News, nuggets and longreads 21 December 2024: The Parallax View

Here’s all the writing about beer and pubs that grabbed our attention in the past week, from Samuel Smith to red hot pokers.

First, some news that’s created ripples among beer geeks, even if it’s not likely to trouble civilians: RateBeer is closing down. Founded in 2000, it was acquired by AB-InBev between 2017 and 2019. Jeff Alworth has commentary: “It was an old platform with a mission that has grown obsolete. At the turn of the century, a few years after the birth of the internet, it helped beer fans locate and sort good beer, a task that became ever more hopeless with the proliferation of breweries and beer.”

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By way of contrast, a story that did break out of the bubble was Mark Blacklock’s forensic investigation into Samuel Smith’s brewery, and Humphrey Smith’s influence in particular, for The Guardian. We get an attempt at an article like this every now and then, usually recycling the very limited information that’s available, but this piece has both some new facts and, crucially, some fresh insight:

Throughout the months I have worked on this article, I have tried to gain a sense of why Humphrey Smith rules his empire as he does. Perhaps it’s as simple as a desire to turn back the clock to an earlier period, when business owners ruled their realm as they pleased, even if that meant self-destruction. Even so, one mystery has continued to dog me: his obsession with blocking development in the green belt… The Labour government had built a busy road at the bottom of Humphrey Smith’s garden on the advice of a planning expert, and there was nothing he could do about it. His childhood home was invaded by planners who claimed to be bringing progress. Ever since, Smith has militantly resisted both planners and progress. He has built an alternative world, one whose every aspect he tries to control. And if the little king cannot do as he pleases, everyone else can go hang.

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At 8-Bits and Bobs hospitality pro Michael Deakin has written about the tension between the need for pubs to be open at Christmas and the need for hospitality staff to have time off. On the one hand, it’s a time of year when loneliness can feel especially acute, and when we’re most eager to connect with (willing to tolerate the company of) our neighbours. On the other hand…

I have spent almost my entire working life in an industry and a system where if you don’t carve out time for yourself where you can, it will be carved out of you. In most other industries there is no consideration as to whether you should work Christmas or not, but I expect this to change. As we hurtle towards ever more extreme forms of capitalism, worker rights will continue to be eradicated and more and more people will be expected to give up the last few remaining bastions of free time they have… There will be tens of thousands of well wishes sent between hospitality staff and regular pub goers this Christmas Day, in both directions, because, like a proper family Christmas, through the drinks,toil, and festive friction, lingers genuine affection. That’s the essence of the struggle we face. The possession of empathy in a system that will not credit you for it, rather use it to exploit you and wring out those last few precious pennies.

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Have you ever seen a hot poker plunged into a tankard of ale? No, us neither, but we’d like to. At British Beer Breaks Phil Mellows has written about this tradition and the concept of festive beers more generally:

In the middle of November the Hand in Hand brewpub in Brighton staged an unusual ceremony in which a red-hot poker was plunged into pints of Hand Brew Co’s old ale, Kora, to mark the dark beer style’s return to the bar after its long summer holiday… The brew bubbled, hissed, steamed and overflowed, leaving a warmer, and slightly caramelised drink. There was a time when this was common practice. My dad, who was brought up in a pub between the world wars, remembered pokers being heated in the open fire in winter so customers could heat their mild ale to taste. There were no reports of casualties… These days it seems to me that beer pokering is a great theatrical way to introduce the festive season, when plain beers are not enough and the dark depths of winter demands something special, an extra spice.

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For some reason, we’re always fascinated by stories about cask ale in the US. Perhaps it’s a latent desire to exert some kind of cultural influence over the most powerful country in the world. Or maybe it’s just that it seems odd and interesting. At Casket Beer Kevin Kain has written about the influential Suarez Family Brewery in Livingston, New York, which recently acquired a hand pump for its taproom:

Though the taproom hand pump is new, Suarez planted the seeds for their cask beer service years ago. They’ve been making a few beer styles associated with cask beer that have been well-received. This includes their English-style Dark Mild, Saunter. That’s a style that many were not familiar with here in the US, and, like the influence they’ve had on lager, Suarez’s production of Saunter has likely helped many appreciate the traditional English ale. As a result, it’s not hard to find the style now… Inspired by Theakston’s Old Ale, a beer that recently began being distributed here in the US again, they also released their take on that style late last year. The beer, Be It Known, is nitrogenated when canned to provide a texture that mimics cask beer.

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We don’t usually listen to beer-related podcasts but long-time reader Oliver Holtaway particularly recommended this episode of Footprints about community pubs, with a focus on three community pubs in Bath in Somerset:

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Finally, from Bluesky, a treasure trove…

I decided a while ago on my #12BeersofXmas. Every Fullers Vintage from 2023 back to 2012. While I still buy these every year, the excitement has gone since the big overlords took over the brewery, so it feels like time to drink up and close the chapter.

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— LouOnBrew (@louonbrew.bsky.social) December 20, 2024 at 4:41 PM

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