Here’s everything we wrote in April 2016 in one handy place, and links to responses from other writers and bloggers where we’ve spotted them.
→ We started the month off with a second-hand April Fool’s joke: Instant Guinness.
→ In the North West of England we photographed a load of interesting pubs. (But not necessarily good ones.)
→ Joe Stange suggested some beers we ought to try and we’ve already tasted Ruhstaller’s Gilt Edge, Headlands Pt. Bonita Rustic Lager and Slaapmutske Dry-Hopped Lager.
→ We had some thoughts on the Campaign for Real Ale Revitalisation project. (Tandleman highlighted our post in his piece on the same subject.)
→ In a library in Bolton a librarian told us that a long-lost brewery brand is making a comeback.
→ Questions & Answers: ‘How long do vintage beers keep?’ This was a good one with great input from vintage beer expert Patrick Dawson.
→ We asked for your help again: do you remember drinking or working on pubs on English housing estates from the 1930s to the 1980s? (We owe Municipal Dreams a pint for helping to get the word about this one out beyond the beer blogoshire.)
→ Records from Boddington’s Brewery held in Manchester turned up this little nugget: evidence that it was in the post-war period when pump-clips really took off in pubs.
→ We had a stab at describing a type of beer we really like: drier than most standard golden ales, less flowery than citrusy, extravagant pale-n-hoppies.
→ Richard Burhouse of Magic Rock gave us a bit of insight into what happened to the United Craft Brewers which announced last year but never got off the ground. (Steve Dunkley of brewery Beer Nouveau asked, in response, ‘What Could UCB Ever Do For Us?’ and Peter McKerry has some further insight from a press event at BrewDog.)
→ We finally made it to Tucker’s Maltings Beer Festival and it was good fun even if it still hasn’t converted us to drinking anywhere but the pub or at home.
→ Cloudwater Double IPA is very much the beer of the moment; we tried it, but declined to offer a view. (Keith Flett mentioned us in his post on double IPA mania here.)
→ In reflective mood, we pondered Prince, the ‘death of the twentieth century’ and how nostalgia manifests itself in our obsession with beer and pubs.
→ Through a circuitous route we got sent some lovely pictures of the Yacht Inn, Penzance, as it was in the 1950s, from the collection of Susan Glasspool (Bottaro).
→ Peggy Mullis wrote a book about how to run a pub in the early 1970s and, at the end, vented her frustrations with customers:
When we embarked on this venture, I made the naïve mistake of imagining that pub customers were ordinary mortals. They are not, of course. They are a unique race…
→ Sticking our noses back into the Boddington’s archive we tried to work out if and how the famous bitter changed between 1968, when it had a cult reputation, and 1982, when people began to feel it had lost its magic.
→ Firing off a quick on we observed that the 500th anniversary of the establishment of the Reinheitsgebot, the German beer purity law, has turned out to be another flashpoint in the battle between two fuzzy-edged groups in the world of beer.
→ There were our usual round-ups of links and news: 02/04/2016 | 09/04/2016 | 30/04/2016.
→ A 1,000+ word email newsletter full of exclusive stuff– sign up here if you want to receive the next one.
→ A couple of articles we wrote for other publications appeared online, covering bitter (Beer Advocate) and mild (All About Beer) — part of an unintentional series on beer styles, it turns out.
→ And, finally, there were various bits and pieces on Facebook…
…and Twitter:
https://twitter.com/BoakandBailey/status/720596087027933185
One reply on “The Month That Was: April 2016”
It’s great when you discover that disparate pieces have an inadvertent theme. Shove an introduction on there and, bish bosh, you’ve got a book!