Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog - Going on about beer and pubs since 2007

We have been thinking a lot about pub companies recently, not least because of the Fair Deal for Your Local campaign. We still don’t understand enough about the details of the business model to have a strong opinion on its rights and wrongs, but one thing has been puzzling us: why do pubcos bother selling [...]

The Wrong Type of Income

Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog - Going on about beer and pubs since 2007

Modern beer historians have done some wonderful work challenging myths about India Pale Ale. The one we’re interested right now is this, as expressed by Martyn Cornell in a post which then demolishes it: North American craft brewers more closely adhere to early IPA specifications than do British brewers who, as a group, do not. [...]

The Myth of the Authentic IPA

Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog - Going on about beer and pubs since 2007

Manchester brewers J.W. Lees’ Harvest Ale (‘a vintage barley wine made from the first hops of the year and the very finest British malt’) is one of those beers included in what was once our ‘hit list’, Michael Jackson’s Great Beer Guide. In The Book, a 1999 vintage is pictured in the customary glossy-beer-book glamour [...]

Ale That’s Stale but also Immature

Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog - Going on about beer and pubs since 2007

Dave Bailey, prompted by something Roger Protz said at the Beer Writers’ Guild meeting in London, Tweeted this: Was an observation by @rogerprotzbeer at last night’s meeting where he pointed out lack of beer-related periodicals. Gender? Food? Thoughts? — Dave Bailey (@HardKnottDave) June 12, 2013 First, the gender question: there might be something in that, [...]

Considering a Good Beer Magazine

Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog - Going on about beer and pubs since 2007

Gorran Haven is an interesting place — proper seaside, where many Cornish coves are more Sea Salt. It has cones of chips, ice cream, sandcastles, and families nesting behind windbreaks on the beach, just like the holidays we remember from when we were kids. What we discovered as we waited an hour and a half [...]

A Cornish Village with no Pub

Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog - Going on about beer and pubs since 2007

This edition of the Session is hosted by Glen at Beer Is Your Friendn, and is about ‘compulsion’. In the early days of taking an interest in beer, we wanted to get from being know-nothings to know-somethings (shut it, hecklers!) as quickly as possible, and we had a lot of fun getting there. Completing sets [...]

The Session #76: Compulsion

Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog - Going on about beer and pubs since 2007

We’ve often wondered what might replace ‘craft beer’ in the affections of the trend-chasing young folk. and, though there is now ‘craft gin’, and we’ve joked about when we can expect ‘craft mead’, it was always cider which looked most likely to lure their attention. And it looks as if that change is underway. Let’s [...]

After Craft Beer, Craft Cider

Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog - Going on about beer and pubs since 2007

Supermarkets are sometimes seen as a threat to pubs, usually on the grounds of price — pubs, the argument goes, can’t compete when punters can buy 12 cans for the price of two pints of draught beer. But supermarkets don’t only challenge pubs on price: they have also tended, during the last twenty or so [...]

Into Beer Before It Was Cool

Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog - Going on about beer and pubs since 2007

Serious discussions are underway about state intervention in the pub company (‘pubco’) business model, and pubco tenant landlords are organised and on the move with the Fair Deal for Your Local Campaign. Forty years on, what we are actually seeing is the final phase of a slow motion response to the 1969 Monopolies Commission report [...]

Pub Tenants in Revolt

Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog - Going on about beer and pubs since 2007

We’ve never been convinced of the benefits of CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide as a tool for finding the best pubs, and certainly not, in recent years, for finding the best beer. What we have come to realise, though, is its value as a source of historical information. Our current project started with a 1978 edition [...]

Not a Good Beer Guide but a Great Source