Franconian Beer Message Board
OT: CAMRA GBG 2014 |
| Posted by barry on 2013-12-27 08:42:59 |
| So, guess what was my Xmas pressie? Ok, no prizes but it arrived - not surprising as I had given the co-ordinates for buying from the Book Depository. Well, better that than more socks - oh, blast, got them as well. Would you believe, socks for diabetics? This is what comes of eating my last pair of non-diabetic socks - oh, and diabetic slippers. No comment. What a whopper - a full 944 pages. Just checked my oldest edition (1980), which had 235 pages; shows how things have changed. Well, not everything, many of old standbys are still standing by, such as Ma Pardoes, Bull and Bladder, Thief's Neck, etc. but so much is different. For example, in my old home town, there is no BP, and no Peveril. However, the Castle and City Arms survive to be joined by a host of places that I've never heard of, including the Bar Fringe, Joshua Brooks and Molly House. But the biggest change is more radical than a few shifting venues: it is the brew pub and micro-brewery revolution. When I first started drinking, there were four brewpubs, the sad remnants of a culture that disappeared around WW1, now there are hundreds. By the 1980s, breweries had dwindled to around 80, now there hundreds, maybe thousands, many in places where you'd hardly expect to find a pub, never mind a brewery. It really is a return to the old days. In my youth, the choice was generally mild or bitter - in Manchester, for example, there was only one pub that sold Guinness (the Clarendon on Oxford Road - demolished to make way for a flyover - and the first place that I saw folk legends such as McColl and Seeger, Bert Lloyd, and the jazz player Tubby Hayes). There were a few oddities; I used to drink in a pub that served draught Bass, Worthy E and IPA, while another pub was a very out of place McEwans house, which sold light and heavy; but these were exceptions to the rule. Now the range of beer is mind boggling! No need to wander from pub to pub as many are mini-beer festivals in their own right. The only problem that I have now is sampling even a minute fraction of this lot whilst still visiting Franken and the Oberpflaz! Incidentally, the weather has turned really bad and this has meant that our Cooraclare Chapelgate Wran Boys show has been cancelled tonight (you can see the 2011 edition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmIsalwjugA). So, this means a night in and probably opening a few bottles of homebrew; may even try some of my Nut brown ale Christmas Special (1055 with added EKG and Cascade hops) - very dry and hoppy - drawn straight from the 'conditioning tank' - a.k.a. the plastic bucket! Slainte. |
| Followups: |
 OT: CAMRA GBG 2014 by Nick B. on 2013-12-28 01:59:29 |
| OT: CAMRA GBG 2014 by barry on 2013-12-28 06:11:21 |
| OT: CAMRA GBG 2014 by Nick B. on 2013-12-28 07:22:46 |