The Month That Was: May 2014

Here’s a look back at what we posted in May, including a ‘long read’ about Boddington’s Bitter and a breakthrough on the Watney’s Red recipe front.

We found information on the make-up of Watney’s beers in an unexpected place .

We used our trip to Manchester to consider a great (sort of) ‘lost’ beer. (1500 words.)

→ We began the month with an unflattering ‘selfie’ and news that copies of Brew Britannia had actually arrived in our sweaty hands.

→ Our contribution to the 87th beer blogging session was a short consideration of the history of Ellis of Hayle. We’d have liked more time to work on it, to be honest, but hey-ho. (Reuben Gray rounded up all the other contributions here.)

→ On a related note, we volunteered to take on the 88th session. If you want to join in (and please do) the subject is ‘traditional beer mixes’.

→ Continuing our experiments in creative writing was a portrait of a local drinker who was very, very drunk.

→ Is it OK to preserve a pub building by letting it be turned into a supermarket or fast food joint? Or is that a fate worse than death?

→ St Austell’s ongoing fascination with Belgian beer styles has produced a Kriek which we enjoyed as much for what it represents as for its flavour.

→ A 100-word pondering piece about diversity and complexity in the world of beer prompted quite a few comments as people grappled with what ‘quality’ means and whether ‘authorial intent’ is more important than customer preference.

→ Having written a ton of (we think) interesting posts about CAMRA and its precursors in the last year or two, we decided to gather them together in one post. (Yo, dawg — we heard you like round-ups, so we put a round-up in your round-up…)

→ We flagged a couple of interesting posts elsewhere in the blogoshire on the subject of cellaring and cask ale. There have been further developments, including talk of a practical experiment with glass-fronted casks.

→ On St Austell Proper Cool IPA and Thornbridge’s latest ‘leftfield’ brewing experiments: “Black holes in space have yet to be directly observed, and their presence can only be inferred through their interaction with other matter and light… Recent events in the world of beer suggest that ‘craft beer’ might operate in the same way.”

→ We couldn’t tell if Hopjutter Triple Hop was too complex for us or just a bit nasty.

→ Here’s what we made of our trip up north and our first experience of face-to-face book promotion duties.

→ Our most recent 100-word ‘shortread’ was an account of a pub’s efforts to really kill the atmosphere.

→ We announced a competition to win a case of beer and a copy of Brew Britannia — all you have to do is leave a comment here by next Friday, 6 June. The odds are looking good at the moment.

→ An article about Adnams’ Spindrift from 2007 led us to consider the early days of ‘craft keg’.

→ Magic Rock & Lervig collaborated on a Farmhouse IPA (hereafter ‘FIPA’) which knocked our socks off, though it seemed less exciting on subsequent encounters.

→ There were also several compilations of ‘news, nuggets and longreads’ on 3, 10, 17 and 24 of May, and yesterday; four original videos in our series The Strange Rebirth of British Beer in 10 Objects; and a couple of quotes that caught our eye.