Sunday 31 January 2016

News in Brief #38

You can see the signs. Just don't TOUCH them


Top Beer Writer Does Kipling


"If you can extol the virtues of Craft Beer while making most of your money from corporate tastings and marketing advice.

If you often refer back to your Eighties youth about being mocked for listening to New Order and Morrissey, but your former peers now say they liked the same as you did when you know very well they actually preferred Tears For Fears and Duran Duran.

If you can constantly say London is dying, but won't move away despite everywhere else being cheaper to live in and making no difference to whether you can write your crowdfunded book or not (though it is further from those Drinks Corporation HQs you don't talk about).

If you go anywhere in the world, and can get into some kind of fracas about beer dispense, temperature, knowledge or barstaff being less than polite to your friends due to misunderstandings.

And if you can do all that and say afterwards you don't like being a dick about it all...then you'll be Britain's Top Beer Writer, my son"
"<GASP!> A half pint dimple mug!"

Pub Glass Hoard Discovered


Last week, West Midlands County archaeologists were stunned upon being informed by the police of a 10,000 plus cache of stolen glassware in a Wolverhampton terraced house. "We believe this is the largest find of these items ever found in this country." wittered overexcited field type Mick Trowelsifter.

"I was called yesterday to this long unoccupied dwelling," continued Mick "and I peered through the letterbox. I was asked what I saw. 'Wonderful things', I replied"

"Take this glass here. An excellent example of a 1962 Nonik. These can fetch anywhere between 50p to £1 at auction now. A quick glance through the collection revealed that these items have been stolen from Black Country pubs over a 50 year period. Also unearthed were glass concealment paraphernalia, such as big coats with large pockets and thick plastic carrier bags."

"I've yet to find any beer festival glasses yet. My hypothesis is that the collector would actually have had to pay for them. Our plans are to put this collection on a touring exhibition documenting pointless petty theft in the 20th Century."

Minutae-lovers and obsessives Bake and Bowley were called in to bring their expertise for the item recording "Sadly, we've still not found that octagonal pint we've been looking for since 2010. But there are another 6 rooms left to sort through."

"We should be done by 2022."
You'll be sorry when there's no more cask beer. Yes, sorry.

Keg Filth Takes Over CAMRA Fest


Attendees at the 2016 Manchester Beery Festival last weekend were shocked to find the organisers had allowed some local brewers to set up a keykeg bar. "It's disgraceful," muttered Branch Treasurer Greg Steakbake "It goes against everything that we as an organisation stand for."

"I was so incensed," ranted Greg "That I stood next to this Keg bar muttering about excess carbonation, icy coldness and dead yeast cells to those punters who asked for the beers. Not that I tried it myself, of course. Quality is immaterial anyway."

We asked hackneyed metaphor personification Thinend O'Wedge what its plans were "It's excellent!", it said.

"Now we've got keg into a CAMRA beer festival, it won't be long before I can get my Corporo-Beer chemical fizz minions to install these bars at every place in the country.  And once that's done, I can simply abolish Real Ale."

"My aim is to have everyone drinking Watney's Red Barrel again by the end of 2017.  It will be 2% abv and cost £5 a pint. And those complacent idiots who let keg in will be on their knees, crying. Bwah-ha-ha-ha!"

Local pub landlord WorStonch told us when he heard about this "Murst real ale's fuckin' crap man, y'knaa.  I'm doon the Schloss, on my 18th pint of tank Pilsner Urquell."

"Keg is fuckin' greeeyat, man!"

17 comments:

  1. I genuinely LOL'd at that Kipling bit.

    You're a bad man, M Lawrenson.

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    1. I'm history's greatest monster.

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    2. That was long overdue ;-)

      And you didn't even point out the irony of a self-proclaimed socialist raking it in from corporate tastings and marketing consultancy.

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    3. Not quite sure how a "socialist" having a job is ironic. Any more than (say) a "libertarian" driving on public roads.

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    4. Why suddenly return to a six-month-old blogpost to make a characteristically fatuous comment?

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  2. had two pints of Schloss PU this lunchtime just before I left manc forever. I did make it to Stockport on Saturday at lunchtime: bent my knee in the churches and my elbow in the Sam Smith's pubs. Liked the town.

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    1. Stockport's OK. Should have tried the Robbies while there just to see if it's any better than it is at the Black Horse in Preston.

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    2. "left manc forever"... man, what did they do to you?! Half lynched and run outta town? :)

      Lizard Man: good post, as usual. I am taking the KEG to Stevenage fest next week. We're within striking distance of CAMRA HQ. The coup will be bloodless. One does not bleed when asphyxiated by extraneous CO2.

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    3. I'm sure Mr STONCH will soon be writing his tell-all piece about the debauchery of the Manc Craft scene.

      Yvan : I hope nobody looks for "disgruntled" former members who've posted pics of themselves burning their Spoons tokens.

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    4. Crikey Jeffers. It wasn't the fall of Breslau or Saigon you know. You can come back.

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    5. All I meant was I've gone to and from Manchester three times over the last three months but this time I had all my stuff with me and had handed in my keys. I think it's unlikely I'll never visit the city again. After all, it's going to be the Northern Powerhouse and a reverse brain drain is going to make it an equal counterpoint to London. That's right, isn't it?

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  3. Severe case of Londonitis has gripped our Jeff I fear. He is twitchy if the sound of Bow Bells isn't within earshot. Not that he'd ever leave Clerkenwell to hear them.

    He is standing for Mayor next time up I believe on the "Nearest Thing to a Londoner Your Likely to Get ticket." The Wooden Londoner Party!

    My lass will be his agent most likely. If he pays enough.

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    1. I get all over the south of England, Peter, as you well know. And then when I was in Manchester I got all about the North West. If there's one thing I'm not, it's immobile. Just look at my blog. Very little of it's actually been about London in the last few months. No wonder I've missed it. It's where my home is, after all.

      I don't understand why Mancunians and those who gravitate toward the city's mentality get so touchy about it.

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    2. As someone who grew up in Stoke-on-Trent, I find Manc big and scary with too many buildings and people.

      You can imagine what I think of London.

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    3. Stoke has an impressive railway station

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    4. Yeah, some bugger burnt it down in 2002 and Virgin rebuilt it at some expense

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  4. On a reasonably serious note Jeff there is no place like home. See you in London soon.

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