It's hit the press today following the CAMRA press release I talked about yesterday. I think that it's a good job done by CAMRA in highlighting some of the issues brought out by the Community Pub Inquiry report.
It was the opening of the Whitehaven beer festival today. We managed to get Jamie Reed MP along so we could talk to him about the issues of pubs closing. He seemed really interested.
He was also due to join the beer tasting panel, but I had to leave early as I have a pub to run so I didn't find out what happened there.
If we are to halt the closure of pubs we have to engage the popular opinion on the issue and get the public to realise that pubs are the solution to providing a safe and controlled environment where quality drinks can be enjoyed. Unfortunately the popular opinion is focused on binge drinking and the so called increase in drink related harm. Without getting the public on side we have an uphill struggle in getting sympathetic politicians to do too much. Getting your MP involved cannot be a bad thing though. Once the effects of the descriptions below have worn off I will give a longer report on the meeting.
Although my main reason for visiting was the arranged meeting with Jamie while there I had some Brewdog Coffee Stout 9.0% which was very, well, coffee tasting. I like coffee and I felt this worked. Also had some Foxfield Sonic Boom 10% which was sweet, rich and had a flavour reminiscent of port wine. It is after all at the strength of barley wine. Boggert Big Ginger 6.0% had a nice ginger nose but lacked a ginger bite that I would have preferred. I sneaked a taster of Tigertops Blanche de Newlands 4.5% which I liked better than some of Barry's other beers and actually is better than my own Wheat Beer, Saazy's Wiesse 4.3% which I also sneaked a taster of.
Maybe the volunteers on the bar just directed me to nice beers, but the ones I tried I really enjoyed.
1 comment:
It's nice to see some high gravity beers in your list. I think the biggest beer I ever had in the UK was something at 7.4% at the Cambridge Beer Festival a few years ago. We now have the 9.0% Ninkasi Tricerahops on gas here and it is a very naughty beer.
I'm looking forward to comparing the enforcement regulations for underage drinking and over-consumption here in Oregon with how it is handled over yonder. The burden of responsibility here is, interestingly enough, transferred from the punter to the server at the pub and the owner, i.e. if someone mixes paint out on the highway due to over-consumption, and it is traced to me, then it's my fault.
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