Take a breath. Take a deep breath now

The Oxford Companion to Beer is flawed, but it doesn't actually detract from collective beer knowledge.

High Strength Beer Duty will not kill off high-gravity beers, be they contemporary styles or historic brands.

Beer style is neither a shibboleth nor a necessity.

The problem of over-analysing a niche within a niche is, sometimes, you can't spot that you're stuck in a tight downward spiral.

If you find yourself getting splenetic over beer, remember.

It's beer. It can be studied and debated and slagged off and lionised and loved and hated.

But at the end of the day, it's brewed to be drunk.

Take a breath. Take a deep breath. And have a beer.

"If I'm the one to throw you overboard / At least I showed you how to swim for shore"



Keen-eyed readers will note that this is a heavily-edited version of the original post. That's because, after a bellyful of ale, I often mistake 'publish' for 'draft'. So now there's less lyrics and swearing, more cogency. Hopefully.