Ail and humble pie

I was starting to think that my blogs didn't get read much. Last night I posted how I felt about the ales I tried whilst out for the evening and made some less than completely nice comments about Whitehaven brewery's Ennerdale Autumn. Maybe I shouldn't have been quite so rude. Maybe I should save my posts until morning. If I wasn't fit to drive then maybe I'm not fit to be in charge of a blog either.

This morning Shelagh Ferguson's name was on my incoming mail from Blogger about comments to be moderated. "Oh bugger, now I'm in trouble" I thought. But Shelagh's comments were far more restrained than I might have been had anybody said anything bad about my ale. You can see the comments on yesterdays post.

Later in the day I was watching some stuff about an election that has just happened in some far away land. A Rottweiler wearing lipstick was actually being fairly cautious about telling the press that they should not make statements that later turn out to be economic with the truth without being prepared to own up and say they were wrong. I thought she was being too cautious, "go for it" I thought.

My barman, Alan, came to work after being off for a few days. He knows ale well and should be bestowed with an award for the efforts he puts in on his free time to support the pub industry. I respect his jugement on ale, he's normally right about beer (He knows sod all about anything else mind - now I'm going to find out if he reads my blogs) It seems he was drinking Ennerdale Autumn on Sunday, had three pints in fact, and said it was the best that Whitehaven brewery had produced to date.

And then, AND THEN!! Ted puts his 2 penneth in. "acetic?". That would suggest the ale was off. Weeeellll, no. Actually I didn't really mean that. It was just a faint hint I detected while trying to really determine why it didn't work for me.

So what was I thinking of?? I don't know. I suppose I'm trying to take this beer blogging thing seriously. If I'm going to comment on beers then I should say what I really feel about them. That's what I did. I've also complained in the past about people saying nasty things about other peoples' "babies". Microbrewing doesn't make many people a whole lot of money - they do it because they care about what they are doing. If Shelagh is selling all she can brew then she's doing something right.

Having thought all day about it I've decided I'm going to carry on making comments about ales I try. If I don't like them then I'll say so. If somebody thinks I'm wrong, comment on my blog. I'm not going to be accused of not showing the other side of the story. I've made it my policy to only reject comments that are offensive in nature. Don't use bad languge or be personal, (Alan, you can be personal, 'cause I'll get my own back) and they'll get through.

Have I smoothed things over? Or should I stop digging now? Well why don't you, my blog readers, go and search out some Ennerdale Autumn and then tell me I'm talking through the top of my head?