Once more serendipitous synchronicity works its magic, as hacking through glades of old newspapers for something else entirely turns up fascinating info about one of the 19th century’s most famous “extreme beers”, Allsopp’s Arctic Ale, linking it firmly to the Baltic beer trade. Arctic Ale, brewed by Samuel Allsopp and Co of Burton upon Trent,… Read More Extreme beers in the 19th century
I was going to ignore the latest claim by Ratebeer to have found “The best 100 beers in the world as rated by tens of thousands of our worldwide tasters” on the grounds that nobody in the real world cares what a bunch of loopy extremophiles drinks or thinks. Especially when there are far more… Read More Why extremophiles are a danger to us all
The supermarket with a bar it it! “One corner of the Duane Reade store on Bedford Avenue in the Williamsburg neighborhood [of Brooklyn] has Fire Island Lighthouse Ale and eight other beers on tap, with growlers — refillable glass bottles — lining the walls. Uniformed clerks-cum-beer-experts fill the growlers and conduct tastings …” With a… Read More The pub landlord’s worst nightmare …
Wassail, wassail, all over the town, Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree, With the wassailing bowl we’ll drink to thee, Drink to thee, drink to thee, With the wassailing bowl we’ll drink to thee. The Wassailing Song I am old… Read More How to go a-wassailing
Only a particularly sad beer history geek – that is to say, me – would greet the excellent news that Fuller’s, the Chiswick brewer, has released a reproduction of a 7.5 per cent 19th century brew under the name Past Masters XX Ale with the cry: “Hang on, that’s not an XX – it’s too… Read More Interpreting Victorian beer ads
The Burj Al Arab – the second-tallest hotel in the world, and deliberately designed to be an architectural icon in the same world-class league as the Eiffel Tower and the Sydney Opera House – is a spectacular place to take afternoon tea. The arrogant, curving exterior, more than a thousand feet tall, demands that you… Read More So what beers does a seven-star hotel serve?
I realised recently that I’ve never properly blogged about the actual origins of porter – except to counter the claim that it was invented as a substitute for “three-threads” by someone called Ralph Harwood, and to point out that it wasn’t named after market porters, but river and street porters. And I don’t seem to… Read More The origins of porter (and a bit about three-threads)
Just one day into six months or more of continuous “royal” wedding bollocks, and already I’ve made the first sighting of the claim that “the word ‘bridal’ is a corruption of ‘bride-ale’ – a special beer brewed for weddings.” No, it isn’t, all right? I don’t care how many sources you can find that say… Read More Bride ale – too many of you are getting this wrong
Looking for the ideal present for the beer lover in your life? Or maybe the beer lover in your life is you, and you want a simple, satisfying answer to that annual question from spouse/parent/child: “What do you want for Christmas this year, then, you awkward old get?” The Zythophile blog has the perfect answer:… Read More A Christmas present for a beer lover
The biggest mistake that Camra made, I fear, was to change its name in 1973 from the original “Campaign for the Revitalisation of Ale” to “Campaign for Real Ale”. The second-biggest mistake was to have ever used the word “ale”, rather than “beer”, in its title. Am I serious? Surely coining the phrase “real ale”… Read More Maybe they should have kept to ‘revitalisation’. And dropped the ‘ale’
