Beer is the news

Story of the week has to be BrewDog's brilliantly conceived beer vote in which the Ellon punks invited their followers to design their next beer. That's right, over a week, and using the phrase #Mashtag, Twitter users were each day asked to choose key elements of the new beer.

Here're the results, and they look pretty damned tasty: 
Monday: Beer Style - Brown Ale.
Tuesday: Malt Bill & ABV - American Brown Ale at 7.5% ABV
Wednesday: Hops & IBU - New Zealand Hops and 95 IBU
Thursday: Special Twist - adding Hazelnuts and oak chips
Friday: Name -  #Mashtag

You should check out the BrewDog blog. As well as seeing the other options for each day, you get an idea of how all these flavours and methods work together, with good explanations on the brewing processes. Anyway, as a final twist BrewDog are also letting folks design the label. Plan is they'll start brewing very, very soon, with the first batch ready in about a month.

Anyway, it was a beautiful stunt, got a good hit online and in papers, and was in keeping with BrewDog's off-the-wall modus operandi. I'm sure it'll be lovely, but my worry is that, given the British electorate's tendency for blinkered stupidity, that the beer will be as uninspiring and unpalatable as our current government. Thank goodness then that craft beer drinkers aren't as braindead as the majority of UK voters. 

Also newsworthy, Munro's in Glasgow had their official opening, and I got leathered. Highlights were the Arbor Oyster Stout and Redchurch's Bethnel Pale Ale. 

And, finally, Cheerless News of the Week is how George Osborne became posterboy for British beer drinkers by giving the industry a mediocre tax break and removing a much-hated duty escalator that was generally considered to be the chief cause of thousands of pub closures.

In the following article, Camra chief executive Mike Benner said: "The Chancellor has become the toast of Britain's cash-strapped beer drinkers and we should now be paying around 10p less per pub pint than we would have been had the escalator remained in place in last week's Budget. This is a massive victory for Britain's 15 million beer drinkers."

I have not and will not be toasting Mr Osborne, and, frankly, I'd quite happily keep paying that 10p. I think on a ten-pint bender I can afford to waste another pound. Drinkers in dire poverty will be pleased, no doubt. Shame about the axe in welfare, social fund and council tax benefits, the imposition of the bedroom tax, removal of legal aid, tax credit reduction, public sector cuts, etc. 

What is worth raising a glass to is Mr Osborne's economy-salving decision to reduce the tax bill faced by millionaires. It's this kind of forward-thinking, groundbreaking vision that'll have this economy restored in no time - and the guy's not even an economist!! My millionaire beer-drinking readers out there, I trust YOU will be raising two glasses to Mr Osborne. 

Now, it really is good that the duty escalator has been removed, following hearty campaigning by Camra et al, and thousands of pub closures and job losses. Call me cynical, but I think this only happened because the duty escalator was starting to affect some of the larger breweries' bottom line. Maybe one of their non-exec board members went to the same school as Mr Osborne, maybe he had a wee word over dinner. Anyway, I hope he's toasting Mr Osborne. He can certainly afford to. 

A Feast of Brews: Vol 1

JON BREW

(an excerpt - apologies to George RR Martin)

Jon Brew dreams of a Shoreditch Blonde.

The fog floated towards them, its long, icy tendrils stretching out from the woods. From atop the Wall, Jon looked out and shivered. He could see nothing through the cold mist, though it carried with it a smell he barely remembered, aromas of a warm autumn harvest, its bounty now long perished.

How strange, thought Jon, to be up here smelling anything other than damp fires and death. If there were to be an attack, now would be the perfect time. He quickly dismissed his fears and wrapped his furs tighter, eking out the last of their warmth as he drifted into a waking sleep, last night's revelries fresh in his mind's eye.

The songs and banter flowed as easy as the ale: a new one, freshly in from the Redchurch in the southern Capital, though how long he'd call it that was anyone's guess: King Eck of the North had already seized control of Holybrewed. Not that who ruled where concerned Jon now; he like his new brothers on the Wall was a Brewer of the Pint Watch. Among the benches in the hall, however, murmured discussions about the future of these lands edged uneasily from table to table.

Though cold, the beer - a Shoreditch Blonde - had brought a warmth to the frozen company of the Pint Watch. Cloudy - as solid as the Wall itself - and with a pungent nose, it reminded him of his youth in Porterfell, and the homebrewing experiments of his father Need Stout. This ale had matured in the bottle, Jon reflected, supping his lips, experiencing the full flavour of the unfiltered beer.

It had been a while since he'd had a beer like it, he thought. One that smooth, lightly fermented, with few bubbles lining the glass and no froth to adorn the beards of the mighty warrior around him. Nor was it too citrusy or perfumed, like other ales he'd had.

As he enjoyed its thirst quenching bitterness, the beer brought back memories of those precious short years before the onset of winter, of harvested wheat, of gathering pears and apples, of stolen peaches and kisses...

The sudden sharp sound of the horn awoke Jon from his daysleep. One horn for rider approaching. A second shrill sound broke the still air around him. Two blasts for Wildlings. Would a third sound? Jon peered into the darkness, his heart beating fast, his muscles taut, his eyes searching, every part of him focused. The horn blasted a third time. Last orders. Jon turned and sprinted for the staircase. There wasn't a moment to lose ...