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The next FoHB social will be held at The Royal Oak in Newton St. West Bromwich on Monday September 9th starting at 7.30pm. The October Social will be held at AJ’s brewery tap in Long Acre St Walsall, on Monday 14th October starting at 7.30pm.


The Trip to Preston in October still has a few seats left, £17 a head. I am opening it up to CAMRA members now as well.


Chasewater Railway hosted a beer festival back in July and Ray A, Gary T, Dennis R and me helped with the set up. The venue was full of railway wagons and locos when we got there so that by the time the staff had moved stuff out of the way we were strapped for time, so having erected the stillage and situated the casks, we had to tap and vent at the same time, resulting in us all getting showered with beer. They made us ‘Honorary Members’ for the day so we were able to hit the station buffet for breakfasts of sausage and bacon door stops and huge mugs of tea. They had a successful festival we are told and plan on doing the same next year.  If I go to help I must remember to take an umbrella!


Due to the poor state of the Highgate Brewery buildings we, along with Walsall CAMRA  and the Walsall Civic Society, are going to send a strongly worded letter to the Council to urge them to act to force better upkeep of both the Sandymount site and the ‘Brewery Stores’ in the High St.


New restaurants opening: The New Fullbrook will soon be opening as a 300 seat Desi Bar & Grill called the ‘Soho Tavern’. The’ King George V’ is opening as an Indian restaurant called ‘Royal Lion’. The Dilke has reopened under new management after a refurbishment.

The Isle of Man has 2 new breweries: ‘Burnside Shed’ and ‘Kerroo Brewing’, making it eight in total now (Okells, Bushys, Odin, Radical, Noa and Kaneen) with Odin moving to bigger premises, and Bushys  getting planning permission to move to Castletown, (I remember the old  Castletown Brewery, bought out and closed by Okells in 1986). Not bad for a place with the population of greater Weston super Mare!


Belgian start-up ‘Bar’ is pushing a ‘beer printer’ which would sit on the bar and dispense any style of beer at the push of a button. Six cartridges contain a range of flavours and aromas which are added to grain spirit. This is called ‘Progress in Self Service’ or PISS for short.


More Burton Union sets are saved: Glasgow brewer ‘Epochal Barrel fermented Ales’ has secured a six-barrel set of unions from CMBC in a deal brokered by Garrett Oliver from Brooklyn Brewery NY. He was also a catalyst in the Thornbridge six-barrel  union purchase, which are now in use and producing beer called Thornbridge ‘The Union IPA’ 6%. Remember the song by The Strawbs “Oh! you don’t get me - I’m drinking the ‘Union”. LoL


Marston’s is now a pubco after selling its 40% stake in Carlsberg Marstons Brewing Company to Carlsberg for £206 million which will considerably reduce its current debt. Marstons will now concentrate on its 1370 pubs. The £780m deal which formed CMBC in 2020 included six breweries and its distribution depots. There are now three and folk are wondering how much longer Burton and Wolverhampton will last. Carlsberg have also splurged  £3.3bn for soft drinks manufacturer ‘Britvic’ which produce ‘Robinsons’, ‘Tango’, ‘J2O’ and holds the ‘Pepsi ‘franchise.


“Far away lagers with Strange sounding names” -  but some of them are a lot closer than you think, (see attachment ‘A Look at Lagers’)


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Autumn Newsletter 2024 Page 2

Autumn Newsletter 2024