Hehe I never clocked the pics but I have to admit finding new & interesting places to photograph beers for the blog can be tricky to say the least.

have you heard about our newly opened site Bruadar in west end glasgow

formally the Millhouse ., we have a recently appointed craft beer curator

sourceing fantastic rotational kegs and cask from america belgium and of course our own craft brewers

regards Gordon

Stay tuned for the rest of our choices – could be some from your neck of the woods Leigh

Kernel 100 Centennial is one hell of a beer. Cheers

I’ve not spoken directly with any brewer about whether they are willing to push the gravity boat out, irrespective of the tax implication – other than smaller-scale producers who are experimenting as they establish themselves, or are too small to take any undue hits from the treasury. But it would be interesting to find out.

Have you talked to brewers about how taxation affects their willingness to produce high-gravity beers? I agree that the tax rate is probably the primary reason for the “ABV Gap”, but I wonder how drastically it alters the beer landscape over the pond?

What are some of the highest-gravity brews you can procure in the UK (other than the one-off BrewDog offerings)?

I really like the Human Cannonball (it looks like it would fit in perfectly as a Metropolitan Brewing label) and the simple, clean look of the Kernel brews. Thanks for bringing some of these breweries to our attention and for defending the “Label Honor” of your Kingdom.

Slainte,
Brother Barley

Everyone is fond of owls….I wrote about Odell Double Pilsner for the session

2. It’s a long story involving my brother…

1. Had to look up the Scalextric reference, which I found in the Urban Dictionary. How vulgar yet quaint. Don’t you play video games over there?

2. Your father is from Liverpool but you support Blackburn? Explain.

The Tyne Bank Brown was class, like prunes!

I’m pleased you liked the Free Trade and The Cumberland Arms. The Free Trade is imense and well I love the Cumby so much I made it out of cake for the food festival last year

http://twitter.com/?photo_id=1#!/fr3d/status/133293366657040385/photo/1
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7958929@N08/4942663597/

Note the missing floor – it was still a massive cake

In most cases it won’t affect cornershops, specialist retailers or on-trade…it will only effect the supermarkets as long as they dont plan to keep raising it in the future…that’s where the issue comes in.

Dave – We will indeed be turning our attention to minimum pricing, should be a post up on the subject early next week – once I’ve worked out what it all means with HSBD factored in. So maybe later on next week…

Thanks for the nice words, btw.

Fusion, at 10 quid a bottle, even if the tax added a pound would only see a 10% price rise, I wouldn’t really call that significant. I agree the tax is unfair and misguided but I don’t really understand why a 50p-£1 increase in a bottle of artisan beer bought by relatively wealthy consumers would really prevent brewers from making it.

You say whales are intelligent mammals, and I am sure this is correct for some species, if not most. Again, does that mean they are more worthy of life than chickens, cows and pigs? If so, where do we draw the line? And who gets to decide?

Good to hear you don’t eat meat at all, otherwise you would indeed come off as a hypocrite. I still can’t see how 2 minutes of pain is worse than a life of imprisonment, which is the case for most farmed animals. Also, unless the farmed animals are slaughtered on site, they have to be transported which stresses them out quite a lot. Yes, whales suffer when killed, but so does any free wild animal we hunt unless the shot kills them instantly.

I realize you’re one of those meat is murder people, so we will never agree on this. I just hope Nøgne Ø isn’t the only brewery you boicot, because I am sure a lot of breweries give tips about what kind of meat dish the beer goes well with, or have brewpubs that serve burgers or other meat dishes. And not all of those meats are free range, organic fed, painfree life and clean death, perfectly farmed meats.

I am in no way a big pro whaler, but upon reading your comment, I became genuinely interested why people are still so mad at Norway for whaling. I mean, even Obama told us to cut it out last time he visited. I understand how people can oppose to Japans practice with their lying and scheming about hunting for scientific reasons then selling the meat on the black market. We never said it was for anything other than commercial gain, and it’s such a small business here. I find it odd, is all.

@Richard Haha, sorry, I didn’t mean I would never check the website out ever again, I meant the comments. Seems like we both did though.

I don’t eat meat, but at least farmed animals are stunned before they are killed and feel little pain. Whales hunted in the open ocean are shot with an explosive harpoon. The average time taken for the whale to die following the harpooning is 2 minutes. Imagine that. being shot and it taking two minutes to die. Imagine how you would feel. A whale is a sentient intelligent mammal. Just because they can’t talk doesn’t mean they can’t suffer.

Do not believe the shit the whaling lobby preach about the sustainability of the Norwegian whale slaughter. The fact that one species is relatively abundant compared to other decimated species means fuck all.

Yes it is wrong to kill animals for food. We don’t need to. If we don’t eat meat, we’ll all be healthier and the environment will be better off. Eating animals is a throwback to a the past when we had to hunt to live. We have developed in so many ways. We have indoor plumbing so we don’t have to shit in the woods, we can grow enough plant based food so we don’t have to murder whales.

Whale murder is indefensible. Only the criminal tries to defend his crime.

I’ve never understood why whales are such a thing for some people. The only two vallid reasons should be their intelligence and sustainability, and the latter isn’t much of a problem anymore. Sure, some species were and are endangered. Norway only hunts one species of whale now, and it’s not endangered.

So that leaves the intelligence question. Is it wrong to kill animals for food if they show some resemblance of intelligence? If so, where do we draw the line? Are dumber animals less worthy of decent lives and clean deaths? Too bad none of us are likely to check this page again, would like to hear some solid points.

For me the future is in the next new and interesting beer, be that a pint of cask, a half of a stronger craft style keg or a Belgian bottle, more to get my tastebuds around, less to glug every time in my opinion.

Cheers Phil
@filrd

It never ceases to amaze me how often governments attempt to solve a problem by addressing the entirely wrong issues. The “strong beer tax” looks wonderful during an election cycle, but it fixes nothing and only frustrates thoughtful British Aleheads who clearly are NOT the problem when it comes to problem drinking in the UK. Stay strong!

Slainte,
Brother Barley

Wine bought by the case isn’t exactly the problem the legislation was aimed at anyway.

Look forward to the next tasting

Also looking forward to my 23 bottles of kernel coming from the bottle shop