News in Brief #56

Contains more brains than some beer blog commenters 

New Beer Festival Announced

As the seasons change, the mind of the drinker is drawn towards the Beer Festival season. A new entry in Fest Itinerary for this year has been organised by Dave Driptray, landlord of the Eagle & Child in Albury,  Cambridgeshire.

"Beer events are ten-a-penny these days, so I needed a gimmick. And what better gimmick than a celebration of our most famous local blog commenter? "

As such, the 1st Annual Beer And PY Festival will be held on 28th-30th October. "It'll be great." enthused Driptray  "We're putting on 32 supposedly different pale ales and running tutored events on how to annoy people by quoting Wikipedia out of context and making up facts to support barely-existing arguments. CAMRA members are of course not allowed as they are a load of boring old men with antiquated views."

Tickets go on sale next week, and included is free entry to the opening ceremony where 6 casks of Greene King IPA are tipped into the River Cam.

PY himself is not attending. "No way. It's some attempt to unwarrantedly accuse me of things."

Current contents a mystery

Finishing Barrel Travels Country

Due to the incessant demand by new wave breweries for "(insert thing here) barrel ale", nine gallon oak hogshead Brian Charredstave has found himself travelling the UK to be filled with various stuff.

"It started in May. Back then I was just a plain, simple ex-bourbon barrel from Heaven Hill in Kentucky." explained Brian "then I came to England and was filled with Imperial Stout."

"After that I ended up in Aberdeen to make a limited edition Stout-cask red ale.  Then they filled me up, consecutively with rum, IPA, damson eau de vie and blueberry saison.  Normally barrels in my position get sawn up for ornamental planters by now, but it just keeps on going, man."

Head Brewer at serial beer "innovator" Random Brick Damien Fixedgear was asked why he just didn't add the stuff from the supposed cask to flavour his beer accordingly.

"What? That would be, like, silly, dude."

"But did you pay ENOUGH for it, dude?"

Communicator Pays More For Drink

This week, bodacious beer bro and quality seeker Curt Mattis condemned the practice of discounting in Beer Sales.  "It's terrible. I've heard that otherwise awesome breweries are selling beer cheaper than I think they should."

"So, knowing that I can't set their pricing policies on my say-so, I've,  like, taken matters into my own hands. Whenever I buy a pint of craft at my local pub for less money than I think appropriate,  I add 40% to the stated price and pay that as well."

Continued Curty "I then give my server a pie chart diagram,  breaking down where the extra money should go so they can apportion it correctly. 50% to the Brewer, 35% to the distributor and 10% to the pub. Plus 5% to whomever I, like, deem awesome on the day. I know this info as I'm part of The Industry. If everyone did this, man, it would solve all cash flow problems in the industry."

Barman at the Mattis local, Josh Apathetic admitted. "Curt's been badgering me about this for weeks. I'm not bothered really. I just humour him and chuck the extra into my tip jar."

"Peroni night tomorrow at Spoons!"