News, Nuggets & Longreads 26/09/2015

Here’s our pick of the most interesting and eye-opening reading about beer from the last week.

→ Steve ‘Beers I’ve Known‘ Lamond provides a comprehensive run down of Irish breweries producing ‘sour and wild ales’, with some colourful quotes from brewers: ‘I wasn’t the biggest fan but the friend described the taste as “like an angel pissing on your tongue”…I’ll probably use that as a beer name.’

→ BBC Kent looks back on a time when a Maidstone pub was a target for the IRA:

Mr Campbell said it was pure chance he spotted the device, having gone outside to look for someone who had left their coat in the pub… Having served in Northern Ireland, his suspicions were immediately raised on seeing a bag next to the landlord’s car.

(The TV report this summarises will be on Inside Out South East on Monday.)

→ BrewLab tests two methods of making hop bitters at home for use in cocktails. (Via Mirella Amato.)

→ If you fancy getting lost in the past for an hour or two then check out CAMRA London’s London Drinker newsletter archive which now goes all the way back to 1979. (Via @AleingPaul.)

→ Though he’s been a bit quiet on his own blog of late Ten Inch Wheels has written a guest post for Velky Al’s ‘Always There’ series at Fuggled:

On trips home I’d bring bottles back down on the train with me, my rucksack clinking like a milk float… Crack off the cap, wait a second, pour. The head settles. First sip and the tingling hit as your palate wakes with that characteristic smack of grapefruit and marmalade which drifts into an astounding lip-smacking, citrus-bitter finish. Full-bodied. Satisfying. As comfortable as my old Redwings, as cosy as a cashmere scarf in a Pennine February. You don’t want cosy? I do. It’s the taste of permanence, rootedness, and home.

→ Brewery takeover news: Golden Road of Los Angeles has been taken over by AB-InBev; and the Belgian firm Duvel Moortgaat has acquired a stake in Amsterdam’s Brouwerij ‘t IJ. (That last in Dutch, via Andrew Drinkwater.)

→ UPDATE 08:45 26/09: The Cask Report came out this week. It’s author, Pete Brown, summarises the findings here.

→ And, finally, this was an interesting moment which we’re still processing:

Corbyn "craft ale of Labour movement. He's authentic, he has strong flavours," @LiamByrneMP: http://t.co/rxPG0I0r8l pic.twitter.com/YEXJstpWI2

— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) September 24, 2015

(Footnote: here’s what we wrote about the specific phrase ‘craft ale’ in February 2014.)

For the Record…

As we were away the last two Saturdays we Tweeted a few links rather than faff about trying to post them here using the WordPress mobile app.

12/09/2015:Jordan St. John on buying local | Stinging tasting notes from the Beer Nut in London | An historical footnote from Ed.

19/09/2015: Alan ‘A Good Beer Blog’ McLeod on steam and cream | Lars Marius Garshol on how hops prevent infection in beer | AB-InBev and SAB-Miller in merger talks.