UK craft beer 'vibrant'

The front page of What's Brewing was very encouraging this month. For those who don't know, What's Brewing is the house newspaper of CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale) and is generally a good source of news and gossip (obviously with a core agenda). This month it publishes results of a survey which show local brewery sales growing by 7% or thereabouts.... flying in the face of the gloom of falling beer sales. More and more people are choosing premium quality craft beers, and this has resulted in more small, local brewers than at any time in the last 50 years! 160 NEW breweries were opened in the UK in the last two years alone! More choice, more quality, more taste, more power to our elbow!

Land Rover v Micra

I'm at a Beer Festival in Bolton tomorrow. I'm at a Wirral CAMRA's do next week. I have been dropping kegs off at Brimstage and he has the most unbelievably good stout - Oyster Catcher and an old woman in a Micra drove me off the road down by Ness Gardens as I was going to collect a firkin from a friend - I was in my "new" 'L' reg Discovery, she was in a bloody Micra - and I smashed my wing mirror!