Really, the Burton Mail should be ashamed of itself. This is the local newspaper in what is, historically, at least, the beer capital of Britain, Burton upon Trent, still the home to two major brewing companies, Coors and Marstons, and it’s running factoid alcohol scare stories designed to pander to the latest moral panic, that… Read More Stupid scaremongering at the Burton Mail
I used to think Americans said “tidbit” because of some squeamishness over the word “tit”, but in fact “tidbit” is the older or original version, and it is the British who have been the lexical corrupters. (And in any case, if you believe the Oxford English Dictionary, which I’m not sure I do, “tit =… Read More An Imperial Stout cocktail and other titbits
It was terrific to see a positive story on the BBC about beer, with the coverage of the Great Baltic Adventure, the project to take Imperial Russian Stout back to Russia by boat, just the way it was done 200 and more years ago. But what’s this claim here, at 1:05 by BBC reporter Steve… Read More Imperial Stout – Russian or Irish?
I try not to drink bad beer: it’s a personal policy, and generally it serves me well. Sometimes, though, you’re in a bar far from home, or at a party thrown by people you don’t know very well, and there’s nothing in sight but a dubious-looking keg fount, or a pile of cans. The triumph… Read More The five worst beers I ever tasted
IPA, or India Pale Ale, was not the only beer British brewers exported to far-away places in the 19th century. There was plenty of stout and porter shipped to the East and West Indies – and also the mysterious Australian Ale. Pulling together the scattered references to the beer, Australian Ale appears to be a… Read More The mysterious Australian Ale
Sometimes you find stuff on the internet that is just so fabulously fantastic: this is Irene Stacey, who used to serve George Orwell pints of mild in that very jug, peeps, when she was landlady of the Plough in Wallington, North Hertfordshire and he was living next door with his first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, in… Read More The woman who served George Orwell pints of mild
Excuse my intemperate language, but I’ve just been reading some total lying crap by the chairman of the Campaign for Real Ale about beer bloggers. Apparently we’re the “bloggerati” (eh?), and we’re “only interested in new things”, and for beer bloggers, Camra’s “40 years of achievement means nothing, as the best beer they have ever… Read More Beer bloggers want you to drink keg, says Camra chairman
Session beer: it’s an important plank in British pub culture, the 4 per cent abv or less drink that enables the British pub goer to down multiple pints during the evening without falling over. “Sessionable” is (rightly) a praiseworthy quality in a beer in Camra circles, and there are Americans dedicated to spreading the idea… Read More How old is the term ‘session beer’?
Late last year I was contacted by Ant Hayes, a home brewer from Kent – and originally South Africa – of some renown who had been an occasional commenter on this blog. He was writing a piece for Zymurgy, the American homebrew magazine, on Burton Ale – would I, he asked, be interested in adding… Read More Ant Hayes
Two thousand pounds is about eight times the current going rate for a 1,500-word article on beer in most of the journals I ever get commissioned by, and twice as much as the top prize in the BGBW Beer Writer of the Year competition. So the news that two grand had been slapped down as… Read More Beer writers wax their lyricals
