Beer Compurgation

  Photo Credit: David Holden ( @yesaleblog ) Pouring Track Brewing Sonoma at Stalybridge Buffet Bar.  Doing the rounds the past couple of weeks has been a discussion about where people do their drinking and/or why many choose to drink at home rather than socially.It was discussed on the latest Hopinions show podcast and on blogs by Pete McKerry and Boak and Bailey. I’m biased as I’m a   staunch defender of pubs and would like to see more people use them. Continuous images on Twitter and Instagram suggest that a lot of people I interact with over social network do not agree. For the main, a lot of the reasons given as to why they choose to stay at home I understand and sympathise with. What I can’t get m y head around is the stance – that makes up a quarter of the responses in this Hopinions poll – that it is cheaper to drink at home. I do not question the fact that it certainly can be cheaper to drink at home. When a 4-pack of Sainte Etienne i...

I grew a little bored of tasting sessions and posts for beers after the full voracity of the Advent Calendar saga. However, occasionally some evenings deserve special mention and credit, as do the beers sampled at such times. For this reason, I’ve decided to write up my experience tasting a box of Wild Beer Co’s creations the other evening. Wild Beer Co . were a brewery that created a lot of hype around blogs and the social media long before their beers ever seemed to hit the shelves. Being the miserable cynic that I often am, this made me sceptical, and initially resentful, towards them. I find it shallow and naïve when I see fellow enthusiasts or bloggers hyping up a brewery or brew so much before tasting has even occurred. To me, it is just for those that are easily fooled into marketing schemes and ploys; the sort of humans you would find switching insurance every 3 months because a new species of talking animal told them to in the Coronation Street break. I don’t blame th...