasonable number of thatched pubs, for a fairly urban environment. There aren’t any in the city centre, but there are plenty in suburbia. However, they are almost all pastiche in style. The thatch is real – very real, very expensive and requiring very skilled trades to install and maintain it; but the pubs were not thatched originally, and some are or were new buildings. As far as I can tell, the trend for this was started by the only thatched Dublin pub to have since been demolished (yet!), the S0440 Stillorgan Orchard, which was thatched in late 1988. A number of other pubs were thatched over the next few years, as this trend proliferated. S0232 Glenside was thatched during a renovation in the 90s, with N0300 Lord Mayors in Swords being thatched during its extension renovation in 1992…

How many times have any of us exclaimed “the thatch is real!”? It’s not done around these parts, though I have an image that might show a thatched roof or two hereabout in 1833. As you consider that, here some notes:

Note #1: who “placed trust” in the self-reported data the BA uses?
Note #2: Knut on the cost breweries pay to attend beer fests.
Note #3: I’d be checking the corks for tampering before sipping Stalin’s wine.

As you know and as I know you know and as you know I know you know, “A Glass of Handmade” by William Least Heat Moon was published in The Atlantic in 1987. It’s a consideration of the state of microbrewing at the time and contains one of my favourite lines, a statement by Bill Owens of pioneer brewpub Buffalo Bill’s: “…I don’t make ale. I can’t waste time educating Americans about ale…” Owens brewed a light lager that cost him seven cents a glass to make and sold for $1.50. The brewpub is still there. Jeff told the tale this week of similar project almost forty years later in Portland, Oregon:

“If we were going to do a light lager, we wanted to do it right.” Sam said. “Let’s not copy another beer, let’s just make the best light lager available”… The brewery can still make a profit on a $3 pint, but it then becomes a volume proposition. But because it’s so cheap, the volumes have really gone up—a virtuous cycle. And just having the beer on the menu has created a halo effect. The typical customer doesn’t come in solely for cheap Clubhauses. Instead, they vary their session with a Clubhaus and other beers, saving them money they then use to spend on more beer or food. That’s why people end up spending more.

Here’s to that beer lasting until about 2064. That would be excellent. Speaing of which last Friday ATJ experienced the excellent if not even the sublime* and shared the moment:

I have finished my beer but such is the mood of completeness, that serenity I mentioned earlier, the tranquility that bathes my soul, I decide on another pint of the same beer. Once again there is a dance to the music of time on my tongue as I take deep sips that are almost transformed into swigs from my glass. There is a sense of mindfulness as I sit on this wooden bench that acts as a living memory of someone called Dave, moments of calmness and reflection as I look out over the river and the landscape stretching away, aware of the high canopy of blue stretched with fluffy white above me. Everything is in order, the beer, the views, the slow susurration of voices behind me, and even though this outdoor space at the Bridge is bordered behind me by a road I don’t even notice the passing traffic.

Two tales of the Isle of Man this week. First up, check out Katie‘s excellent piece in Pellicle on the good beer scene there. Then, add the notes shared by Ed from his time at the biggest and apparently little loved brewery in the dependency, Okells, his former Manx employer:

I briefly worked at Okell’s a few years back. The job was one of the worst I’ve had, a cesspit of office politics. But the beers were the best on the island… I got first hand experience of the distain some Manxie beer geeks hold Okell’s in when I attended an event at the Hooded Ram brewery. It was a microbrewery run by a lovely guy called Rob Storey. He’d invited Okell’s staff over to the event so I went with one of the lads from work. I had an inkling of the view some held about Okell’s, but I thought it better to be up front about where I was working so wore a branded work t-shirt. I was still a bit put out that someone booed when I arrived though!

(Neither of them mentioned Kelly.) On the topic of an entirely different sort of search, I don’t know if I am wanting to find the cheapest beer in the world but, yes, it is likely that it might be found in an unrecognized state where Russian troops are both posted and somewhat cut off… perhaps much to their relief these days:

Official Foreign Office guidance advises British tourists against traveling to Transnistria but, in the interest of scientific research, Robbie decided to take the risk. It proved to be worthwhile. Exchanging his remaining Euros for some of the curious Transnistrian currency – which uses plastic coins more like something from a board game than from a bank – Robbie finally managed to find a beer that could compete with Yorkshire prices. He explained: “I’m delighted I managed to beat the 99p pint with this 77p one. It’s a surprising we had to go to such lengths to get a hold of it though.”

More than likely a notch or two higher up the old snack bracket, Ruvani de Silva shared the history and current scene for bitters for The Alchol Professor with a focus on the finer kind which may assist me with my Crown Royal studies:

Contemporary mixologists have an almost unlimited palette of bitters flavors at their disposal, from yuzu, bergamot, and cardamom to Japanese chili and saffron. By incorporating more international ingredients into their bitters, craft bitters brands are helping mixologists introduce more global flavors, which in turn can bring craft cocktails to a wider audience. “When an industry is shaped by a wider range of backgrounds, cultures, and experiences, it naturally leads to new flavor profiles, new use cases, and new ways of thinking about cocktails and hospitality….”

Bitters and soda on a stinking hot day? Anytime. Time may have run out elsewhere. In Will Hawkes‘ London Beer City this month, he shared the history of the Grove Tavern, a shuttered 1920s pub awaiting the demo ball which sits on the site of earlier establishments before the city moved in:

In the 18th century, the Green Man’s appeal derived from its rural qualities. Dulwich Wells sat beside the pub, noted for its mineral-rich water, the Matcha Latte of its day. The landlord in the 1740s, Francis Cox, also created Cox’s Walk, a tree-lined pathway that runs southwards and still exists today, to connect his pub with Sydenham Wells. Rural delights remained the pub’s calling card for decades: as late as 1864 – by which time the Grove had been rebuilt by Courage – the pub was advertised on its rural qualities. “If you want to enjoy the country air, go to the Grove Tavern, Dulwich!” readers of the London Daily Chronicle were told. “If you want to ramble amidst rural scenery, go to the Grove Tavern, Dulwich! If you like swings, quoits, bowls or cricket, go to the Grove Tavern Dulwich!”

And from the police blotter this week we have a story of crime out of Hollister California – a crime weaponized with beer:

During the first incident, police said surveillance footage showed a man riding a bicycle who stopped and approached the robot, before knocking the robot to its side before leaving the area. A second incident involved another suspect approaching a robot near 4th and Line streets. The suspect appeared to strike the robot before approaching a second robot that recorded the interaction. Police said the suspect struck the second robot and poured a liquid, believed to be beer, before leaving the area… police chief Carlos Reynoso confirmed two people were arrested following unrelated incidents.

Is pouring a beer on a robot a crime? We will find out. And with that, we are done for another week. While you wait around, drumming your fingers at the dining room table as loved ones ask “what’s wrong?” dont 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.

*Finally, that 1983-84 honours undergrad English course in Romanticism pays off.

The Dreamy But Sadly Last Beery News Notes For May 2026

I have liked May so much this year that I am already missing it. Forty-eight weeks to May 2027. I’ve already circled it in my calendar. Just in the last few days it finally feels like spring. I’ve got more twenty tomatoes outside into the spot where they’ll be sitting until November. Isn’t that twine tying action photo there to the right interesting? I really outstripped myself with that one. That is one snugly tucked in beefsteak, if you know what I mean. And there’s been more. I’ve mowed and then mowed again. Got a few semi-sunburns and even listened to a Blackcapped Warbler as it stayed just out of view. Not that it’s been Euro-hot but I will take 23C and sunny any time. Err… give me a sec. That knot. Wow. OK, let’s go.

First up, the residue in 4,500 year old clay pots from the Masovian Lowland in northeastern Poland have been analyzed and certain conclusions have been drawn:

These findings represent the earliest chemical traces of fermented alcohol beverages in this region, dating to the second half of the third millennium BCE,” the researchers wrote in the publication. The study also identified biomarkers linked to grain processing, including azelaic acid and plant sterols, suggesting the use of cereals such as wheat or barley, fruits and possibly resins used to preserve or flavour beverages. Researchers said the apparent use of wheat and barley is significant because the oldest known evidence of cereal cultivation in the region dates to the Late Bronze Age. “This suggests the possibility of importing raw materials for alcohol production from other regions where cereal cultivation was already well-developed…”

See also the 2,300 year old beer bottle from China. Do ancient jam jar findings get such rapt attention from archaeologists? Not a chance. And speaking of the sciences, The Beer Nut made a quality observation this week about one of the adjectives that gets tossed around rather freely – “tropical”:

I’ve voiced my concerns before about the t-word being rarely indicative of actual tropical fruit flavours. So it goes with this one, but that’s not a problem. In lieu of mangoes and pineapples, this 5.7% ABV hazy IPA has a bright pithy bitterness, pushing mandarin zest and lime rind. There’s an almost earthy tang on the finish, where the bittering compounds concentrate together on the palate. Despite the haze and the claim of tropicality, this tastes like an IPA from the classic era of Eight Degrees: big flavoured and technically proficient. I’ve missed that.

I don’t have an issue with degrees of abstration in the game adjectival. As a result “hoppy” is perfectly fine as a high level quantiative descriptor. But “tropical” has that next level general category aspect that TBN unpacks neatly up there through a winnowing to find out what is really going on. Mango? There ain’t no stinkin’ mango!

Speaking of getting to the specifics, Boak and Bailey examined a trade publication from 1960 called 200 Years of Brewing in the West Country, a 40-page booklet produced by West Country Breweries on the subject to West Country Breweries and found a firm in transition – whether they knew it or not:

From the first page, though, it’s clear that something unusual was going on. The obligatory foreword from the chairman is signed by… Colonel W.H. Whitbread. He was also chairman of Whitbread itself and his presence here signals that West Country Breweries was under the larger brewery’s protection as part of the so-called ‘Whitbread Umbrella’. The Whitbread Umbrella was “a novel structural arrangement that incorporated a dual-voting shareholding structure aligned to a controlling interest in the publicly listed Whitbread Investment Company (WIC), an investment trust that housed minority shareholdings in some twenty regional brewers” (Julie Bower, 2016.) Protection is an interesting word, isn’t it? In organised crime it’s a euphemism for extortion and predatory behaviour by criminals.

This excellently illustrates and avoids the presistent problem of drinkers, trade association and beer writers confusing ownership with control that we have seen play out in the last decade or come of US craft brewery shell game. Show me the shareholders’ agreement!!

For Craft Beer & Brewing, Kate Bernot has a detailed update on Fonio, an small-scale farmed African cereal malted for brewing purposes that has gained acceptance since the 2018 introduction to Garrett Oliver described in this article in The Guardian as noted hereabouts back in 2023. Bernot shares some obervations that give a sense of what Fonio adds to a beer:

Vinnie Cilurzo, owner and brewer at Russian River in Windsor, California, agrees that fonio’s vinous, lychee-like contributions defy what most people—brewers and drinkers alike—expect from malt. A Belgian-style blonde ale brewed with 30 percent fonio has become a semiregular beer at Russian River’s taprooms—particularly during the warmer months, when its lean body and bright fruitiness feel especially appropriate. Cilurzo says it doesn’t take much fonio in the grist for it to have an impact. “My advice: You don’t have to go all the way to 30 percent,” he says. “Fifteen to 20 percent will also leave a thumbprint on the beer.”

What really struck me is how pale the beer in the accompanying image is. Pale as Zima. When my crime novels set in the early 1990s come out you’ll see me using that image: “I could tell he was guilty – he’d turned as pale as Zima.”

Never that way at all, we saw Stan’s latest Hop Queries hit the inbox last Friday including this note on production levels in Australia after the harvest there:

Reacting to diminishing worldwide demand for hops, Hop Products Australia continued to reduce acreage for 2026. Farmers strung 8.3% fewer acres and produced 11.7% fewer hops. They harvested almost 2.9 million pounds. For perspective, that’s equal to 3.4% of the US crop or to the amount of Mosaic farmers in the Yakima Valley harvested.

As you consider the “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” antipodean, here’s the notes:

Note #1: “…craft beer off 8% for latest 4 wks thru May 9…”
Note #2: a beer blog becomes, what, a booze blog?
Note #3: a return to beer writing?
Note #4: another return I’m pretty sure I don’t care about.

What is it with otherwise sane folk trying to scratch a living from a niche topic that leads them to speak of praise the niche’s given opp – the necessary “evil empire” to the purity of the niche – with all the eloquence of a six year old with stomach flu talking to Beulah on the big white telephone? I thought of that when I read this grab bag of sneering cliché:

“The Bad Beer That’s an Incredible Beverage” by Tyler Austin Harper is a bad piece that’s an incredible prism for understanding how beer can continue to thrive as a symbol of populist Americana even as it continues to lose market share to flavored malt beverages, canned cocktails, and whatever we’re calling Cayman Jack these days. Much like the New York Times Opinion section’s hackneyed forays into thinking critically about the trade, Harper’s take advances the argument that the craft brewing “movement” (such as it is) has gone too far. It’s a mixture of personal preference and surface-level cultural observation of a piece with the dreck David Chang was pushing in the pages of Esquire literally a dozen years ago.

If you’re going to shit on someone else’s writing it might be good to be interesting yourself as you do. Why is it so hard to understand that very few care about your chosen drinking hobby? With far greater clarity, ATJ has been trying to put his finger on what makes Belgian beer culture unique and, after years of looking beneath the surface, is not quite sure he’s been successful:

… thinking about Belgian beer culture I thought about beer and its associated obsessions — metal, gaming, men’s solitary hobbies, loneliness, the need to be someone else which ends in self-immolation (Brunhild trying to burn down the hall with Hagen and associates still inside perhaps?). Belgian beer culture, like beer culture, whether out in the cities and towns or in traditional bars or specialist beer joints, could be confusing, and I am not sure I found what I was looking for. Or did I?

And sticking with beer joint culture, a great barman has passed away in Chicago, Sam Sianis of the Billy Goat Tavern:

Millions of Americans knew of Mr. Sianis and his bar without ever crossing Chicago city limits, thanks to one of its most famous regulars, the syndicated columnist Mike Royko… Mr. Sianis made it an equal-opportunity establishment: Prolific drinkers, wayward pols, off-duty cabbies and the occasional celebrity all received the same friendly beer and a shot, often from Mr. Sianis himself. “Sam was the perfect host,” Don Rose, a journalist, said in an interview. In Mr. Royko’s columns, the Billy Goat became a font of tales, true and tall. Mr. Sianis once kicked out the same customer six times in one night for fighting while drunk. And Mr. Sianis swore he witnessed another man down 150 drinks in a sitting.

Another sort of fluid based establishment was the topic of Every Pub in Dublin‘s focus last Friday – pubs on islands you can only reach by boat and not via a bridge:

Arranmore’s 6 pubs is quite a lot for one island, and it has made me wonder about what other offshore (before someone comes and lists most of the pubs in Cork City…) island pubs there are. And also if I can actually tick all of those off too. This is not a promise to do that. I might, but I’m not guaranteeing I’ll do it it like I have with Dublin and also The Rosses. I’m going off the 2024-5 full licence file here, so there is a very high chance I’m missing somewhere, but I made a reference back to the 2010-11 file to try find any lost pubs too. I’m going to start North and work my way counter-clockwise here, so places I’ve been mostly work their way to the top… I am also only counting islands you still need a boat to get to – I may have an Achill great-grandfather, but you’re basically mainlanders now!

It is even an island if there’s a bridge? Which leads to this interesting piece from BBC Worchestershire on the state of small breweries and what may be keeping some open:

Sarah Saleh, owner of The Hop Shed Brewery, in Suckley, Worcester, said: “Without the tap room we wouldn’t still be here. I think the breweries that are closing are the ones without a direct outlet for their beers.” Saleh continued: “I know when we set up here, 10 years ago, I can think of two breweries locally that were set up but didn’t have tap rooms, and they’re now no longer here. “It always amazes me that on a Friday night when the tap room is open, and we stand here in a barn in the middle of nowhere, and before you know it there’s 200 people here. “They’re enjoying food from local providers and enjoying the beer that’s been brewed here on site.

It is even a community brewery if there isn’t a taproom? Maybe. What else can make a brewery part of the community? Reporting from Norway, Knut attended a gathering of five Danish breweries invited by local Haandbryggeriet to show off their stuff… and one of the attendees had a particularly interesting back story:

Together with the Danish employment authorities, Stepping Stone has developed a program aimed at improving the conditions for refugees entering the Danish workforce. It is deliberately flexible — designed around the individual rather than the system. Each participant’s working hours, responsibilities, and workplace are shaped by their skills, needs, and current life situation, creating a more realistic and supportive path into employment. But the program doesn’t stop at work placements. Alongside hands-on experience at the brewery, participants are offered opportunities to build skills that extend beyond the job itself.

And also out and about has been Ed, who continues his reports from his trade mission to Austria, this time with his stop at Trumer of Saltzberg where he witnessed a method:

They have a six roller mill from 1965 and use the Kubessa method when brewing. Named after the brewer from Cologne that patented it in 1903, in the Kubessa method the husk is separated from the endosperm during milling. It is not added to the Mash Conversion Vessel during the early stages of mashing, only being added prior to lautering so it can help with wort separation. It means less husk polyphenols get in the beer. It’s said to make a beer taste more elegant, and certainly the Trumer Pils in Vienna was very smooth. We had John Brauer, EBC grand fromage, explain to us on the coach that in fact little difference can be detected in fresh beer, but the Kubessa method give greater flavour stability so its advantages become more apparent over time.

That’s a lot of specific technical information. Mr. Gladman has shared some very specific emotional information, facts which he believes form the foundation for his love of Pastis:

On Saturdays I would walk the half-hour round trip there and back to spend my pocket money. I still remember filling the small white paper bag each week. It started off smooth and stiff then slowly softened and rumpled over the rest of the morning as I dipped into it for treats.I remember the aniseed balls best of all. I never bought too many — I didn’t want to spoil my enjoyment. The immediate pleasure of fizzy cola bottles was showy but no match for the deep joy of a well-sucked aniseed ball with its slow reveal, layer after intense layer, leading to that tiny black kernel of anise almost too challenging but all the better for it. I saved them for last because they would perfume the bag itself — you could smell them even after they were gone.

And, speaking of lingering aromas, Jeff gave us a history of the Cascade hops with his thoughts on what have made them so successful:

I’d add that Cascades have, ironically, come to achieve that quality of “nobility.” It’s true they’re more intense and robust than the old landrace varieties from Europe, but they’re also incredibly balanced and elegant. They offer a lovely bitterness, and are versatile as aroma hops (we’re going to get a taste of that in this year’s Oregon Homegrown collab.) When people taste Cascade, they’re tasting the same thing, too, which isn’t always the case with modern hops.

There. We will leave it there for this week and for this month. Soon it will be June with all that entails. Live it up. And again with this one last thing thing. Your weekly reminder that there will be an edition of The Session next month celebrating Martyn Cornell’s final book Porter and Stout: A Complete History. Boak and Bailey will share an update soon on when you need to get your thoughts organized in preparation.

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

*No footnotes this week.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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