Another pointless thread

Mike

Good luck with the wind & rain

Good luck with the weather Mike. I hope it brightens up for you, assuming you aren't washed or blown away first.

Sorry you are missing your Spanish sun.

Last Goth weekend we went too was horrible, full of drunken yobs taking the p.. er.. Mickey out of the people there for the event.

Must admit though, I have an itch to costume up and see the sea.

Next spring maybe, if I'm not working...

Back to reality, Hobgoblin Gold is going down well

The town where we now live has its own microbrewery, and we are working our way though the beers on offer. Haven't found a duff one yet.
The next village also has a microbrewery. Also excellent.
About the only good thing about living here though.

Ah, micro breweries, the saviours of good beer.

When next in Copenhagen I intend trying even more of their offerings to Denmark and the world.

We have many more in Yorkshire that produce wonderfully ales and stouts of excellent quality.

I'm so glad I'm not tea total!

Those were some incredible pictures, I laughed so hard...

I am interested in visiting European countries I don`t have other preferences. Thank you for the suggestions! Amsterdam sounds great, I was planning on going there during the spring, due to the wonderful gardens they have.

Micro breweries may create good beer, but their tax concessions also make them the bane of established breweries - even the good ones. That well known Yorkshire brewer, Black Sheep from Masham, has operated at a loss again this year because of competition from the micro breweries.

Did Black Sheep not spring out of a take over of Theakston by established brewer Scottish & Newcastle. Maybe more Mini than Micro

Yes. The owners of the original Theakston's sold out to S&N in the early 1990s or thereabouts. One of the younger members of the family, Paul Theakston, rebelled and bought a disused brewery in Masham, not far from the original Theakston brewery. He soon began brewing the Black Sheep ales, which are now so popular all over Yorkshire and have been sold in many supermarkets for the past few years. The Black Sheep brewery was doing good business and expanding their brewing capacity until about 2011. However, sales have been falling off in the past few years and business got tough around 2015. They consider themselves a mid-sized cask ale brewer. My wife and I make a point of downing a few pints every time we are in the Whitby area! (We were there in the first half of October, but had to leave before the recent Goth weekend).

Cheers!

Martin

I'm still partial to Old Peculier.

Micro breweries should be taxed...... They should give me a free pint for every 1,000 pints they produce

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I get Mine, don't you A??

No tax concessions for micro/mini breweries here, and even if they did have I suspect Heineken and ABInBev probably also have cosy tax arrangements. S&N is now split between Heineken and Carlsberg.
There are very few medium sized independent brewers here.

When we visited Copenhagen 10 years ago ALL the bear was Carlsberg, they own Tuborg so...

...now, however, there has been a veritable explosion of independent brewers in Scandinavia.

Copenhagen has Mikkeller and Norbro Brewhouse among several others, non of which produce a bad beer.

When the lager swillers complain about £5 pints I just point out that the beer is 3 times stronger and easier to drink slowly so works out at half the price of the gnat's stuff they drink.

Sweden also has a massive selection of independent breweries......

??
I'll have to be very careful of that "bear" next time (if ever!) I order a Carlsberg