GOOD MORNING! Here's this week's round-up of good writing about beer and pubs, with notes on fruit lager, TV advertising, AK mild, and the state of the German beer market. boakandbailey.com/2026/06/news...

If you're one of my online friends (or even if you hate my guts) with a big reach, please feel free to tell all your friends about my kickstarter so that I can get this documentary series funded. @chicagobeerhistory.bsky.social www.kickstarter.com/projects/cbh...

This week’s beery new notes were brought to you by many like @rogerprotz.bsky.social @knutalbert.bsky.social @retiredmartinpubs.bsky.social @larsga.bsky.social @akrennmair.bsky.social @eoghanwalshbxl.bsky.social @pelliclemag.com @velkyal.bsky.social @boakandbailey.bsky.social @beervana.bsky.social

Chasing a big PubCo for overdue payment of my biggest invoice of this year. Fun imagining what they would do if I went into one of their pubs, bought a pint, then told them to ask me for a purchase order, issue it at my leisure, then sit on an invoice that I may or may not pay in 3 months' time.

Tomorrow is launch day! www.kickstarter.com/projects/cbh...

To the statement within that "about 1% of the country’s breweries produce between 25,000 and 500,000 barrels annually" I will add this: 7,200-plus US breweries produced 2,000 or fewer barrels of beer in 2024, together making 2.9 million barrels of beer. beerandsoul.substack.com/p/the-story-...

GOOD MORNING! Here's the regular weekly round up of good writing about beer and pubs. This time, there's a particular focus on pub crawls around the UK (and one in Belgium). boakandbailey.com/2026/06/news...

Wooh-hoo (or whatever the German equivalent is) dafteejit.com/2026/06/bava...

'My Dad came up with the grand idea to run a pub that reminded him of the year he spent in Punjab as a child before he came to Southall from Tanzania. Although he was well-versed in drinking, he had absolutely no idea how to actually run a pub'

And "zebra striping." Never forget the zebras.

Great thread starts here.

Thanks to @stanhieronymus.bsky.social for pointing out that the paper on the haplotype-resolved genome (ie the best kind) of #hop Apollo has finally been published. Hop genetics are messy & complicated, this is significant as first good genome from the Wye family. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

No spoiler here. Go ahead and read the post to find out the answer.

I spent a stupid amount of time writing & rewriting this, so I hope it ended up being an enjoyable read. I have to admit, I didn’t fully appreciate what has happened with Norwegian cider till I visited, and that context, the integration with farming, tourism, gastronomy, is something rare.

I think zebra-striping with alcohol-free Helles is great. The ones I tried that are beer-flavoured without the off-flavours otherwise typical for NA beers are Augustiner, Tegernseer, Weihenstephaner and Bayreuther. I'd have them in a heartbeat, because they taste _good_ without compromises.

Return of the earworm. Just when I shook it off, Alan McLeod pokes it to life. "Athletic, which actually produces a different product." Because I am left asking, "Is it different? Is it?" Because most NA is super low A, i.e. a fermented beverage.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Session #150 is taking place on or around Sunday 28 June 2026 and we're asking people to post something in response to the late Martyn Cornell's epic final book Porter & Stout. boakandbailey.com/2026/06/anno...

Launching June 23rd. Tell your friends. www.kickstarter.com/projects/cbh...

GOOD MORNING! Here's this week's round-up of good writing about beer and pubs with a vague theme of the difficulty of making brewing work in 2026. boakandbailey.com/2026/06/news...

You can now channel your Schlitz grief into a pair of new bobbleheads. store.bobbleheadhall.com/search?q=sch...

These notes exemplify a Canadian approach to Canadian-ness.

#OtD 3 Jun 1983 Miller brewery workers in Milwaukee, WI, went on strike demanding a better contract and protesting 325 job losses. After 2 months they won an improved contract but still with the loss of 297 jobs

One of beer's feel good stories coming to an end. www.fox21news.com/news/local/l...

BLOG POST: Pub people love to chuck around the term 'Britannia table' – but what is it, exactly? Why do we call it that? And what does this type of table *mean* to people? boakandbailey.com/2026/05/the-...

GOOD MORNING! Here's our regular weekly round-up of good writing about beer and pubs with a throughline this week about brewery closures, access to market, and the embrace of heritage brands. (Yes, again. That's the theme for 2026, though.) boakandbailey.com/2026/05/news...

What happens when tropical becomes topical?

I'll be in Canada 15th-29th July. Visiting Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Querbec City. If you'd like to host a talk, get in touch. It might be your last chance to hear me speak in Canada.

The Circle Of Life

GOOD MORNING! Here's our regular weekly round-up of good writing about beer and pubs featuring a beer festival in a forest, gruit, failed hop varieties, heritage pubs, and more. boakandbailey.com/2026/05/news...

Easily clears the "better than it needs to be" bar. Typed because of the Lavender Lake link within. abetterbeerblog427.com/2026/05/21/a...

People tend to claim that gruit is a kind of beer that was brewed before hops came into use, but that's wrong in several different ways. New blog post clears up the confusion, puncturing the myths: www.garshol.priv.no/blog/438.htm...

GOOD MORNING! Here's our regular weekly round-up of good writing about beer and pubs with slightly more entries than usual this week, with an emphasis on shorter notes of visits to lovely, lovely pubs. 🍻🍺 boakandbailey.com/2026/05/news...

But will it really be "the last Schlitz?"

The quote I would have missed last week if I didn't read today's beery news: “I don’t like dogs and I don’t like kids. We allow both, but neither are coming to the bar to buy drinks."

GOOD MORNING! Here's our regular weekly round-up of the best writing about beer and pubs, with a thread around inclusion and political debate in pubs; thoughts on AI art in the brewing industry; and notes on the entanglement of beer brands and family history. boakandbailey.com/2026/05/news...

Final Gravity Issue 12 comes out Monday, so I thought I’d share a short 🧵 about how these issues physically come together. We don’t have printers we send the issue off to to be printed for us. We have printers—as in physical inkjets—in our home office, and we do it all ourselves.

The seasons have shifted? Like winter in May? Yesterday in Colorado.

Checks calendar. Yep, it says May 6.

GOOD MORNING! Here's our regular round-up of the most interesting beer writing from the past week with a thread around trends, novelty, generational change, and heritage. boakandbailey.com/2026/05/news...

To say "A dying brewery can only die once" raises a question: What is a brewery? Like hermit crabs, new brewing operations may climb into the shells of defunct ones. Two (or more) such operations may die in the same location. abetterbeerblog427.com/2026/04/30/y...

GOOD MORNING! Here's our regular digest of the best writing about beer and pubs from the past week, with everything from train departure boards to fresh Orval. 🍻 boakandbailey.com/2026/04/news...

Thursday… tax filing day… yard chores day… what else is it… hmmm… oh, yes! Beery newsy bits day! Beer n’ Stuff. That’s what I really call it. Not sure what you call it. What? Be nice. Hey! No need of that… Jeesh… abetterbeerblog427.com/2026/04/23/y...

"More Beer, Less Collar" In 1911, the Richmond Times-Dispatch shared reports of German beer sellers facing jail time for underfilling glasses below the legally stamped pour line. Court considers the act "deception of the public."

The time she asked me what I was doing, and I said I was stretching my muscles, and she responded, “You don’t have any muscles. I have BIG muscles. YOU have elbows.” www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/new...

GOOD MORNING! Here's our latest round up of news, nuggets and longreads, with notes on the Cumbrian beer scene, on a pub in a shopping centre beneath a flyover, and on how licensing laws were historically exploited to exclude women from brewing and pubs. 🍻🍺 boakandbailey.com/2026/04/news...

Thanks, Alan, for giving me an excuse to repeat this: “A critic’s job, nine-tenths of it, is to make way for the good by demolishing the bad.” – Kenneth Tynan

The war in Iran has knock-on effects for the beer industry in the form of higher fuel costs, higher input prices (including aluminum … again), and reduced consumer spending. Even if the conflict were to miraculously resolve tomorrow, effects are likely to persist well into 2027:

GOOD MORNING! Here's our regular round-up of news, nuggets and longreads, with everything from industry gossip to a very weighty piece about farmhouse yeast genetics. 🍻🍺 boakandbailey.com/2026/04/news...

Cluster-esque? abetterbeerblog427.com/2026/04/09/y...