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News, Nuggets & Longreads 23/08/2014

Pint of beer illustration.

We found time to put together a (small) Saturday round-up after all! Yer tis.

→ Saved to Pocket: Evan Rail on how a renowned computer hacker is bringing Berliner Weisse back to the city of its birth. (From what we’ve read so far, this looks like a superb questioning, probing piece of writing.)

→ Home brewers with a love of detail: Derek Dellinger’s home brewing experiments continue with tweaks to yeast selection and water treatment.

Stephen Beaumont lays down the law on the use of ‘Belgian’ and ‘Belgian-style’ as descriptors, and Stan Hieronymus gently questions his underlying assumption.

→ The Beer Nut’s series of posts on Bristol (1 | 2 | 3) have made for good reading in the last week. We agree with several of the points he makes, especially this one:

Moving from BrewDog to Zero Degrees was like stepping back in time. Even though the chain only dates from 2000 and the Bristol branch is four years younger again, it feels like a period piece from a time before bare wood and distressed lettering, when iconoclastic British beer meant cavernous halls, bare concrete and steel gantries.

UPDATE: we’ve removed the bit about the atmosphere at the Great British Beer Festival and might try to revisit later in the week.

17 replies on “News, Nuggets & Longreads 23/08/2014”

“There have been various posts and Tweets about experiences of sexism or exclusion at the Great British Beer Festival which add up to a worrying mass of evidence that it still isn’t an event at which many women feel welcome.”

Really. What other evidence do you have apart from the two examples you quote. Particularly when you quote a critical account of last years GBBF by It Comes in Pints and not her much more positive account of this year?

In the case of the Crafty Beeress, her main issue seems to be the lack of keg craft beer at GBBF. She particularly states she has never encountered any sexism there and it reads like she had a really good time.

This isn’t like you.

TM — I’ve removed that bit. We had 10 minutes to write this post while the guests who are sleeping in the office were out of the room and I screwed up.

No excuse — my bad.

But we did see enough Tweets &c. that it worried us.

Seeing enough tweets to be uncomfortable rates more highly than a pouty evidence demand. A sad day in beer blogging, Tandy. Better to discuss than defend.

I agree that T-shitrs are horrible and frankly have no place at GBBF. However let’s not get that out of proportion. As Rowan says:

“But this was a minor unpleasantness in an otherwise delightful day”

Pretty thin evidence to support your postulation I
think. From what I’ve been able to pick up the general feeling about GBBF has been overwhelmingly positive. Might have been better for you to have been there rather than cast judgements from afar.

Alan

I am defending nothing. I merely pointed out an inconsistency. As for choosing to believe that what negatives that were seen on Twitter rates more highly than anything else, then that’s up to you.

I didn’t notice the T shirts by the way, but I have already said on one of the blogs mentioned that sexist t shirts have no place at GBBF – or indeed anywhere else.

But isn’t it a valid question? To be fair to you, I didn’t see the original statement but I presume B+B do not go about saying baseless things. Maybe it’s just that the remaining footprints in the sand above look so… I don’t know, harsh?

We did, to be fair, screw up the post on Saturday morning, linking to a post we’d intended to reference in relation to something else; and thinking a post from last year that went into fresh circulation this year was current commentary. We make mistakes, being human, but try to fix them as quickly and openly as possible.

But we don’t think the impression we formed ‘from afar’ was baseless, and we don’t think there’s anything wrong with expressing it.

“I presume B+B do not go about saying baseless things. ” Ha. And I do.

I see.

Actually all three blogs (by women) expressed valid points about sexism, but overall the tone of their feelings about GBBF were positive.

The T Shirts do irk though as B&B rightly point out.

But if that’s not what people want to hear…………………..

TM — I guess those ‘but’ clauses concern us more than they do others. The curate’s egg…?

But as we screwed up our first attempt to discuss this, maybe we should let it drop for now.

Yes it is perhaps better dropped – especially as you seem to have concluded that a few “buts” comprises a “worrying mass of evidence”.

To be fair, we did delete that statement; admitted to having posted in haste; and have since rephrased our concern in more considered terms.

Alan

You have the annoying habit of being vexatious in obscure terms. Still, you have a pop if it makes you happy. It wouldn’t be the first time.

It is a fact that the three blogs quoted did not have a bad time because of sexism. Thank goodness for that. I for one will continue, as I have done all my life, to support women in equality issues.

I won’t say any more on someone else’s blog, but I can assure you in supporting women’s rights to feel comfortable, I don’t need any lessons from you. I spent umpteen years as a Trade Union leader doing so.

If you didn’t mean that, try a bit of plain English for a change.

You appear to see pops and offence everywhere. But I can’t be responsible for what I can’t control including your view of life. Just be assured I don’t care as deeply as you have taken (again) offense.

So, you must live your life without my guidance except to state what was observed and remarked upon plainly if succinctly is that you have displayed that you have a competitive or at least defensive interest in the subject. I must bow out in such a context.

XOXO

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