Phil Cook

Bye-bye, B.A. – An obituary for a brewpub Their bar stools worked their magic. Their interior design made them unique, and very attractive to a wide range of audiences. I was only actively part of two of their thirty years in existence, but they have been a small part of my identity for half of their life. On February 2, 2026, unexpectedly, The Brewer's Art in Baltimore decided to permanently close their doors.

Thanks, Brewer's Art. We had a blast!

I wrote a piece regarding their closure.

#BrewersArt #Baltimore #brewpub #Resurrection #craftbeer #beer #brewery

"Stick to sports" is the ur-text here but "stick to beer" is all that and more, because the booze trade exists within a highly politicized regulatory framework that is being constantly being renegotiated by powerful public and private institutions. It is *the embodiment* of politics!

In 15 years of journalism, I’ve heard versions of this complaint many times before. Examples include: Why does everything have to be political? I remember when we could all just enjoy a beer together without the divisive labels. How about you keep your politics to yourself and just cover the beer industry? Here’s the thing: “stick to beer” has always been bullshit. This sort of reactionary chuddishness had been a meme in sports for many years, and last decade, it became one in beer, too. The conservatives (and some centrists) who say it do so to discipline journalists for speaking plainly about what they are seeing and hearing when it’s unfavorable to the right-wing project. One look at the gun-shy corporate media will show you how successful that bad-faith effort has been.

Beer, wine, and liquor are all exceptional in many ways. But they are not exempt from the forces that shape the country. To pretend otherwise is a category error, and people/companies that ignore that reality, do so at their peril. Just ask Anheuser-Busch InBev, which is just now clawing its way back to baseline after sleepwalking into the Bud Light fiasco earlier this decade. Naturally, you never hear these same commenters screech when right-wing pander-brands explicitly embrace politics as a marketing strategy. Funny, that. I’ve never been coy about my approach to journalism. For years, I’ve described Fingers as “an independent newsletter about drinking in America […] about how, what, and why we drink—and the money, power, and politics that shape the answers to those questions.” Put another way: I will never, ever “stick to beer.”

Wrote a brief note to free readers about this, the upshot being hope you'll upgrade, but more importantly hope that if you have a problem with my approach to opinion journalism you'll get the fuck off my list:

show and ice considered street with chinese friendship arch on the background.

snow covered sidewalks and plaza with double turreted multi story building in the background.

wide, snow covered plaza with a statue of a navy sailor on the far side.

pile of snow and ice in front of a brick building and a sign reading “ford’s theatre.”

iced city

That Bass Pale Ale Label - Why It Wasn't the First Trade Mark Registered in the UK There is an enduring story that Bass’s Red Triangle was the first registered trade mark in the United Kingdom in 1876 – and with 2026 being the 150th

New Blog Post! Where I once again get lost in the backwoods of pedantry with just my torch of self-rightousness to guide me out ...

You should start writing about beer and pubs There’s always room for more people visiting pubs, drinking beer, and sharing their thoughts and observations.

Our January newsletter is a pep talk: you – yes, you! – should write about beer and pubs.

boakandbailey.substack.com/p/you-should...

Radio host given three weeks to settle tax debts to save his restaurants Wellington Saints basketball team owner, restaurateur and Newstalk ZB radio host Nick Mills has been given a final three weeks to satisfy Inland Revenue he

As reported last year by the website of his own talkback radio outfit, ouch:

Isn't it also a Nick Mills joint? It's been a while since I was Wellington-based, but I recall a few headlines about trouble with the IRD and some of his companies are listed as in liquidation, so the wider empire faltering can't have helped.

Realised I haven’t done shill post for coshop.nz, my food startup co-op platform, which just kicked off this year!

If you’re in Wellington check it out.

Newtown, Miramar, Haitaitai and Berhampore coming onboard from next week!

Peaches 🍑 at $3.31/kg! 👀

Completely agree. And I'm not sure we'd be in a much better position if MC didn't compete this year and Coopers Pale won instead. I suspect there's no real way to run a poll like this when there's such a huge disparity in the resources breweries can put into their push — and pushing clearly works.

A December 2022 Facebook post by Mountain Culture brewery, part of their first campaign for the Hottest 100 Beers survey in Australia. The text reads "There's a New CANdidate" alongside an image of their Status Quo beer, with the slogan "A vote for Status Quo is a vote for CHANGE!" written along the bottom in text that deserves to be way bigger than it is, because that's a brilliant gag

A photo posted to Facebook by Mountain Culture brewery. Co-founder DJ McCready (an American, which does help contextualise the sporting reference he's chosen) posing with four rings on the fingers of his left hand, held close to the camera. The rings feature the brewery's logo, but are styled to look like those given to players on winning Superbowl teams

I mean, what a difference four years makes. From the brilliant "a vote for Status Quo is a vote for change" to actually getting a set of four Superbowl-style rings made with your logo on them because you're *that* committed to boasting about being able to whip up the most votes, over and over.

I still think MC should've bowed out after 3 in a row — if not earlier. Just so weird to come in with a "vote for change" campaign and then put in so much effort to camp out on the podium longer than anyone else. They crowed about refreshing the H100, and then helped make it more stagnant than ever.

YouTube video by Tweedy Misc The AI Slop is winning

The AI Slop is winning.

Our idea for a low ABV ‘boilermaker’ - Stoup Brewing’s 3.3% Quibble Dark Mild (left) and 11% Sticks and Stones BBL-Aged Stout (right, duh).
#beer #photography #blackandwhite #seattle #washington

I think it's worth resisting. I'm usually very much a "language evolves" kind of person (especially with beer styles...) but I think this one is more a case of a (highly problematic) company trying to make their brand generic rather than the wider public doing it naturally.

This is a bit different, though. "Blog" and "newsletter" already existed as non-branded generic terms.

It's a real shame. The survey was an interesting insight into the industry. A skewed and imperfect metric, sure, but they all are! I think the system as designed was all-too-exploitable, and now it's probably too late to implement a fix.

Registration doesn't cost anything (besides a little admin) so many must be concluding they can't win so it's pointless to compete while Mountain Culture and a few others have it locked up with their heavy campaigning. And maybe the payoff of winning isn't what it once was, even if was reachable.

A Prelude to Predictions for the GABS Hottest 100 Craft Beers of 2025 A data-driven prelude to my GABS Hottest 100 2025 predictions. Participation is down, entries are tighter, and I’ve identified which 2024 Top 100 breweries are missing.

This is an excellent illustration of the sadly declining relevance of the Hottest 100 Beers survey. Brewery participation is plummeting in Australia — and in New Zealand, it seems only sixteen (16!) have entered this year.

And, for anyone like me who is a New Zealander living overseas, if you have been back to NZ at any point in the last 3 years, you are eligible to enrol and vote in this election

(the extension of this provision to 6 years was for the 2023 election *only*)

Aurora moments, captured last night from The Horn at Mount Buffalo, on Taungurung country.

She was a big one! Often easily visible to the naked-eye. It was all so magical.

📷 Sony a7RIV with 14mm f1.8 GM lens.

From the auckland community on Reddit: Behemoth Brewing ask shareholders for more cash to pay debts Explore this post and more from the auckland community

Interesting discussion on a post about a NZ brewery seeking a bailout from its existing crowdfunding backers. Some of it is admittedly fairly 'inside baseball' but it's always worth observing that while a lot of beer's troubles are macroeconomic, other problems are very specific to each company.

A fake book entitled “beautiful typesetting with LaTeX.” The word “typesetting” overflows off the edge of the cover, the slow loris on pictured in the artwork stares accusingly at the reader.

This is the sort if meme that gets my group chat howling, if you ever wanted to know exactly what type of nerd I am.

A page from a current story in the British anthology comic 2000AD, Herne & Shuck, in which Herne visits a pub in Newcastle-upon-Tyne called Minerva's Bar, which is closely modelled on, and in the exact location of, the real Bridge Tavern, underneath a steel flyover on the approach to the Tyne Bridge. In the story, the landlady is Brigantia, a goddess in the Celtic mythology of north England.

A Google Streetview image from roughly the same angle as the first panel on the comic page, showing the pub under the bridge.

This week's 2000AD has co-opted The Bridge Tavern in Newcastle for the ancient goddess of northern England.

Three beer trends for 2026 - Beer & Brewer Global food and beverage data intelligence firm, Datassential, has outlined three key beer trends for the coming year.

I think if a "beverage data intelligence firm" tells you that Dampfbier has "21% awareness" — and thinks the only bars worth talking about are "Tequila bars" — then you can assume that their sense of this year's beer trends is completely worthless. (Thanks(?) to @will.craftypint.com for the link.)

Best TikTok thing going is the two dudes trying food from every country without leaving NYC. If you haven’t seen them yet, it’s incredible. My favorite so far is last week’s. Legit got me emotional.

Incidentally, I knew two of these because of contributions to the "beer in art and fiction" round of The Session which I hosted last year. (Although, ironically, I never finished my piece for the "pub trivia" theme which followed it. I should do that, nevermind the long-gone deadline.)

This is part of why I like to see an occasional 1-star review on a venue with several hundred ratings. It's often some dickhead outraged that they weren't allowed to do something plainly antisocial and I'm happy to see that the place is happy to piss off a person like that.

As with a lot of "pub etiquette" problems, it's up to the staff. Which means it's up to owners and managers to make them feel empowered to tactfully and tactically intervene; to stop the inconsiderate one (or few) ruining the experience of others. Part of "hospitality" is drawing a line like that.

THE MUPPET SHOW could take an obscure album cut by Harry Chapin & use it to explore character, here building on Scooter’s insecurity while also delivering the show’s underlying ethos about these characters having each other’s backs, & the unifying nature of art.