News in Brief #53

"My GBG's not here yet. It's a conspiracy!"

Beer Guide Delay Causes Panic

This week, the unexpected lateness of the delivery of advance copies of The Good Beer Guide has caused mass consternation amongst CAMRA ticker types.  "The wait has been terrible," cried serial pub traveller Merton Nay-Chess "I've not known quite what to do with myself."

"Since I don't have a book to tell me where to go, I've been stuck at home.  It's got so bad that I've been scrawling obscure symbols about pub facilities on the walls in crayon, and then going over them with highlighter pens." he burbled

"It'd better arrive soon. My wife is threatening to divorce me if I don't get out of the house."

Meanwhile, rampant annoyer of the UK's landlords Kenny Garfunkel complained "I've put a note on my door demanding the delivery of my Beer Guide just in case the postman thinks of chucking it over a hedge or into the canal.  I've even put signs up from the sorting office to my flat, but still no joy."

"The train company are threatening to close down my local station," ranted Kenny "due to lack of use as three-quarters of all journeys are apparently by me going to god knows where,"

Good Beer Guide editor Roger Protz said about the delays "Bloody tickers. Don't these people have a local to go to or something?"

Still less viscous than the average Craft IPA

Bottle Experiment Continues

The Department of Opacity at London University this month celebrated the Fifth Anniversary of their famous long term experiment.  "We saw that pitch drop thing on Wikipedia," said Professor John Spuriousfunding "and it inspired us."

"We did some research and decided that the flow rate of bitumen wasn't quite quite long-haul enough for our purposes.  So we bought a bottle of Kernel Motueka IPA and gave it a good shake beforehand ,put it in the fridge, as suggested and waited for it to clear."

"We've been checking it every week since September 7th 2011.  Since then the transparency has increased by 2 OUs.  As such, we're expecting it to completely clear by April 2156.  It's a good job we have a long term grant to keep the bottle top from rusting."

Kernel Head Brewer Evan O'Riordan told us.  "How intriguing.  Don't know why they're bothering, though.  I can never get my beers to clear."

"In fact, I heard of people serving that Motueka IPA by the slice."

The latest division of AB InBev hard at work

AB InBev Acquire Beer Blog

Despicable corporate takeover monster Anheuser-Busch InBev have announced their latest acquisition to the Drinks Media. Suprisingly, it's not a beer, a brewery or even a brand.  "No, we've decided on a different tack this time." intoned Head of Heartless Wholesale Desecration Hiram J. Heritagetrasher "We've bought one of those 'Beer Blog' things."

The blog in question "Seeing The Lizards", a barely read farrago of crude mockery and incoherent ramblings was bought this week from it's owner Matthew Lawrenson for the record price of 2 cases of beer.  "It definitely fills a gap in our portfolio." continued Heritagetrasher "It's so much effort and cost to keep doing things like ads about pumpkin peach ale to annoy and upset the 'beer community', so we sought out somebody who's been doing it for a long time and for free too."

Lawrenson, speaking from his usual barstool at the Moorbrook Inn, Preston while sinking his eighth pint of BlackJack and simultaneously pissing people off on Twitter "This is an exciting time for 'Seeing The Lizards'. I look forward to working in partnership with a company of AB InBev's stature to move forward with future content."

"Don't know what I'm going to to with these 48 cans of Camden IHL they gave me, though."