Tag: Beer
Hurrah for David Mitchell!
Fans of Peep Show or, slightly less likely, of That Mitchell & Webb Look, will be delighted to know that David Mitchell (yeah, the nerdy one) is a real ale fan, and not afraid to admit it (even though he simply calls it bitter, he goes to some lengths to distinguish it from ‘creamy’ bitters).
Drinking on Jimmy’s Farm
We’ve had quite a few conversations recently about how nice it would be if a few more celebrities threw their hats into the beer ring, so to speak, and we got a bit more championing of beer from people who people take notice of.
- The Same Again – a 5.2% golden ale described as a ‘light refreshing hoppy brew’
- Flying Pig – a 6% premium bitter that’s ‘packed with masses of cascade hops’
- Large black pig – 6%, stout that has ‘more malt than you can shake a stick at’.
The branding is excellent – it follows the design for all Jimmy’s Farm produce (there’s lots of it) and there’s been some serious money spent here. And it’s intriguing for a range of three beers all to be above 5%. This is a very good-looking selection of ales, and I got quite excited about tasting them.
The difference the Atlantic makes
Yes, Foster’s has launched an ALE. At least, it claims to be an ale. It has caramel colouring added, and may be a lager in disguise, but the website makes a great deal of how it tastes different from the lager: caramel and fruit aromas versus ‘light malt aroma’, and a ‘smooth caramel finish’ rather than a ‘light hop finish’. More interestingly, the beer aficionados at beeradvocate say on the whole that it tastes pretty decent. I’m sure it will never give the likes of Stone or Dogfish Head sleepless nights, they’ve seemingly launched a perfectly drinkable beer.
Is it alright to like Morrissey Fox?

Lovely Pub Hosts Festival of Lovely Beer This Weekend
The White Horse in Parson’s Green has long been famous as THE Mecca for the luvvies of the beer world, if that’s not too bizarre a concept (the idea of there being luvvies of the beer world, rather than them having a Mecca).
Put a little Berghaus in your soul


Brand Tags – what do you really think of a brand?
There’s an amusing site that was pointed out to me by people at the ad agency where I’m currently moonlighting.
It’s based on a principle that we all use in adland: you can write a definition of what you would like your brand to stand for, but a brand is an abstract concept, so the only real definition is the one that exists in people’s heads. The site therefore prompts you with a logo and asks you to write the first word or phrase that comes into your head. It then collates these into a word map, a true definition of the brand in question.
It’s largely American, so its use to us Brits is a little limited, but I laughed out loud when I checked out what Budweiser really means to people. Bud Light is even better. Compare this with Sam Adams, and you realise that there’s hope for the mass palate yet. We’re confused about Heineken, which maybe reflects how that brand is perceived differently in different parts of the world, but we absolutely love Guinness.
Meet the UK’s newest champion of cask ale

The country’s biggest tabloid is going into the beer business. Market research organisation Mintel reported last week that the plan is to launch a lager under the page three ‘brand’ -interesting to see what the Portman Group and every other alcohol regulatory body will have to say about that one, given that it is strictly forbidden to link beer and sex these days – and a cask ale under The Sun brand.
On the one hand, I despise Rupert Murdoch and all his works. I never pay any money to anything to do with News International if I can at all help it. On the other, you can’t help but think this will benefit the market as a whole.
Why is The Sun launching a cask ale as well as a lager? It can only be because they think it’s worth their while doing so. It ties in with the fact that premium cask ale is now consistently outperforming the rest of a dire beer market.
And The Sun has phenomenal power to change people’s opinions. At the very least, it puts beer on the media agenda more firmly than it has been for ages. We currently have the worst decline in beer volumes for nearly thirty years. Surely this can only help. It is bound to upset purists who drink ale partly in order to show how different they are from the stereotypical Sun-reading, white van-driving lager lout, but how much of that is really about the age-old pastime of pouring scorn on working class men?
Will it be shit beer because most things The Sun does tend to be lowest common denominator? Or given that what they do, they do well (Sun journalism is actually very skilful), will they produce something that’s accessible, but decent quality?
Good or bad, it’s going to be interesting.