World Heritage Pints

Obviously I'm a pretty big fan of cask beer. 

It accounts for about 96-97% of the beer I drink, I spend way too much time seeking out new and interesting pints to tick off, and it wouldn't be an overstatement to say that drinking cask, in pubs, is a huge part of my life. 

I'm also well aware that I exist in a beer bubble of my own creation, that my drinking habits are far from universal and that cask beer is in serious decline. 

OK, it may not exactly be dying - yet - but it has increasingly become a niche product, as I vaguely predicted some years ago. 

Most of the beers I'd want to drink can only really be found in a relatively small number of specialist pubs, and the fact that I do almost my drinking in such places doesn't change the fact that as a mainstream product, cask is on the endangered list. Which should, and does, worry me.

The boys from the Craft Beer Channel on YouTube are concerned too. And, unlike me, are a whole lot more proactive when it comes to actually doing something about it!

Their long-running 'Keep Cask Alive' campaign is to be taken up a level as they seek to secure UNESCO 'Intangible Cultural Heritage' status for cask beer. Which is interesting for a number of reasons.

Falling out of Like with Wetherspoons?

The Wetherspoons 'Beer Festival' which is currently running has a lot going for it.

There's a reasonable mix of beers from all over the country (including the usual 'International' offerings which are all actually what the Yanks call 'domestic' but we'll gloss over that) and a fair range of styles from which to choose.

Having sourced both Vienna- and Märzen-style lagers on cask would seem particularly daring for Spoons, and indeed both are worth seeking out (more on why that may be less easy than it sounds in a bit!)

Golden Pints: BV's best beers of 2024

It's that time again, when I cast an over-shouldered glance at all the new beer I got to drink over the past year and tell you which ones were best.

My drinking year was ultimately cut short by a few days due to the worst 'flu' I've ever suffered. Because I don't do hangovers, I'm not really used to having headaches. And it seemed to make the neuropathic pain in my toes many, many times more agonising, like being set on fire and hit repeatedly with sledgehammers and anvils. Then there was the concurrent shivering and fever sweats. Horrible.

But possibly the worst feature was what I call 'Hypnogogic Purgatory' - highly tedious and frustrating half-dreams that seem to go on forever in a state where I'm not fully asleep or awake; a sense of endlessly trying to shuffle arbitrary objects into an order and constantly failing to do so. (Maybe Hypnogogic Purgatory should be an Imperial Stout?!?)