Let's cut to the chase: The Independent Manchester Beer Convention has the potential to be the most exciting beer event that I've ever attended in the UK.

Many beer lovers have only dreamed of a get-together when the UK's best cask and keg beers are served by their brewers. Alongside award-winning food. With pop-up tastings, talks, seminars, live music. In a decent venue. Run by industry professionals.

Dream no more.

Indymanbeercon runs on Friday 5th and Saturday 6th of October at Victoria Baths, Manchester. If you have a beer pulse, you can't help but be turned on by the idea of:

- keg beers from Brewdog, Thornbridge, Brodies, Tempest, Magic Rock, Summer Wine, Hardknott, Lovibonds, The Kernel, Ilkley and Camden Town.

 - cask beers from thirty brewers including Buxton, Dark Star, Gadds, Hawkshead, Mallinsons, Marble, Red Willow and Steel City. And Sierra Nevada. And Cantillion.

- food by Sindhoor, Great North Pie Company and Dirty Dogs along with a special tasting dinner hosted by award-winning restaurant Aumbrey

- quality coffee by North Tea Power

I'm so excited, I wanted to be part of it. So I'm working a shift on the Friday and then looking forward to drinking some of the countries best beers with many of the countries best brewers and beery people afterwards.

Want to be part of it too? Buy tickets here and volunteer here.

See you there.

>

"... I only had four pints," pleads Bernie.

Magic Mitch insists otherwise. "No, we both had at least two pints in here," he said, gesturing around what had been a quiet bar at Derby's Brunswick Inn.

"And then we had two halves next door..." interjects Bernie. Meaning the Alexandra, thirty steps around the corner.

"It was four halves", emphasises Mitch. "And you forgot the bloke who bought us both a pint. And that we went up to the Exeter Arms for a few. And then came back here for another pint".

Last week's shenanigans play as a major topic of conversation all lunchtime. As does clubbing; semi-pro dancers, missing last buses. Potential partners. Mitch has seen it all before.

"Big ladies aren't your thing, are they, Bernie?" There's a pain behind Bernie's eyes. "They tread on your feet", Bernie says. "And they're no good on top".

There's a round of Ossett Hopmonster. It gains praise for being, in Mitch's words, "super-dry. It attacks the back of the throat".

He then disappears for half a ciggy and to bung a few quid in the gaming machine. After a few minutes, there's a vague chinking sound. Bernie cheers. "Have you won enough to buy a round!"

"You'd be lucky," answers Mitch. "So would I, actually..."

Bernie confides that Mitch, when knowing he's about the hit the jackpot, has been known to stuff his scarf into the payout slot of the machine. Deadening the sound of pound coins hitting the trough. So not raising the ire of the landlord.

We sojourn next door. Castle Rock Harvest Pale is dispatched quickly. As is their Elsie Mo. It's... smooth. Subtle. They're compliments, by the way.

No-one heard Bernie order something to eat. He soon wraps his chops into a ham and tomato cob. Three chomps in, Mitch orders one. Other people eating makes other topers irresistibly hungry.

Maybe it's the wheeler-dealer car-seller in him, but Mitch really loves a bargain. He's found plenty recently. Packs of chicken breasts for 30p. Mobile phone deals where, through an arcane combination of discount websites and cashback deals, he's being paid to have a contract. He's on the phone now, surfing the web, scouring for bargains. We politely decline offers of killer mobile deals. Bernie is happy with his prehistoric Nokia. It bounces.

But Bernie doesn't. He's still sporting an oil-blue bruise that runs the length of his left arm, apart from where plasters cover the cuts sustained from his latest trip. Over the kerb just around the corner, running for a bus last week after what may have been more than four pints. Mitch was already at the stop. Albeit the bus wasn't actually the one they wanted.

I'll never tire of meeting Mitch, who's a not-too-shoddy magician in his spare time, and asking him, "how's tricks!"

Bernie has tales that can turn your hair almost as white as his. He's 83 this year. Mitch... well let's say he's old enough to know better.

They're taking me to Sheffield soon. With their mates. People who've been retired for longer than I've been working. People who've been drinking for longer than they care to remember.

The 'Magic Mitch and Bernie' show lights up every pub they drink in. I'm just hoping we don't end up laughing our way to A&E...

>

Saturday 8h September. You're all invited.

Rough plan:

- Meet in a Derby Spoons for breakfast. The Standing Order. Or Thomas Leaper. Whichever has fewer piss-stinking tramps in it.

- 1135 bus to Ripley for Talbot Taphouse (Amber Ales brewery tap). This is the only definite timing point of the day. We make the rest up depending on how we want to pace things.

- bus onto Thorn Tree at Waingroves (rare cask with the distinct possibility of Steel City & Buxton beers)

*edit* there will be a beerfest on here, organised by Derby CAMRA's Winter Beerfest 2012 uber-beer-buyer Chris Sherratt. Game on!

- bus to Langley for the Butchers Arms (no idea what it's like but the bus that stops outside the Thorn Tree also stops outside here)

- short walk to Queen's Head, Marlpool (usually a good run of contemporary English cask beers)

- bus from outside there to General Havelock, Ilkeston (more of the same - it's the Queen's sister pub - with the addition of craft keg. Probably from Summer Wine).

- back into Derby (for chips, banter, aimless wandering etc).

Most of the pubs have a bus stop outside them. An individual all-day ticket costs £5; a group ticket (five people) only costs £12 so it's cheap at chips to get around.

I can't guarantee another round of Top Trumps as good as the one we had in the Poet & Castle last time out, but I'll promise not to put every one on the wrong bus again. Probably.

Let me know below if you're interested. >

A not-for-profit pub. Built by volunteers. With a ballroom that local groups can use. Where you can choose which local charity your bar tab gets donated to. In Portland.

Something that could happen only in Oregon? Because Portland has the perfect storm of cutting-edge brewers and so many non-profit organisations? Or could it happen in the UK?

I'm excited by this. Even though I'm wholly unlikely to make it over there any time soon. It's a model that looks exciting and sustainable. Albeit it challenging to all kinds of economic and social mores.

The Oregon Public House. See their website, their Facebook page, their PDF prospectus, their video.

If you make it over their for a pint, let me know.



>

I work in the commercial department of a Championship football club. I recognise the brand exposure that a keen sponsorship deal can bring.

All well and good, except for two things. As far as this site is concerned:

- I can't really afford a sponsorship deal, and
- I don't want brand exposure

But this offer was too good to resist.

Trolling my way across Twitter (for purely professional purposes, natch) I noticed this:

I'd made that much out of my Amazon Associates account, mostly by drunks clicking through on the book reviews and subsequently purchasing expensive shampoo and, um, gentleman's literature.

Heineken had the Olympics. To unleash John Smith's Smooth on the unfearing masses.

The Beer Bloggers Conference no longer have Molson Coors. Maybe MC woke up and smelt the re-tweets.

But I now sponsor Tantallon Victoria FC. Strathclyde Saturday Morning Football League. Division Two. Here they are:

Strictly speaking, I sponsor Thomas "Tank" Jaimieson, fourth from the left on the back row. Here he is.

I chose him because I asked to sponsor the player most likely to take the twenty quid and spend it on beer.

None of the team seem shy to celebrate / commiserate with a beer. Tales of a pink team bus, losing their kit and 7-1 trouncings run riot across their Twitter account.

Needless to say, my sponsorship will inevitably involve a trip up north at some stage. I wonder if sponsors are encouraged to bring beer with them... >

How to Bimble For Beer: A Toper's Guide.

You will need:

- city with great pubs offering range of beer styles on a range of dispense, ideally situated no more than five minutes from one and other. Sheffield is an ideal choice.

- transport, public

- shoes, walking (stout)

- strangers, occasional (bitter)

- sense of direction, calibrated roughly

- constitution: solid. Cast iron preferred

Optional extras:

- newspaper; crossword for early doors, restaurant review to laugh at later, financial pages that double as emergency toilet roll if required

- smartphone

- pork pie

- Orval

- bunch of Scotsmen

- more pork pie

Method

1) Find a pub / bar close to your chosen public transport option upon arrival in the city. Order pint of something to be drank slowly whilst cogitating. Attempt crossword. Read half the newspaper.

(If you plump for the bunch-of-Scotsmen option, add them now).

2) Move to next pub depending on

- likelihood of favourable beer there (smartphone may influence choice)

- likelihood of good pork pie (brown meat, thin crust, short on jelly are all preferable)

- likelihood of Orval (as the ever-redoubtable backstop)

- bitterness of locals when you're sat in their seat, ogling their wife/girlfriend/mother, using words with two or more syllables

- attention-span of Scotsmen (whale-tails and obvious cleavage will buy time for at least one more round)

- degree of sunburn attained in beer garden. If you're blonde, amplify this factor by two. If you're ginger, amplify this factor by four. If you're either/or of these factors and a Scotsman, amplify this factor by eleventy and wrap yourself in gauze before attempting to visit a beer garden again.

3) Repeat for a half-a-dozen pubs or so. Ish. Sort of.

4) Return to public transport. If you're feeling fairly louche at this stage, buy sushi and Orval for the train ride home. If you're feeling fairly funky at this stage, buy an egg mayonnaise sarnie and a four-pack of Belgian Lager from M&S Simply Foods for the train ride home.

5) Share the sushi and Orval with an attractive, witty student and regale her with tales of your European travel exploits. When you wake up from your dream, scoff the sandwich and knock off a couple of tins. Laugh at Giles Coren by proxy. Try not to fart uncontrollably. It is the quiet coach, after all.

6) Feel the need to go to the toilet. Make it to the toilet. Realise, with your trousers around your ankles, that you didn't lock the door. Waddle to the door and lock it. Realise there is no toilet paper. Feel smug that you chose the financial-pages option from earlier.

7) Return to your original destination. Decide against a last pint at the pub by the station. Change your mind again. Change your mind again when you remember you still have a couple of tins left that will only need a couple of minutes in your freezer to chill back down.

8) Arrive home. Put tins in freezer. Wake up at three in the morning with

a) a massive urge to pee

b) the sound of a can ripping itself to pieces in your freezer.



Thanks to Craig Walker and his motley Caledonian crew for trusting me and sending them down Murder Mile alleyways in search of Sheffield's finest. >

The Session this month is brought to you by DrinkDrank on the subject of designing your perfect brew: "The One Beer To Rule Them All".

Down by the lake, I had a dream.

I say dream, but after five hours of trout fishing with the sun on my back it was more like an hallucination. Bored of my ham-fisted attempts at snaring it, one massive trout split the still waters and spat a ring at me.

"This ring is destined to become part of beer history", it burbled in an overly-dramatic voice-over type way. "Wear it with pride and with honour. But be wary of the power it bestows".

And with that, it buggered off.

A dull gold ring with an un-nervingly good fit, no matter which finger I placed it on. The water's edge seemed to recede, a darkness rushed overhead. My sense of taste and smell went into overdrive. I knew exactly what to brew.

It would need the finest pale malt with just a dab of caramel malt to render a glowing orange wort. Styrian Golding, Strisselspalt and Hallertau-Hersbrucker hops to give it an almost herbal edge. A touch of candy sugar to add gravity. Dry-hopped and a bit of Brett to the finish.

A beer that would age from a dry feisty amber to something with spicy tartness. One that could be enjoyed fresh-as-you-fancy or dug-out-of-cupboard old. Served in a dazzling chalice by a roaring fireside or sank straight out the bottle by a lake full of reluctant trout...

... and then my finger felt as if it was on fire. The ring was burning. It shot off my hand of its own accord. My vision of a perfect beer began to ebb away.

Was I not the one who was to make history?

Glancing down at the burning gold, I could make out a fiery inscription upon it:

"One Beer to rule them all, One Beer to find them,
One Beer to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Orval where the Abbey lies".

Whatever. I scooped up the ring and threw it back into the water. That self-same fat trout from before lept up and caught it between its chubby lips, winked at me and then swam off.

Maybe someone else was destined to find that ring. Whoever it was, I bet it wouldn't result in a beer anywhere near as good as the one I'd dreamed of...




>

Apparently, today is IPA Day. Now, you know I'm not one for the fetishisation of style. And IPA is for life, not just for August. Nevertheless, after exposing last year's IPA lies, I felt it was only fair to share these titbits I found on the interweb. From, uh, somewhere. Probably whatever the electronic equivalent is for the back of the bike sheds.


Fifty Shades Of IPA: work in progress

After a couple of hours, I'd really developed a taste for this. But I knew I had to go soon. I looked the hunky barman up and down and said, "Quick! Fill my growler!"

---

On my desk was a parcel. Had he sent me something? I'd never had anything come in a Jiffy before. Inside was a blindfold and so I knew. Tonight would be the night I had longed and ached for. He was going give me a blind tasting.

---

"Nearly there..  hold out your tongue!" He moaned softly as the cork popped. I felt it on my tongue; bitter, sticky, exciting. But I still thought it was a waste of Meantime IPA to be opened like that.

---

"Prepare to be hurt like never before", I said. And then stood in front of him and drank his last bottle of Pliny The Elder.

---

He said "would you like me to hold an ice cube in my mouth before we start? I was shocked; lowering the temperature of the beer in such dramatic fashion was bound to ruin his tasting experience.

---

I'd never seen such a box of joy. How far will we go? He leant closer and whispered in my ear: "Maybe to 100 IBUs. Maybe more".

---

"We need an escape word", I said. "Something we'd never say, even in the heat of passion". He looked my square in the eye and said: "Budweiser".

---

I was feeling funky in my fol-de-ra-ha-ha-ha department. I wanted to get my hands on his Great River Big Cock. But first, I wanted to be punished! So he gave me a bottle of Greene King IPA and locked me in the toilet.

---

"Put on this all-in-one rubber suit", he said. My fantasy was about to come true. He was going to let me scrub out the copper.

---

He looked at my warily. "Are you sure you want it"? he said. "Oh yes," I breathed, "just get it out and show it to me". I trembled at its size. I'd never seen a receipt from beermerchants that was so huge.

---

"Harder than that!" I screamed. "Harder! HARDER!". He concentrated. "OK... how much Simcoe do you need to brew a 75 IBU beer in a five-gallon batch, assuming an alpha-acid content of 14%?"

---

I was tired. I felt skunky and I wanted to go home. "Not tonight," he snapped. "You're coming round my place to fondle my bomber".

"You.. arrogant bastard!"

"No," he said. "Ruination".

"Go on then", I said. "But I need to for a wee first. I've been getting Jaipured all day". >

Saturday afternoon at  Derby CAMRA's summer festival and standing room only has already been and gone. Splayed on the stairs, skulking behind pillars, sardined into the main hall... it's busy busy busy. But a thirsty toper can always conjure up some table space. In the quiet room, in a corner, opposite a ticker who seemed lost in the minutiae of his rapidly receding hit-list. My claim staked, my intentions simple: cheese and cider; dark beer and chocolate.

My sweet tooth is legendary - alongside my salty tongue, sour face and umami mouth - yet I prefer a cider or perry that's sandpaper-dessicated. I plump for the driest cider on the menu, Badger's Spit by Naish. After all, who wouldn't want to drink Badger's Spit? Lots of green apple tang, almost lemon-pithy on the tongue. I could see myself falling off a hay bale after a few of these.

A glass of cider always has me hankering after a good lump of cheese. Thankfully, Derby is one of the few festivals I've been to that has a decent cheesemonger on site. Morgan's is a stalwart of the city's Eagle Market and their ever-busy stall offers a great range of cheeses both British and continental. They've nailed their beerfest offering; a platter with a couple of cheeses, some crackers (or bread) and a dollop of red onion marmalade. 

With a dozen-ish cheeses on offer I chose two of my old favourites, an aged Red Leicester and Snowdonia Cheese's sublime Black Bomber. The latter has a creamy feel that belies its name, smooth for an extra mature cheddar but with a real depth to its flavour. If the Badger's Spit bites, then Black Bomber curls its lips and flashes its teeth at you. Put together, they get along famously. For the dry, slightly sweet and nutty Red Leicester I plumped for a perry. The Butford Organics was on the sweet side of medium for me, but its lemonesque flavour and low tannins kept it refreshing and palate-cleansing.

That was lunch. What to have for dessert? Dark beer and chocolate seemed blindingly obvious. And I do like the blindingly obvious. I'm a sucker for Fuller's London Porter and with the brewer having their own bar at the fest, the blindingly obvious option became even moreso. But what choc? Well, Burton-based Merry Berry Truffles had plenty to choose from. They are regulars at beerfests and aren't afraid to play with flavours. As their dark chocolate pieces with chilli and orange proves.

London Porter on cask reveals its ashy edges as casual charcoal marks your palate. The chocolate is more sleight-of-hand. Oily orange seeps when you hold a piece in your mouth, the slender slab collapses, a subtle chilli delivery system replaces citric tang with prickly heat. A mouthful of porter is an abrupt reset. orange to ashes, chilli heat to charcoal cool. And then do it all over again.

One last pairing? Go on then. Double Top Brewery have really impressed me recently and Tungsten Stout is no exception. With a robust body and a keen coffee roast about it, a handful of Merry Berry's chocolate covered coffee beans proved the perfect partner. Shards of beans and mocha echoes in the beer made for a great way to round out the session.

Well, almost. Fuller's Golden Pride had just come on - the only beer left on sale at their bar - so I just had to have a third. Or a half. Paired with... something caramel perhaps? Maybe spicy? In the end I went for the only viable option; pair it with another half pint of the same. Because, just sometimes, the best thing to pair with beer is another beer.

>

A smiling face on the door.

Another one at the glass stand.

Actually being called "sir" by the lad who served me my first beer.

Plenty of beers on. In the main hall. And the Darwin Suite. And the Fuller's Bar.

What a difference a day makes, eh?

Fuller's Wild River wasn't quite the paw-swiping, salmon-leaping, West Coast meets West London hopfest that I expected. But if it puts a decently citric beer in the hands of a regional market, fair play to them. I won't be too devilish and point out that Adnams already have an impressive track record in that regards.

I'm a sucker for an enticing beer name. So when Mike James from Buxton recommended Laguna Seca by Burley Street, I rushed off faster than a GT car through the Corkscrew. A touch of caramel, a dab of grapefruit, a dry finish... a good beer that can only taste better with the sun on your back.

Sometimes I'll take a punt on a beer for no reason other than their website gives me a tingly feeling. I'd never heard of Devilfish until I saw their name in the festival programme but thought... if they look that good on the web, they've got to be great in the glass. And Bombshell was; every part of it had an edge that was just sharper than other anonymous blondes.

Despite sounding like a John Guest competitor, Truefitt are busy putting Middlesbrough back on the brewing map of the North East. I'm hoping their stout, Ironopolis, is named after the Victorian football team. With licorice licks and toasty roasted malt undercut with fresh ash, this was a superlative stout.

Everything don't mean a thing if it ain't the thing you want. Tonight: good beers, good company. The fest done good. Looking forward to more tomorrow. >

I know my audience. You ain't a tough crowd. You heard I blogged a good blog. You heard I had a style.

And that style isn't overtly critical - well, not often. This isn't a paying gig, I'm not sent out to try places and beers and feed the results back, there's no need for the pretence of a critic's presence. No need to report the rough with the smooth, the turd in the hopback, the wanker in the orange bib.

Which is why I really want to write about all the good things I encountered at the opening of the Derby CAMRA Summer Festival. So I will:

- meeting people I haven't seen and shared a beer with in too long a time

- meeting brewers who you feel like you never lost touch with because of Facebook and Twitter, but realise that you need to make more time to natter face to face, pint to pint

- getting to enjoy more beers from the likes of Lincoln Green, Sherfield Village and Revolutions

- drinking Jaipur, remembering that the reason why the likes of Thornbridge were there tonight to pick up yet another CAMRA award is because their beers are really bloody good. Call me a fanboy. Not bothered. I stood in the same venue a fair few years ago (2005?) and drank Jaipur for the first time. They've had me hooked ever since. Good beer is where you find it. I find it straight outta Bakewell.

So.. why do I really want to write about this:

- being kept waiting outside the venue. I've never known a Derby CAMRA beer festival to actually start on time.

- being kept waiting in a queue. It's trade day. You know how many people are coming. For maybe the only session, you know *exactly* how many are coming. Have more than one person to check for tickets. Given that the person wasn't overly bothered about checking who we actually were anyway.

- being spoken to like a prisoner at the cloakroom. Not "Good evening!". Just "Anything valuable? We take no responsibility. Your number is 4". No ticket. No smile. No manners.

- being left clueless as to what beers are actually available when and where. Some beers may not be on yet? Fair enough. Only about half of them? WTF? Fuller's own bar? Handwritten note, "open asap". Darwin Suite (where the rarer beers are to be found)? Walked up to the door, tango-jacket barks at me "It's not open". Before I had the chance to ask - politely - if it would be open later. "Possibly" was the shrew-lipped reply. (It was apparently still shut two hours after the paying public entered due to 'technical difficulties' ).

- being badgered to sign the anti-beer-escalator e-petition. No problem with being asked once. More of an issue to be asked three times in twenty minutes by three different people. CAMRA chuggers? And when someone on stage, talking to the trade audience about who knows what (mic levels all out of kilter) starts becoming hysterical about tax, I just want to switch off and drink elsewhere.

So I went home. Remembered my number at the cloakroom, was given a different coat; the one belonging to the bloke in the queue before me when we dropped them off. His was considerably better than mine - we'd even joked about me asking for the wrong coat on purpose. "I wasn't on when you were here" was the excuse. See those books of raffle tickets that every village hall shindig has used for cloakroom passes since time immemorial? That.

There are salmon-bottomed clouds and a fresh breeze outside as I write this. I'm off for another glass of Adnam's Summer IPA now I can actually sit outside and enjoy it. I wish I was still at the festival, finding great beers and having fancy banter. But... Derby CAMRA know how to keep killing me softly. By always getting what should be the little things wrong. Will I be back tomorrow? Course I will. That's what free entry for members is all about.

I'll just take a cheap coat, a thick skin and low expectations. >

Passing through Nottingham at the weekend, I stumbled across a food and drink festival. And into the beer tent. Sorry: into the Festival Ale House.

Given that beer is often treated like the country cousin at these kind of get-togethers, forced to loll around in a corner out of harm's way, it was refreshing to find that the organisers had put up a sturdy tent and an attractive beer-garden-plaza-trestle-table-thing. You know, something that actually looked inviting and enticed people in to try the beers.

An orderly queue to buy tasting tokens - business card-sized, five for a fiver, each redeemed for a third of a pint. Two steps left to the bar with forty-plus well-kept casks for gravity dispense into decent quality polycarbonate glasses (no deposit, fresh glass with every drink). Keen staff who were more than happy to talk you through the selection from eleven Nottinghamshire breweries. Decent tasting notes supplemented by another list in order of colour, light to dark.

The beers? Good 'uns. My first taste of anything by Lincoln Green (Marion, a juicy pale ale), Pheasantry (a solid brown bitter) and Medieval (Chivalry, another pale sessioner that was pipped by Marion in the refresher stakes). King Tom from Welbeck Abbey was a rugged American amber that I'd have happily drank a pint of. As for Chimney Sweeper by Castle Rock - my little sister chose me that one because of the name. And because it was vegan. And because it promised 'subtle banana'. I'm dubious about British cask dunkelweiss-types but this worked well. Albeit I may have had trouble drinking a pint if it started to warm up.

All in all, a great addition to a food fayre-festival-market-type-thingummy-bob. It's a shame that there wasn't more foodie stalls actually selling stuff or offering samplers on the Saturday; quite a few stalls had been turned into customer seating and some others were no more than leaflet-pushing promos for venues. A good coffee stand and a deli selling meat / cheese platters would have been good to see. As it was, I had a knockout chicken kebab from the guys at Eviva Taverna whom I have fond memories of from back in the 1980s and didn't realise they were still in the city.

It was certainly a great way to promote local beer. Other food festival organisers ought to take note and take Nottingham's lead. >

No, not the Oxford Companion.

Over at the other blog of mine - you know, the one that even fewer people read - I mooted the idea last year of hacking together an A-Z of beer. On random topics that I want to learn more about. Stuff that people may want to talk to me about. Or write a few paragraphs. Or express themselves through the medium of dance.

So let's get this kickstarted.

I'm looking for contributions / information / opinion / enlightenment on these first four topics:

* Attenuation
* Brettanomyces
* Chill haze
* Diacetyl

I'm particularly keen on hearing from brewers and academics for their practical and theoretical insights. Links to useful papers / presentations / learning resources are most welcome. Happy to chat to people over a pint if it can be arranged.

Tweet-me-up at @simonhjohnson or email me at beer-removethisbit-@haddonsnet.co.uk. >

I know most of you have a life, but please spare a few minutes to think about the plight of some beer bloggers.

Sometimes they receive unsolicited emails from agencies.

Sometimes they receive three or four a day, dramatically reducing the time they can spend farting about on Facebook researching eighteenth century pale ale recipes.

Sometimes these emails don't result in free bottles of beer, inadequately packaged, that get broken in the post to them.

Sometimes they include invites to an "awesome groundbreaking beer experience evening" sponsored by Pierre van Klomp that happens to be in East London at eight pm on a Tuesday and so excludes provincial types so it must be A FUCKING CONSPIRACY.

Something must be done. I mean, Something Must Be Done.

Thankfully, there's someone with the mettle and spunk to put his best foot forward, open his legs and show his class.

Simon Jockstone has launched this epetition to try and counter the rising tide of nascent Hitleristic intolerance that beer bloggers encounter throughtout their working day. When I say working day, I mean their lunch when the firewall's doused for an hour.

Show your solidarity, brothers and sisters. Get Very Angry Indeed. Never mind the poor PR sod who's mailing blind to anyone with a pulse and a blog in the vain hope that they'll snag some AVE. They've interrupted precious free wifi whilst the said blogger dragged out the dregs of the double tripel decaf skinny macchiato that the previous merchant banker left behind.

Your tears are my tears. Sign it now. Together, we can make a difference...


>

This month's Session on the topic of going to the pub alone is hosted by Brit blogger Nate Southwood over at Booze, Beats and Bites

Drinking by myself, in a pub, is one of my greatest solo pleasures. It's right up there with being the only walker at a mountain trig point and eating a whole pork pie when the rest of the table isn't watching.

Let's be clear: I don't do the staring blankly at nothing in particular, like the not-so-old-boys in my youth who gazed at cheap prints on the wall whilst apparently smoking their fingernails. They didn't even seem to drink, their beer clearly reaching into them at some molecular level.

And don't get me wrong, I still love the camaraderie of the pub: the regulars, the faces, the people you least expect to see, the outsiders, the strangers who buy you a beer and become friends until they take the piss and swiftly become strangers again. Before they're tarred, feathered and chased out the village.

But I love the solitary drink. Since I was 18, scrawling into notebooks, mucking up the Times crossword, drinking a pint of Symonds cider in the Old Wine Vaults in Eastwood (locals: "Aye up youff, writing a book? Aye it a mucky 'un like Lawrence?)

Into my polytechnic years, scrawling into textbooks, mucking up the Guardian crossword, drinking a pint of Guinness in the Shrewsbury Arms in Stafford (locals: You're a student? But you're not that much of a twat!)

Through work lunchtimes, scrawling into a laptop, mucking up the Independent crossword, drinking a pint of Brunswick Father Mikes in, uh, the Brunswick in Derby (locals: Ooh! Get you, Bill Gates!)

Arriving at lazy Sundays, scrawling into Blogger on my phone, back to mucking up the Times crossword, drinking a pint of Thornbridge Jaipur in the Sheffield Tap (locals: Mornin', Scoop. Alreet?)

In many of the pubs I visit; there's an unwritten code; stand at the bar = I'm open to banter and gossip. Sit at a table = I want to be alone with my crossword / newspaper / book / thoughts.

Sometimes, there's a place I want to go where nobody knows my name.

Although, with a smartphone, there's a paradox. Sat by myself in a corner with that pint, that bastard crossword, Twitter, Facebook and Blogger. I reach a quantum drinking state. I find the pub super-position of being alone and not alone at the same time. I can be drinking alone and sharing the experience with virtually anyone.

I wrote this down the pub. If you were there, I was the Boris Johnson lookalike in the corner who kept swearing at his phone's stupid autocorrect rather than blaming his chipolata fingers. Forking koy beard.

Cheers to Nate Dawg for hosting. If you see him, buy him a beer. Or maybe just get him one in at the bar... >

"His fear began when he tried to go 28 days without a beer. His terror began when he realised he had. All too easily".

It was an idea that seemed too obvious at the time. I need to lose weight. I'm eating healthily. I don't want to exercise madly as that's how I knackered my clicky knees last time. I wanted a kick-start that could lead to sustained weight loss.

Obvious, really. Put less into my body than I use up. Cut out the easy calories.

Stop drinking beer.

So I did.

No hem and haw. None of this 'sensible drinking at weekends' malarkey. With my logical, rational, statistical, analytical work-head on I decided to cut beer out of my diet completely. Every pint I didn't drink would save me 200-ish calories. Plus more in ancillary pork scratchings / salted peanuts / chocolate brownies / cheesy chips.

What's more, I could use the process as a sensory experiment. I've been involved in several aroma / flavour tests this year (which I will make time to write about, apologies to aroxa and the University of Nottingham for my tardy journalism). Here would be an interesting one; how would beer feel to me after 28 days of abstinence?

Immense. Just... immense.

At the first sniff of Thornbridge Jaipur as I poured it, I actually salivated. I was acutely aware of the sensation. I wasn't expecting that. The aroma was... complex. It's like my nose was presented with a paper fortune teller and I went yep, they're the aromas I remember. And then paper was swiftly manipulated and subtle gradations and variations flashed past.

The taste? Honestly? Almost too bitter. I haven't looked into the physiology of the palate, but maybe 28 days is long enough to give it a hard reset.

You know how beery types are prone to saying, "ah, Throxheads IPAEIEIO. Doesn't taste anything like as hoppy and fruity as it used to"? What if that's true? And what if it isn't the brewer's recipe but the drinker's palate than needs re-calibrating?

I need to think this through some more. I need to open another beer to make sure these results aren't a busted flush.

Meanwhile with nine pounds lost, the experiment continues. Maybe another beer tonight, then that's it until a Burton and Derby trip on Saturday 28th July; beers at Unity Plaza by Pride Park Stadium and the choicest pubs near Derby railway station before the Coopers Tavern and all points onwards towards the Pirelli for the Brewers v Rams. If you're around, come join the fun. It's a day's drinking punctuated by ninety minutes of heckling.

And if you're still wondering how it feels to drink beer after not drinking beer for 28 days - try it. It's only beer, after all... >

Last night there was a debate in the House of Commons about the beer duty escalator.

No, the e-petition hasn't reached critical mass and been fast-tracked into contention. It was an adjournment debate, one that lasts for half an hour at the end of the day's sitting and allows for an MP to speak and a minister to reply. Last night saw Gavin Williamson address the house on the beer duty escalator and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Chloe Smith, reply to his concerns.

You can read the transcript over at Hansard or watch the debate on the BBC Democracy Live website. I say debate, but it was more of a procession of MPs mentioning their local pub / brewery whilst agreeing that the beer duty escalator was A Very Bad Thing.

It was interesting to hear Williamson state that "the simple reality is that beer duty is getting to the point where it is too high and it is pricing people out of the market". According to HMRC figures, the percentage of a pint's retail price that's made up of duty has been consistently around 13-15% since 1994. Revenue from beer duty has continued to increase. He may fear that beer is about to peak its Laffer curve; maybe instead it's riding the peak of its revenue wave.

Various Members suggested tax breaks for cask beer ("those ales are available only in pubs") and for real ale (due to its "increased cost of production"). Not sure where that leaves take-home minicasks, nor that all kegged beer is cheaper to produce. One of them - come on down, Alec Shelbrooke - proposed raising duty on canned beer. He may just as well campaign for extra tax if the beer's name rhymes with darling...

But this is all dancing-on-pinhead stuff, isn't it? Chloe Smith was by turns forthright and dangerously ambiguous; "The revenue from (escalator) increases was included in the public finance projections at that time (of the Budget). It would now require the raising of other taxes to pay for removing them", she affirmed. Sounds fairly damning from a repeal point-of-view. As to exactly what the cost would be - £35 million in both 2013-14 and 2014-15 (as Office of Budgetary Responsibility's budget tax measures database suggests) or £105 million over both years (as some commentators have suggested) - I'm unsure. Smith did say "The value of removing the escalator would be £35 million for 2013-14 and £70 million after that". £70 million in total or £70 million in 2014-15? I've tweeted both Smith and the Treasury for clarification.

One thing is for certain. Duty revenue from wine is on track to overtake beer duty revenue sometime soon. The escalator isn't just beery - and beer's contribution is becoming less important. The spirit industry is lobbying hard to keep their contribution down, so I'd be very afraid if I were a cider producer. Something's got to give. I'll bet it won't be the alcohol revenue that attracts a greater export value. >

I want to think of a beery phrase that annoys you or makes you feel annoyed when others can't understand it in the way you do.

Then read the extract by Edward de Bono below.

Then tell me: do we need new words to describe brewing and beer? Do we need new thinking? Do we need both?  Or neither?

---

"Language is an encyclopaedia of ignorance.

...once perceptions and concepts are frozen into the permenence of language, they control and limit our thinking on any subject because we are forced to use these concepts.

Should we try to develop new concepts, others would not understand us (after accusing us of jargon) and would, in any case, interpret the new words in terms of existing ones.

... we need a lot of new words to allow us to say afresh things which are now said with concepts that are inadequate or carry a heavy negative baggage.

In order to make progress there are a lot of basic concepts that we may need to re-conceptulise".

- From I Am Right, You Are Wrong, 1991 >

As I sit down to write tonight, Spain are in the process of teaching the rest of Europe just how football should be played. Periods of stultifying possession enlivened with slivers of shimmering brilliance. England didn't make it, of course, succumbing to their classic footballing fault in a quarter final. No, not missing the penalties. Being unable to engineer a goal to actually win the damn match in normal time.

Anyoldhow. Italy. Italy have always excited me. Rossi and Zoff, Tardelli and Baggio. Pirlo. Buffon. Totti. There's graft and flair punctuated by occasional brilliance and brutality. They're what I'd love a not-shit version of England to be.

And the beers? Yeah, they excite me too. The unstinting excellence of Birrificio Italiano's Tipopils. The leftfield creativity of Toccalmatto. The knowing arrogance of Baladin. And yet...

England can stand toe to toe with these brewers. We can exemplify and subvert style in equal measure. We can craft with complexity and confidence. We can produce tasty beer in volume.

And for all the barrel-ageing, craft keg, high ABV, uber-hopped, bleeding-edge beers that England brews, we do something that no other country can touch.

We can brew a beer of balance and finesse and put it into the hands of a landlord who cares for it and nurtures it. We have trust in a relationship that, at its best, produces a beer that nothing else in the world can beat.

We have a pint of cask beer, in a pub.

It doesn't really matter which beer in which pub. You'll have your favourite combination. But that experience, the confluence of great beer and place, that moment when you take the first sip of a cask pint...

Nobody does it better. Nobody.

The Italians have a word: chiaroscuro. The contrast that gives volume and depth to its subject. The light and the dark. The shadow and the relief. In that interplay, England are both the old masters and young pretenders.

Result: Italy 0 England 1.

English beer? Bloody hell ;-) >

Semi Final 2: Germany v England

Back in 2008 I spent a day on the Great Central Railway. As part of a D-Day re-enactment event, some stations were under the command of the Germans, other by the Allies. The German stations offered ice cold bottles of lager. One of the Allied stations had a beer tent. I spent more time in the beer tent, mainly because I had an uneasy feeling about drinking with men who liked to relax at the weekends by dressing in knee-high leather boots and Nazi regalia.

Is there a fair comparison to be made between German and English beer? When the Germans get it right, they excel: think kölsch, doppelbock, kellerbier. It almost doesn't matter who's you choose; control and dedication and Schweinsteiger levels of devotion see Germany take some styles to a sublime level of efficiency. No-one in the world can get close to the likes of Ayinger Celebrator or Spezial Ungespundet.

Then again, the English don't need to. They can take a fermentation method and storage/dispense type - top, cask - and use it as a palette limited only by the brewers' imaginations. The broad brush of bitter. The shading and shadow of porter. The accent and highlight of IPA. The occasional flashes of brilliant colour in styles that vie to defy definition - white stout, red pales. No-one in the world can get close to the likes of cask Adnams bitter or bottled Imperial Brown Stout by The Kernel.

So are we left with the unstoppable force of English innovation and tradition meeting the immovable object of German efficiency and Reinheitsgebot? Not quite.

I can't think of a single instance of an English style brewed by the Germans that is world class. But a German style brewed by the English... yes. Thornbridge Tzara. Fermented like an ale, matured like a lager, kölsch-ish with a definite English accent. As delicate and assertive as a Danny Welbeck backheel.

Some drinkers are on the pitch. They think it's all over.

They have another pint of Tzara.

It is now.

Result: England 4 Germany 2 >

Semi Final 1, Czech Republic v Italy

One day, I'm going to be leafing through the travel offers in the weekend papers and I'm going to find my perfect holiday advert:

THIS WEEKEND ONLY!

CHEAP! Have your stag do in Tallin! No need to pretend you're there for the culture! As much beer and chips as your pasty-white bellies can cope with! And more besides!

ROMANTIC! Ask the love of your life to marry you in Paris! Ignore the dogshit and the rabid taxi driver whilst you piss away the best part of a month's salary on a middling hotel and lukewarm cuisine!

DESERTED! Come to Prague or Rome this weekend, because all the well-stoked stags and dewy-eyed lovers have gone somewhere else! Enjoy the bars and beers without watching Neville from Solihull puke into a condom or Sarah from Surbiton choke on the ring buried in her chocolate mousse!


I've missed out on a Rome trip and never got around to seeing the finer parts of Pilsen or Prague. I'm going to have to do something about that. Meantime; it's semi-final time. How can I choose between these two?

It's easy.

Thinking about Czech beer makes me thing of pils. Czech pils makes me think of Matuška and several giddy afternoons in the Sheffield Tap. Give me a keg of it, I'd cuddle it; give me a swimming pool full of it, I'd drown peacefully with a shit-eating grin on my face.

But then thinking about pils, thinking about Italy... only leads to thinking about drinking Tipopils.

If it tastes handsome on an overcast Derbyshire evening, I dare not dream how it could taste somewhere like Ma Che Siete Venuti a Fà as Andrea Pirlo rounds a beached keeper to give the Gli Azzurri another victory.

For a pils that outshines a nation of pils, Italy are through to the final.

Result: Czech Republic 0 Italy 1 >

Quarter Final 4: England v Spain

"Guinea Pigs and Cider".

Sometimes, the simplest question elicits an awkward answer.

I've been asking around as to what I'm missing in my Spanish beer knowledge. A fair few of you said cider. You scamps. I've had a few of them - all too-fleeting tasters - and certainly need to haul myself over Basque country to try some more.

The experimental Guinea Pig brews by Yria also seem to have a lot of love. I don't know whether this is because of their bleeding-edge style (wood-aged imperial IPA...) or the intrinsic quality of the beer. I'd like to find out, so if you make it over there and have space in your suitcase, feel free to visit one of these places and pick me up a bottle or two. I'll swap you for some home-made jam*. Or something**.

Somewhere there's a Spanish beer that's crafted as intricately as La Roja's midfield possession play. Meanwhile, all England need to progress is a beer that makes you do a Stuart Pearce.

Magic Rock Cannonball does that to me. No nonsense, back of the net, makes you want to shout "COME ON!!!"***.

Result: England 1 Spain 0




* jam may not actually be made at my home. Or anyone else's home. Unless someone lives in a jam factory.
** The phrase 'something' may be substituted for 'any old crap that I've been given and want to foist off'
*** Or, as Psycho clearly says, "'FUCKING COME ON!!!". But only if you're in the kind of company that appreciates course and vulgar goings on. Mentioning no names ****
**** Kristy McCready




>

Quarter Final 3: Italy v Sweden

Blame Paulo Rossi.

The 1982 World Cup was the first that I really appreciated. Back in 1978 I had vague memories of Argentina being stubborn, England not being in it and Scotland being shit apart from Gemmill transmogrifying into Cruyff for five glorious seconds. Four years later, the bad boy of Italian football took Brazil to the cleaners and I had a sudden hankering for an Italia tracky top.

Ever since then, Italy has suggested to me a sense of assured sophistication. With just a hint of menace. The ebullient coffee-shop owner who can hold a stare for an eternity. The willowy girl with the wild eyes who once made me zucchini frittata for breakfast. Plates of food that look so simple yet have depths of flavour that make you wonder.

And so it proves to be with beer.

There are few people with opinions on beer that I take seriously. Phil Lowry from beermerchants.com is one of them. When he told me he'd found an Italian beer that I'd love, I believed him. Surfing Hop by Toccalmatto was sticky and bullish and caramel-covered bitter liqorice and... and.. just bloody amazing. Style and substance. Flair and awareness. Rossi's deft touch and Zoff's firm caress.

Sweden don't even get a look-in.

Result: Italy 1 Sweden 0

So Italy meet the Czechs in the first semi final. Find out who joins Germany tomorrow. >

Quarter Final 2: Germany v Poland

Zywiec Porter. 0-1.

And I now can't think of anything that the Poles have which the Germans can't better. Effortlessly.

So... anything German Dunkel. 1-1.

Jever and Andechs are both rested. The unfancied and under-rated Rothaus Pils Tannenzäpfle slots in the winner.

Result: Germany 2 Poland 1.


>

Quarter Final 1: Czech Republic v Denmark

I don't want to turn this into tradition versus innovation.

Czech beer for me is defined by pils; pils for me is defined by the Czechs. You can dress it up any which way you want to; Urquell on tap, Bernard in bottles, who-knows-what in discount supermarkets and dive bars. I love the tradition; not the history, not the bragging rights. I love their pride in their style and their knowledge that no-one can honestly do it better. 

Danish beer for me is defined by undefinability. Almost single-handedly due to Mikkeller but also the likes of Evil Twin. Yes, at times it feels like I'm paying for the privilege of being a beta tester. Yes, I've had some Mikkellers that I found undrinkable. But when it works, when your senses tell you you're experiencing something special and you're still unsure as to why it works... that's magical beer. 

When tradition results in exemplary style with substance, it's difficult for me to ignore. When innovation results in rewards that could never be attained without undertaking commercial and reputational risk, it's hard for me not to applaud it.

1-1, then? Not quite.

For me, one of these countries has outstanding tradition *and* innovation. And so for both their glorious pilsners and adventurous breweries like Broumov and Matuška, the Czech Republic take the first semi-final slot.

Result: Czech Republic 3 Denmark 1

>

There's been cheers and tears and beers and dancing in the streets of Donetsk. Now it gets seriously serious.

I have to sit down and work out pints - sorry, points - and goal difference etc. Except I don't, because I didn't get where I am in the analytical world today by working it all out manually. Oh no.

I search the internet for an easy solution.

Over at Exceltemplate.net they just happen to have a handy fixtures / table compiler, which works as long as the dopey organic thing on the end of the keyboard can remember how to spell Engerland.

Here we go.

Quarter Final 1 will be Czech Republic v Denmark (old lager v new school?)

QF2 is Germany v Poland (don't mention the war etc)

QF3 sees Italy play Sweden (new waves of European brewing?)

QF4 pits England against Spain (don't mention the war again, although I probably will)

One side could be merely 270 minutes away (plus added time for feigned injury, slow substitutions and protracted protestations about a goal that was blatantly not over the line even with three officials watching but we don't really care because it's retribution for what happened to Lamps in 2010) from EuroBeery glory.

Game on! >

It's the end of the EuroBeery group stage tonight. Thankfully.

When I started out I knew I'd struggle with a few countries as, despite one too many Ratebeer get-togethers, I've not had too many beers from some Euro nations. It's made some match-ups unfair and others overtly one-sided. Never mind, eh. That's football.

So to assist matters tonight, I'm going to let the countries help fight it out through the medium of dance.

Group D: England v Ukraine

A confident England field the regionals for the first half. Fashion and fad are transient; class is permanent. Bitters by Adnams and Harveys are quintessentially English ales; on cask, they're world-class.

The Ukrainians can't muster a reply. They think it's all over.

They go all out with embroidery and flamboyant trousers:



England reply with mad bastards dancing with swords in a pub:



It's the rappers wot won it, Brian.

Result: England 3 Ukraine 0

Group D: Sweden v France

You can tell that Sweden don't really want to drag Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter off the bench. It's been there a few years, has blazed brilliantly in the past though it is in danger of fading away in the near future. But it's an early lead and goals = points = prizes, Bruce.

Let's call that two goals. Let's suppose that all France have left in their bag of beer talent is Vieille Brune by Brasserie Thiriez. Let's say, because it's the best French beer I've had, it's worth two goals.

Who wins? There's only one way to find out.

Sweden go for something that reminds me of Chigley:



Whereas the French have synchronised epilepsy. In black and white:



Yay for Sweden.

Result: Sweden 3 France 2


England and Sweden go through to the knockouts. I'll sift and sort the beer-off fixtures tomorrow.

>

Round 3: Italy v Ireland

It has been said that great writers are able to assimilate unfamiliar topics and still produce professional, engaging, emotional prose.

Sod that for a game of marbles. It's a beautiful evening and I have 1001 better things to do tonight than pontificate about beer.

Italy take the lead through Verdi Imperial Stout and the Irish cry into their Diageo.

Result: Italy 1 Ireland 0

Round 3: Croatia v Spain

As I still haven't found a Croatian beer, it's left to the Spanish to field Moritz up front, round the back, on the sunlounger, by the pool, down the beach and in the plaza. You can't beat a six-pack. If any importers / distributors can let me know where I can buy a six-pack of Moritz - or ideally a slab of them - do let me know. This occasional summer is making me thirsty.

Result: Croatia 0 Spain 6


Italy top the group, Spain qualify too. More rollocks tomorrow.



>

Group B: Denmark v Germany

I'm hoping that somewhere in Krusa, on the Danish / German border, there's a bar. It's not somewhere that the workers at the nearby Arla mega-dairy frequent. Truckers on the E45 don't divert for it. It's a dim-lit, sparsely-customed bar. But it would have a couple of chiller shelves under the counter. The bored brunette working there would line up a few bottles for me on the bar. She'd then endlessly re-wash some glasses to keep her busy. I'd sit on a split-leather stool and try to work out if there really could be a winner when the beers from either side of the border meet head-to-head.

I'd spend forty-five minutes drinking Andechs beers. Vollbier that has an inner light about it, a pillowy head as soft as its palate. Maybe the Bergbock as well, with its malt depths and honeyed sweetness. Certainly the Spezial, as pale and crisp as a starched dress shirt. It'd be my idea of Hell.

An easy 0-3 lead for Germany. What can the Danish do?

Collaborate. Innovate. Think outside the six-yard box.

Evil Twin.

It's not just the fact that they are robust, ambitious and assertive beers. With names such as 'Christmas Eve at a New York City Hotel Room', 'Even More Jesus' and 'Monk Suffers Serious Sugar Rush On Barbados', I can't resist them.

In the battle of Hell versus Evil, it can only be a score draw.

Result: Denmark 3 Germany 3

Group B: Portugal v Netherlands

Cristiano Ronaldo has the silky skills. Bruno Alves has the physical presence. I've yet to find a Portugese beer that exhibits either.

La Trappe Quad, sipped slowly and decisively over ninety minutes. Job done.

Result: Portugal 0 Netherlands 1


And that's Group B wrapped up. The Dutch are out; Germany top the group and Denmark nab the second spot. There will be dancing in the streets of Krusa tonight. >

Group A: Czech Republic v Poland

I'm a stats kind of guy. And my stats show that Herold Cerny Lezák is a beer I rated higher than Zywiec Porter. So let's not overegg the pudding.

Result: Czech Republic 1 Poland 0

Group A: Greece v Russia

Let's start with Baltika 6. And end there.

Result: Greece 0 Russia 1


And that gives us the first group results of EuroBeery2012. Czech Republic win through with a 100% record, Poland are runners-up. Russia limp in third and Greece are left to prop up the group and knacker the Euro.

More tomorrow. >