Kmflett's Blog

At last: National Bass Day

After a two year pandemic delay it is National Bass Day on April 16 (details can be found on Facebook). I am unfortunately sceptical of being able to participate directly as cask Bass is hard to find outside of the Midlands and even cans in supermarkets and off licences now seem scarce.

It has a chequered history in recent times and is currently brewed by Marstons at Burton although unfortunately not using their union system, which under previous owners, helped to give the beer such a distinctive character.

My interest however was specifically piqued by a post by those veteran beer writers Boak and Bailey about the time in the mid-1970s that the O.G. of Bass was raised from 1039 to 1044. Ostensibly this was to compete with other cask beers then new to market, probably Allied’s Burton Ale which had an O.G. of 1048.

I drank a fair bit of draught Bass in the second half of the 1970s, firstly, sparkled(and is now it’s now known banked) at the Sun Inn in Stockton and then at the Railway Tavern in Crouch End, where it was neither sparkled or banked. It was a classic cask ale and preferable in North London to the then already rather dumbed down Charrington IPA.

I’m not sure how or quite when the increase in strength took place or, as particularly, when it decreased from 1044 which from memory (often faulty of course) was the consistent strength of the keg version, Worthington E.

My memory again perhaps faulty is that the increase back to 1044 O.G. was at least in part due to pressure by CAMRA members who were dismayed at the earlier reduction to 1039.

I wonder if anyone has some actual documentation as opposed to memories on this?

Beard Liberation Front

15th April

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Alexei Sayle shaves Michael Rosen to win coveted Beard of Spring 2022 title

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that comedian and broadcaster Alexei Sayle has narrowly shaved the 2021 winner Michael Rosen to win the vote for the coveted Beard of Spring Award.

Beard of Spring is the second of four seasonal awards that lead to the Beard of the Year in December.

The campaigners say that while the second seasonal award of the year traditionally focuses on new beard growth, the focus in 2022 is as much on those whose beards have appeared in a positive public light during the quarter.

Sayle was ahead of Rosen by a whisker when the on-line poll closed. Beer writer Adrian Tierney Jones and cricketer Azeem Rafiq were tied in third place

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, the Beard of Spring poll sets the beard-benchmark for the period ahead when beards can be flaunted in public as the weather improves. We congratulate Alexei Sayle on his first ever beard accolade and commiserate with Michael Rosen whose follicles will flourish further we are sure.

The vote is open now and will close at midnight on Maundy Thursday, with the winner announced on Easter Saturday

Round One April 6-8

Round Two April 9-11

Final Beard Off April 12-14

Beard of Spring 2022

Michael Rosen, Author

Alexei Sayle, Satirist

Richard Osman, Author

Hugh Laurie, Actor

Tommy Fleetwood, Golfer

Azeem Rafiq, Cricketer

Gareth Southgate, Football Manager

Adrian Tierney Jones, Beer Writer

The way we were: Craft Beer in London, Easter 2016

Below is a slightly edited piece I wrote about craft beer in London at Easter 2016

Looking back the song has not exactly remained the same. Brodies (at least in London) are no more and the Craft 100 held in Clapham is but a memory. Beavertown is now owned by Heineken.

Perhaps this was one of the last occasions when ‘craft’ beer still appeared as much on cask as keg.

On the plus side there are a lot more London breweries now and a lot more choice

For some years I used to travel (with my late partner Megan) ‘Oop north at Easter to sample new and interesting beers that weren’t seen in London.

Such beers still exist but such is the lure of the Great Wen that many beers from the north turn up in the Capital sooner rather than later. Its best understood though as combined and uneven development rather than a rivalry.

Easter 2016 was spent in London at various craft beer events and outlets.

On Thursday Megan and myself ventured Sarf to Clapham. The Craft 100 was again running at the Craft in Clapham.

These were always well organised events and 2016 was no exception. It was busy but there was no issue getting served and the decision (at last) to serve in thirds (as well as halves and pints) made a huge difference.  Interesting beers could be sampled in greater numbers and in my view a third of Even More Jesus (cask 11.4%) is considerably more enjoyable than a half.

The range as always was exceptional and at the end of the night I realised I hadn’t sampled one keg beer. So is it right that more interesting beers are now more often to be found on keg than cask? Hmmm.

Travelling back Norf we stopped at the Waterloo Tap (remember I’d been drinking only thirds, slowly). The latest Tap venue it contains no spiral staircases and a spacious toilet (albeit only one). It has from memory 20 keg taps and 6 cask.

Moving on to Friday and the late afternoon found us at the King William in Leyton for Brodies bunny basher. This has been an epic event but in 2015 it was a bit of a disappointment. Brodies have had their ups and downs as a brewery but on this evidence they are on their way back.

Here it’s true that most of the more interesting beers were on keg (and limited by a total of 9 keg taps) but there were good well-made brews to sample.

We than wandered across to one of the Beard Friendly Pubs of the Year, the Cock Tavern E8, to try BBN DIPA and one of the latest of Beavertown’s trial IPAs (as well as Tiny Rebel/Brighton Bier new misspelt Cascadian Kolsch on cask).

Saturday afternoon found us, as it often did when in London, at Beavertown brewery.

While the recent birthday party seems to be passing into legend, the new beers continue to appear. The jury remains out on Bloody ‘Ell 2016. For me the best I’ve tried was on cask at the Craft 100, but whether keg or can is better and how they compare with 2015…

Anyway on offer were the latest trial IPAs (all at 5.7% this time). For me Cpt Hasta was the best of the bunch. (the trial ended with the production of Lupuloid)

That day also saw the last print edition of The Independent and Will Hawkes last beer column made the point that the focus on craft was moving on from the interesting and unusual towards the consistent (as well).

The Hot Cross Bun: Inventing and Reinventing tradition

Below is an extract from the best guide to mid-nineteenth century London written by the social commentator Henry Mayhew. It underlines that by the 1850s the Good Friday sale of hot cross buns was a significant business. Fast forward 170 years and the sale of hot cross buns is no longer confined to one day but spread across an entire season. The original commercial invention of hot cross bun selling has been reinvented in modern times and buns can now be found in savoury as well as sweet style. Hence earlier I had a marmite hot cross bun with some Gorgonzola cheese….

London Labour And The London Poor

 Of The Street-sellers Of Hot-cross Buns: By Henry Mayhew, Published 1851

 Perhaps no cry—though it is only for one morning—is more familiar to the ears of a Londoner, than that of, “One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot-cross buns” on Good Friday … One London gentleman, who spoke of fifty years ago, told me that the street-bun-sellers used to have a not unpleasing distich [a unit of verse consisting of two lines] … It seems hardly in accordance with the usual style of street poetry:—

“One-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot-cross buns! If your daughters will not eat them, give them to your sons.

But if you hav’n’t any of those pretty little elves, You cannot then do better than eat them all yourselves.”

The sellers of the Good Friday buns are principally boys, and they are of mixed classes —costers’ boys, boys habitually and boys occasionally street-sellers, and boys street-sellers for that occasion only. One great inducement to embark in the trade is the hope of raising a little money for the Greenwich Fair of the following Monday.

— [“On Easter Monday breaks out, in all its depressing vulgarity, Greenwich Fair—a melancholy exhibition of national merriment,—when drunkenness too often supplies the place of natural jollity, and brutality tramples under foot everything like rational recreation”. From ‘The Illustrated London Magazine’, Published 1855] —

I am informed that 500 persons are employed on Good Friday in the streets of London in the sale of hot-cross buns, each itinerant selling upon the day’s average six dozen halfpenny, and seven dozen penny buns, for which he will take 12s. 6d. (his profits being 3d. in the shilling or 3s. 1 1/2 d.). One person informed me that last Good Friday he had sold during the day forty dozen penny buns, for which he received 60s.

The bun-selling itinerants derive their supplies principally from the wholesale pastrycooks, and, in a less degree, from the small bakers and pastrycooks, who work more for “the trade” than themselves. A vendor of ” hot-cross buns” has to provide himself with a basket, a flannel (to keep the buns warm), and a cloth, to give a clean appearance to his commodities. These articles, if bought for the purpose, cost—basket, 1s. 6d.; flannel and cloth, 2s.; stock-money, average, 5s. (largest amount 15s., smallest 2s. 1/2 d.) or about 10s. in all. There is expended in one day, in hot-cross buns purchased in the London streets, 300l., and nearly 100,000 buns thus bought.

Beard Liberation Front

15^th April

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Campaigners say sacking of Sean Dyche is pure beard prejudice

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said the decision to sack Sean Dyche as manager of Burnley football club reflects pure beard prejudice from the club.

Sean Dyche is one of the most distinctive beard wearers in sport and often features in beard awards. His beard power has kept Burnley in the Premiership for six seasons the longest run since the 1960s.

The campaigners say that the move by Burnley Chair Alan Pace, also hirsute, reflects a lack of beard solidarity with Dyche and appointing a clean shaven manager is unlikely to stop Burnley from being relegated.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, unless Alan Pace plans to install a figure like Nuno as manager this must be seen as an act of beard prejudice against Dyche. It will not help Burnley at all

E P Thompson on Britain, Europe & a history of solidarity with refugees

I was looking through E P Thompson’s Peculiarities of the English for quite other reasons this week and came across the passage below which has interest in the context of 2022 and the Government’s racist plan to forcibly fly asylum seekers to Rwanda.

It’s an argument about why Britain is not an exception to the rest of Europe (a debate he was having with Perry Anderson and Tom Nairn) and why links existed both in the realm of ideas and in practical solidarities of fighting fascism and welcoming refugees.

Certainly a message for our times from European history and yet more British history Boris Johnson would prefer to avoid thinking about.

Here is this island, and there, across a few wet miles, are Other Countries. Those waters have, on occasion, been crossed. That city, London, is not in the Antarctic but has been, alongside Paris, Vienna and Prague, a great European capital. In its East End there have been deposit after deposit of refugee and immigrant workers. In the universities there have been deposit after deposit of émigré intellectuals. Across that water there came, in the 1930s, wave after wave of refugees from Fascism; across that water there went, in the early 1940s, wave after wave of troops to assist in the liberation of Southern and Western Europe; and across that water there came, in the later 1940s and 1950s, a further wave of refugees from Eastern Europe.

Peculiarities of the English, 1965

Beard Liberation Front

28 March

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Hirsute Campaigners warn on ‘excessive enthusiasm’ for Maundy Thursday traditions

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, which campaigns against beardism, irrational prejudice against the hirsute, has warned against excessive enthusiasm for Maundy Thursday traditions.

The campaigners say that while the day before Good Friday is traditionally associated with the distribution of the Maundy Money and the washing of feet it is also known as Shear Thursday.

This refers to those who had given up shaving for Lent, cutting off their beards as the period of abstinence ended.

The BLF says that while there is no objection to trimming and styling an organic Lenten beard on Maundy Thursday shaving it entirely suggests excessive enthusiasm and is to be avoided.

BLF organiser Keith Flett said, Spring is a time of growth and as we announce the winner of the Beard of Spring poll on Easter Saturday, Maundy Thursday is not the time for beard shaving

London Socialist Historians Group

13^th April

Contact Dr Keith Flett 07803 167266

Historians renew solidarity to Goldsmiths as Tory educational vandalism continues

The London Socialist Historians Group, which organises the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, has offered renewed solidarity to the UCU branch at Goldsmiths College.

The union has successfully renewed industrial action ballots as the College has issued a number of redundancy notices to staff in the English, creative writing and history areas. Many of those targeted are UCU members including some branch officers.

The historians say that 5 redundancies in the history department will undermine the History Foundation Programme, which looks to encourage and prepare students to study the subject and is a reflection of Tory educational vandalism.

The plan is for a business University where the tune is called not be educational priorities but by banks including Lloyds and NatWest who have drawn up a business plan for Goldsmiths. What is taught will be determined by what is profitable not for any intrinsic educational value.

LSHG Convenor Dr Keith Flett said, what is being attempted at Goldsmiths is a prototype of Tory plans for the future of higher education. Any idea of a liberal education valued in itself is out. In future value will be judged on a profit and loss basis. We offer solidarity to Goldsmiths UCU in continuing to resist this. That they succeed is vital.

The Tories, Partygate, Colston & the Rule of Law

The Tories traditionally style themselves as the party of law and order. Labour has often rivalled them and certainly will do with the former DPP Keir Starmer as leader, but the point is that the law underwrites the British State and challenging it reflects a desire, at the least for change.

Yet on 12^th April Tory MPs and commentators were to be found dismissing the fines levelled on Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak for breaking the law in what is known as Partygate- parties at Downing St during pandemic lockdowns. At the same time the Attorney General, Tory MP Suella Braverman, referred the case of the Colston statue protesters to Appeal judges. Their acquittal cannot be overturned but Braverman wants the judges to rule out their ‘human rights’ defence for future cases.

The late socialist historian E P Thompson wrote a book, Whigs and Hunters, about the State’s war with poachers in the eighteenth century. It was perhaps as much about common land, and the rights of the less well-off and the poor to use it, and how the law viewed this.

Thompson drew some general lessons about the law which he pursued in the 1980s. He argued that the law could not just be dismissed as a tool of the rich (although it was) but had to be engaged and argued with.

A key passage from Whigs and Hunters explains his view of the contradictions involved in this process.

We reach then, not a simple conclusion (law=class power) but a complex and contradictory one. On the one hand.. the law did mediate existent class relations to the advantage of the rulers; not only is this so, but as the century advanced the law became a superb instrument by which these rulers were able to impose new definitions of property to their even greater advantage.. On the other hand the law mediated these class relations through legal forms, which imposed again and again, inhibitions upon the actions of these rulers

If the Tories ignore or remove those inhibitions then why would ordinary people respect the rule of law or the system it seeks to uphold?

Beard Liberation Front

13^th April

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

Campaigners issue first ever Guidelines for beard wearers on the pollen count

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has issued its first ever guide to the hirsute on the pollen count.

The campaigners say that the Hay Fever season has extended in recent years and appears to impact more people.

The issue of beards and pollen has seen contradictory advice from commentators, mostly based it appears on whether they like or dislike beards. The BLF research department has investigated and can now provide a more measured guide.

Guidelines for beard wearers in the Hay Fever season

1 The Beard can provide an effective barrier to pollen reaching the eyes and nose and provoking hay fever symptoms. More organic beards are most effective.

2 Pollen remaining in the beard for any significant amount of time can however also provoke hay fever. Care needs to be taken.

3 If using the beard as a barrier to pollen it is *essential* to comb it regularly to remove the pollen

4 In addition the follicles should also be washed regularly to clear any remaining pollen not caught by combing.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, our pollen guide is firmly dialectical. A beard can provide for hay fever sufferers but only if our guide is followed.