Beer on the other side

When we complain about the quality of our lagers, other have to make do with less. I stumbled across this when looking for info on some strange beverages I found in a London supermarket: Consuming rate of the non-alcoholic beer bottles has been increased since new non-alcoholic breweries have entered the market. In the recent [...]

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English pubs do well in France

The Financial Times has an article today about the success of the Charles Wells owned John Bull Pub Company in France. It initially ran two pubs to promote the beers it sold wholesale, but has now increased to five with plans to grow to 13 pubs by 2013. While there are lots of fake British [...]

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Hygiene problems in brewpubs

While we all like to quote historical anecdotes about beer being safer to drink than water, there are critical factors in brewing as well. I have joked about the big lager breweries who seem obsessed about the technical side of beer, but, on the other hand, if you don’t have the necessary knowledge and focus [...]

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Merry Christmas!

2o cm of fresh snow this morning. All the shopping done, now for some serious cooking. Merry Christmas to all of you, thanks for making 2009 such a great beer year. Nice to meet so many in person, hope to see even more next year.

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No liquids in hand luggage until 2013

According to the Norwegian delegation to the European Union, who refers to the subscription web site Europolitics, the ban on bottles containing more than 100 ml of liquids will be prolonged.  Current legislation has a ban until 29 April next year, but, according to a draft presented by the Commission to the Council earlier this [...]

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A perfect gift for a young drinker

Once, back in my student days, I worked the whole month of December at a bookshop in my old home town Trondheim. It was a busy period,at the time I think almost half their yearly turnover of general books was sold in December. Christmas eve is the big day for family celebrations here in Scandinavia with most [...]

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Swedish Christmas – a better list

I wrote recently about the ranking of Swedish Christmas beers done by one of the country’s major dailies, and I was a bit puzzled that the standard industrial brews were rated very highly. A good alternative, at least one that corresponds far better with my taste, is the beer test by Svenska Ölfrämjandet (sure, I’ll buy you [...]

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Beer Blogger Awards 2009

  A challenge from Mark at Pencil and Spoon, which really ended up as a personal year end review of sorts.  I’ve decided to focus on interesting new beers and breweries. Sure, there was amazing stuff from BrewDog, Mikkeller and Nøgne ø this year as well, but the beer scene is far more complex:  Best UK Draught [...]

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A penguin for Christmas?

If BrewDog have sold out, at the time of writing this, you can still get it at a very decent price from beermerchants. No Utopias style inflation driving prices here. Tell them I sent you. Update: It seems like they are sold out as well.

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The beer bloggers hit town

I’m lagging behind a bit on the cronicles of my days in London, so I won’t go into details about my return to the Pig’s Ear festival and the liquids consumed there. English licencing laws (and probably also the practicalities of organising festivals with volunteers) made sure we all had a fairly early evening, which [...]

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