As many have shared, he was fun and clever company. He\u2019d get mad at me \u2013 usually quite deservedly \u2013 and yet would kindly share tips and ask for leads. Now a decade and a half ago, we had a great time on the wiki project reviewing the OCB<\/a>. As I wrote to Alistair on Facebook after the news of his passing was shared, Maryn had such a singular presence, both impatiently crotchety and entirely encouraging at the same time. It was all one thing. He just wanted more of us to be writing more, all building the body of knowledge. In the running to do list I keep there was a task I had left for myself: \u201cdig up note for Martyn.<\/em>\u201d More about the 1600s English strong ales<\/a> named after their cities. I never around got to it. Craig<\/a> had some particularly fine words:<\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure beer history writers count as celebrities. But if they do, there must be a pantheon of the mild-mannered\u2014and surely at the top of that list was Martyn Cornell. I don\u2019t get starstruck often, but sharing a pint with him in Colonial Williamsburg came pretty close. Before that, our conversations had been limited to late-night emails\u2014questions, thoughts, rabbit holes. He always replied. And his replies always led me deeper down the trail. Martyn was whip-smart, a bit shy, and deeply committed to facts. He had no patience for myths or baloney\u2014not out of pedantry, but because he believed the truth was always more interesting than the fiction. He was my friend, and I will miss him.<\/em><\/p>\n He always replied. That was Martyn. Very sad news.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n I am going to post a few news items this week but perhaps not at much as one a normal one. Starting with one that certainly in line for Martyn\u2019s wish for us all, Phil Cook<\/a> hosted another excellent edition of The Session<\/em> in which many beer who like to write about beer wrote this month about beer in art. Plenty of good entries and the annoucement that we need someont to continue the relay as Phil summed up:<\/p>\n Massive thanks to everyone who contributed; it\u2019s a great collection of observations. No one has, as yet, put up their hand to volunteer for the June edition so if you have an idea, let me know. It\u2019s a little work, but a lot of fun.<\/em><\/p>\n And, speaking of travels, Matt Gross shared a detailed portrait of Q Bar<\/a> in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, a hidden hotspot he frequented in the 1990s:<\/p>\n Eventually, I realized I had been regularly flying right past it on my 70cc moped, and I understood why I\u2019d overlooked it: Q Bar was tucked into the side of the Saigon opera house. Of all places! This Beaux-Arts edifice, built by the French colonial powers and opened in 1900, this 500-seat hulk that anchored key streets at the core of District 1, had a warren of dark little rooms off to the right, and a tiny patio and a strip of grass. This was Q Bar. I simply had never passed by at the correct hour to note that, as the sun began to descend, this small patch began to fill up with expatriates, with returning Vietnamese from France, Canada, the United States, and beyond, and even with some locals who, perhaps earlier than others, understood that Q Bar was not just the best bar in Saigon but among the best bars in the world.<\/em><\/p>\n Visiting a brewer in Alsunga today, belonging to the Suiti minority, which is Catholic. He\u2019s brewing for midsummer. He ties rye straw around the pole for the lauter tun. In the lauter tun is juniper (usually), rye straw, and birch twigs. Lovely raw ale, soft and mild, with notes of juniper and also honey. Could drink this all day. Cooling the wort in the local pond across the road.<\/em><\/p>\n Transporting you elsewhere, David Jesudason is transporting us further with his first installment of Just A Bite<\/em><\/a>, to a carpark in England to eat Kenyan influenced fare from a van:<\/p>\n \u2026to land here in Denmark Hill is odd. It\u2019s bizarre that in such a bleak, concrete location \u2013 literally everywhere you look is brick, tarmac or truck wheels, despite being so near Ruskin Park \u2013 you can have such transcendent food. Now I\u2019m not saying something as hyperbolic as one bite whisks you to the Kenya savannahs of Bharat\u2019s childhood but the spicing is so balanced that it offsets the heat of the chili; and tastes far more regal than you\u2019d expect food to be at a polluted business park just off a forgotten part of Coldharbour Lane. The tikka pieces are almost burnt, crispy on the outside but delicately soft in the middle, while masala chips have a zesty coating of ginger and cumin. I\u2019m a complete fan boy for the mint chutney that doesn\u2019t scrimp on the fire.<\/em><\/p>\n Laura Hadland<\/a> in another of her regular contributions to The Telegraph<\/em> wrote about what beers can be found at local Lidl, the grocery chain, and she was looking for bargains:<\/p>\n I put Lidl\u2019s beer range through a rigorous taste test to mine for quality bargains. This included a selection of Lidl\u2019s own-label products as well as some of the well-known brands it offers\u2026\u00a0Examining the range as a whole, I quickly noticed that almost every bottle is labelled \u201cpremium\u201d. To paraphrase\u00a0The Incredibles, if everything is super then nothing is \u2013 the descriptor loses all meaning. I therefore tasted the range blind, to prevent undue influence from the packaging or my own personal bias.<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear when younger drinkers started souring on bar tabs, but there\u2019s a through line between the Covid-19 pandemic and shifting bar habits.\u00a0\u201cDuring and after the pandemic, more people started using cards,\u201d said Doug Kantor, an executive committee member of the Merchants Payments Coalition, a retailers group. Coupled with Gen Z\u2019s distaste for carrying around cash (or a physical wallet, for that matter), the ubiquity of mobile payment options, such as Apple Pay, has contributed to the decline of bar tabs among 20-somethings.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Also speaking perhaps of budgeting in another sense, over there on the US west coast, the much heralded sale of Anchor Brewing to Chobani yogurt billionaire Hamdi Ulukaya of a year ago has led to questions today, as reported by Truong and\u00a0Kane<\/a> in The San Francisco Standard<\/em>:<\/p>\n Through fencing at the old Anchor Brewing taproom in Potrero Hill, passersby can spot a branded, baby-blue, 1940s-era GMC truck at one end of a lot overgrown with weeds. Since July 2023, when Japanese beer giant Sapporo vacated the complex, both the monolithic off-white Art Deco headquarters at 1705 Mariposa St. and the taproom across the street have remained idle. Now, vines and delicate purple flowers snake through the truck\u2019s rusting grille \u2014 and San Francisco beer drinkers continue to go without longtime favorites Anchor Steam, Liberty Ale, and the annual Christmas Ale. It wasn\u2019t supposed to be this way. Exactly one year ago, billionaire Hamdi Ulukaya posted a video on social media in which he sports an Anchor baseball cap and explains that he\u2019d purchased the defunct company and was eager to take on the responsibility of reviving the country\u2019s oldest craft brewery.<\/em><\/p>\n Similarly perhaps, Rob Sterowski<\/a> of I Might Have A Glass of Beer\u2026\u00a0<\/em>wrote about the sale of the last remaining family-owned K\u00f6lsch breweries, Malzm\u00fchle, to one of the others, Gaffel:<\/p>\n The puzzling thing about all this is that Malzm\u00fchle, just a couple of years ago, itself took over another of the remaining independent breweries, S\u00fcnner. And that is staying open \u2013 so they say at the moment, at least. So they still have a brewery where they could produce M\u00fchlen K\u00f6lsch. Can they really buy in beer from a competitor more cheaply than they can brew it themselves? Even if Gaffel is substantially bigger than S\u00fcnner?\u00a0One can only speculate that the contracts being signed commit Gaffel to supplying the Malzm\u00fchle with beer at a very favourable price.<\/em><\/p>\n I liked<\/a> Gary<\/a>\u2018s piece about a study by a futurist of the past, Dr. Leonard Kent of the advertising agency Needham Lewis & Broby, projecting his 1960s desire for a better beer \u2013 something that he may have to wait for a couple of decades to try:<\/p>\n The solitary drinking experience, as he called it, sounds oninous in our neo-prohibitionist 2025. He meant, thought, at least in part, brewers should make a higher quality product. A product reflecting romance and mystery v. the bulk \u201csameness\u201d of American beer as it was then. Beer that could be enjoyed more in a wine setting, outside that of the popular image of tronged tavern consumption.<\/em><\/p>\n And in Pellicle<\/em>, the fabulous Rachel Hendry<\/a> and the fabulous Ana\u00efs Lecoq<\/a> tag teamed to tell the tale of the litre bottle of Cidre Breton<\/a> from their respective points of view:<\/p>\n The rustic, rural nature of Cidre Breton\u2019s style, the farmyard imagery and the simplistic label design that speaks to a small scale cider operation that no longer exists, the uncomplicated bottle shape that signals to milk and soft drinks as opposed to high end fine wine all work to put a consumer at ease. There is no trace of poshness or pretentiousness here, all are welcome. Cidre Breton is a cider from the people for the people, that extra 250ml a gesture of diplomatic goodwill. To Britain, Cidre Breton becomes an emblem of an accessible France, something attainable to most, regardless of finances and status. A franco-take on a British heritage\u2014orchards and cider are intrinsic to rural, working class stereotypes of Britain after all\u2014allowing us, litre by litre, to drink exactly as the French do.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n That\u2019s it for this dimmed week. Looking back, sifting through emails and posts, I had forgotten that I invited Martyn to my fantasy dinner in 2007<\/a>. I suggested we have a \u201cgood thick 1700s West Country white beer as a stand alone first course<\/em>\u201d to get the conversation going. He accepted<\/a>. Sad stuff. Until we meet again in a happier moment, please check out Boak and Bailey every Saturday<\/a>\u00a0(\u2026as long as all their\u00a0holiday fun<\/a>\u00a0doesn\u2019t get in the way\u2026) and Stan (\u2026.back again this\u00a0\u00a0Monday<\/a>\u00a0and very nice of him to\u00a0notice<\/a>\u00a0what I wrote). Then listen to a few of the now rarely refreshed\u00a0Lew\u2019s podcasts<\/a>\u00a0and get your emailed issue of\u00a0Episodes of my Pub Life<\/em><\/a>\u00a0by David Jesudason on the (sometimes even but never) odd Fridays. And maybe\u00a0The British Food History Podcast<\/a>. Maybe? And Phil Mellows is at the\u00a0BritishBeerBreaks<\/em><\/a>. Once a month, Will Hawkes issues his\u00a0London Beer City<\/em><\/a>\u00a0newsletter and do sign up for Katie\u2019s wonderful\u00a0newsletter<\/a>,\u00a0The Gulp<\/em>, too. \u00a0Ben\u2019s\u00a0Beer and Badword<\/a><\/em>\u00a0is out there with the all the sweary Mary! And check out the\u00a0Atlantic Canada Beer Blog<\/em><\/a>\u2018s weekly roundup. There is new reading at\u00a0The Glass<\/a>\u00a0which is going back to being\u00a0a blog<\/a>. Any more? We have\u00a0Ontario\u2019s own\u00a0A Quick Beer<\/em><\/a>\u00a0featuring visits to places like\u2026\u00a0Michigan<\/a>!\u00a0All About Beer<\/em>\u00a0has given space to some trade possy\u00a0podcasts<\/a>\u00a0and there\u2019s also\u00a0The Perfect Pour<\/a>. Plus follow the venerable\u00a0Full Pint<\/em>\u00a0podcast<\/a>\u00a0with an episode just last month!. And there\u2019s the\u00a0Craft Beer Channel<\/a>\u00a0on Youtube. Check out the archives of the\u00a0Beer Ladies Podcast<\/a>. That\u2019s quite good but, hmm, they\u2019ve also gone quiet this year. The rest of these are largely dead. And the long standing\u00a0Beervana podcast<\/a>\u00a0\u2026except they have now\u00a0stood down<\/a>.\u00a0 As has\u00a0We Are Beer People<\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0The Share<\/em><\/a>\u00a0looked to be back with a revival but now its gone quiet. And the\u00a0Boys Are From M\u00e4rzen<\/em><\/a>\u00a0podcast appears suspended as does\u00a0BeerEdge<\/a>, too.\u00a0VinePair<\/em>\u00a0packed in\u00a0Taplines<\/em><\/a>\u00a0as well. All dead and gone. \u00a0There is more from the\u00a0DaftAboutCraft<\/a>\u00a0podcast, too. Nope \u2013 that ended a year ago.\u00a0 \u00a0The Moon Under Water<\/a>\u00a0is gone \u2013 which is not surprising as the ask was $10 a month.\u00a0Pete Brown<\/a>\u2019s one cost a fifth of that \u2013 but only had the one post. Such is life. Such is beer podcasting and newlettering!<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/abetterbeerblog427.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Z-logo.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/a>I learned the very sad news on Sunday that Martyn Cornell of Zythophile<\/em><\/a> and many other things had died. Within minutes the tributes<\/a> started<\/a> being<\/a> shared. Martyn<\/a> was a veteran journalist and news editor, beer writer and historian. And a traveller, whether for newspaper work in Hong Kong or in Chile as a recent hotel breakfast buffet partner for Ron<\/a>. I first met him in the comments left at this here blog twenty-two years ago when he left a note<\/a> on my review of Pete Brown\u2019s first book. We soon chatted again when, as invited, I reviewed<\/a> Martyn\u2019s first book a few month later and the conversation pretty much continued for over two decades after that.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/abetterbeerblog427.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/wortpond-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a>And Lars has been travelling east \u2013 very east<\/a> in fact \u2013 on journey to discover all he can about farmhouse ales. He was in Alsunga<\/a>, Latvia meeting with a Suiti brewer who had some pretty rustic techniques leading to a good drink:<\/p>\n