Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog - News, Nuggets & Longreads 6 Feb 2016
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Here’s all the writing about beer and pubs from the last week that we’ve found most thought-provoking or enlightening, from*alcoholism to intentionally flat beer.
→ Mark Johnson’s long post about living with an alcoholic father and the subsequent cost to his own mental health is heavy stuff but also essential reading:
His attitude towards good pubs and good beers didn’t change or waver on those days out, but it was away from these that soon the house was filled with cans of Strongbow Super and bottles of vodka. I’d come home every couple of weeks to see an increasingly desperate situation. Yet everybody was too scared to say anything. We let it get out of control between us as a family with the subject only finally being approached from the first hospital admittance.
→ Richard Taylor at*The Beercast has declared his list of UK breweries to watch in 2016. It’s well thought out and there are a couple of names on there that, if not new to us, weren’t especially on our radar.
→ Those who’ve ever pored over a 100-year-old brewing log cursing at the cryptic abbreviations employed will appreciated*Ed’s detective work deciphering the term*‘SA Malt’.
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→ Two pieces that seem to us vaguely related in that they highlight the difficulty of generalising about What Beer Ought To Be Like: Jeff Alworth argues that not everyone finds hoppy beer*‘unsessionable’; and Aaron Goldfarb highlights a growing buzz around beers served without carbonation at*‘white wine-level chill’.
→ Kat Sewell’s diary of her Tryanuary experience during which she drank only new beers under 6% ABV demonstrates the value of this kind of personal challenge:
I’ve learnt to like lighter beers, I’ve learnt to pair them with food.* I’ve also learnt that a good bitter can be a great warming friend on a cold day.
→ We’ve always enjoyed Distelhäuser’s beer and so we were interested to read The Beer Nut’s notes on their bottled blonde ale, IPA, porter and stout*especially as they come with a side order of commentary on German breweries*‘doing craft’:
You can bleat all you want about the craft movement trying to tear down what makes German beer great, but the quality of these ones, and the dark ones in particular, is equal to the best of classic Belgian and British brewing. They deserve a wider audience, if any importers reading have a gap in their portfolio for German porter and stout.
→ Included in the spirit of completeness rather than because it’s especially*interesting: there’s been lots of discussion in the US this week about whether*‘craft beer’ ought really to be called*‘indie beer’. The article by Ian Anderson that triggered the current conversation appeared in the*San Diego Reader; and there’s some thoughtful commentary by Oliver Gray here.
→ And we’ll leave you with this teasing Tweet from a brewer based in Liverpool…
Hearing some v interesting industry rumours about the imminent buyout of a NW UK craft brewery.
— Mad Hatter Paul (@MarshallStaxx)
February 1, 2016
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