Beer is the news

The Vintage. Crafty new pub in Leith.

Camra have done it again with the jaw-dropping news that the average pint has now topped £3, and in Scotland is a whopping £3.24. Blimey. So, err, I’ve been paying over the average for quite some time now, and have been subsidising some layabout beer scrounger for a considerably long time. But I don’t mind, really. In swell pubs such as Munro’s or Inn Deep you are going to pay more for a decent pint, real, craft or whatever. And you know what, it’s worth it. Paying more than £4 for a pint of generic lager in a poxy, soulless Ashton Lane premises-cum-cinema, however, gets me choking on my dishwater.

But my story of the week is the news that drinking beer makes you want to drink MORE beer. This in-depth and scientifically vital study of 49 male drinkers found that just the very taste of beer makes you want to taste MORE beer. It also - and you better sit down for this - found that having a history of alcoholism in the family, makes YOU more likely to want to take a drink.

Huffington Post made an international public apology

for doubting the magnificence of Crabbie's Ginger Beer.

West Brewery launched a stout. Innis & Gunn launched a lager (and called for more unity among micro-brewers). And BrewDog launched their Fake Lager to take on the dishwater hegemony.

And finally, new craft beer pub The Vintage opened in Leith, Edinburgh. Great news. Good luck guys!

  

Beer is the News

Petra Wetzel. Image: Kirsty Anderson/Newsquest

For reasons I can't yet fathom, Arran Brewery's plans to open a bottling plant in Falkirk are dashed due to the Scottish Government declining to fund them a paltry £1million. Tight arses. Arran said this was a major blow, and although the jobs that won't be created would have been in that hotbed of employment, Falkirk, it could in fact jeopardise the 20 or so jobs on Arran: without a drop in operational costs (from the bottling plant), the rise in duty as a result of Arran's merger with the Isle of Skye brewery could push their margins from tiny to negligible to even negative. Ouch.

I don't know. Is this a hint of a sea change in the support for wee breweries in Scotland, which in recent  years has seen a spate of new ones come online and more established ventures grow? Or has Arran gone too far or too quick? Maybe they pissed off some bureaucrat in the poetically named Food Processing, Marketing and Co-operation department. Maybe they didnae fill in the form right.

Who knows.

Anyhow, the Brew Gods are still shining on BrewDog, whose funding model is clearly very different to Arran's. The Ellon Mavericks have just announced more growth, more expansion and more jobs. Blimey.

Meanwhile, darling of the bier world, Petra Wetzel, of West Brewery in Glasgow, goes head to head in an insightful, and rather personal, interview with The Herald's Susan Swarbrick. She's currently reading the painfully over-rated Life of Pi and includes Neil Diamond among her favourite artistes. Check out the article for more insights into lager's leading lady.