Beer on the radio

Michael Turner, the Fuller's Chief was on the radio briefly yesterday, announcing that their profits were up. The presenter asked if being the unusual combination of a brewing and pub business was an advantage, to which the answer was yes.

Strangely enough, Lord Young, the person that caused combined breweries and pub businesses to be a rarity was on next. He's generally viewed with contempt in the industry, as stripped of their tied estates the big breweries have been much more marginal businesses, and have now all come under foreign ownership. I'm not so sure myself, as though the big pub companies are undoubtedly horrors, the range of draught beers I see in my local pubs is far, far bigger than it was back in the day. 

I also noticed that noted beer expert Melissa Cole was on Radio Wales talking about making beer less blokey. The main points I can remember were don't try and start people on brown bitter as it's an acquired taste, and don't give them some patronising pink pap just because they're women. As is usual when hearing stuff from a professional beer writer there were a few technical points that made be raise an eyebrow but the piece was quite enjoyable so I won't go off on one. It starts at about 48.47.

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