Here’s everything that grabbed our attention in beer and pubs in the past week, from the Great British Beer Festival to comedians in pubs getting bladdered.
Undoubtedly the biggest story of the week, making it into multiple newspapers and even on to breakfast TV, was the fact that this year’s Great British Beer Festival was decisively, convincingly welcoming to women. Here’s how Rebecca Smithers reported it for the Guardian:
Drinks that have fallen victim to crude stereotyping – such as Slack Alice, a cider described as “a little tart” and pump clips featuring scantily-clad buxom women – have been banned from this week’s event at London’s Olympia which is set to attract tens of thousands of visitors… The blanket ban goes a step further than a new code of conduct launched by the campaign group last year… All 1,000-plus beers, ciders and perries available at the festival have been checked to ensure they adhere to Camra’s charter and strict code of conduct, which sets out its commitment to inclusivity and diversity.
This seems to chime with the experience of women who were actually at the festival, such as beer industry veteran Rowan Molyneux (who also happens to be in the photo at the top of the Guardian article).She had this to say on her blog:
From the start, there was a general feeling that this year was going to be different. The news that beers in keykeg would be present seems to have piqued people’s interest, for one thing. It signalled that CAMRA was taking a step into the modern world, and that mood carried throughout the rest of the festival. Take this year’s charity of choice, for example. I never thought I would see Great British Beer Festival attendees being able to donate to Stonewall and wearing stickers that state “Some people are trans. Get over it!”
Melissa Cole also seems to have been won over:
Having sat out last year’s @gbbf due to instances of sexism & the beer being truly awful in 2017, yesterday was one hell of a turnaround in my experience.
Banning discriminatory branding, staff wearing rainbow lanyards & good cask beer quality, well done @GBBFOrganiser pic.twitter.com/vwxA29zMB6— Melissa Cole (@MelissaCole) August 7, 2019
This all sounds pretty good to us, goes far beyond the tokenism and half-hearted gestures of the past, and sets up CAMRA well for the future.
Liam at BeerFoodTravel has put together a comprehensive set of notes on pre-20th century brewing in Kilkenny, Ireland. A dogged and detail-focused scholar, we always enjoy reading the fruits of his research, especially when he’s battling to bring down bullshit brewery backstories:
The early brewing history of Ireland is often quite murky, and trying to pinpoint the exact position of breweries and the brewers that operated in any give location is quite a tricky job until we get to the era of commercial directories, better record keeping, accurate maps and archived content of newspapers. Even after that point the history and development of breweries is difficult to track, especially beyond The Pale. Kilkenny’s brewing history is similar in one way but somewhat different in another, as much of that history is difficult to clearly see due to being muddied by decades of marketing spiel which has been repeated and reprinted over the years.
Jeff Alworth challenges an often-repeated assertion in a piece entitled ‘Are Pilsners really the hardest beers to make?’
The difficulty of a pilsner is its simplicity, but the difficulty of a good IPA is its complexity. Brewers must harmonize much stronger flavors, and this presents its own challenge. Figuring out how the hops will harmonize, when there are dozens of hop varieties available that can be used in thousands of combinations, and jillions (technical term) of combinations when you consider all the opportunities during the brewing process to add these thousands of combinations of hop varieties… The idea that other beers are “easier” to make is refuted by all the mediocre examples out there. How many crap IPAs have you had? Is the batting average for excellent IPAs any better than excellent pilsners? Not in my experience.
Mark Dredge has both a new website and a new book on the way, on the history and culture of lager. As a side investigation, he’s been looking into the history of shandy, or shandygaff, with reference to primary archive sources:
[The] first mention for lager and lemonade that I’ve found… [is] from 1870. It comes from the Spanish city of Seville [and was reported in] Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer. It’s interesting to me that there was a lager brewer in Seville in 1870 – that’s early for lager’s spread into Spain. I also like that it was served with a ladle. I’d like a shandy ladle.
If you want something to listen to as opposed to read, there’s this by historian of light entertainment Louis Barfe for BBC Radio 4 on the connections between drinking and comedy.
Finally, the usual mischief from Thornbridge’s in-house provocateur:
'I'll just top that up for you'
'No thanks, that's bob on for me' pic.twitter.com/mtCXWBx4M0— Dominic Driscoll (@ThornbridgeDom) August 8, 2019
For more links and good reading check out Stan Hieronymus on Mondays and Alan McLeod on Thursdays.
2 replies on “News, nuggets and longreads 10 August 2019: sexism, shandy, Smithwick’s”
Thornbridge? From his Twitter feed, I thought Dom had packed it all in to grow fruit and veg!
I stopped going to the GBBF a few years ago, partly because (now-resolved) illness made doing anything a bit of a slog, but partly because as I get older I get less willing to put up with going to events where it’s hard to feel comfortable because they’re clearly aimed at people who think people like me are a bit of a joke (or worse). Reports of this year are making me think I should start going again though!