Beer Compurgation

Dear Beer Con Whilst attending your festival there was some confusion in the queue that led to my hair getting wet. On arrival I wasn’t presented with numerous free tokens. Do you know who I am?. It’s a disgrace. It is no secret that the beer industry can be a pugnacious space. Fuelled by the natural negativity of social media, there are more arguments and squabbles in this vacuous void than ever before. The unrelenting antagonism became a little too much for me last year until a visit to Salford beer festival tore me from the doldrums of despair. The positivity of this particular festival space acted as a personal patronus against the beer Dementors that were slowly sucking the joy from anything to do with this hobby In the ensuing 10 months though the joy began to fade once more. Expense, repetitiveness, FOMO, guilds, Facebook forums and the constant fight for power by the networkers all brought me back within the group of silent, aimless, beer Hattifatte...

  A couple of discussions seemed to have passed me by in the last couple of weeks and, when I did eventually pick up on them, roused some interest upon reading. The first was an article by Glynn Davis for Beer Insider, the second was a Hopinions podcast Twitter poll and the resulting audio show.   Both referred to the discussion of whether a half pint should be half the price of a full pint. Whilst the results of the Twitter poll at least were fairly one sided, there were still discussions justifying any difference in pricing; areas where half a pint may be more than a full pint because there is some sort of strenuous extra labour involved in its production. With this I have discovered new types of bars that have interesting pay structures. The argument seems to be that the labour costs are the same for serving a half as they are a pint and that must be reflected in the price one pays. Therefore, there are areas in the country where people either are or belie...

Recently, and partly due to the demise of Bury FC , I’ve decided to spend the odd spare Saturday I have throughout the football season going to watch a local (for now) football team and take in some of the pubs and bars around the towns and stadiums in which they reside. My first trip was on Saturday 31 st  August to Seel Park to catch Mossley AFC take on Kendal Town in the Northern Premier League Division One   It was an easy and obvious decision to make Mossley my first trip of this new tour, as I work with a couple of people that already attend the game here. Still, they tend to head straight for the club house before the game so they wouldn’t be joining me on my local pub tour. Growing up in neighbouring Stalybridge, Mossley was always considered the debauched and ostracised cousin. The people had their reputation and so did the pubs. We were painted the picture of a rundown, smog filled town that hadn’t changed since pre-Peterloo days. As you ma...

At 11pm on Saturday I am perched on the small stone wall of a Bakewell residence by the open boot of our car. My partner has fabricated a roll of blue paper, like that seen in primary schools, from somewhere to try and wrestle my wellington boots from my feet. I am stubborn. I am unhelpful. I am drunk. My boots are removed and deposited in the back of the car. My next memory is waking in a bright bed & breakfast room at a guest house opposite Bakewell showground. As our heads try to revive enough to make our way across for breakfast, the memories of the day before are touched upon. The delicious currywurst in both meat and vegan form, the sight of disgruntled campers fetching buckets of water, the beer heavy meet the brewer events from brewers in varying states of hangover, my reaction to discovering Jarl had gone on the cask bar and my partner’s reaction to the price, dancing to Whitney Houston in the muddiest of fields at dusk and then trying to remember the ve...