Tu be or not tu be?

I've been toying with the idea of starting a Youtube channel. Specficially one that documents me visiting pubs, drinking new cask ales and steadily adding to my tally of around 13,000 different pints over the past 30 years.

Maybe called BV ticks beers. Or something. You'd see me in a pub getting excited because they have a new Red IPA from Siren on. I sup the beer, tell you a bit about it, and give it my considered verdict. The number 13,326 flashes up on the screen, along with the beer name, the ABV and a rating of 7/9. Then I move on to another pub in search of the next tick. Probably swearing quite a lot if it's my tenth of the day, then cutting the video short because I need a piss.

Would there be any demand for content such as this?

(I'm not assuming the answer is 'Yes', by the way. I know it's a niche thing. But then a lot of Youtube is niche. And still more of it is about making niche feel normal.)

Golden Pints: BV's best beers of 2025

Well, that's another year done and dusted. How was it for you? Did you drink some good beer? Excellent.

Personally, I was sat there all contendedly like, thinking that 2025 was probably fairly decent, ale-wise, but delving a tad more deeply into me records (for the purpose of this post) the past year actually appears far more underwhelming. Certainly less whelming. Quite disappointing, even, which is just what I needed at this time of year. Fuck you, you stupid year!

Unless the spreadsheets are telling lies, I managed 597 new cask beers during the year (about 100 down on 2024) and only five of them scored the 'effective maximum' of 8/9, which, I suppose, means they can all be detailed here without any need to shortlist them, so at least I won't have to remember which were slightly better than the others and perform tie-breakers in my head!

This takes my overall total up to 12,890 since I first starting keeping track, exactly 30 years ago. (Happy beer-ticking anniversary to me! Do I get a Pearl tankard or something?) 

I'll try and work out my absolute 'beer of the year' in a moment, but firstly, a few mentions of the - ahem - 'other' stuff...

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 2023

Compliments of the festive season, everyone!

(Yes, whatever anybody tells you, it's still Christmas. My decorations are staying up at least until Twelfth Night, and quite possibly until Candlemas.)

It is, however, a 'new year' which means people like me can definitively announce our favourite beverages from the previous one. Which is exactly what I'm about to do, so strap yourselves in

GBBF 2023: A Call to (Volunteer) Arms

I've been attending the Great British Beer Festival for 29 years now, and have long been a staunch supporter of the event. 

Typically I'd get a Season Ticket, attend most or even all of the sessions, and drink lots of beers during the week, which would be one of the highlights of my year. I've seen it grow in size from the mid-90s onwards; the evolution as it moved from Olympia to Earl's Court and then back again. And I sorely missed it in 2020 and 2021, when it didn't take place. Its return in 2022 brought a sense of purpose back to my life. Well, back to my first week in August, at any rate.

But despite being a GBBF Superfan, I'd never volunteered - until this year - and it's only right that I now give you my honest assessment of how I got on last week.

Golden Pints: BV's best beers of 2022

Are 'Golden Pints' still a thing? Is beer blogging still a thing? Are things being a thing still a thing?

In my case, the answer to all these questions is 'just barely'. If that.

Indeed, it's probably not unreasonable to suggest that I fell somewhat out of love with beer during 2022 - a combination of beers being indifferent and me being clinically depressed.

I haven't blogged a whole lot either and even coming up with a handful of words to describe a beer for an Untappd check-in sometimes feels like too much effort. Again, it's probably the depression for the most part. Mopey old Ben, fishing for pity as usual.

But it's a new year and so I'll try to squeeze something out about my favourite brews of 2022. After all, with all the breweries that have shut up shop lately a positive word about beer might go a long way. Or it might not.

GBBF 2022: Hello, old friend!

Three years is a long time in beer. 

With the 2020 and 2021 Great British Beer Festivals successively cancelled due to some sort of 'pandemic' or other, it's been a long time to wait, but last week the agony of waiting was finally over. GBBF came back!

I first attended the GBBF in 1994 and have been back every year since, so it's pretty much a part of my DNA now, and I've seen it change and evolve gradually over the years.

I particularly enjoyed myself in 2018, and 2019 wasn't bad either, but following two years of missing out, even a terrible GBBF would've been good, if that makes sense.  

1000 new beers at the Radius!

Picture the scene:

It's a little over six years ago. Mrs B-V and I have decided we're going to move out of London and are house-hunting in the East Surrey area.

One of the important factors in our search is having a good pub nearby. A pub where we can get to know the locals and make it a key component of our day-to-day lives and, crucially, a pub where there will be ever-changing cask beer that will allow me to easily indulge my hobby - nay, my lifestyle - as a ticker.

Golden Pints: BV's best beers of 2021

Well, it's now 2022, which means it's time to look back on my favourite beers of the past year.  

It's been another year disrupted by lockdowns, restrictions and - in my view - unnecessarily draconian - legislation, but, hey, we're all still here. Apart from the Duke of Edinburgh, obviously. And Alan Bradley. Well, the actor who once played him.

Now as you'll almost certainly know, my drinking preference - the default position if you like - is to drink cask beer in a pub, and, putting it politely, that habit isn't altogether compatible with the COVID situation. I didn't even get to drink a pint at a pub until April 11, when the grand midnight re-opening at PotY The Kentish Belle marked perhaps the most memorable quenching of thirst in history!  

But let's not let such happy occasions distract us from the sad fact that the hospitality industry is still suffering, and the biggest threat of all is to places that rely on selling cask beer!

Every ABV: 8.5 to 10.5%

And so we reach the fourth (and, for now, final) part of the 'Every ABV' series. I know you're all eager to find out my favourite cask beers at higher strengths, so let's crack right on with it.

8.5% -  Big Smoke The Judge

So many breweries have appeared in Greater London over the past decade that some are often overlooked. The Antelope in Surbiton - former home of Big Smoke brewery - won my 2017-2018 London Pub of the Year award which hopefully went some small way to putting them on the map, even if the name 'Big Smoke' is possibly a tad misleading. Surbiton is a long way from the square mile; Esher even further! And as for the beer, well it's a big, juicy DIPA with plenty of Citra and Simcoe hops, just the way I like 'em.

Every ABV: 6.5 to 8.4%

So, what are we all going to do now that the footie is over and before the Olympics begins? 

We shall do what every good English patriot does: We shall go to the pub and drink beer. 

And from Monday we'll even be able to walk up to the bar to order, and visit the toilet facilities without wearing a mask - in some places at least. I'm looking forward to doing both of these things.

(If you only watched Euro 2020 because you wanted to see what my 'Final Meal' would be and were disappointed when I didn't post one, the truth is that I forsaw the England-Italy final ten years before it happened and came up with Full English Breakfast Linguine in anticipation of the match!)

Anyway, here's the latest part of my 'Every ABV' series, where I move onto the stronger stuff...

Every ABV: 4.5 to 6.4%

Having rated the best cask beers between 2.5 and 4.4% ABV a few days ago, I shall now move on to the slightly stronger stuff.

Will there be shocks? Will there be surprises? Will there be the opportunity to win a small cash prize? Let's get cracking and find the fuck out...

(No cash prizes.)

 

Every ABV: 2.5 to 4.4%

What with me being a sad beer geek since long before it was even slightly cool, I've been keeping records of the cask beers I've been drinking for over 25 years. That's a whole lot of beer, that is. Over 10,000 different ones. At a whole lot of different strengths too.

Which leads me to an arguably pointless but nevertheless interesting question: What is the best cask beer I've had at every different ABV? 

 

Some cask beer yesterday (photo taken years ago)

It turns out that I've had at least one beer at every ABV from 2.5% up to 10.5% (with one rather frustrating exception!) so why not do a series of posts exploring my favourites and - where I can actually remember the beer in question - why they were so fucking good.

Obviously this list is massively subjective, and less common ABVs will have an advantage over beers that are 4.2 or 4.5, of which I've drunk literally thousands. And it's far from an exact science - beers are allowed some variance a few points either way from the advertised strength, so it might be that all hell broke loose and that 6.9% beer I loved was actually only 6.7%. Oh the humanity.

But I don't really care, and it's potentially all part of the fun anyway. So, here we go, kicking off with the weakest end of the spectrum...

10,000 pints later

On New Years Day 1996, I sat in the William Morris pub in Merton Abbey Mills, drinking a pint of Draught Bass. 

A callow youth with a few months of teenagehood still remaining on the clock, I had no idea that this was the start of something that would stay with me for the next two and a half decades.

It wasn't - don't be disappointed now, internet - a lifelong love of Bass. But it has been a journey through a further 9999 different beers.

The Bass was quickly followed by Gale's Christmas Ale, back when Gale's was actually a brewery in Hampshire, and the following day I enjoyed a Burtonwood James Forshaw, and a Hopback Summer Lightning. 

So...

It's back...

So, I went to the pub on Saturday. Actually I went to three.

I broke my lockdown with a few at two-time London Pub of the Year The Hope, then checked out the newly refurbished bar at the Cryer Theatre, before finishing up at Wallington's Wetherspoons.

I drank several pints over the course of the afternoon, the sky didn't cave in, nobody died, and I'm fairly confident that nobody is going to die as a result of my actions. I don't think I actually came within a metre of another human being, without there being a giant plastic shield between us.

So, the pub is back. Sort of.

Wetherspoons: A life just beginning?

JD Wetherspoon is turning 40.

In pub industry years, where change now tends to happen at breakneck pace, that makes it something of an elder statesman. In 'real' time, the chain is only a couple of years younger than I am, and consequently Spoons has been around for my entire life; a constant presence since I started drinking, albeit one that has changed substantially over time. Not necessarily for the better.

Marked by their latest beerfest featuring 40 beers - most of them new and/or exclusive - this birthday is a milestone occasion for a staple of the British High Street that is as controversial as it is popular.

Having visited over 600 of their pubs (exactly 612 at the last count), I consider myself one of the chains biggest fans, but also one of its more vocal critics. There is a lot that Tim Martin has done right, and few would argue that, on balance, Wetherspoons haven't been an overall force for good. but there are a number of worrying issues and a hell of a lot of ways in which things could improve.

Mild mannered thoughts

It's perhaps a tad unfortunate that this years Mild Month is coterminous with the announcement of (and scurrilious conclusion-drawing from!) the cessation of Robinson's 1892 Mild, which some are proclaiming as the final death knell of the style.

A quick check of my personal records reveals that I've tried 33 different Robinson's beers, none of which were this particular mild. That in itself says quite a bit.


I'm a ticker. So given that I will always try a beer I haven't had before - subject to limits of capacity, which are probably greater than the average persons - this suggests that I've never been anywhere that Robbies Mild has been available, apart from possibly a beer festival where it would've been lost amongst hundreds of other, largely more exciting brews.

This in turn indicates that Robinson's have been astonishingly crap at distributing their mild and probably had little interest in the product. Compare it to their heavily-promoted Trooper, a fairly bland beer which appears to be available absolutely fucking everywhere.

I've had two other Milds brewed at Robinson's - Young Tom and Hartley's Mild - and I've even been to Stockport once (first game after City were relegated from the Premiership, won 2-0) so if I've never had the opportunity to try the beer, it's a fair bet that your average drinker hasn't either.

Tapping into Untappd

Generally I'm one of those 'early adopter' types.

I was singing the praises of strong, uncompromisingly-hopped American Pale Ales back in the 1990s when most people simply refused to believe that Yank beer could be anything other than bland pisswater.

I learned how to pronounce 'quinoa' and quickly dismissed it as a viable food option long before it became a staple of the dining table in fucking Highgate.

And this Winter I'm bringing back possets. Trust me, I'm way ahead of the curve on this one. At some point in the next couple of weeks I'll share my Insane Clown Posset recipe which will blow your ballsacks away.

But it's impossible to be bleeding-edge all the time.

For the past few weeks I've been using Untappd to keep track of my beer drinking, and while it's extremely useful and quite addictive, it does feel like I'm very, very late to the party, like some guy that only joined Facebook last month and still hasn't worked out that sending Frontier Crushville Candy Saga requests to everybody every 20 minutes makes him a cunt.