his new section is for bits that won't fit anywhere else.... stuff like gossip, anecdotes and of course totally irrelevant gibber picked up whilst pissed at a festival...  The rest of the crap which has vanished from here is now in an archive where it will sit, unread and unwanted, until I delete it in a few years time to free up some space for photos... probably.

23/07/08 - Some things come back and bite you in the arse.

Well, well... some Americans are getting very overheated about the prospective take-over of their beloved Anheuser-Busch by multinational AmBev, mainly the "six-pack" drinkers and rabid nationalists, and somewhat understandably; after all, I bet not a lot of people in the Czech Republic (apart from the accountants and bosses) were pleased when SAB-Miller took over Plzeňský Prazdroj - but now, in a strange twist, even some alleged beer lovers are getting all nostalgic over the loss of yet another "national treasure" in the form of Anheuser-Busch.

Now personally I don't give a toss about AmBev and AB merging as it won't affect the UK or cask ale market over here seeing as neither make any; it's akin to watching two heavyweights slug it out in a ring whilst not caring who comes out victorious.  So, I just don't understand why some American beer lovers are getting all agitated about this: or rather I do, and it's not a lot to do with beer and more to do with blind patriotism, xenophobia and ignorance about the whole affair...

America's last massive brewer is being taken over by a foreign company so the locals (especially those who work at AB) are entitled to be a little worried, but some of things I've read have just been unbelievable; "national treasure", "piece of Americana" and, most surreally, "America's soul"... I mean, sorry?  This huge company makes unashamedly bland swill for the masses and nothing for the craft beer drinker, so why are beer lovers getting annoyed?  As I said, pure xenophobia is to blame with "love of country" over-riding any notion that this Apple-pie eating Uncle Sam loving company makes execrable yellow fluids which are of no interest to beer lovers whatsoever. 

In my book you either love capitalism or you dislike it - simple.  It's not some cherry-picking exercise where you take the best bits and leave the pips on the plate, it's an all-or-nothing thing and no country goes more for capitalism than America itself, so it seems just so ironic that with the dollar being worth nada these days foreign companies can come along with the benefit of a friendly exchange rate and make offers for whoever they so choose. 

Americans loved capitalism when they saw their multinational conglomerates rolling out "freedom" across the world which basically meant buying out anyone who put up a fight in most markets - witness Slovakia's beer scene with almost every big brewer in multinational hands - but don't seem to like being on the receiving end now, so to speak, the boot's on the other foot and their new world order and "free market" is coming back to bite them on the "ass".

You reap what you sow, and in my opinion AB is getting all it deserves from AmBev; the two will make perfect bed fellows in not giving a toss about craft beer and peddling tasteless fizzy swill to the masses, but the one positive thing about the whole sorry affair is that some people may now wake up and see capitalism for what it is - the big becoming bigger at the expense of ordinary people with little or no accountability and control...

It's not all "win-win", the world doesn't work like that, and it stands to reason (and basic physics) that you can't create something from nothing, all you can do is move things around a bit and in this case it's moving everything into one very big basket which will have so much buying (and selling) power only the most principled will be able to resist... and I'm not saying this new mega-company would ever misuse their massive monopoly, obviously not, but just say they did... and InBev does have form on this one when it closed the maltings in Belgium which many micro brewers relied upon...

"For every winner there's a loser in the Western dream" as Justin Sullivan said many years back.

21/04/08 - The taste of beer matters again.

Most people know my opinions on Wetherspoons but, if you don't and have reached this page via some random Google search on beer, then the name McSpoons should sum it all up in a nutshell for you.  However, I am beginning to revise my opinion of this much maligned company in a small way, as they seem to have realised that operating huge drinking barns with less than the minimum staff required on duty where youngsters are encouraged to get lashed up on industrial alcohol mixed with lurid artificial colourings to the detriment of society in general isn't the way forwards in these socially aware times and, bit by bit, are making amends for years of cask ale indifference by upgrading their beer list and improving the training of staff.

There's quite a way to go yet - and judging by some of their "pubs" there's a long way to go - but at least they are making an effort in the right direction and this should be applauded; after all I've been all too quick to jump on their back the last few years so it's only fair that I should commend them when signs of a cask ale recovery in their outlets is obvious.  I've already written about their recent beer festival which included the excellent Shepherd Neame-brewed Stone IIPA but I feel I should point out something else about this beer, the fact that it's got scoopers talking about the taste of beer again rather than how many tens of thousands of ticks some new face claims to have had.

Scoopgen has been full of discussion, argument and ranting recently regarding the Stone IIPA and how balanced, drinkable or otherwise it was against some other UK-brewed hop monsters and this is just what I want to see happen - scoopers are all too often regarded by CAMRA and other beer "experts" (such as many bloggers, but we all know what experts most of them are) as sad anorak-clad low-lifes whose only care about beer is where the next scoop is coming from (an unwashed panda-pop bottle if you believe the stories) and the actual taste of the stuff be damned.  I concede that there are quite a few scoopers who fit into this lamentable category (no names...) but the discussion about Sheps' Stone beer have been like a breath of fresh air blasting through the scooping scene and seem to have caused many people to re-examine what they drink beer for - is it all about the numbers or is there something else?

Now I'm not saying that because of one very hoppy beer all scoopers will suddenly have a road to Damascus moment and begin holding their panda-pop bottles up to the light and sipping from branded Belgian glassware whilst delving deep into each tick's multi-layered taste experience whilst muttering about passion fruits, guavas and high-end citrus... no, sadly not.  However, the amount of interest shown to this admittedly very non-UK style beer has been both impressive and encouraging in equal measures and has given me new belief that we're not all a bunch of sad trainspotters with social interaction issues and bad hygiene - okay so we all know some in our midst who would fit into such a category but, by and large, it seems as if scoopers are slowly realising that the beer they scoop is more than just another notch on the proverbial bedstead and is worthy of closer evaluation... long may this continue, and it's with thanks to Wetherspoons that I say this!

10/02/08 - The tide is turning.

Sometimes it seems as if all I ever go on about these days is great beer abroad, but I've had such good beer all over the place recently as to give me great hope that the tide has turned in favour of the small producers, those who make the proper, artesanal or craft products, in favour of the industrial dross foisted upon the world by uncaring capitalist multinationals in the last 50 years or so.

Now I'm not saying the battle is won - far from it - as there are still many people for whom the quality of a beer is in direct proportion to the size of the glass.  No, I'm not saying we've won and everything is great, but it does seem from my travels around Europe (and, indeed, other parts of the world) that more and more people are waking up from their complacent attitude of "well, that's what the TV tells me to buy so it must be good" and are becoming more and more concerned about where their food comes from, what's in it, and who provides it to them.  (A prime example of this is the LocAle scheme run by Nottingham CAMRA, see here for details).

I'm talking in a beer context about the world's micro-brewers, those run - generally - as small companies which - again, generally - make a product with care, with wholesome, natural ingredients and make it locally to where it's sold.  There are many things to like about this approach; obviously the reduction in carbon emissions in keeping products local, then there's the supporting of local economies rather than sending money off to some other city (or probably country or even continent) by buying from multinationals, and then there's the health implications of consuming something that's made from natural ingredients and not containing something synthetic/genetically modified/untested which may just come back to bite us in the arse years later such as Tartrazine...

We in the UK often lag behind other countries in caring about such healthy and ethical matters but, even here, it seems as if the interest in farmer's markets and what's in our food - thanks to people such as Jamie Oliver with his "turkey twizzler" revelations - is slowly gathering momentum and the country as a whole is now moving towards rejection of "fast food" and other crap foisted upon us by the capitalist machine and embracing local, nutritious, hand-made products.  This can only increase the sales and appreciation of traditional beer but, even better, may result in the collapse of many of the bloated corporations which have peddled their crap at the expense of our health and wealth for so long; here's hoping.

What goes around comes back three times as strong, as Pagans say...

23/12/07 - "Once-a-year drinkers".

What does he mean by that, I hear you cry - it makes no sense!  Well, if you've been anywhere near a pub in the last few weeks, especially in London, then you'll know what I mean... that's if you could get near the pub in the first place owing to hordes of xmas hat and/or reindeer antler-adorned wankers blocking up the doorways, fire exits and the pavement outside.  If, by some miracle of slipperyness, you managed to weave your way through the forced joviality of these fine examples of society then you'd have faced another test at the bar; penny to a pound it would be five-deep in braying city types screeching "What was that, Tarquin, a pimms?" or "What do you mean you don't do cocktails?" all at once despite being three back in the queue. 

If you finally managed - by deft use of the elbow - to reach the bar then you'd still be in for a long wait owing to yet more Tarquins reeling off lengthy lists of improbable drinks to a barman more used to serving pints of bitter or, at a push, a vodka and coke, whereupon off he'd go for half an hour looking for the dusty bottle of Midori which is used once a year for some tipsy secretary.  So, after about an hour running the gauntlet of avoiding wildly gesticulating arms, sloshing beer, piercing shrieks (that's just the men) and rampant body odour, you finally get your two halves of scoops and then have to re-run the entire pantomime to get back out to a safe drinking distance of the bar... for ten minutes, then it's time to do it all again.

Xmas drinkers, eh?  Do us all a favour and get on down to Tesco, buy some cheap piss, drink it at home and leave the pubs to those of us who appreciate and respect them plus, more importantly, know our sensible drinking limits.  Being loud, annoying and ignorant isn't generally accepted as a good way to make friends and influence people; for that, why don't you try dousing yourselves with methylated spirits and then playing with matches?  Go on, you know it makes sense...  please...

18/09/07 - The beer that redefines a nation. 

It's not often that I have a life-changing moment... it happened once in the Crown in Stockport with my first ever taste of Dobbin's Green Bullet, when I realised that hops didn't have to taste as bland as those in 99.9% of UK beers did back then, but these moments are pretty few and far between.

Imagine, then, my amazement last weekend in Cork when I sampled a brew from a fairly new micro brewer which basically redefined what I thought Irish brewers could do with hops.  Galway Hooker aren't what you'd expect from an Irish brewer as they make one beer and it's not a stout but - their words - an "Irish Pale Ale".  My experience of beers from the Emerald Isle have been limited to around 80 thus far but this particular beer was simply the best Irish beer I've ever had - and yes, I did have a lot of the excellent Dwan brews!

I'd class it an American Pale Ale personally, but however you pigeonhole it just get yourself over there and try it!  It's a deep golden brew with a fresh, hoppy, piney, almost Turkish Delight hop aroma which I've recently enjoyed in beers from the USA (Great Divide), Denmark (Ølfabrikken) and the UK (Moor), followed by an excellently complex bitter, hoppy, resinous flavour with more piney, oily hop character and then a citrussy, hoppy, well-balanced yet bitter finish which is both bitter and malty with a very moreish character... we had six pints of it over the two days (plus a similar number of the delicious Carlow Stout) and the landlord of the Bierhaus in Cork (the best beer pub in the city by miles) seemed genuinely pleased we were enjoying this excellent brew.

My biggest fear is that I'm not quite sure of the beer's target audience; there aren't a lot of pale ales in Ireland (Bass being the most widely seen) and therefore not a huge amount of prospective drinkers.  The Irish aren't known for their adventurous nature in searching out microbrewed beer - witness the low number of brewers despite a new "sliding scale" tax system - and I'm a touch concerned that this superb example of hoppy sublimity will simply fall between the two stools of stout drinkers and lager drinkers therefore vanishing without trace.

Hopefully this won't happen, and a positive sign is the growing number of outlets for the beer in both it's native Galway and now elsewhere in Ireland including, amazingly, an outlet in that notoriously crap beer city of Dublin!  So, here's a big Scoopergen cheers to Galway Hooker and their single excellent brew, and I sincerely hope it's a big success in it's native land... but, just in case, how about sending some over the sea to us?  I'm sure we could force a couple down!

Galway Hooker brewery are on the web here, the Bierhaus in Cork here...

31/08/07 - Not a good year for beer writers, then...

Bloody hell, who's next?  I'm already checking myself intimately just in case my number's up... but seriously, the loss of Michael Jackson is a huge blow to the beer lovers of the world.  I bet you thought you'd never hear me say that, that I'd hate him for being establishment or something, eh?  Well, not really... I had a lot of respect for his pioneering work in the 80's and early 90's in bringing the subject of beer to ordinary people's attention and so here's a few thoughts on the passing of the original beer hunter...

Regardless of whether or not you agree with his work - and I didn't agree with a lot of his recent stuff at all - Michael was a huge influence on modern beer culture and it was through his 1991 TV series "The Beer Hunter" that I learned people in other countries could brew beer equally as well - and sometimes better - than we did in the UK.  This information helped turn my Inter-rail around Europe into more of a beery trip than I thought possible and helped to stoke the flames of my youthful love of beer into the raging furnace it's become today!

In particular I remember the programme on Lambic beer and being utterly transfixed by images of cobweb-strewn wooden casks and coolships which seemingly broke every rule of beer hygiene... when I eventually tasted real Lambic it was a revelation, and it was thanks to Michael that I didn't spit it out but knew it was supposed to taste like that and appreciated what the brewer was trying to achieve with this fluid which tasted nothing like any beer I'd ever tasted before - and since.

He was the first person to really look at the world beer scene and define arbitrary categories and styles of beer - and remember that back in the 1980's there were few arguments about whether something was an IPA or simply a pale ale as, in the main, people just didn't think about beer as belonging to a style - it was just beer.  Okay, so maybe some of his styles were a touch vague and maybe even questionable (Red Ale, Scottish Ale), but the main thing is that he was the first to stick his neck out and classify beer styles in a way 99% of beer drinkers had never even considered, and for this one act of making sense of much of the world's beer he deserves our unending respect and appreciation no matter what you think of his opinions on beer.

So RIP Michael, but rest assured you made a huge contribution to the world of beer; I don't know what situation we'd be in now if you had never existed, but I'm pretty certain the beer lover's lot would be a lot less interesting than it is now.