If you've suffered this site for long enough, you know I love to scoop. There's a joy to be held in finding new, interesting, adventurous beers. A delight delivered by the fulfillment of expectation. But also the thrill in tasting the beer that blindsided and surprised you.

My Reluctancy in scooping is borne out of too much bland bitter, brewed by this month's new micro. Of too much tinkering; a hop pellet there, a malt bill shifted here, an uneven regular brew leaping Lazarus-like onto the bar as a rebadge everywhere.

But in the back of my mind, there's always Reluctant's Conundrum; if you don't scoop the new beer/brewery, you may miss out something special. After all, what if I hadn't tasted Thornbridge (or Oakham or BrewDog or, or, or) at the time that I did? Sure, I would have had their beers by now, but being an 'early adopter' has given me a couple of years worth of fantastic beery experience.

It's great to find the beer styles/brewers that you love. It's great to try something different. It may be the Worse Beer You've Ever Tasted - Official. Or it could be the beer that changes your topering habits for a lifetime.

We may be living in a golden age for UK brewing. With technological advances, environmental concerns and consumer/producer enthusiasm, the next twenty years could see revolutions in brewing quality beers at a local scale. The scope for scooping is massive.

There are great pubs in my village / the city / the Midlands and Yorkshire, depending on how far I want to drag myself for a pint. There are some quality breweries on my doorstep. And there's a hugely influential, articulate and intelligent bunch of beery bods on the t'internet. So I could just sit back, read the blogs and drink what I know to be good.

Problem is, in twenty years time, I'd be the bitter man at the bar bemoaning, "this stuff used to taste better when I was younger... and what the hell is oak-aged double imperial goozeberry hefeweizen, anyway?". So I'm happy to be Reluctant a little while longer. The thrill of the chase, the surprise of the unexpected, both make beer drinking in this day and age an unmitigated joy.

My last wish is to keep on scooping Reluctantly.... and for a few more people to do the same. Go find the beers and breweries that others are excited about. See how they measure up to your palate and expectations. And then take the time to savour them. Find the balance between chasing the tail of that new beer and snuggling up next to an old favourite. Don't forget why you drink the stuff in the first place. Life's too short to spend it with indifferent beers.

Someone once said opinions are like arseholes - everybody's got one, and everybody thinks everybody else's stinks. Well, I'm happy to keep stinking up the internet. One beer at a time.

Cheers! >

In England, we talk of microbrewing. We define by size; by a volume limit, a taxation break. Microbrewers are seen as good, macrobrewers bad, with regional brewers caught between a rock and a hard place.

For me, size doesn't matter. Quality does. Looking Stateside, there's a true minority - 5% - of the brewery scene who are dwarfed by the Bud-Miller-Coors Goliaths. Small in market share, big in ideas and confidence. And they are proud to call themselves craft brewers.

Defining what they brew and how its brewed not by scale but by the passion and care invested into it. Brewing that involves "...innovation, independence, curiosity, collaboration, character and family".

A few breweries over here describe themselves in similar terms. Our homebrewing scene is guided by an organisation called the Craft Brewing Association.

I've rattled through a long wishlist this month. But I one wish I'd love to come true would be a shift in thinking; define the UK beer scene by the quality of the brewers and beers, not by their size. To be proud of a pint produced by craftspeople.

Saying you're a craft brewer is a statement of intent; a guarantee; a challenge. An inspiration to the consumer and an aspiration for the homebrewer.

What's in a word, you say? It's just another lame marketing ploy? Play the video below and tell me if you still think that craft brewing would be no more than a rebranding tag.

>

We have some great national museums; maritime, science, railway. Er, computing. Um, customs and excise... so where's the National Museum of Brewing? After all, it's an industry revolutionised by transportation, embodied by science. Enhanced by computing? Often shafted by HMRC...

The closest we've had was the Bass Museum in Burton-on-Trent. MolsonCoors closed that down in 2008 and it has to be said that it was looking rather tired and emotional at the end of its days. That may be the result of under-investment; it has to be said that allowing free entry for CAMRA members - surely a key visitor market - didn't seem to be the most commonsense business model.

We may well yet see that collection rehoused. But a brewing museum is too great a concept to be entrusted to a single brewing concern. As an industry which has shaped the rural and urban landscape of this country; that has played a pivotal role in economic and social history; that reveals something about the very core of our national identity... we deserve a National Museum of Brewing.

Something that's dynamic and interactive. Where machines work. Where shires tramp around. Where aromas and flavours can be found. Where brewery archives - not just Bass's - can be bequeathed. Where universities develop formal partnerships for research into brewing science and social history. Where a microbrewery brews - in those historic styles I've mentioned a few weeks ago.

Not a visitor centre, an exhibition, a stultified archive. But a living, breathing, respiring, fermenting place.

There are a few sites in a certain East Staffordshire town that would be suitable. Political will, brewer's desire and popular support could combine to give us the museum that all topers deserve. >

Let's go for broke. English gueuze. Let's have it. Simply because it can't exist.

Let's start with A Gueuze 101. It tastes like fizzy piss and smells like barnyard piss. If it actually looks like your piss, you need to get back on the tablets.

Let's try that again. It's an acidic beer featuring spontaneous fermentation - the wort ferments after natural inoculation by wild yeasts present in the air. It's made by blending old and young beers (lambics) which allows the younger beer to continue fermentation. And it's ruddy gorgeous.

To be lambic, the beer must be brewed in the Brussels-Lembeek area. Where the wild yeasts are. I'm guessing here, but I don't think there's a heap of Brettanomyces bruxellensis in the air around Kidderminster. Or Chorlton-cum-Hardy. Or Cocks.

And if we found it, and brewed with it, it still wouldn't be lambic/gueuze. Belgium has an outfit called HORAL, the High Council for Artisanal Lambik style beers. They promote the style and protect it via legislation. So we can't actually have gueuze here.

But I still reckon that England could have a wild-fermented sour ale. A little bit of brett could be out there. Somewhere. If you have a beer, if no other yeast can help, and if you can find brett, maybe you can brew... Wild Harvested Or Reseeded Superlative English Sour. WHORSES ;-) >

Bottle conditioned beers can be a thing of wonder. Living yeast allows further conditioning and/or fermentation and so preserves the beer and possibly adds to its complexity of flavour and aroma. Indeed, some bottles won’t reveal their intended characteristics until after a lengthy ageing period.

But that doesn’t mean that non-conditioned bottles should be written off. Yes, they’re too often the last resting place of poor beers that have had the last vestige of life pasteurised out of them, but that doesn’t have to be the case. Beer can be filtered instead, perhaps even centrifuged, to remove yeast rather than having it burnt out. The challenge lies in maximising the flavour and aroma, making sure that volatile hop nuances aren’t lost in the process.

Thornbridge are looking to introduce a range of beers, carbonated in the tank, that will be centrifuged to as low a yeast count as possible before topping up carbonation as a "bright beer" before bottling. They’re likely to do that for beers best drank fresh, those with lower ABVs and highly hopped beers. Brewdog are investing in light-filtration techniques that will preserve the intense flavours and aromas found in their beers.

I want to see UK brewers learn from continental and US production methods and develop innovative ways of bottling beers with a decent shelf life that's still chock full of tasty goodness. >

Let's keep this one simple. More pubs should brew beer on the premises. Enough to satisfy the demands of their customers. Only served at the pub itself so, if it's good, you've got to travel their to try it. If pubs are looking for a unique selling point, home-brewed beer exclusive to the establishment is as exclusive as they come.

Perhaps publicans with the capacity to set up a backyard brewery could approach a microbrewer who's looking to move out of their garage/shed; the pub gains a house beer, the brewer gains a market.

My real wish? Several brewpubs in the same village/town/city centre all brewing their own beers and then joining together for collaborative brews and festivals. Think of the buzz that could be generated. >

Pairing food and beer in a bar/restaurant successfully is often so woeful in the UK as to be almost insulting. In some places I've visited where there's a formal approach (i.e. beer option listed against dish on the menu) it's ranged from the half-hearted (IPA with fish & chips... but they only sold Deuchars) to the downright bizzare (Anchor Steam with burger and chips. Because they're both American. Gah.)

Sometimes, if I'm feeling in a particularly cruel mood, when a day of pulling legs off spiders and deleting random files on the work server still hasn't satiated my evil streak, I like to go and bait barstaff. I'll go for a meal in a pub that offers a fair range of cask & bottled beer, order something like liver and onions, then ask the waiting staff, "Which beer would you recommend with this"? The results tend not to be good.

Either pair them well or not at all. There's such an opportunity to be successful with beer/food matching. It's also way too easy to make a complete horlicks of it. I'm all for dishes cooked and served with the same beer, or having a few well-paired dishes with high-quality bottles. Just don't feel that every tuna jacket potato or lamb bhuna needs a beer pairing.

Just a couple of places that do it well would be appreciated. Not every city can have a Den Dyver. But I can dream... >

CAMRA's Good Beer Guide (GBG) is a decent publication. Yes, it's not all-inclusive. Yes, some entries defy rational explanation. But it's still the most comprehensive papery-thing-tied-up-with-string beer guide that I know of for the UK.

And the papery-thing bit is the problem. I visited Norfolk last month; the GBG travelled on the back seat of the car and signposted us to outstanding places like the Ugly Bug at Colton that we wouldn't have known about otherwise. But the problem with a printed guide is that it's old gen as soon as it's printed. Pubs close, opening hours change. So, how about getting the GBG online - and updated frequently.

The GBG must be a revenue-generator for CAMRA; I've misplaced my set of last year's accounts, so I don't know the figure. The argument proffered against producing an online version in the past has been that fewer people would buy the book, thus less cash enters CAMRA's coffers. But perhaps they ought to think of the bigger picture; what if some other online pub guide adds a 'Good Beer Guide' flag to their listings? As pubs already advertise the fact that they're in the Guide, is it fair to say that the listing info is already in the public domain?

A CAMRA-endorsed web-based directory site, with members-only access, could add value to the Good Beer Guide rather than threaten it. At the very least, let's have a more comprehensive GBG 'updates' section on the CAMRA site... perhaps one that branches/members can update themselves? >

There's no substitute for having the brewing process explained to you by a brewer whilst he/she brew. But I'd like to see a clear, informative guide somewhere on the internet.

Wikipedia is too wordy, stuff like this is (literally) too Flash. Brewers such as Thornbridge and Broughton have explained the process in great detail, but I'd like to see something that strikes a happy medium between accessibility and academia.

One that gives a simple overview, with illustrations/animations. Which then has the scientific detail of each process available if you want to dig down further (a bit like how the Broughton site works). And has a full hyperlinked glossary of brewing terms. And an appreciation of how much cleaning and disinfecting goes on!

Perhaps there's such a site out there already. Let me know if you have a favourite.

If not, who's going to take on the challenge of building one? >

The problem with wanting to try craft beers from half way round the world is that they're, uh, half way round the world. To import them, they're probably going to travel on a slow boat at a high unit cost. Which is a bugger when you live in England and are keen on drinking beer brewed in New Zealand.

It's all the fault of Luke Nicholas. I met the award-winning Kiwi brewer from Epic Beer a couple of months ago when he was over in the UK, promoting a UK-brewed version of Epic Pale at the Wetherspoons festival. He's a really passionate and engaging guy and I'd like to try more of his beers (particularly Armageddon IPA). I'm sure thousands of others would like to, too.

The key would be a cheaper distribution route - I don't suppose an outfit like Epic can cover the costs of an exclusive shipment half way across the world. Short of discovering a pan-Atlantic/Pacific wormhole, I don't have any bright ideas. Apart from... there must be shipments from NZ-USA, USA-UK and back again; if you or anyone you know works in international shipping frieght, let me know and we'll see if we can work something out. If only for a case of Armageddon that's been tucked under the bunks; I'll glady come and collect it from any UK port ;-) >

Most brewers have a core range of beers. Many produce specials, perhaps on a seasonal basis. And some brew endless variants of the same beer; malts bills and hop varieties tweaked, ABVs hovering around 4.2%. There's a light one and a brown one.
And a browner one and a darker one. And they're all brewed to be ticker-friendly. And they all taste just the same.

Why churn out what is ostensibly the same beer (and not always a good one to start with) and continually rename it? Is it pure marketing - to attract customers into buying a 'new' beer? Only to be told, on asking what it tastes like, "er... it's rather like the other ones that they do". Is it lack of consistency in the brewing process; they cannot reproduce a given recipe so each run becomes a 'special'? Is it to bait tickers? Is it to sell over-designed pumpclips to tickers at festivals?

I'm all for experimentation in brewing. But incessant tinkering and renaming of bland bitters does the UK beer scene a massive dis-service. Let's have fewer 'anonymous' bitters and more that a brewer is proud to brand under just one name. >

I'm guessing that most branches of CAMRA run a beer festival. As branches vary in size, tradition and ambition, so do the venues and scale of those festivals. I've drank in a Melton cattle shed, the Town Hall in Burton and marquees on the castle lawn in Nottingham. Larger venues can offer more choice; more punters mean more footfall, more beer sold, more stalls and food outlets etc.

So why not have regional CAMRA festivals? I'd like to see festivals that could manage the expense of stocking more US/continental bottled/cask beers. More festivals offering a variety of food, seating areas, entertainment. Festivals where the emphasis is on beer but the venue isn't just a long bar with a burger stand on the end. Areas for tutored tastings, demonstrations, presentations...

I'm not suggesting that every CAMRA 'region' hosts an uber-fest; the size differential of those regions is too great. And a regional event shouldn't be at the expense of smaller branch fests. But I think there's potential for a couple of 'festival+' gatherings through the year, perhaps each point midway between National Winter and GBBF. The potential economy of scale delivered by large festivals could enable them to be innovative and still profitable for the region... and maybe even help to subsidise those branch fests... >

What if you could subscribe to a service where your favourite brewers kept you informed of their latest brews and news? Where your favourite pubs told you what beers were on that night? Where you didn't have to trawl websites and forums and scoopgen and blog upon blog for updated gen?

That's Twitter, that is. Whereas blogs and sites take time out of a busy publican's/brewer's day to maintain, Twitter is updated as quick as a text message. And those updates are going out to people who choose to be informed - people who want to hand over their hard-earned cash for a product they're interested in. And who will re-tweet the news to likeminded friends.

Twitter is a marketing dream for the industry. Brewers, publicans - make yourself heard on there sooner rather than later and make the most of a promotional channel that money couldn't buy. >

Of all the websites that ought to be good for updated brewery news / pub opening times / crawl ideas / festival info, local CAMRA branches should be at the forefront. But not every branch will have a technical maestro who's able to give up the significant time it takes to keep a website up-to-date and looking fresh. And it's frustrating when one branch offers excellent gen in an accessible way, yet others seem to bury news or are slow to refresh the content.

So how about CAMRA developing a website template that all branches could take advantage of? So branches can concentrate on content? Where core info could be found regardless of branch? With an emphasis on collaborative working? For instance; group-authored blogs, Twitter updates on branch meetings and socials, Facebook pages featuring 'Pub Of The Year' pics and reports?

It seems a shame to have a brand like CAMRA that's then diluted at local level. Let's not heap misery onto the shoulders of one put-upon 'webmaster'; share the joy, give all the sites consistency and let members Tweet updates about good beer whilst they're down the pub. >

Eighteen cask beers, including one continental. Two ciders/perrys. Ten draught lager/weiss/fruit beers. 200+ bottles from around the world. Pork pies. Pickled duck eggs. Rabbit jerky. Bar and lounge and taproom. T-shirts and glasses illustrated by famous cartoonist. Hard working bar staff. Beer geeks and locals sharing drinks. Close to the railway and bus stations.

No, not another attempt at my Moon Under Water. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Grove Inn, Huddersfield. Not Leeds, Birmingham, Sheffield, Newcastle, Nottingham... Huddersfield. If the UK's 39th largest urban area can host such an excellent pub, why can't others? The custom must be there. Where's the vision and passion required to do likewise across the UK? Indeed, where else in the UK is there a pub that offers anything remotely similar to the Grove? Answers on a beermat, please... >

OK - sit back and relax. I'm going to say something and I want you to say the first thing that pops into your head. Ready.....?

Morris Dancers.

Hands up if you said any of the following;

- hankie wavers
- annoying
- pewter tankards
- really annoying
- ruddy fecking bells
- If you don't stop prancing about and get out of my way I'll be forced to reverse over you
- SHUT UP! SHUT THE FECK UP! I'M TRYING TO ENJOY A DRINK!

If you answered yes to all seven, congratulations! You are Gazza. Now off you go and enjoy a refreshing tankard of Phoenix Strawberry.

If you agreed with any of those sentiments, it's my job to convince you why morris dancing is something to be revelled in and should indeed be compulsory at beer festivals.

- Morris dancing is a treasured aspect of English folklore. Practiced since the fifteenth century, it's something to be proud of and kept alive. Unlike badger baiting.

- It's not just fat man waving hankies. Some of the most athletic and disciplined dancers I've ever seen - including ballet - have been in morris teams; the all-women's Pecsaetan Morris are a prime example.

- In fact, it's not just hankies. That's Cotswold morris. How about Long Sword morris (three guesses what they use). Molly dance morris often include brooms. And my favourite, Border morris, with its full-on black-faced stick-smacking big-band approach.

- it's actually fun to watch at a fest. Most bands at fests are woeful, at least morris dancers entertain and are often more than happy to share a beer with you. They may even let you have a try-out. They may even try to recruit you. You're in my team now, Dave....

- they have a party where teams dance for the fun of it with plenty of food and drink. And that's called an 'ale'.

Every beer fest should have them.

If you still need convincing, watch Black Pig in action here or visit their website >

OK - you're a microbrewer. You may have another bod to help with cask cleaning/deliveries. You may have someone who you've cajoled into sorting out the admin and finances. But chances are, for most of the grunt work you're all on your lonesome. You've got to brew, market, sell, distribute, promote, research....
If there are a dozen microbrewers in your area, you could treat them all as competitors. You could all struggle with the same issues. And then you could watch yourself and others go bust. Or you could accept that there's strength in numbers.

I love the idea of brewer's collectives. We have it here in Derbyshire. They operate a 'one-stop shop' for beer festival ordering. They collect empty casks for other members. They promote an 'ale trail' of pubs where member's beers can be bought. They meet regularly to discuss links with universities, access to laboratory services, joint marketing initiatives...

This seems such an obviously good idea that I don't know why other counties/cities/regions have adopted it. Unless they have and I haven't noticed. Either way, more brewers' collectives seem an ideal way to strengthen the hand of microbrewers in these straitened times. >

Twenty years ago, I drank black beer. Otherwise known as Guinness. I drank black beer because I wasn't keen on brown beer (bitter) and that pale yellow beer (lager) gave me the windy-pops. I knew nothing of beer style - all I knew was it came in different colours.

Nowadays, I'm ceaseless in my search for yet another oak-aged dry-hopped bottle-fermented triple imperial gooseberry hefeweizen. Having gained an understanding of beer styles, I want to discover more. To find those breweries that aren't afraid to experiment, playing fast and loose with new flavours or paying respect to historical recipes (come on down, Thornbridge and Brewdog).

And it's those traditions that I feel need to be preserved properly. Without those baseline styles of brewing beer, we wouldn't have the building blocks for experimentation. Individual breweries keep historic beer styles alive, but I'd like to see a concerted and co-ordinated effort. Recipes should be held in a national depository as part of a National Museum of Brewing. CAMRA could highlight a style every two months (the 'Mild in May' approach) to raise its profile and the drinking public's awareness. And my dream.... the in-house brewery bar at a National Museum of Brewing producing a sampler tray of beers brewed to historic recipes. It would be the reference sampler for British beer styles. And when you'd polished it off, you could move down the bar and try some tasty UK kegged gooseberry hefeweizens too. >

LocAle is one of the most significant CAMRA campaigns they've ever run. It promotes pubs that sell locally brewed real ale, which benefits not only themselves but their customers, the local brewers, the local economy and the environment.

Every CAMRA branch ought to be supporting LocAle. And what better way of promoting the campaign than having a LocAle bar at every local CAMRA beer festival? Not just a few local beers scattered around the venue. A dedicated section of the stillage with banners and beermats covered in the logo. The distance from festival to brewery in miles advertised on the cask end. Perhaps a sampler tray placed out at set times when it's quieter.

LocAle has the potential to engage casual drinkers into CAMRA campaigns. Every CAMRA festival should make a LocAle bar a high-visibility priority. Take pride in your own campaign; promote it with vigour, shout about its success. Then licensees will be more convinced to adopt it. >

Rather than brew every day on a small plant, it may make logistical and financial sense for microbrewers to have one brewday on a larger plant. To then have the time for deliveries, collections, marketing etc as the weekly brew took one day rather than three or four.

But the smaller brewer can't afford the larger plant; can't afford the cost of set-up and running, can't afford to brew at the larger plant's capacity because they haven't built up enough of a market for the product.

So how about co-operative brewplants? Brewers pay a fee to use it, though they make savings due to the economy of scale at the larger plant. That fee pays for operating costs and someone to oversee the operation. Brewers could maintain their own smaller plants for experimental beers. Homebrewers could have access to commercial standard kit.

If it allows a bunch of brewers to produce beer of higher volume and greater consistency - and let them get out of the brewhouse and run their business better too - it could be a real winner. >