Every Saturday we round up the best writing about beer from the past week. This time, we\u2019ve got shipwrecks, dive bars and Japan.<\/strong><\/p>\n First, by way of news, there\u2019s a glimmer of hope in the latest stats from SIBA on UK brewery numbers<\/a>:<\/p>\n The rate of brewery closures has slowed in the first half of 2026 compared to 2025 according to the SIBA UK Brewery Tracker, published today\u2026 For the first six months of 2026, net closures have averaged less than one brewery a week compared to nearly three [per] week in 2025\u2026 Taking into account all brewery openings and closures in the UK the net brewery closure rate from January to June 2026 was -16, compared to a total loss of -137 breweries in 2025.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So, what\u2019s changed? Or, to put it another way, what made 2025 so much more challenging than 2026?<\/p>\n For The Oaklandside<\/em> Azucena Rasilla<\/strong> spent a full day hanging out at a bar<\/a> in Oakland, California, recording the comings, the goings and the conversation. There\u2019s something about the immersiveness of this 16-hour observation, with photos by Sarahbeth Maney<\/strong>, that makes this more than the usual superficial \u2018dive bar\u2019 nostalgia piece:<\/p>\n \u201cAs a woman, I feel safe here,\u201d [Nicole] Wooden says. \u201cIf for some reason I\u2019m here without him, or, he\u2019s coming later or I come later, or whatever, I feel protected. As a woman, you don\u2019t always feel that way when you\u2019re out and about, especially drinking.\u201d \u2026 Nearby, a man named Rene Contreras takes a seat. I recognize him from earlier; he walked by the bar when [Rich] Perez was arriving, just before 8 a.m., and he stopped by again later in the morning before heading to the doctor. Now, he\u2019s settling in to spend the afternoon chatting with Perez and his other friends, and eventually, to play some pool\u2026 Folks sometimes mistake Contreras for Perez, he tells me, something that\u2019s not helped by their similar taste in clothes. One time, they showed up wearing the exact same outfit: black kicks, khaki shorts, and a black T-shirt.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n (Via Longreads<\/a>.)<\/p>\n A story about an antique bottle of Guinness found on a shipwreck has roused Liam K<\/strong> prompting him to write an in-depth piece that tells the full story<\/a> and challenges the idea that the beer can be reproduced, Jurassic Park<\/em> style:<\/p>\n Cameron & Saunders operated from 7 Hart Street, Mark Lane in London at this time and were primarily Bass bottlers and exporters. The site, which is now a high-rise modern building, would have been conveniently located close to both Fenchurch Street train station and the Thames for easy shipping of goods by sea or rail\u2026 This stout would have been brewed in Dublin before being matured for 2 years in huge vats and it would have then been transferred to wooden casks and shipped to London where it would have been left to settle for weeks before being bottled, corked, caged and encapsulated. Then it was labelled and packed most likely into barrels\/casks, or perhaps crates, with dry straw before being loaded onto a vessel. So that recently salvaged stout is unlikely to date from 1864, and more likely to be from 1862 or before \u2013 it\u2019s even older than has been reported!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n For All About Beer<\/em> Don Tse<\/strong> has written about why saison isn\u2019t really a beer style<\/a>, drawing on brewing conference talk by Yvan De Baets:<\/p>\n After writing the chapter on the history of saison in Phil Markowski\u2019s book Farmhouse Ales, De Baets discovered a passion for one of his country\u2019s most famous beer styles. \u201cAs many Belgians, I thought that just because I\u2019m Belgium, I knew everything about saisons,\u201d said De Baets. \u201cAnd then by starting the research, I realized that basically I knew almost nothing about it. And I realized that the subject is extremely complex, and I really fell in love with that complexity and I really wanted to know everything.\u201d\u2026 The first thing De Baets discovered is that saison is just one style of a family of beers that were meant to be kept for a very long time. \u201cNow, when you say something tastes of an old beer, it doesn\u2019t seem very sexy,\u201d says De Baets, \u201cBut at the time, \u2018old\u2019 was a very positive word. It was super, super positive to talk about an old sour beer\u2013a well kept, well-aged sour beer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n At Ben Viveur<\/em> Benjamin Nunn<\/strong> grapples with the tension between his desire to drink something different<\/em> and his suspicion that, once a beer becomes too<\/em> different, it arguably ceases to be beer<\/a>:<\/p>\n Last week at Le Gothique\u2019s Summer Beer Festival I got to sample Chorus from Baynham\u2019s brewery, apparently based in the New Forest. They don\u2019t appear to have brewed anything else, ever, at least not under that name, so there\u2019s no \u2018core range\u2019 to compare it against. Perhaps this is deliberate\u2026 And it\u2019s undoubtedly interesting stuff. Comes in a champagne-style bottle. 12%. Served in champagne flute glasses. Drinks like an English sparkling wine or perhaps a high-end Prosecco but a little more complex. Made with \u2018Chardonnay yeast\u2019, apparently. (I know, I know. Chardonnay is a grape.) I detected a hint of the sort of funky rustic fruit that one might expect from a spontaneous fermentation, but I was assured that no Brett was involved in the production\u2026 If it was served to me blind and I was told it wasn\u2019t a wine, my second guess would be one of those strong, over-sophisticated sparkling bottled ciders or perries that were briefly in fashion in the late 1980s. Merrydown. Country Manor. Remember those?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Alex<\/strong> at Pub Vignettes<\/em> has been travelling and found three notably characterful bars in Kanazawa, Japan<\/a>:<\/p>\n Life stories tend not to be short. They\u2019re longer still when relayed via Google Translate. No matter, the whiskey selection\u2019s here for the long haul. The owner\u2019s narrative arc, from corporate ladder climbing induced burnout to emotional rehabilitation as the proud owner of his one-man-band bar, felt indicative of countless places across the country. Why must you scale? Why always crave more? Why jeopardise losing your love for the craft? Our new pal puts on his favourite bossa nova compilation CD and fetches an oversized children\u2019s picture atlas from a bookshelf, asking us to show him where we\u2019re from. We pass half an hour pointing at various pages, tracking the cartography of our lives, embracing the stilted pace of realtime app translation. Some things don\u2019t need scaling.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Finally, from Instagram (via BlueSky), insight into the culture of \u2018way\u2019\u2026<\/p>\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
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