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We took a week off blogging in March to undertake*what it tickles us to call*‘field work’ so this is a slightly shorter round up than usual.

→ We kicked off the month with a guest post from etiquette expert R.M. Banks, on the subject of jukeboxes:
The soundest advice is to avoid the deep end of the pool – songs containing full-throated Scandinavian metal screaming, dischord intended to evoke mans inhumanity to man, treated piano, laxative basslines, children’s choirs, and so on. Jukebox songs ought to elicit a tapping of the foot, perhaps a gay whistle, but oughtn’t interfere with the conversation.
→ Our contribution to Session #109 on the subject of porters was to the point: What is porter? And what is it not?*(Mark Lindner’s round-up of all the Session posts is here.)
→*We spotted a nice bit of dialogue about beer in a 1960 episode of*Hancock’s Half Hour.
→ The fourth and final beer suggested for us by Dina in round one of our ‘Magical Mystery Pour’ project was Wild Beer and Beavertown’s collaboration Blubus Maximus.

→ Where do ideas for new beers, beer styles and sub-styles come from? Direct inspiration, or something in the air?
→ Related to that post was a bit of a thought experiment: can we say most beers on the market today are really just takes on 19th century British pale ale? (Of course not but it was a fun idea to play with.)
→ Does craft beer tend to indulge the modern tendency towards endless childhood? And, if so, does it matter?
→ We reckon the first gambling machine in a pub might have arrived in 1907.
→ Can you help us with memories of gastropubs in the 1990s? (We’re still after responses to this.)
→ Surprising ourselves, we turned out a 2000-word unscheduled #BeeryLongreads entry on the subject of beer weeks in Britain. They’re newer than we thought, and they’re spreading.

→ It’s*time to take down the barricades and let the odd old school bitter into the craft beer citadel. (Interesting to re-read this in the wake of CAMRA’s revitalisation project.
→ Via our newly acquired stash of John Smith’s brewery magazines from the late 1960s notes on, and pictures of, a Doncaster pub made of glass. (Martin, AKA Retired Martin, visited recently and shares some impressions here.)
→ Brendan from Leeds asked,*‘Which classic British beers might I have missed?’ and we did our best to answer. (Lots of suggestions from commenters, too.)
The Month That Was: March 2016 — Glass Pubs, Blubus, Beer Weeks from Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog - Beer blogging since 2007, covering real ale, craft beer, pubs and British beer history.


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