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17-06-2015, 10:17
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Stumbling home the other night, we reached a conclusion: the biggest problem with ‘craft’ beer is that it gets us*more drunk than ‘normal’ beer.It’s a multi-pronged attack.
First, it seems to us generally stronger.*Whereas old-school breweries are pushing best bitters at c.4%, trendier breweries tend to have as their flagship products*pale ales and IPAs at 5-6% ABV.
Then, secondly, that almost inevitably forces special releases and one-offs into high ABV territory and, let’s be honest, to people like us, those are all but irresistible, quite apart from the fact that big flavours paired with big booze often*tastes so nice.
‘So drink smaller measures!’ people tend to say at this point and of course they’re right, but three third-of-a-pint measures of three different interesting beers at 6-7.2% equates to a full pint of something pretty poky, while lulling you into a false sense of smugness at how sensible and restrained you are being.
Or, to put this another way, we don’t often drink too much in ‘normal’ pubs because (a) the beer is weak and (b) it’s often so familiar*there’s no real incentive to keep drinking for fear of missing out.
At any rate, the idea that ‘craft’ has a somehow intrinsically more sober and responsible culture seems less credible to us now than it might have done a few years ago.
(We had our first hangovers in a while on Saturday — horrible, but probably just about worth it.)
Main image: ‘Hangover on Board Badge’ by Annie Mole, from Flickr, under Creative Commons (https://flic.kr/p/dnrghu).
Trousered on Craft (http://boakandbailey.com/2015/06/trousered-on-craft/) from Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog - Over-thinking beer, pubs and the meaning of craft since 2007 (http://boakandbailey.com)


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