If I had wanted confirmation that the “non-macro” British beer scene is now split into two separate camps, serving different constituencies, with remarkably little cross-over between them, considering that both sides are dedicated to the pursuit of terrific beer, two events a couple of weeks back could not have made it clearer. In West London,… Read More A tale of two beer festivals: GBBF versus LCBF
IPA in India in the 19th century was drunk ice-cold There are several references to “light bitter beer” being drunk “cold as ice could make it, the most refreshing of all drinks in this climate” in the journals and letters of expats in India from the 1820s to the 1850s. The earliest use of the… Read More Five facts you may not have known about India Pale Ale for #IPAday
It is a truth universally acknowledged – in Wan Chai, at any rate – that a single man walking down Lockhart Road at night-time must be in want of a nice Filipina lady friend to be the Suzie Wong to his Robert Lomax. Hong Kong’s most persistent mama-sans will tug at your sleeve, trying to… Read More The highs and lows of Hong Kong’s bar scene
Macau, today, is dedicated to the excellent pursuit of separating idiots from their money. This little peninsula on the west side of the Pearl River Delta, not even three miles long, and the two islands to its south that make up the Macau Special Administrative Region, both part and not-part of the Peoples’ Republic of… Read More Gambling on finding good beer in Macau
There are stupid marketeers, and there’s AB-InBev. The Belgo-Brazilians have decided to rename one of the oldest beer brands in Britain, Bass pale ale, a literally iconic IPA, as “Bass Trademark Number One”. It’s a move so clueless, so lacking in understanding of how beer drinkers relate to the beers they drink, I have no… Read More The Bass red triangle: things AB-InBev won’t tell you
Young Singaporeans love to PARTAAAY. Which means that while Beerfest Asia, held in the city every June since 2009, now places a hefty emphasis on craft beers from small producers, for very many of the more than 25,000 people who pour in over four days to the festival site, the 400-plus different beers available, from… Read More Beerfest Asia Singapore: the sublime and the ridiculous
Singing about beer: almost as good as drinking it. Except there are as many rubbish songs about beer as there are rubbish beers: which is to say, far too many. When the Beer Crimes Tribunal is convened, Tom T Hall will be among the first in the dock for “I Like Beer”, a dreadful dirge.… Read More The ten best songs about beer
“All the IBUs, half the ABV” is how the American beer writer Brian Yaeger describes the newest (?) beery trend in the United States: the “India Session Ale”. As you’ll have gathered, the ISA is meant to have the flavours of an American-style IPA, but at a more “sessionable” gravity. “Sessionable” is in the eye… Read More India Session Ales – tremendous new trend or oxymoronic category fail?
How long have British brewers been using American hops? Far, far longer than you might have guessed: for around two centuries, in fact. The earliest evidence I’ve collected so far of hops from the United States in England is from exactly 196 years ago: May 1817, when the Liverpool Mercury newspaper carried a notice of… Read More How long have English brewers been using American hops? Much longer than you think
Jamie Oliver, the thick-tongued TV chef and hugely successful restaurant entrepreneur (and son of an Essex pub landlord), has 3.3 million followers on Twitter. Which is, you’ll not be shocked to hear, about 2,600 times more Twitter followers than I have. Indeed, it’s quite possibly more followers, my very rough survey suggests, than all the… Read More So who are the big beery twitterers?
