I just caught up with BBC 4’s Food Programme from last Sunday, which was about the British hop industry, and as a side issue, IPA in a couple or so of its current incarnations – there are just two days left before it disappears from the BBC website, so if you’re quick, and you’ve got… Read More Doesn’t the BBC Food Programme read this blog?
To those of you who have noticed that nothing has been happening here for almost six months, apologies for my absence – this has been caused mostly by the need to try to earn a living, which rather came before beer blogging, and which has taken me a long way away from home (and sources… Read More Apologies for my absence
Out of the 49 million adults in the UK it apparently only takes three idiots to complain for a 60-year-old advertising slogan to be banned by the Advertising Standards Authority. The phrase “Take Courage” has been in use by the brewers of Courage since at least 1950, when the beer still came from the Anchor… Read More Take Courage in the face of idiocy
(Update – for the definite answer to these questions, see here) Bang, bang, another beery myth hits the floorboards, or at least staggers back badly wounded, after excellent work by Kim Cook in an article called “Who produced Fuggle’s Hops” just published in the latest (Spring 2009, issue 130) edition of Brewery History magazine. The… Read More Befuggled: doubts about a hop’s birth
One of the top 10 questions people who end up at this site put into search engines such as Google is a query about how to distinguish between porter and stout, something I’ve not actually tackled head-on yet. So – what difference is there between the two beers? Er … None. Not now, anyway, not… Read More So what IS the difference between porter and stout?
It was good to see the Government getting its retaliation in first, and dumping all over the Chief Medical Officer’s proposal for a minimum 50p-a-unit price for alcoholic drinks. Even before the annual report from Sir Liam Donaldson, on the nation’s health had been officially published, The Times was reporting that “a source close to… Read More Why Sir Liam Donaldson is a tosser
You know you’re a historic beer geek when … well, certainly when you immediately recognise a drawing of the plant bog myrtle on a bottle among the crammed shelves at Utobeer in Borough Market. The name of the beer, Gageleer, from the Flemish word for the bog myrtle or sweet gale bush, gagel, confirmed what… Read More Gale warning
Malcolm Gluck is a well-known wind-up merchant who likes to pretend he’s the people’s wine critic, but his claim on The Guardian’s website here, in what appears to be a return to the paper after he fell out with it some time ago, that Wine in Britain today is vivacious, fruity, inexpensive, healthy (in moderation) and… Read More Malcolm Gluck: what a tosser
Around three quarters of the way through the 1970s, I made regular trips to the North West of England to see my then-girlfriend at Liverpool University. Occasionally we would visit Manchester, which could (and still can) boast a range of old-established family brewers superior to anywhere else in Britain. Supported by a copy of the… Read More In praise of rough pubs
Those few of you who caught my 15 seconds of fame tonight on the London ITN regional television news, talking about the announcement that AB InBev is going to close the Mortlake brewery, I’ll tell you a secret: that wasn’t the Thames at Mortlake behind me. It was actually about nine miles down river at… Read More London: from brewing hero to practically zero
