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Every Saturday we round up the most interesting and insightful writing about beer from the past week. This time we’ve got women in beer, the business of brewing, and Jever.
First, some insight. Campaign group Dea Latis has dropped a fascinating report based on research into women and beer. The Gender Pint Gap Revisited is a follow-up to a previous report from six years ago and asks whether things have improved. Some headline facts include:

  • Only 14% of women drink beer weekly compared to 50% of men – fewer than in 2018.
  • Less than 25% of brewery management jobs are held by women.
  • Only 3% of brewers are female.

Jessica Mason has commentary at The Drinks Business including this quote from Annabel Smith who wrote the report: “During the compilation of the report I had conversations about this with a wide range of women. This wasn’t scientific or qualitative research, they were just general chats with women I met socially or strangers I fell into conversation with. Some said they had had beer ‘mansplained’ to them, as though it’s not an educated choice.”
For VinePair Dave Infante has written about the tension between creativity and business in the world of US craft brewing. (Though of course it maps across to the UK, too.) Craft breweries, he argues, can’t afford to think themselves above good business practices, even if they’re, frankly, boring:
Sometimes, I worry I’m too hard on the craft brewing industry. With infrequent exception, the folks who own and run the nation’s ~10,000 small and independent breweries are doing their best to make high-quality beer for their customers and contribute positively to their communities. Unfortunately, operating in good faith isn’t the same as operating a good business, and as the American thirst for craft beer has plateaued in recent years, that distinction has become painfully clear… There’s still plenty of “Field of Dreams”-style wishcasting underpinning the business – if you brew it, they will come. It’s a hopeful sentiment, and it might work for some breweries. But this is not a particularly hopeful moment for the U.S. beer business, and besides, hope is not a strategy.
A closed and boarded pub in Hartlepool.It’s been a while since we had a new blog post from Mark Johnson but he’s back with a typically reflective piece considering the appeal of strange pubs and why it hurts when they disappear:
Pubs were once an unexplored infinity. There were no limitations to the endless possibilities to seek out. Not knowing what every pub was like was once part of the charm. Not having the answers only grew the anticipation. Pubs were exciting because they remained unexplored… What’s it like inside? What beer does it serve? Is it busy? What kind of people go in? Would I be welcome? Unanswered questions, but an infinity in which to answer those questions. If we don’t try it today then there’s always next time… Suddenly infinity isn’t infinite… I also love the idea of them coming good. “If somebody with a bit of experience got hold of that place it could be brilliant.” I say it all the time… Instead, the pubs are gone before I can even imagine their potential. They are converted into three houses before I’ve even had chance to ask my accountant if it could become reality.
You might be interested to know that Mark also posted this piece at Substack.
At BeervanaJeff Alworth has written about Jever, one of our very favourite beers. Without insider access to the brewery he’s done the kind of work we also enjoy, poring over writing and reviews from the past 50 years. Has it lost some personality? Perhaps, he concludes – or it could just be that a beer can only really shock you once:
I decided to turn to my library and see how Michael Jackson characterized Jever over the years. He loved it, and included it in his first book on world beer, continuing to write about it through his career. You’ll note that he downgrades it from a “world classic” to a merely excellent beer, claiming it changed. Perhaps it did—he lists the beer at 47 BUs in 1977, and the hops were different than they are today—but it’s also possible Jackson’s palate changed as well. I think this is characteristic of beers like Jever. The first encounter shocks in a way subsequent ones can’t. It’s human nature to believe the object rather than the subject (us) has changed.
SOURCE: Jane Stuart.We hadn’t quite appreciated the extent to which Jane Stuart and Martin Taylor have become drinking buddies and enjoyed Jane’s account of their crawl around Oldham in Greater Manchester:
I had thought Martin was ticking all the pubs in Matt Curtis’s Manchester’s Best Beer Pubs and Bars book; whereas, from reading Martin’s blogs, I think he thinks I’m ticking them. I am now thinking neither of us is actively ticking them but we’re both ticking them by accident, thinking the other is ticking them. Confused? I am. But we’re getting round good pubs so I’m willing to roll with it… [The Ashton Arms] was slightly uphill but easy to find from the tram. Martin had advised that he and Christine were on the tram behind but I decided to head straight to the pub nonetheless… I therefore chose a table towards the rear of the pub, in what I deemed a safe zone. Sadly this was by the Gents and it was, er, aromatic.
Adrian Tierney-Jones has found a theme this year, writing (with perhaps some discomfort) about loneliness and how the pub helps him cope:
No one likes to admit that they are lonely, especially me. I always imagine myself as granite-hard and implacable whenever overcome by solitude, the lone figure on the horizon, the man with no name, carrying a poncho of resolution while being redemptive in my approach to life. However, last weekend I gave up, surrendered and admitted that I was feeling lonely. So I went to the pub to fight this loneliness off… So why was I lonely I asked myself? Would I be happy if there was someone special with me? I wasn’t sure and I wondered if the loneliness came from getting older and knowing that the shades were closing in, that there was little ahead but decline and atrophy (however, with that thought I mentally shook myself like a dog emerging from a river as if to get rid of the feelings). In my writing I can often give off a cheery, nonchalant, hard-edged, happy in my loneliness attitude but on this day of thunders and showers and celebrations I was happy to admit to myself that I was lonely but I also didn’t know what the answer to the issue was.
Finally, from Instagram, just a nice picture of a nice pub…
For more good reading check out Stan Hieronymus’s round-up from Monday and Alan McLeod’s from Thursday.
News, nuggets and longreads 25 May 2024: The Pledge originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog


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