Boak & Bailey (Jess & Ray)

Kettlesmith in Bradford-on-Avon.

I genuinely think the resemblance to a wheat beer made the drinking public associate modern hazy IPA / pale ale with a lack of bitterness and helped them take off beyond beer nerd circles.

WE HAVE LITERALLY BEEN SINGING THAT.

Yes. (It is too much to hope.)

There were about ten eventually. They're now off, presumably doing a taproom crawl.

At a taproom being invaded by ducks.

Footnotes on news, nuggets and longreads 9 August 2025 | Boak & Bailey Get more from Boak & Bailey on Patreon

And here are those Patreon footnotes, with background commentary, a bunch of extra links, and an explanation of the title of this week's post.

www.patreon.com/posts/136076...

News, nuggets and longreads 9 August 2025: The Old Scavenger Inn Every Saturday we round up the best writing about beer from the past week. This time, we’ve got sports bars, London pubs, and old taverns.

GOOD MORNING! Here's our regular weekly round up of the best writing about beer and pubs. Lots of good stuff this week so the Patreon-exclusive 'footnotes' post is going to have about the same amount of links again. 🍻🍺

boakandbailey.com/2025/08/news...

After a morning amble it's time for lunch in the historic Caru' cu Bere. They claim to brew their house beer, but I'm not convinced...
The building is stunning though and the food very good.

With thanks to @craftbeerpinup.bsky.social for prompting this discussion.

Beer festivals beyond the point of quick fixes Reading this week that once again people felt uncomfortable at the Great British Beer Festival made us wonder what more can be done. Are we past the point of simple fixes?

BLOG POST: Are we past the point of quick fixes when it comes to making beer festivals feel welcoming to, and comfortable for, everyone? 🍺🍻

boakandbailey.com/2025/08/beer...

A perfect pint of Surrey Hill's Shere Drop at the Trafalgar Ale House in Wimbledon. It has a beautiful thick collar of foam - and because a sparkler wasn't used, it tastes good all the way down

There is a new @londonbeercity.bsky.social this week, featuring:
- The Trafalgar Ale House & the threat to London's pubs
- London's Czech beer problem
- 40ft's inexorable rise
- Temple Brewhouse goes underground
- Other stuff 🤷‍♀️
Sign up here to get it tomorrow: www.willhawkes.net/london-beer-...

“It is a pub that finally looks like it is proud of itself, and is worth taking pride in. And for pubs to survive they need to evolve in this way, to broaden their welcome while still being true to what makes pubs amazing.”

And, to be clear, it's not your problem to solve!

It’s a nice day for a beer festival (if you’re a man) Yesterday, I attended The Great British Beer Festival for the first time in a few years. Mainly because it was in Birmingham and I wanted to show up and support my community – it’s the first …

This is not good and, sadly, resonates with my experiences as a non-white person attending at the past too. I don't do large beer festivals and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon

craftbeerpinup.com/2025/08/06/i...

Big news for Stockport.

It's very difficult to argue with how people *feel*. How does this get fixed?

A pint of Sarah hughes Ruby mild and a cheese and onion cob in the Beacon Hotel, Sedgely

On a bit of a pilgrimage today. Feeling quite emotional.

But social media – keep your customers updated, in real time, for free! – made it feel like this was a workable solution. And we're not really sure it is.

Yes.

This is maybe what we were observing when we wrote about pub food a few months ago. People have not updated their mental models of how pubs work. So the idea that you might have food as an event does not compute. "That's the place with the pizza!"

It's an interesting change that 10 years ago we'd have just *known* whether a pub that we go to quite often has food, and what type of food it might be. We actually could not tell you whether The Barley Mow in Bristol will have food tomorrow evening, or what kind of menu it's serving these days.

Set serving times we can definitely cope with. That feels normal. But "We have food some Wednesdays, but not other Wednesdays, and it might be a pie, or it might be Dave's Dirty Fries, check Insta!" is just a bit head spinning.

Stay Beautiful — The Vulcan Hotel: A Pub, A Museum — Pellicle With its magnificent green tiled exterior blending with the restored ironmongers and sweet shop in the recreated village at St Fagans Museum in Cardiff, the Vulcan Hotel appears unchanged since 1915.

The Vulcan was just an ordinary pub...until it became a historic monument to pubs of old within a museum.

What's authenticity, anyway?

Stay Beautiful — The Vulcan Hotel: A Pub, A Museum — Pellicle share.google/ChC3OuAMn7XS...

Glad it's not just me! (Jess)

I think it’s fundamentally ££ that’s the problem with pub food at the moment, but it doesn’t help when you have to chase around different social media accounts, and a website that might not have been updated since the start of the pandemic, to find out if/when food is available.

A further thought on pub food: is it another thing that social media ‘disrupted’? You don't need to provide a consistent offer; you just tell people to "keep an eye on Facebook and Insta" to find out whether Zorpo's Kitchen is deigning to serve tacos this Wednesday.

Limited days! (Jess)

Beer Cultures Here and There — Beervana Or, how Britain got the Honorable Order of Bass Drinkers while Americans got the milkshake IPA.

How Britain got the Honorable Order of Bass Drinkers while Americans got the milkshake IPA.

Falmouth is *still* Cornwall's primary beer geek destination.