Showcase Weekend @ The Free Trade Inn, Newcastle.

On the 24th March we will be kicking off a very exciting event at The Free Trade Inn, Newcastle. We will be hosting a meet the brewer from 7pm on the 24th March & our beers will continue to flow at the Free Trade into the weekend until the 27th.

Myself & Andy are are looking forward to this event at what is widely regarded as one of the most exciting up & coming craft beer houses in the North, the licensee Mick has worked extremely hard on bringing in the best beers from around the world lately & is putting his legendary outlet at the top of the tree in the Northeast & we are both excited & humbled to be a part of it.

If you live in the Northeast we would be delighted to see you on the 24th to thank you in person for how you really have taken us & our beers in as your own.

There promises to be 12 of our beers including our entire core range available as well as the first two Nerotype brews, of which Brew #2 'Columbus' is a national exclusive to the event as is 'Valencia' our new 4% Citra session beer.

So if you can make on the 24th we look forward to sharing a beer with you, if not I hope you get to make it to The Free Trade to try the beers over the weekend.

If you are on Twitter you can follow Mick's entertaining tweets @TheFreeTradeInn

Wikio Blog Rankings - March Preview

So the jolly nice people at Wikio have this month kindly offered me a sneak preview of the new beer & wine blog rankings for March.

1	Pencil & Spoon +1
2	Pete Brown's Blog +1
3	Beer Reviews +3
4	Master Brewer at Adnams +13
5	Bibendum Wine
6	Zythophile
7	Drinking Outside The Box
8	Reluctant Scooper
9	Sour Grapes
10	The Wine Conversation
11	Spittoon
12	Tandleman's Beer Blog -4
13	Are You Tasting the Pith? -4
14	Called to the bar
15	Raising the Bar +31
16	Rabid About Beer -6
17	EpicBeerKel's BeeRevolution
18	The Good Stuff +4
19	The Pub Curmudgeon -12
20	Real Brewing at the Sharp End

Ranking made by Wikio


Plenty of movers & shakers this month but the first thing I noticed was BrewDog's absence from the rankings, I have no idea whether this is deliberate omission or not. They were usually hovering around the top spot & I had heard rumblings from other bloggers that they felt BrewDog's blog is an advertorial & doesn't belong in the rankings, so maybe Wikio have addressed this but I'm not sure.

I am delighted with how my blog rose 31 places to 15th in the rankings but I believe this may be a temporary effect of the huge interest my post regarding Kevin created.

Congratulations to Mark from Pencil & Spoon for taking top spot this month I particularly enjoyed his BrewDog post recently.

Also a mention for Andy from Beer Reviews which climbed to the lofty position of 3rd! Well done Andy!

And a mention for Leigh at The Good Stuff, for sticking around the top 20 for his informative & enjoyable musings on a wide range of beers wherever he may find them, Leigh's blog is Leeds longest running beer blog & it's nice to see his dedication paying off.

So there you have it, BrewDog gone from the rankings, do you agree or disagree?

***UPDATE***
Apparently BrewDog are still in the general rankings, they are 341st in the overall blog ranking system out of over 18 & a half thousand blogs, but have disappeared from the wine & beer category for some strange reason.

Proud of Our Industry

Today SIBA released a 'Proud of British Beer' video & whatever you may or may not think of it, it's message is one that is full of integrity & pride in our industry. It's about time we united & made it perfectly clear to the government we are not the problem in Britain, but the solution. We are incessantly hit with tax hikes & bad press in the media when we are in fact a bunch of socially responsible people with wholesome ideals, we are first & foremost a British manufacturing industry, we employ people, we contribute a huge amount of tax, our product is crafted with care & is consumed with dignity in the greatest social setting, the great British pub.

I am delighted with how SIBA have set their stall out to be a progressive breath of fresh air in our industry & credit must go to them & Pete Brown for this great piece of work.  So the next time someone knocks our industry either through the media or through higher taxes don't sit back & take it, take issue & support British breweries & pubs & be proud of your national product before we are taxed out of existence!