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Here’s our pick of the most interesting and eye-opening reading about beer from the last week.

→ Steve ‘Beers I’ve Known‘ Lamond provides a comprehensive run down of Irish breweries producing ‘sour and wild ales’, with some colourful quotes from brewers: ‘I wasn’t the biggest fan but the friend described the taste as “like an angel pissing on your tongue”…I’ll probably use that as a beer name.’
→ BBC Kent looks*back on a time when*a Maidstone*pub was a target for the IRA:
Mr Campbell said it was pure chance he spotted the device, having gone outside to look for someone who had left their coat in the pub…*Having served in Northern Ireland, his suspicions were immediately raised on seeing a bag next to the landlord’s car.
(The TV report this summarises will be on*Inside Out South*East on Monday.)
→*BrewLab*tests*two methods of making hop bitters at home for use in cocktails. (Via Mirella Amato.)
→ If you fancy getting lost in the past for an hour or two then check out CAMRA London’s*London Drinker*newsletter archive which now goes all the way back to 1979. (Via @AleingPaul.)
→ Though he’s been a bit quiet on his own blog of late Ten Inch Wheels has written a guest post for Velky Al’s ‘Always There’ series at*Fuggled:
On trips home I’d bring bottles back down on the train with me, my rucksack clinking like a milk float…*Crack off the cap, wait a second, pour. The head settles. First sip and the tingling hit as your palate wakes with that characteristic smack of grapefruit and marmalade which drifts into an astounding lip-smacking, citrus-bitter finish. Full-bodied. Satisfying. As comfortable as my old Redwings, as cosy as a cashmere scarf in a Pennine February. You don’t want cosy? I do. It’s the taste of permanence, rootedness, and home.
→ Brewery takeover news: Golden Road of Los Angeles has been taken over by AB-InBev; and the Belgian firm Duvel Moortgaat has acquired a stake in Amsterdam’s Brouwerij ‘t IJ. (That last in Dutch, via Andrew Drinkwater.)
→*UPDATE 08:45 26/09:*The Cask Report came out this week. It’s author, Pete Brown, summarises the findings here.
→ And, finally, this was an interesting*moment which we’re still processing:
Corbyn "craft ale of Labour movement. He's authentic, he has strong flavours," @LiamByrneMP: http://t.co/rxPG0I0r8l pic.twitter.com/YEXJstpWI2
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) September 24, 2015
(Footnote: here’s what we wrote about the specific phrase ‘craft ale’ in February 2014.)
For the Record…

As we were away the last two Saturdays we Tweeted a few links rather than faff about trying to post them here using the WordPress mobile app.
12/09/2015:Jordan St. John on buying local | Stinging tasting notes from the Beer Nut in London*| An historical footnote from Ed.
19/09/2015: Alan ‘A Good Beer Blog’ McLeod on steam and cream | Lars Marius Garshol on how hops prevent infection in beer | AB-InBev and SAB-Miller in merger talks.
News, Nuggets & Longreads 26/09/2015 from Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog - Over-thinking beer, pubs and the meaning of craft since 2007


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