Here’s our weekly round up of the best writing about beer. This week, we’ve got cask ale, Belgian beer, and lots of different boozers.
First, some news: Carlsberg-Marstons has decided to stop brewing a bunch of the cask ale brands it has acquired over the years. Some have shrugged – these aren’t beloved beers, on the whole, and why brew them if nobody wants to drink them? Others, like Tandleman and Pete Brown, are concerned about the message it sends: “Are CMBC honestly trying to deliberately destroy the UK’s cask ale market? Of course they’d say no, if they could ever be arsed to comment on the situation. But if they really were trying to murder cask ale, what would they be doing differently to what they’ve done so far this year?”
For Belgian Smaak Jonny Garrett has written about one of the great puzzles of beer geekery: why did we all decide Westvleteren 12 was “the best beer in the world”?
Local news stations reported chaos in that late summer of 2005. Drivers in the Flemish village parked wherever they could, churning up grass and leaving debris. The police were summoned. Helicopters scrambled. People queued for hours outside the village’s monastery, bringing traffic to a standstill… Then the world saw what was going on and the press started calling. They asked how a handful of monks had achieved such a thing, and why they would even want to… The monastic inhabitants of St Sixtus Abbey, a few kilometres south of Westvleteren, had brewed beer for centuries, using the profits to support their peaceful way of life. Like any conscientious brewery, they wanted their beers to be as good as they could be, but it was far from their focus. They certainly didn’t list Westvleteren 12, their Belgian Dark Strong Ale—or “Quadrupel”—on any beer rating sites. So they were probably more surprised than anyone when, in 2005, an American website crowned Westvleteren 12 the “best beer in the world”.
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At Tempest in a Tankard Franz D. Hofer has been exploring an important Austro-Bavarian institution – the Wirtshaus, or village inn. It starts with a typically delightful anecdote from his travels:
A small group of burly men with broad grins joined us at our table, curious to hear about these two wanderers who clearly weren’t from this Bavarian village snug up against the border with Bohemia. So it goes at the Wirtshaus, where tables for two are rare. Some had worked in construction. Another was a local farmer who supplied pork to the butcher around the corner. The conversation grew more animated as the empty glasses lined up and the talk turned to the state of the world today. Our food arrived and we tucked in. After a few minutes the farmer proudly proclaimed that the Schweinsbraten and Schnitzel on our plates had come from his farm.
Closer to home Chris Dyson at Real Ale, Real Music has been exploring Leeds and provides a useful update on the state of the city’s beer scene:
I carried on down past the Duck & Drake under the railway bridge towards the Minster where on one side was the Lamb & Flag… This lovely brick-built pub dates from the 19th century and was formerly run by Leeds Brewery until their demise, when the small pub estate was acquired by Camerons and the beers were taken on by Kirkstall. With its mullioned windows, interior featuring exposed brickwork and timbers, wooden floors and fittings it is one of the most attractive pubs in the city… I ordered a pint of Kirkstall Three Swords, missing out on the few Leeds beers that were amongst the 8 hand pumps on the bar, and took it to a corner table at the side of the door facing the bar…
For news outlet CNN Will Noble has done his best to explain the UK’s Wetherspoon pub chain to Americans. We suspect British readers will enjoy it, if only for the strange sensation of seeing our own culture presented as alien and exotic:
Utter the single word “Wetherspoon,” or even the colloquial “Spoons” to a Brit, and they’ll know what you mean. Some will grimace. Some will groan. Others will excitedly rub their hands together like you’d just cooked their favorite meal… Wetherspoon pubs are an institution in the UK. They enjoy cult-like status both among admirers, lured in by real ale and “pub grub” sold at astoundingly low prices, and detractors, who see them as emblematic of everything that’s wrong with modern Britain… More than 800 Wetherspoon chain pubs freckle the country — from The Muckle Cross in Scotland to The Tremenheere in Cornwall. In just a few decades, “Spoons” have become so ingrained into British daily life that they probably now deserve to be up there with Stonehenge on the list of UK cultural institutions.
As we near the finish, let’s pop into a few pubs around and about.
First, in Dublin, Lisa Grimm takes us to a pub with the brilliant name The Glimmer Man: “The name comes from the Emergency/WWII-era job title – think a sort of proto-TV license inspector role – tasked with seeking out people using too much gas. It’s been applied to the pub here since at least the 1980s, though a previous proprietor, T. Lyster, is still commemorated in the tiled entrance.”
Then we’ll bob over to Ramsgate in Kent with Alex at Pub Vignettes for a snapshot of life at The Hovelling Boat Inn, among others: “You here for the Meat Raffle, son? Wasn’t aiming for a whole side of lamb kind of afternoon, but carpe diem. Strip of five tickets. Sonny and Cher. Simon and Garfunkel. Micropub and Butcher. Get the collab while it’s happening, nothing’s eternal.”
Finally, with Adrian Tierney-Jones, let’s visit Whitelocks in Leeds: “I engage in the tradition of vertical drinking at the long bar, its polished copper top gleaming like a much-loved child on Christmas morning, while the well-polished glasses standing on shelves at the mirrored back bar add to the impression that this is very much a glittering palace of beer…”
Finally, from BlueSky…
The AEB – GEB yeast packet designs go so hard. Would have each of these on a t-shirt. (Pic from geterbrewed.com)
— Katie Mather (@katiematherkm.bsky.social) November 26, 2024 at 11:26 AM
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For more good reading check out Stan Hieronymus’s round-up from Monday and Alan McLeod’s from Thursday.