The two scans below are of an article entitled 31 Beers, 31 Days, 31 Counties by Peter Maskell, which appears in the annual magazine of the Association of British Counties. This is a very worthwhile organisation that campaigns for greater recognition of Britain’s traditional counties as an important part of our national heritage and identity. I’ve blogged about it in the past here.
Obviously it’s not written from a beer enthusiast point of view, but it still makes interesting reading and the list of beers certainly contains plenty of good stuff. Given the growth of microbreweries in recent years, I doubt whether there’s a single traditional county in England and Wales that lacks at least one, although some of the smaller and more remote Scottish counties may still not have any. On the other hand, the smallest county of all – Clackmannanshire – is home to both Harviestoun and Williams Brothers.
(Click to enlarge)
The growth of microbreweries raises a challenge for the nationalisation of brewing so we the drinker own the means of production. It was arguably more straight forward when there were only the big 6
ReplyDeleteAll of those brands and styles to consolidate into "National Bitter", craft beer for the people. I wonder who to appoint the task?
In the 1970s, Herr Protz did of course advocate nationalisation of the British brewing industry. And anyone setting up a microbrewery would no doubt have been condemned as a revanchist class traitor.
ReplyDelete(This is of course completely irrelevant to the OP, but never mind)
Good to see a real-county traditionalist, anyway. Inclusion of Middlesex (or Huntingdonshire for that matter) in Beer Guide chapters would show you how we still have real beer deserts in England, never mind Scotland.
ReplyDelete