Free beer for life tattoo stunt, sparks fury over BrewDog bar.

The End of History – featuring dead animals – comes at £500 a bottle.

The above are just two headlines concerning BrewDog in the beer press this week.

The first headline sparked outrage with BrewDog apparently proposing free beer for life to anyone who gets their logo tattooed onto themselves as a promotional stunt at the opening of their first bar,  planned for Aberdeen in mid September.

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It was earlier this year, March to be exact, that Marston’s announced the launch of FastCask, which they said would ‘revolutionise the availability and quality of cask ale’. And then in May nine-pint take-home FastCasks of Marston’s Pedigree, Wychwood’s Hobgoblin and Marston’s EPA were announced.

Without going into too much detail, at the heart of FastCask are yeast-infused beads with an external permeable coating. The beads are tiny with approximately 100-150 added per firkin. They are said to act like sponges, drawing beer through to create the secondary cask fermentation but do not dissolve into the beer.  The cask’s hop filter prevents the beads from subsequently being dispensed.

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The Taps   is not so much a pub as an institution. It’s located in the centre of Lytham, behind the Clifton Arms Hotel. Originally ostlers’ cottages, today it is a one room bar operation with traditional wood flooring, beams, coal fires and rugby union memorabilia around the bar.  Outside there is seating in the back yard which is affectionately known as ‘the Yard of Ale’! 

There is no music, juke box or TVs to detract from conversation and the sing-alongs which take place around the piano. It opens all day, every day and homemade food is served at lunchtime from a limited menu.  Children are welcome until 2pm and dogs only outside on a lead. The main claim to fame is eight regularly changing real ales.

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MORE than 25 pubs have already been signed up to CAMRA’s new national, real ale discount scheme, which was successfully launched at the start of the year.

The above announcement, although dated 24 February 2010 is presently showing on CAMRA’s website under National Pub Discount.  This initiative seeks to promote pubs offering discounts to CAMRA members by providing participating pubs with free posters to help them publicise the discounts and follows no doubt on the success of the £20 JD Wetherspoons money-off vouchers for CAMRA members, introduced in November 2008.

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I am very lucky for many reasons; one of which is I live in Lytham St Anne’s, a lovely North West coastal town and therefore close to Booth’s newest supermarket, Lytham, Haven Road.  The missus occasionally asks me to nip out to Booth’s for bread, milk etc and when I do I can’t then help but find myself in their beer aisles and a ‘I won’t be 5 minutes’ becomes a 30 minute odyssey.

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I’ve had a busy time of it the last few weeks with the Group Auditors down from London, finalising and filing accounts etc, so I was glad to get out of the office the other day, even if it was on business, to my beloved Lake District, mind, only for a few hours.

On the way back and in need of sustenance I called at a super little pub, chosen from the Good Beer Guide,  The White Hart, Bouth. As soon as I walked in I knew it was a good real ale pub, however I was too late for lunch. I think I recall four hand pulls all with interesting beers on and an enthusiastic landlord running it and well worth a visit, but no food for me.

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Googling for nothing in particular I’ve found her. I just need now to find out where she works?

If nothing else this should certainly help the number of hits, page views, traffic, call it what you will, on my blog. I’ll monitor it and let you know.

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This was the headline from Marketing Week in October 2008. The article said AB InBev had remained silent amidst speculation it planned to launch a new variant named Stella Artois Black and denied plans to introduce a product with a higher ABV than its flagship brand.

The new beer, which was reportedly due to be launched in 2009 was rumoured to be a 5.5% ABV beer (I use that term loosely); higher than the current 5% ABV Stella Artois brand.

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