Beer Compurgation

There isn’t enough time for the discomfiture of family. There isn’t enough time for the transient nature of friendship. It would have been a cruel British irony that the rain would begin Sunday 22nd July after months of record breaking dryness. The moor fire on the hill behind the farm had only been extinguished days before. Blissful precipitation had relieved the peated land and the valley below brightened at dawn with the scent of sweet petrichor. The cool and moist morning air became an indication that the summer nights would begin to draw in. The poppies will recede as the gladioli take hold of the first border, a timely reminder of the heartache since the turn of the year. Dolly’s single egg produced in her short time is buried next to Rosemary at first light. She became the first loss the Retreat has seen this calendar year, but not the first in the extended family. As the meat is prepared and the vegetables chopped, the reverberant pings from both devices w...

Though the conversations and opinions are becoming tiring regarding investments and acquisitions of beer businesses, due to recent developments bringing them to the fore once more, I still have a little to add regarding the disillusion of extra choice. This is in response to comments I made on a poll formed by The Beer O’Clock Show for their Hopinions podcast. In response to the question "Do you think Heineken's investment in Beavertown is bad for the independent sector?” I added: My thoughts were based on an assumption that people talking about “increased access to good beer” as a positive, when large conglomerates become involved in smaller breweries, were referring to it in a retail sense. Both Twitter users and the podcasters themselves rebuked this as they were actually discussing the positives from a licensed premises point. As a huge advocate of people using pubs, my response was seen as a little hypocritical as it seemed to impl...