Every Saturday we round up the best writing about beer from the past week. This time, we\u2019ve got production value, community, and inclusive beer festivals.<\/strong><\/p>\n First, news of the closure of one of Ireland\u2019s pioneering craft breweries<\/a>, Franciscan Well, which was taken over by Molson Coors in 2013: \u201cThe brewery said it has not been able to grow the brands to the level needed to sustain the brewery as part of the Molson Coors UK and Ireland production network.\u201d Or, as The Beer Nut put it, \u201cbig breweries fuck things up when they buy small breweries\u201d.<\/p>\n At St John\u2019s Wort<\/em> Jordan St. John<\/strong> puts forward a thesis that almost reads like a manifesto: punters can tell when pubs and bars are taking shortcuts, and the best ones\u2026 don\u2019t. Or, as he puts it, \u2018You can\u2019t fake production value\u2019<\/a>:<\/p>\n Production value could mean a lot of things, but essentially it comes down to providing an authentic, enjoyable experience. This could be investing your products with meaning, brewing well enough that the beer speaks for itself, employing staff that will engage with the customers, or just providing an ambiance and experience that is memorable\u2026 Sadly, it\u2019s one of the things that Craft Beer in general is not very good at, and the difficulty is that this is largely partitive in your perception. That is to say, you only notice that the production value is missing. If they\u2019re doing it right, you might not notice it at all.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n He provides plenty of examples of \u2018production value\u2019 in practice at least one of which is bound to have you nodding along. (And British cask ale nerds will also enjoy bristling at \u201ca small tank of gas that exists simply to create head pressure rather than push the beer\u201d.)<\/p>\n Speaking of which\u2026 For Pellicle<\/em> Joey Leskin<\/strong> has profiled Lucy Do and her West London micropub The Dodo<\/a>, which may or may not be a cult:<\/p>\n The beer offering at The Dodo is robust, featuring six rotating cask and keg taps. Lucy\u2019s commitment to independent breweries might seem expensive, but the audience it draws reveals the benefits of the decision. Curation can pose a dilemma when a given beer doesn\u2019t appeal to drinkers, however\u2026 \u201cWhen I want to support women-owned breweries, for example, but know certain styles won\u2019t sell \u2013 there\u2019s constant tension between emotional connections and business necessities,\u201d she says. \u201cBut if I\u2019m not making the right decision for the business, it doesn\u2019t succeed, and everyone loses anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n For CAMRA\u2019s What\u2019s Brewing<\/em> Matthew Curtis<\/strong> highlights a \u2018best pubs\u2019 list we\u2019d missed from Time Out<\/em> and observes that one particular trend defines it<\/a>:<\/p>\n As a former Londoner, I was puzzled by the inclusion of a lot of the pubs on the list, the majority of which appeared to follow two particular trends \u2013 that they were proper, no frills, spit-and-sawdust boozers, or they were Irish pubs. Along with the remainder of the list there was a common thread running through the overall list \u2013 that their reputations are built on the quality of a specific beer, Guinness\u2026 To anyone paying attention, it should come as no surprise that this particular beer is driving the popularity of certain hostelries. According to data published in the Morning Advertiser stout is proving to be increasingly popular, with the category seeing 10.6 per cent growth year-on-year. Stout now accounts for 9.5 per cent of all beer volumes, among which Guinness \u2013 now the best-selling beer in the UK (by value) \u2013 is the most popular.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n American commentators are processing the news of Rogue Ales closing in various ways. Jeff Alworth<\/strong> has found himself not only writing an obituary for the brewery<\/a> but also looking at modern beers through a pre-emptively nostalgic lens<\/a>:<\/p>\n I poured out a can of Pure Project\u2019s Fresh West\u2026 Perhaps because of the recent Rogue news, I was especially alive to the experience of drinking that beer. Even as the scent reached my nostrils, I was struck by its almost luminous modernity. The scent was intense in the way some candy is when you tear open the package \u2013 sweet with fruitiness but also sharp in its sheer magnitude. The brewery describes it as \u201cgrapefruit, pine, and apricot [aromas] and bold flavors of resin, grapefruit rind, and lemon,\u201d and those are accurate as far as they go. But they also seem inadequate to the task of conveying the radical way hops present themselves when compared to early eras of brewing. Fresh West is made with Simcoe and Citra Fresh Frozen Cryo hops layered on top of their flagship West Coast IPA recipe, which produces flavors and aromas that just weren\u2019t possible\u2014what, five years ago?\u2026 The thought occurred to me: what would a drinker have made of this beer twenty or thirty years ago?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Stan Hieronymus<\/strong>, meanwhile, has been digging out stats<\/a> which show Rogue\u2019s production volumes compared to (a) New Glarus and (b) American craft beer as a whole. There\u2019s a clear drop after about 2021, which might lead us to point a finger at the pandemic.<\/p>\n At WeirdBeerGirl.com <\/em>Lisa Grimm<\/strong> has notes on what sounds like a beer festival with \u2018production value\u2019 in Antwerp<\/a>:<\/p>\n Beer festivals aren\u2019t to everyone\u2019s taste, especially the very large ones. And while there are many similarities to these bigger festivals wherever you go \u2013 larger blokes with beards, queues for the hype beers, crowds \u2013 there\u2019s one way they do things differently in Antwerp. I speak, of course, of cheese and charcuterie\u2026 Billie\u2019s Craft Beer Fest itself is held in a former dockside warehouse that is now a modern events space, and in comparison to most beer festivals, the setup is very sophisticated\u2026 There are also SEPARATE GLASS-RINSING STATIONS \u2013 another concept that our local festival would do well to learn from; as-is, there is only a sort of trough with water taps that serves both purposes and well\u2026that\u2019s not great. Another \u2018best practice\u2019 at Billie\u2019s is the all-inclusive nature of the event \u2013 you get a reasonably-sized small glass and can try anything that\u2019s tapped, while in Dublin, you pay separately for a pint or half-pint\u2026which is already too much for a festival\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Finally, from BlueSky, a portent of things to come\u2026<\/p>\n Early festive pub, Cambridge<\/p>\n [image or embed]<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Kevin Gibson (@gslug1.bsky.social<\/a>) November 16, 2025 at 9:55 AM<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n For more good reading check out <\/em>our Patreon-exclusive<\/em><\/a> \u2018Footnotes\u2019 to this post and <\/em>Alan McLeod\u2019s round up from Thursday<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every Saturday we round up the best writing about beer from the past week. This time, we\u2019ve got production value, community, and inclusive beer festivals. First, news of the closure of one of Ireland\u2019s pioneering craft breweries, Franciscan Well, which was taken over by Molson Coors in 2013: \u201cThe brewery said it has not been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":317218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137],"tags":[75200,1434,1820,75199,3894,34986,4319],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-317217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beer","tag-longreads","tag-modern","tag-news","tag-news-nuggets","tag-november","tag-nuggets","tag-times"],"yoast_head":"\n
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