The first blog is the hardest!
I guess the first blog will be the hardest to write, mainly because I find myself with 8 hours to go before I start a holiday, hoping against hope, that warm sunshine will encircle me for at least two weeks! What a lousy summer we have had, although sales of my beloved White Shield have continued to grow, this is one of the few beers I know that does not suffer from “seasonality”.
I thought I would just pen a teaser now and map out what I will be saying over the next few months.Clearly a recent history of the brand would set the stage for my aspirations for the future. I will also touch on some of the more humorous moments that the magical liquid has generated amongst my colleagues over the last forty years. Having been involved with the brewing on & off since 1965 there have been some significant changes but strangely enough, not with the recipe of the brand, which has remained true to its type, almost since 1830 (yes it really is that old!).Another subject I will explore is White Shield with food; I don’t see why wine should have it all its own way. We have had many dinners with beer to match food and never have I heard a comment that wine was missed.We will also be following the adventure of our intrepid traveller, Pete Brown, who will take a small cask of specially brewed IPA to India by ship. Pete will be writing a book about his experiences and about India Pale Ale. He leaves from Burton by Barge on 11th September and expects to reach Calcutta in about 3 months. Part of his journey will be by tall-ship and I will report his progress in each blog.Before finishing, I am sad to report on the death of a good friend to all of us in the Beer business. Michael Jackson whom many of you may recall from his TV programme “The Beer Hunter” passed away last Friday (31st August). He had been suffering with Parkinson’s Disease for some time and has tragically lost the final battle. Michael was a giant amongst beer writers and has written many books both about beer and also whiskies. He will be sadly missed by us all.I’ll be back from holiday w/c 24th September when I will continue my missives. Please feel free to contact me via the web site.
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