Boak & Bailey review a book from 1965 which details how to properly care for a pub.

"He opens the book with what we now recognise as the traditional ‘Abandon All Hope’ warning:

So you fancy entering the Licensed Trade? You have thought it over and made up your mind that serving drinks to an unappreciative and sometimes downright rude public is just the life for you? … To make a real success of Barmanship you have got to like it… From the customer’s side of the bar some very strange ideas prevail about the ‘wonderful life’ behind the bar. These often stem from semi-alcoholics who think it must be heaven to be surrounded by unlimited drink."

An ad from the Jewish Daily News from November 1916 promoting Wiedenmayer's Imperial Cream Ale.
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Brewing Classical Styles taste their millet beer they brewed a few weeks back! Also be sure to check out their weekly translation, this time from Athenaeus's Deipnosophists.

The wine and liquor merchant from New Haven, Mr. Hugh J. Reynolds, and his fight against calling neutral spirits Whiskey.

"And so, a local paper devoted many column inches in 1911 to Reynolds’ opinions on the now-resolved whiskey labelling question. In summary, he approved of long aging of straight whiskey, not even four years (a modern industry standard), but between 10 and 12 years."
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An attempt to find the first brewpub to open in the US in Yakima, Washington.

A brief look into the brewing industry of London.

"Assuming two bushels of malt to a barrel of beer, I calculate that in 1859 around  3.9 million barrels were brewed in London, an average of around 26,000 barrels per brewery. In total, 19,152,564 barrels were brewed in the UK in 1859*, leaving around 15.3 million barrels brewed outside London. Dividing that by the 38,976 brewers outside London gives an average of just 392 barrels per brewery. Clearly brewing in London was on a much grander scale."
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From April 6 to June 3, the Scottish Brewing Archive Association is putting on an exhibit on the history of brewing in Musselburgh.
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Theresa McCulla  begins her trip through the US researching American brewing history.

"Embarking on a research trip is always an exciting time for a historian, but this trip is especially important to me because it's the first one I'm making as brewing historian for the Smithsonian's Brewing History Initiative. I'll be on the road in northern California conducting oral histories with brewers, touring their operations, and delving into storage rooms to identify objects for possible future collection."
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(I never thought I'd link to a Daily Mail article) Recently, researchers uncovered three beers which were stored in a brewery cellar around World War I. According to the sensory analysis team, the flavors ranged from fecal to fruity.

Apparently I need to go to Serbia.

"Beer has been steadily gaining in popularity in Serbia and two new beer museums have opened in the last few years alone. A third is set to open in 2018."

A more in depth look into Cyperos (Tiger nuts) and its uses.
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Lars recounts his visit to the såinnhus (malt house), where he gets to sample more raw ale.

"He takes us to see the malt kiln. It looks exactly like the other ones I've seen. The process is also the usual one: first steeping the barley, then sprouting it in the wooden box that lies on top of the kiln, and finally drying on the wooden boards on top of the kiln. He says the distance from the fireplace (kjerringa) up to the planks is important, in order to get the right temperature without setting fire to the planks. Because the drying lasts several days the risk of fire is very real, and it's necessary to always keep an eye on the process. Svein says that if the wooden boards start making a creaking sound that means you're approaching the danger zone and need to reduce the fire."
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An account of a barman who ran a hotel saloon in the 1930s.

"Leonard recalled his father’s hotel and saloon in Morley, a small crossing a few miles from Potsdam. This was the late 1860s, when he was a teenager.

The account is full of colour and recalled a time when beer and liquor were usual incidents of small town life, part of running a hotel which served varied meals and hosted many special gatherings fondly evoked by Leonard."
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Brief descriptions of historic top fermented beers from Germany.
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An article from the 1940's reveal the life of the barmaid.

"She went on to detail the various ways barmaids in London pubs compensate themselves for their miserable lot, namely ‘fiddling’.

‘Go on with you,’ said the barmaid. ‘You know what fiddling is, making a bit on the side.’ She gave a mascara wink."
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A brief look into the history of brewing in Sacramento, California.

"1849 – A brewery and distillery begin operation at Sutter’s Fort and run for two years, catering largely to parched gold miners.

1849 – Peter Cadel (his name is also spelled Kadell) opens Galena Brewery, the city’s first commercial brewery, at 28th and M streets about 100 yards from Sutter’s Fort. The first beers were brewed and sold for 25 cents a glass (about $10 today). This marked the start of the first boom in local brewing, with a dozen or more breweries opening between 1849 and 1865."

Recent attempts of organic residue analyses on thirteen samples from eleven amphorae found in Southern Italy in order to see what was inside.

The 100-year push for Prohibition in Nova Scotia.

"From a religious base, the movement transformed to a political and popular one, which legislators ignored at their peril. The idea was to re-make society bolus-bolus, re-engineer it to banish the evils associated with drink such as poverty, domestic violence, and workplace inefficiency. From settlement to about 1825 there was a kind of golden age for liquor (perhaps similar to what exists today), but after 1825 pulpit and parliament worked steadily to root out alcohol from the social fabric of the province."
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A few highlights from the Red Barrel magazine, containing info about a British brewery in Belgium.
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Weekly translations, with Roman beer bashing! Still, useful information as it tells us that brewing is occurring in Britain and Iberia.

Stumbled across this article which determines the fermentation techniques of Chinese 'strong liquor'. I will need to read into what that is exactly.

"Chinese strong-flavor liquor (CSFL) is fermented in cellars lined with pit mud (PM). This PM, specific fermented clay, contains microbes that play important roles in CSFL production."

A research paper by Gary Gillman (of Beer Et Seq. fame) on 'musty ale' is to be published soon by the Brewery History Society!
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There was a recent twitter scuffle on the legitimacy of calling a beer 'Zoigl' since it was brewed outside of the Zoigl region in Germany. Now, I am usually in the mind that if friggin Champagne gets protective rights, so should beer. But this post sums up nicely how I've felt as an American living in Europe, having to deal with European stereotypes of my home country.
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A translation of an entry by Pliny shows how Inula can be used to counterbalance overly sweet (i.e. wine) foods. More excitedly, the Brewing Classical crew are planning to brew a millet beer with it!
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Last Friday was this months Session, this time all about Bock beer. This post briefly delves into the history of the style...
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...while this one is an excerpt from Brewing Battles, describing Bock in pre and post prohibition era America.
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New book on Scottish beer by Ron Pattinson!
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"​It’s a small error, as they go, but it has been around for at least 40 years, and it appears everywhere from Michael Jackson’s World Guide to Beer to the labels on bottles of Harvey’s Imperial Extra Double Stout, so let’s try to stamp it to death: Albert Le Coq was NOT a Belgian."
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A good description of what we're all doing.

"​For the professional historian, by contrast, beer is less an end in itself than a means for telling critical stories about broader subjects such as gender, capitalism, and empire."
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If I had another life to live, and was born in the right country, I'd pick up this trade in a heartbeat.

A thread to follow, to be sure. On various types of top fermenting beers from Germany.
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Weekly translations from the good folks over at Brewing Classical. This time with elephants!
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This one came my way thanks to Cider News. A study group on Welsh cider, whose aims are to:

1. Work with 14 community groups to regenerate old orchards and/or identify areas for new plantings. 

2. Explore and record Welsh Heritage cider and perry fruit through DNA fingerprinting, qualitative observation of trees, and single variety juice fermentation trial to produce a comprehensive online catalogue. 

3. Tell the modern story of orcharding and cider making in Wales through the collection of oral histories and digital stories. 

Be sure to check out the videos on their vimeo page here!
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A brief overview of Dr. Peter Kopp and his recent book ​Hoptopia: A World of Agriculture and Beer in Oregon's Willamette Valley (California Studies in Food and Culture).