News, Nuggets & Longreads 12/12/2015

Here are the stories from beer blogs and other sources that have caught our attention and made us think in the past seven days.

→ The Beer Nut reports on the new bar at the Guinness brewery in Dublin serving beers from their pilot brewery, and those usually available only overseas:

So, while I’m impressed at the concept, the set-up and the scenery at The Open Gate, I remain to be impressed by the beer. On the night, I reverted to Foreign Extra Stout fairly soonish: it was still the best beer present. I hope they don’t lose track of the beer as the point of the exercise.

(And, in the process, by the way, helps to make the case for bloggers and writers attending this kind of PR event.)

→ Luke Robertson at Ale of a Time has a two-part, feature-length post (save it to Pocket) on experiments with wild fermentation in Australia and New Zealand: Part 1 — The Nation of Unconventional Fermentation | Part 2 — Making a Name for Ourselves.

→ Andy ‘Tabamatu’ Parker has some (heavily caveated) analysis of how users of the beer-logging app Untappd rate beers by style, complete with lovely graphs — are there certain styles where an enterprising brewer might make more of a splash than others?

→ Gareth at Barrel-Aged Leeds argues against the ghettoisation of ‘craft beer’ and in favour of venues where everyone can find something to drink:

When discussing certain pubs in the past, it seems the presence of anything remotely mainstream is a red flag for some. Even a non ‘craft’ lager on the Bar raises suspicions as to the dedication of the owners to all things noble and true in the world of Beer.

→ Glenn Payne, who died this week, was an influential beer buyer at supermarket Safeway from the 1990s to 2004 introducing countless British beer geeks to, perhaps most notably, Goose Island IPA. Among the personal tributes is this from Meantime Brewing founder Alastair Hook; others are collected here on Roger Protz’s website.

→ Gary Gillman explores the ability of particular beers to trigger Proustian memories and the various ways in which he tweaks beers to enhance the effect in a piece entitled ‘I Can Go Home Anytime I Want‘.

→ And here’s something we threw away in a Tweet this week:

https://twitter.com/BoakandBailey/status/674940907465121796