Visit the Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog site

Here’s all the writing about beer and pubs that’s grabbed our attention in the past week, from pub ticking to archive digging.

First, as we’ve failed to mention in previous weeks for some reason, it’s Flagship February when we’re encouraged to celebrate classics and standards. You can read a whole series of personal essays by notable beer writers at the FF website. If you’re bored of negativity and/or novelty-seeking, here’s your antidote. Check out this from*Stan Hieronymus, for example:
Creature Comforts Tropicália represents American IPA evolution. It’s bitterness is softer than the IPAs of the aughts. It is juicy, but not like drinking orange juice and certainly not juicy/hazy. It’s more like biting into a ripe apricot. You almost feel like you need to wipe some juice off your face after you take a long drink. Per its name, Tropicália’s aroma is fresh and tropical, its flavor full of juicy (there’s that word again) fruits — take your pick of mango, banana or melon.

SOURCE: Brasserie De La Senne.A bit of news that we mention more for completeness than anything else: The Portman Group, which is the UK booze industry’s own regulatory body, has ruled against the packaging for Belgian beer Taras Boulba. This happens from time to time and people get angry at censorship and so on but we can’t help but shrug – this is the Portman Group being consistent. Maddeningly, tediously consistent, but consistent. Like the British Board of Film Classification, they’re doomed to be hated.

RØØR, Oslo (SOURCE: Quinten Taylor/Tanya Kynaston/Beer Europe.)For*Beer Europe,*Quinten Taylor has produced some refreshingly practical advice for drinking craft beer in Norway. We don’t intend to go to Norway, or indeed ever expect to do so, but it’s interesting to hear about the quirks of another beer culture, and to encounter such pragmatism:
Tip 2 – Price usually signifies quality
Almost all Norwegian craft brewers understand the wallet pain that drinking their product can cause, and therefore are rarely in the habit of passing off sub-standard or shoddy beer. Price indicates time, quality and brewing cost in a way that sometimes doesn’t happen in the UK.


This week, we’ve got something a bit different from Martyn Cornell, who usually focuses on beer history – a personal reflection the pleasure of sitting alone in a pub. He writes:
It relaxes me, it lets me explore my thoughts, run through and rearrange memories, have conversations with myself about problems I am facing, work out plans: if I have a tricky piece to write, I try out in my head different ways to arrange the narrative, to construct the intro and the opening paragraphs. If I have a meeting or an interview or a journey coming up, I rehearse in my head what might happen. And all the time there is a buzz around me that I can tune into or tune out, if I want, that keeps me feeling connected with the rest of humanity, even if I don’t desire one-on-one contact with another human right then.
(Hard agree from Ray.)


This seems like a good week to remind people to check out*Ron Pattinson‘s blog*Shut Up About Barclay Perkins, not for any particular showstopping item but because of the constant flow of facts, stats and historical data. How hard he works at this was brought home by a piece this week on visiting archives to photograph brewing records:
Smells evoke memories more than any other senses. First Truman’s log up, it hits me. Covers my fingers, progresses up my nails, dirties my shirt. And that smell. Archive dust… Sends a shiver down my spine every time.
And when you’ve read that, do have an explore.

SOURCE: Martin Taylor.Another prolific blogger we like to mention occasionally, in general rather than pointing to specific posts, is*Martin Taylor, AKA Retired Martin, who is on track to complete his mission to visit every pub in the Good Beer Guide for 2020:
I’m making good progress this year. 337 new GBG pubs since September, which is nearly 15 a week when I’d targeted a dozen. Resilience to man flu, a functioning Aygo and decent weather have helped… My master spreadsheet contains all the pubs I’ve visited over 25 years and the progress by county since GBG 2003 (a great year), when I managed a third of the Guide.
Again, do have a nose around. He gets about and has a sharp eye for pub life, does Martin.

SOURCE: BrewDog.For*Craft and Slice,*Michael Wilson has taken the time to really think about the recent BrewDog rebrand and what it means for the brewery and what it means to him:
It’s an age old trope, the rebellious teen with the spiky mohawk grows up and turns from anarchist to activist, their rage against the machine becomes fuel to effect change. BrewDog appears to be growing up… It’s a shift that’s been coming, too. In recent times, BrewDog have made a few missteps – remember Pink IPA or the time they built a fake porn website? These are just two examples of the good-will erosion they brought upon themselves which eventually led to parting ways with PR agency, Manifest… This is a necessary change of vision for BrewDog – it’s difficult to continue to play the ‘punk’ card when you’ve officially broken into the world’s 25 most valuable beer brands – but it’s a logical progression, championing causes that are still inherently true to their liberal ethos.

And, finally, a couple of bits from Twitter:
In an attempt to keep my mind focussed, and away from the things that my anxiety laps up, I’ve had the scalpel out and have been playing with the @CharlesFaram calendar (again). pic.twitter.com/XqBO95fsGD
— Oliver Fozard (@RoostersOl) February 11, 2020
And check out this amazing looking theme pub:
Last night of my pub history course has drawn my attention to my new favourite pub interior – this was a pub called the Sicey in Sheffield pictured in the 80s. 10/10 would have a pint here. pic.twitter.com/jwCDEPcs2u
— LauRa (@Laurara31) February 10, 2020


For more good reading check out Alan McLeod’s Thursday round-up and Carey’s from yesterday.
News, nuggets and longreads 15 February 2020: Flagships, Norway, Introversion originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog


More...