Pete Brown has been lied to. This has rattled his cage somewhat. He doesn’t like being lied to, and nor, he suggests, do beer consumers. Especially when it comes to the small matter of provenance.

Pete Brown is caught in two minds this month. Whilst looking at the global beer landscape he can’t decide whether the outlook is either good or bad. That’s not because he can’t make his mind up; that’s because he thinks it is both.

It’s time for a little bit of politics, ladies & gentlemen. Pete Brown takes a look at the success – or not – of a petition in the UK against rising alcohol duty.

Big companies draping their names over an event through sponsorship does not necessarily hold sway over increasingly savvy consumers, argues Hackney-dwelling Pete Brown. These days people want something in return.

Using Pete Brown’s analogy – more of which follows – the craft brewers of this world are the Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci to Anheuser-Busch InBev’s U2, or the Ramona Falls to Carlsberg’s Coldplay. Confused? Pete, it’s over to you.

As a self-confessed left-leaner, Pete Brown isn’t the biggest fan of plc’s. This month, he looks at Budejovicky Budvar, a state-owned brewery that, surprise surprise, he’s quite a fan of.