Here’s our pick of beer- and pub-related reading from the last week, from Brexit to botanicals.
Brewers have begun to react to the EU referendum on 23 June mostly — unless we’ve missed something, which is possible — expressing worry:
→ Paul Jones of Manchester’s Cloudwater says ‘As a company, we’re sorely disappointed that our immediate future is now a lot less certain than a week ago’.
→ For Good Beer Hunting Matthew Curtis got soundbites from a couple of others including Claire Ashbridge-Thomlinson of East London Brewing Co who said, ‘we have just had a cancellation of an export order from an Italian customer who felt insecure going ahead in the present climate’.
→ And it’s not just hip craft brewers who are worried: Greene King has concerns about ‘the near-term’, too.
More from Matt Curtis who had a chat about yeasty beer with revered beer writer Randy Mosher a while back and they agreed to disagree: ‘Yeah it looks like shit, but the smell? Wow… The taste is phenomenal’.
Brewery takeover news: St Austell has acquired Bath Ales, as reported by Beer Today. We did not see this one coming, though we have been observing St Austell’s attempts to build a presence beyond Cornwall (e.g. a flagship pub in Exeter). This gets them 11 pubs in and around Bristol as well as the brewery. St Austell have resisted setting up their own faux-craft spin-off brand but, with this purchase, have picked one up as a bonus: Bath Ales are behind Beerd. It’s all a bit Whitbread-in-the-1950s, which is fascinating.
Trademark dispute update: Camden (now part of AB-InBev) has settled the dispute with Redwell of Norwich over the name ‘Hells’.
The Beer Nut continues to report on Guinness’s attempts to Do Interesting Things, this time providing tasting notes on the latest batch of Open Gate spin-off brewery beers:
The aroma [of Botanical Ale] was lovely… an Italian-smelling blend of pizzaish dried herbs promising a drinking experience beyond the usual… The base seems to be a pretty straightforward red ale, 5% ABV, dry and slightly roasty. But you don’t get much of a look at it before the huge explosion of herbs kicks in. I didn’t catch the full list of add-ins but the oily greenness of sage is obvious at the centre while around it I got elements of basil, rosemary and peppercorns, some of which may actually have been used.
And, finally, wisdom from Lars Marius Garshol on Twitter:
Quite often, "farmhouse" means: "be careful when opening" pic.twitter.com/LnD7EPXKn3
— Lars Marius Garshol (@larsga) July 1, 2016
News, Nuggets & Longreads 2 July 2016: Brexit, Murk and Guinness from Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog - Beer blogging since 2007, covering real ale, craft beer, pubs and British beer history.