The Beer Rep Cometh

A band of aggressive beer salesmen seems to have passed through our neck of the woods, or maybe a new cash-and-carry has opened?

At any rate, the range of beers available at fairly ordinary corner shops and grocers near our house has expanded massively in recent weeks.

Here’s a partial list of bottled beers we can buy on the way home from work without going near a supermarket:

• Grolsch Weizen (big thumbs up from Bailey, Boak not so excited)
• Jennings Cocker Hoop, Cumberland and Sneck Lifter
• Bateman’s Combined Harvest and Victory
• All the Badgers, including unseasonal Pumpkin
• Young’s Bitter (bottle conditioned), Special London and Chocolate Stout
• Wychwood Hobgoblin, Wychcraft, Black Wych, Circle Master and Goliath
• Hen’s Tooth
• Cooper’s Sparkling Pale Ale
• Theakston’s Old Peculier
• Shepherd Neame Whitstable Bay, Spitfire, Bishop’s Finger, Master Brew and 1698
• Fuller’s London Pride, ESB, Golden Pride, Honey Dew and 1845
• Svyturys Ekstra, Gintarinis and Baltas
• Baltika porter, wheat beer, dark lager and helles
• Pilsner Urquell
• Budvar and Budvar Dark
• Pitfield Red Ale, Stock Ale and EKG
• Gulpener Rose (eugh!)
• Paulaner Helles
• Brakspear Organic and Triple
• St Austell Proper Job and Tribute
• Baltika porter, dark lager and wheat beer
• Usher’s Founders Ale.

That covers a great many of our day-to-day needs, but it would be nice to see more porters and stouts; more Belgian beer; and the return of Brooklyn Lager, which has disappeared from our local off licence.

And, of course, there is a bit of an illusion of choice here, because many of these beers are very similar in taste and appearance and, in some cases, are made and owned by a handful of umbrella companies.