News, nuggets and longreads 10 August 2024: The Invention of Essex

Every Saturday we round up the best writing about beer and pubs. This week we’ve got notes from Tiger Bay, Lincoln and Rotherhithe.

There’s only really been one news story in this week and that’s the effect far right protests, riots and public disorder have had in communities across England. One thing that’s struck us is the part drunkenness (and intoxication of other kinds) seems to have played in events.

Booze removes inhibitions; it makes us feel closer to those in our gang; and it makes it more difficult for us to judge risk. We’ve heard one person after another cite drunkenness as an excuse for their aggressive, reckless, potentially murderous behaviour. The same defence is often used to justify abusive or racist comments on social media.

You might think it’s an attempt at an easy get-out. And you might think, so, what – we ban booze and this problem goes away? All we know is that beer did not act as softener or social glue in the past week, which is worth remembering if we’re tempted to trot out that smug line in future. 

And the occasional story of solidarity between pub-goers and counter protestors offers only a little comfort.

---

In his Substack newsletter David Jesudason has written, with input from historian Kieran Connell, about the complex multicultural history of Tiger Bay in Cardiff:

As well as the large mixed-race population, in 1947 Tiger Bay, there were more than 2,000 Muslims including a 700-strong Yemeni Sufi community, which led to many cafes-cum-bars being opened, which are vividly described by Kieran… These were large, semi-clean rooms with a strong smell of food in the air. “A counter selling groceries alongside hot food, cups of tea, lemonade, and anything from Australian wine, meths and ‘near beer’ to diluted whiskey sold at seven shillings a cup.” They could legally sell alcohol until 11pm – one hour later than the pubs in the area.

---

At Brussels Notes on Substack Eoghan Walsh asks why the Belgian capital has no station bars, and argues that it needs them:

Across the city’s three main stations there’s no shortage of coffee shops and fast food places, chocolate boutiques and jewellery stores. But no honest to goodness pub, a civilised refuge from the station’s travelling circus where an anxious traveller can sit and wait with a book, one eye on their beer and another on the departures board, in anticipation of the start of their journey. How is it that the once-ubiquitous stationsbuffet – the local euphemism for a railway bar, and nodding to the fact that, if you were lucky, they might have a sandwich or some hot pastries on sale – has not just become an endangered species in the Belgian capital, but fully extinct. Didn’t we used to be a country? Aren’t we allowed to have nice things?

---

Matthew Curtis has written an endearingly honest piece about returning to his home city of Lincoln for a pub crawl. It’s full of details that anyone who has ever written about beer, for fun or for money, will recognise:

Pausing after a sip, I realise that not only are the only people in the pub me and the bartender, but I am furiously writing notes and taking photos of my pint with a large and noisy camera. “Sorry, I like taking photos of pubs.” I say, nervously, before getting a warm reply and starting a brief conversation with the bartender. I notice how I’ve slipped back into my barely apparent Lincolnshire accent. This is comforting to me, and I start to relax and enjoy my surroundings. I think to myself how I bet this pub is great when it’s filled with those regulars, and the soft percussion of chatter.

---

Ed Wray has undertaken exactly the kind of vaguely psychogeographical pub crawl that appeals to us: a circular route in East London which involves crossing the Thames twice. The quality of inebriated pub debate seems to have been rather elevated, too:

Luca studied philosophy so I was able to ask him about Platonism, something I’ve become curious about thanks to listening to the Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast. I’d previously thought of pagans as primitives that believed any old bollocks but in fact they believed in extremely sophisticated bollocks… But more importantly the pub served Landlord so we stayed for two (2) pints. Not the sort of thing you normally do on a pub crawl but hey, I love Landlord. Our extended stay meant the conversation had time to get round to fact the actor Ian McKellen owns the pub. Which explained why there was a statue of a wizard in a corner and a staff behind the bar.

---

How many breweries are there in America? Jeff Alworth at Beervana thinks it might be far fewer than the 10,000 often cited, having picked a square (Oregon) and done his own count:

Until you’ve gone through the exercise, it’s really challenging to count breweries. I’m not surprised the Brewers Association had trouble getting an accurate count. But just glancing through the list, I see that they include not just beer companies, but all the breweries operated by a beer company. So Deschutes has three listings—one for their original Bend brewpub, one for their Portland brewpub, and one for their production brewery. McMenamins has eighteen listings (and it’s pretty accurate). But other places they include a taproom that’s not a brewery (10 Barrel, Chuckanut)… They miss breweries as well. Sometimes a restaurant will start making beer on a one-barrel kit. I’m not sure how well these are tracked by taxing authorities—which is, I assume, one of the ways to identify a brewery.

We’ve had to grapple with this for UK brewery numbers in the past and our approach has been to aim to pick one source when we’re talking about change over time. At least that way, if it’s wrong, it’s more likely to be consistently wrong and based on the same counting methodology.

---

Finally, from BlueSky, reporting from the ground that challenges the prevailing narrative…

Interesting day at the London craft beer festival. A lot of excitable young people, mostly belying the idea that their generation didn’t like booze. Anyway, please enjoy these images

[image or embed]

— Will Hawkes (@willhawkes.bsky.social) Aug 9, 2024 at 21:59

For more good reading check out Stan Hieronymus’s round-up from Monday and Alan McLeod’s from Thursday.