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Beerfest Asia Singapore: the sublime and the ridiculous
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...
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The Bass red triangle: things AB-InBev won’t tell you
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...
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Gambling on finding good beer in Macau
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...
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The highs and lows of Hong Kong’s bar scene
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...
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Five facts you may not have known about India Pale Ale for #IPAday
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...
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A tale of two beer festivals: GBBF versus LCBF
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...
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Why is Camra still getting beer history so very badly wrong?
Excuse the indentations in my forehead, that’s where I’ve been banging my head hard against my desk. I’ve been reading the “Beer Styles” section in the just-published 2014 edition of the Good Beer...
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A few fascinating cherries from the 2014 Cask Report
The seventh edition of Pete Brown’s yearly investigation into the state of cask ale in Britain, the Cask Report, came out this afternoon in time for Cask Ale Week, and as usual it’s full of fascinating...
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Cask ale ‘is unique to the pub’? Don’t bet on that
I’m as keen to big-up the attractions of the pub as anybody. But there was a big pull-out quote in the latest Cask Ale Report from a cask ale-selling publican in Bristol that “there is no future for a...
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PBD, the issue that splits British brewing
Now THAT’S a microbrewery: a model of a brewery constructed on half of a barley seed, made by Ukrainian miniaturist Nikolai Syadristy If you want to start a punch-up, gather together some brewers from...
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BrewDog couldn’t be more wrong in wanting an ‘official’ definition of craft beer
“Never be afraid to be controversial” is less a statement of policy and more like a reason for living, as far as the BrewDog guys are concerned. Last week James Watt, the brewery’s co-founder, put up...
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In praise of Ted Tuppen
It is a truth universally asserted, at least in the comments section of the Morning Advertiser, that Pubcos Are Evil, their business model consisting solely of luring the naive into their sticky webs,...
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The nine beers every 16-year-old needs to try
This post has its roots in something my 14-year-old daughter said to me this morning, about how she would never drink tea or coffee. “You will,” I told her, thinking that, as with so many pleasures,...
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Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Guinness …
Mein Fröther: the image even Guinness probably wouldn’t have tried to get away with, Hitler with a pint-of-stout moustache There are some images that are just wrong: uncanny, creepy. One of them is a...
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Why Shakespeare liked ale but didn’t like beer
The trademark registered by Flower’s brewery of Stratford upon Avon An old friend of mine gained a PhD in the relative clauses of William Shakespeare, with particular emphasis on the later plays....
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The discreet charm offensive of the BrewDoggies
There is, I suggest, a thick slice of what the Irish call begrudgery in the responses around the British beerosphere to the success of BrewDog. Here are these young guys, starting in their early 20s,...
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Was it ever Gruit Britain? The herb ale tradition
I dunno, you wait hundreds of years for a herb-flavoured beer, and then two come along at once. Just coincidence, I’m sure, but two new beers (ales, strictly), from the Pilot brewery in Leith,...
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Was water really regarded as dangerous to drink in the Middle Ages?
It’s a story I’ve been guilty of treating a little too uncritically myself: “In the Middle Ages people drank beer rather than water because the water wasn’t safe.” But is that correct? No, not at all,...
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More great lost Guinness art: new evidence for the genius of Gilroy
If we didn’t already know John Gilroy, creator of so much iconic beer advertising, was a genius, then the latest images to surface from the mysterious “lost” art archive of the former Guinness...
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Fuller’s Imperial Stout – the most misunderstood beer of the past 12 months?
Is Fuller’s Imperial Stout the most misunderstood beer of the past 12 months? It didn’t stir a lot of enthusiasm when it appeared last autumn: much muttering about the beer being too sweet, very little...
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