Blog Tracker
05-08-2019, 06:28
Visit the Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog site (https://boakandbailey.com/2019/08/on-beer-scenes/)
We’re currently working on a big piece about the Leeds beer scene, hopefully to go live next weekend, which has got us thinking about the very idea of ‘scenes’.To qualify as somewhere with a ‘beer scene’ there are a few requirements, we reckon:
1. Multiple interesting pubs, bars or beer exhibition venues (https://boakandbailey.com/2012/07/key-points-in-the-birth-of-british-alterno-beer/). One micropub, taproom or bar does not a beer scene make. And they really do need to be within walking distance of each other – the basis of a crawl. There probably has to be at least one legendary, must-visit venue.
2. Punditry. If you’re visiting Boggleton (https://boakandbailey.com/2017/04/pubs-boggleton-1837-2017/), who do you ask for advice? Who’s written a local guide, whether as a book, website or blog post? Have Matt Curtis, Jonny Garrett or Tony Naylor been in town taking notes?
3. Events. Bottle-shares, meet-the-brewers, tap takeovers and the like. We don’t particularly like events but there’s no denying that they bring scattered beer geeks together, creating and signalling the existence of a community (https://boakandbailey.com/2018/07/the-community-is-real-even-if-you-dont-go-to-the-meetings/).
4. Festivals, plural. Not just the local CAMRA festival, although those are important, but alternative events organised outside that infrastructure. Especially if they’re focused on particular niches – lager, sour beer, green hops, and so on. (Again, we rarely go ourselves, but…)
5. Faces. The people who make things happen, are at all the events, who drink maybe a bit more than a civilian might and put their money where their mouths are. They’re also the source of low-level soap opera (Thingumabob’s fallen out with Wossname; So-and-so’s left Venue A to work at Venue B). And, of course, they’re the ones to watch when it comes to the next generation of bars, breweries and beer business.
6. Tourists. If beer geeks build their holidays around your town, city or region, it’s probably got a bona fide beer scene. In general, it needs to be a city or larger town. Falmouth almost pulls it off, as did Newton Abbot for a while, but there almost needs to be a sense that there’s just too much to get into a single long weekend.
What do you reckon? Anything obvious we’ve missed?
On beer scenes (https://boakandbailey.com/2019/08/on-beer-scenes/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (https://boakandbailey.com)
More... (https://boakandbailey.com/2019/08/on-beer-scenes/)
We’re currently working on a big piece about the Leeds beer scene, hopefully to go live next weekend, which has got us thinking about the very idea of ‘scenes’.To qualify as somewhere with a ‘beer scene’ there are a few requirements, we reckon:
1. Multiple interesting pubs, bars or beer exhibition venues (https://boakandbailey.com/2012/07/key-points-in-the-birth-of-british-alterno-beer/). One micropub, taproom or bar does not a beer scene make. And they really do need to be within walking distance of each other – the basis of a crawl. There probably has to be at least one legendary, must-visit venue.
2. Punditry. If you’re visiting Boggleton (https://boakandbailey.com/2017/04/pubs-boggleton-1837-2017/), who do you ask for advice? Who’s written a local guide, whether as a book, website or blog post? Have Matt Curtis, Jonny Garrett or Tony Naylor been in town taking notes?
3. Events. Bottle-shares, meet-the-brewers, tap takeovers and the like. We don’t particularly like events but there’s no denying that they bring scattered beer geeks together, creating and signalling the existence of a community (https://boakandbailey.com/2018/07/the-community-is-real-even-if-you-dont-go-to-the-meetings/).
4. Festivals, plural. Not just the local CAMRA festival, although those are important, but alternative events organised outside that infrastructure. Especially if they’re focused on particular niches – lager, sour beer, green hops, and so on. (Again, we rarely go ourselves, but…)
5. Faces. The people who make things happen, are at all the events, who drink maybe a bit more than a civilian might and put their money where their mouths are. They’re also the source of low-level soap opera (Thingumabob’s fallen out with Wossname; So-and-so’s left Venue A to work at Venue B). And, of course, they’re the ones to watch when it comes to the next generation of bars, breweries and beer business.
6. Tourists. If beer geeks build their holidays around your town, city or region, it’s probably got a bona fide beer scene. In general, it needs to be a city or larger town. Falmouth almost pulls it off, as did Newton Abbot for a while, but there almost needs to be a sense that there’s just too much to get into a single long weekend.
What do you reckon? Anything obvious we’ve missed?
On beer scenes (https://boakandbailey.com/2019/08/on-beer-scenes/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (https://boakandbailey.com)
More... (https://boakandbailey.com/2019/08/on-beer-scenes/)