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It’s Saturday morning and, after skiving off last week, we’re back with our regular round-up of links and news for you to read as you prod at*your Weetabix.

→ For*Wired, Christopher Null told the story of the Lost Spirits Distillery where Bryan Davis uses science to make ’20-year-old rum in six days’. (Not about beer, exactly, but it did make us wonder if he could also conjure up a few bottles of 1995*Thomas Hardy barley wine.)
→ We don’t believe that pub buildings are necessarily sacred but this is a depressing story: developers refused planning permission to demolish a pub in North London that was due to be listed by English Heritage swooped in and knocked it down anyway.
→ Camden Brewery’s crowd-funding campaign took an interesting turn when it was announced that they’d sold a 20 per cent stake to a single large investor for £10m*(Evening Standard).
A rant from Ghost Drinker: ‘I’m not sure I fully understand brewers need to put an*“Enjoy By” date on their beers instead of a best before date… What the hell (as a retailer) are we supposed to do with these beers if they pass this date?’
→ Alan McLeod has often suggested that stemmed beer glasses are an affectation on a par with using sandwich tongs but, in this entertaining account of a conversation with a bartender, he seems to concede that maybe glassware might, after all, make a difference to how a beer tastes.
→ This case study*from the US (via @bpalfrey10) highlights the real-world impact of brewery trademark disputes:
Holton said the mechanics of changing the name lasted for about a year and the cost was “very very expensive.”… Each product needed new labels, cartons, carriers and tap handles.
→ Ahem…
Grab a brew and check out the finalists in the #savblogawards for Best Beer Blog: http://t.co/MNSOBxxPKv pic.twitter.com/qB9DOcn9I6
— SAVEUR (@SAVEURMAG) April 9, 2015
→ And, finally, a long piece on beer style descriptors from Luke Robertson we would have included in a round-up last week if we hadn’t been on holiday:*‘Most people now expect IPA to mean America-style and saison to mean Saison Dupont. But why; and more to the point, should, that be the case?’
News, Nuggets & Longreads 11/04/2015 from Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog - Over-thinking beer, pubs and the meaning of craft since 2007


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