Goatee Phil's Beer Blog

Is it safe to go for a pint yet?  The Brunswick I guess it's predictable that in the current pandemic a Tory government would introduce access to pubs as one of the first relaxations to lockdown. After all, if you give the plebs their simple pleasures they won't complain so much, will they?  All the same, I was nervous about visiting my favourite Brighton and Hove watering holes because most of them are extremely small. How on earth were they going to operate safely? The answer has been: surprisingly easily.  Over the last few weeks I have visited these pubs at least once: the Foghorn , the Watchmakers , Bison Craft House , the Brunswick , Brighton Beer Dispensary , the Evening Star and the Brighton Bier Haus . I felt safe in all of them although it has helped that most have an outside drinking area, and that the weather has been surprisingly equable. I guess that's probably global warming but I'll take my pleasures where I find them. The first thing that I looked for...

Life goes on, innit Faith, what else? Sometimes it takes an extreme event to make you appreciate what you have.   Here we are, in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, with most of us confined to our homes, and understandably people are complaining. They are also ignoring instructions to stay home and instead are carrying on as if nothing is wrong. But that’s enough about Dominic Cummings. Let’s just think for a moment about this world we live in. We now have 24/7 news coverage as well as an information platform called the internet where you can find anything you want - and sometimes buy it - and on it folks have developed networks of social gatherings where you can hook up with friends, family, even total strangers and talk to them any time you damn well please. And with a beer in your hand you could almost be in the pub! How have you all been coping with the lockdown? I've been surprised at how little I have missed the outside world. I realise that I am luckier than many. ...

Goatee Phil's review of 2019 Prelude to the Cloudwater Brewery Tour Has 2019 been a good year for beer? One of the best. Has it been a good one for breweries and the industry generally? Not so much. It's been a year when London's largest brewery, Fullers , was bought out by Asahi of Japan and the country's largest regional brewery, Greene King , became part of the Chinese company CKA Group. But the biggest threat to the UK brewing industry, craft and other, will surely come from the fallout from Brexit. For all the bullish talk by the current Prime Minister, it's hard to see anything other than new and restrictive trade barriers that will hit imports and exports equally. It's not looking good. Or maybe it is. It is still the case for me that pretty much every other pub visit gives me the chance try a beer that I've never drunk before. The major craft brewers, names like Cloudwater , Northern Monk , Burning Sky and Wylam , continue to produce new ...

More craft beer adventures in the USA Outside the Midlands Beer Garden, Washington DC One of the problems I struggle with when visiting the States, and one that has impacted on my access to craft beers while there, is the almost total lack of public transport. Linked to that is the fact that shops and bars are either concentrated in vast malls, smaller strip malls or in the downtown area. Only the last of these variables bears any resemblance to town and village life in the UK. Wherever American shops and bars are located, they can only, except in the rarest cases, be reached by car. It follows from this that I have to rely on the kindness of others to deliver me and, hopefully, collect me or else I have to summon an Uber. On my two Stateside trips this year, to Cincinnati and Maryland, and to Cartersville GA, I did manage to get myself to several bars but I also made better use of the supermarkets and liquor stores. At least I did discover one chain, Total Wine and More...

CAMRA welcomes crafty kegs I was pleased to see that, last year's AGM vote notwithstanding, in 2019 CAMRA seems finally to have accepted craft beer into its world, courtesy of a special Key Keg "pavilion" at the Great British Beer Festival . The pavilion featured bars offering ales from Magic Rock , Wild Beer , Siren and Tiny Rebel and there was another whole bar of key-kegged goodies from the likes of the Kernel , Eight Arch , Pig and Porter and more. I did my rounds and sampled several beers but, like last year, the bulk of my time at the festival was spent in an activity. Last year it was a Belgian beer tasting session. This time I went for beer judging. Why beer judging? Am I planning to offer my services at the next local beer festival? Well, maybe, but my main motivation was to learn more about blind tasting, about how to describe beers accurately and to just be more beer-aware. I was also interested to find out how much I knew compared to people wh...

Backstreet's back! In part 2 of my survey of Hove pubs I commented that the trend in central Hove was towards venues where the lines between pub, bar, restaurant and gastro pub were becoming increasingly blurred. The area did have some traditional pubs but they were few in number. The area between Palmeira Square and the postcode boundary with BN1 - Nearly Brighton  as I call it - is different again. Along the Western Road there are several bars which either flirt with or have thrown their lot in with the craft beer scene. But away from the main road you can still find a surprising number of traditional pubs, several of them what I would call back street locals. The unassuming Farm Road actually has two. The  Cooper's Cask is a plain, single bar pub   which, when I visited, had a striking display of punk photographs. I was taken aback by the sight of John Lydon's doleful face staring at me as I walked in. There was one cask - you can probably guess that ...