Visit The Pub Curmudgeon site


Last week, to mark the tenth anniversary of this blog, I posted a list of what I considered to have been some of my best posts over that period. Obviously such a selection can only be a snapshot, so I thought I would offer a second ten which further illustrate my key themes:
  • August 2009: Happy Days – a journey of discovery of adolescent drinking.
  • April 2010: Wooden wombs – at heart I have to conclude I’m more fascinated by pubs than beer.
  • October 2010: Premiumisation – why keg beers continue to sell for more than cask.
  • January 2011: Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll...and going to the pub – we don’t see the 1960s as a boom time for the pub trade, but they were.
  • August 2011: Drip, drip, drip... – the effect of the smoking ban on the pub trade has been a slow erosion of sociability, not a one-off hit.
  • November 2013: Craft vs Premium – how craft beer challenges the conventional concept of a premium product.
  • December 2013 - A brief history of electricity – it has now been airbrushed from history, but getting on for half of all cask beer was once sold through electric pumps. And, in several respects, they were preferable to handpumps.
  • October 2016: Getting out of the house – the simple act of going to the pub can provide a social outlet for the depressed and lonely.
  • January 2017: A campaign designed by a committee – will CAMRA’s “revitalisation project” end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
    January 2017: The Sam’s factor – despite their sometimes high-handed and eccentric business practices, Samuel Smith’s continue to run an estate of proper pubs to a greater degree than any other substantial pub operator.



More...