Having tried to get NatWest to call me back for the last two weeks about a new project, I’m starting to see why Brewdog found it easier to get a million people to give them £20 each.

Office for the afternoon

Wasn’t gonna have a beer tonight but a friend brought a couple of these back for me from the US. I bloody love this beer as much now as I did 10 years ago, maybe even more.

The Kent & Medway Food & Drink awards have nominated our May Avenue Taproom as one of the best 10 pubs in Kent. Possibly the first time we’ve ever been referred to as trendy… www.kentonline.co.uk/news/native/...

Amazing analysis of pub closures in the UK, by @laurenleek.eu, and the corporate interests behind them. Some important political and policy implications open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

Wonder who’ll be sniffing around this? Feels big beer have their craft shelf space, & even the perennially optimistic private equity investments seem to be less drawn to the craft now. Turning the reputation & finances around is such a big job you may as well invest in something with less baggage.

There’s a wealth threshold you cross where you just become a racist prick because it’s suits your accumulation of assets isn’t there? Why does this idiot give a toss about immigration, he could live behind 10ft walls and never see another living soul if he wanted to.

Really enjoying seeing our new branding coming through on cask. It’s simpler and cleaner and lets Duncan Grant’s artwork take centre stage. Much more aligned to our keg and can branding as well

Whenever I leave the south east I’m always impressed by how much more popular cask seems to be elsewhere. Went to Norwich a couple of weeks ago, loads of pubs with 4 or 5 hand pulls on and didn’t hit a duff one once.

I’ve been in Norwich for a few days, and I’ve already been to Belgian Monk twice for draught Hommelbier. And I’ll probably be going back again before I go. Fantastic beer and massively under hyped

This is a great example of why the average person (and politicians) don’t understand the threat hospitality is under. Big brands like BD make losses year on year, but they’re still there on your high street. If they didn’t have that backing the high street would look even worse than it already does.

Anyone got any pub tips in Norwich? Im going to be here until the weekend so daytime spots, evening spots, whatever tips you have. And food places & dog friendly activities? Basically I didnt plan ahead, so any guidance would be welcome!

Hanging out in the Hand and Marigold ahead of the SIBA AGM with a Burning Sky Dark Mild. Probably the perfect beer style when you’re still on the clock

The daft thing is successive governments have bemoaned low productivity, but we are happy to tax productivity. We incentivise people to hoard assets as a more tax efficient way of generating wealth, rather than work.

If trump is going to put tariffs on us over Greenland then it’s about time we stopped US companies like Starbucks and Amazon extracting wealth from the UK without paying their fair share of tax.

If it takes you 5 and half minutes to decide if the guy is offside then he probably isn’t. And he’s definitely more on side than that Wirtz one the other week. VAR is a joke.

Tried to take him to the pub but apparently he had stuff to do

Unsurprising. But this is the thing, our entire high street landscape is built on mountains of debt. Stonegate owe over a billion, Pret lost millions last year, ditto Leon & many more. chain coffee shops only flourish cos they shift profits to tax havens & so keep their investors happy. It’s broken.

Getting tired of fighting the sea. Second time in three weeks. Just glad my house is further up the hill

Either there’s a hell of a lot of unidentified serial killers out there, or they are massively over represented in British television. Also it seems according to the BBC Shetland has more murderers than inhabitants.

It’s been a bit lively at the board room today. The sea has been making a concerted effort to come and play shuffleboard

There’s definitely a post apocalyptic sci fi novel in us burning up the earth using AI to reword inter company emails and complaints to our banks. I feel like if it actually were an intelligence chat GPT would probably suicide over the mundane shit people ask it to do.

The rateable value on our building has gone up from 23500 in 2023 to 39750 in 2026. Gonna have to sell a lot of beer next year

I like the idea that AI content will eventually become so much a part of the internet that it effectively eats itself and we can just pop this shit in a corner to do its thing and get back to going to the pub and reading books

So as a business we need to add about £36k turnover next year, whilst not sacrificing margin, to cover the costs of the budget. Not terrible, but harder and harder to maintain margin as we get bigger and access to market becomes a bigger issue.

This time 8 years ago….

Friday beer with Buzz at the Boardroom.

Peugeot vans. Made from cardboard and disappointment. Great load capacity, because everything is made from spun sugar and hope.

Got an Uber yesterday and the interior was like the club scene from John Wick. All nasty 2000’s Russian gangster. Volkswagen should warn people. It was an Uber pet too. I nearly murdered the driver on pure instinct.

Sea sea Seasiders! Great result tonight

Great to see Sean’s final piece on the Green Hop season. Some great photography here. Was nice to spend some time strolling round the farm with Sean and talking hops and brewing.

Some banging pints of cask in the Traf today. Proper cask pub

I have no idea why, but it seems there are so many empty shops in the south east, and yet so few up for let. Every estate agent I deal with seems to have so little to offer, but there’s empty shops everywhere.

Haven’t seen an NHS doctor in about 25 years. Amazed to get a text saying “hey you’re over 40 book an appointment for health care check up (I’m 43 so only took 3 years). Went to book it. “We have no appointments.” @tonyvaughanmp.bsky.social solid NHS work.

Folkestone Trawler out in the harbour whilst we are finishing up at the Boardroom. Sod being out in that, I don’t even fancy the walk across the carpark to the van

Where the separate divisions of ANTIFA landed on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944:

Folkestone tap takeover has been immense. Some fantastic beers in some of my favourite place. Highlight has been Dolphin Brewery at Gaia. Such a good fit, and the cocktails they’ve made with beers are incredible. SMOD at Docker were great as well and Indie Rabble at Beer Shop

When a seemer deserves its own marvel movie

Attempted to get back into Apple’s foundation series. Unbearable. whole point of the books is big data. know enough about a large number of individuals you can predict what they’ll do across time. suddenly it’s about descendents and individuals. Someone read the book & didn’t understand any of it.

The boys at TBD taking over the kitchen at the Boardroom today

Spent the day in London today for the first time in an age. Went to some fantastic pubs & had great beer, but also had some seriously sub standard beer too. Easy to see why a lot of pubs don’t take a risk when the standards are still so low.

Just seen the some of the beer lists for Folkestone TTO weekend… SMOD and Dolphin brewery are sending some phenomenal sounding beers. Super excited about our Burnt Mill list, also excited to see what Kernel and Indie Rabble are bringing

Went in a new “micro pub” today in Folkestone. Cask racked up on the bar, no cooling. It’s 25 degrees in Folkestone today, what mad idiot is drinking that. All the other beer ABinbev keg, so I did the sensible thing and went to the beershop instead.

Went away for a few lazy days, managed to get to the Royal Oak at Pett. Fantastic village pub, with a beautifully kept garden. Three cask from Lakedown & Three Acre, couple of keg from Lakedown too and pilsner urquell. Perfect example of what any village pub could be if they weren’t all tied.

Just seen a nice village pub up for let not far from the brewery. Very pretty, bit of parking. £65k a year. How on earth doesn’t anyone make a village pub work at that kind of rent!

Such a beautifully written piece on one of SW London’s best-kept beery secrets If you’ve never had the pleasure of visiting The Hope, David’s words will have you hopping on a train post-haste to explore their excellent beer selection, fab food & friendly, inclusive atmosphere 🤎🍻👌🏽

Refusing to watch penalties.

Wouldn’t mind betting Russo has won possession more than any other striker at this tournament, because everything we send her way is a speculative punt. She must expend so much energy chasing % balls.

Now that is a 5 minutes of football!

Covering in the delivery van this week. One run Tuesday, two today, and two tomorrow. Quite enjoying seeing all the places we deliver to, but also dreading the mountain of work I have piling up