I was recently asked by the good folks at The Beer Connoisseur Magazine to write a piece for their Holiday 2025, Issue 81 release that they felt I was uniquely positioned to deliver. I must admit that I was was absolutely delighted to be asked, and I agreed with their assessment that I was the right man for this particular job!
With an initial working title of “Notes on American Beer From an Englishman”, I could have probably written 10,000 words let alone the 1000ish that were required, so I went to work. I have a quarter of a century of relevant experience and juicy material to draw upon, and the words flowed freely. However, despite the depth of that background I was anxious to make the writing feel as contemporary as possible, rather than just be harping back to a different time and moaning (although some of that was inevitable).
Things were bad in the USA – really bad – and then they got much, much better, and now they are really bad again, but that’s America for you. I pointed some of that out, freely admitted my early shortcomings in assessing America and beer, and I thought that I was pretty positive (for me) about what beer in America has taught this particular Englishman in the last 25+ years.
Please read my musings entitled, Notes on American Beer from an Englishman, and let me know what you think.
Cheers!
