Children in Pubs

Ok im not gonna make appologies for the fact im quite militant on this issue, BUT in no problem with this nice blog from Tandleman

http://tandlemanbeerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/children-in-pubs.html

But i thought id follow up just why i feel like i do.

I suspect it all started when i first realised how different the UK was from the continent. When ever i asked if kids were allowed in a pub on the continent i always got a funny look that took me a while to realise was they just didnt know why i was asking compared to the UK where i often got turned away from 2-3 pubs before i found one i was allowed in my my Kids in the UK.


So i started to think on this issue more. The more i thought the more i came to think that in the UK its plain and simple AGE DISCRIMINATION.

Now dont get me wrong, some of my favorite local pubs dont allow kids, and i understand some of their concerns (and some issues are totally out of the pubs control) but i still think their wrong.


Children like any group are not all the same, and grouping them together and making a blanket decision is judging by stereotype, and i think thats wrong.
Good well behaved kids should be just as welcome as good well behaved adults, and just because some kids misbehave doesnt mean that all kids should be banned just in the same way that pubs have to deal with drunk misbehaving adults yet dont seem to ban all adults.

Yes its harder for pubs to deal with problem children, and i think thats the problem, some choose to ignore the issue and let it continue, some choose to bar all kids. But neither attitude helps. But if pubs took the same approach to Problem adults half would close and the other half would not be where most people i know want to go. So if parents threaten to go else where let them. If a drunk causing trouble said well im not coming back, would the pub care


Yes kids bring extra problems but they also bring extra business. Im the Profit heavy soft drink, maybe even  extra on the crisps plus what ever the parents are also spending.


I think the reason Children ale welcome on the continent is that Children are expected to behave. We can only get there if venues expect and insist on that behavior, and well behaved kids should not be discriminated against because some venues cant be bothered to demand their patrons behave.

I hear many arguments,and while i am not saying its on the same scale its got echos of part discrimination.

My patrons dont like kids in the Pub. Just like we used to hear about no women in public bars, of the Infamous No blacks, or Irish signs of guest houses.

Why dont we have some that are and some thats not (well apart from the trouble of finding which are and which arnt) this just strikes me of the racial segregation of US buses.

But my biggest problem, is not with the Pubs that choose not to have children(much as i dislike it and disagree) It with the Bloody Stupid licensing authorities that say, no Children because a pub doesnt have baby changing facilities etc. As i parent i have changed my childrens nappies in all sorts of weird place (and no thats not on a restaurant table). I learned to do this on my knee in a toilet cubicle the back seat of my car etc. So i dont need some random body deciding im not allowed in some where based on a facility i might not need, and can manage without. Esp as half thee time the same councils have been closing public toilets right left and center.

Its easy to discriminate against children as they have no real voice in society but that still doesnt make it right.

Toddler Tantrums

As a parent I’ve seen a few, and the one thing i quickly learned is not to give in to them, that just encourages more.

The Last few days I’ve seen what i considers toddler tantrum from Labour MP's

Ever since Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership contest there’s been a steady undercurrent deliberately undermining him, and all reports suggested that no one could beat him in a 2nd leadership battle.

So knowing they cant win, what they have resorted to is a tantrum, doing as much damage as they can  knowing that neither Jeremy or the Labour party can stop them.

Then when a 2nd leadership election is called, members are left with a stark choice. Replace Corbyn and hope the tantrums stop, or Re-elect him and face further damage by the Tantruming Toddlers, sorry MPs to the Part.

I personally home the members stick by their guns and Re-elect Corbyn cause nothing ever good has come from giving in to a tantrum.

My Life in Beer : The Gospel according to Ratebeer

Due to some cool back stage works by the people at RateBeer i now have access to some cool stats for every Year i have been using RateBeer. So i have trawled this information and compiled it into my Life in Beer.

I started Adding Beers to the Rate beer Database back in 2007 so while the first year probably reflects 3-4 years worth of beers(the notes i took prior to Ratebeer), after that it more or less reflects my life in Beer

How Much I Rate

As can clearly be seen the longer ive been on rate beer the more beers i seem to manage to try every year. I suspect this is a bit of my continuing Ratebeer addiction and the increasing availability of new beer.

Here we can see the number of different breweries i have tried each year, this i think shows the increase in number of breweries available

This Graph shows the Number of newly opened breweries that i rated in each year, reflecting once again the growth in new breweries

Where What I Rate Comes From

The below Graph shows where i mostly Drink beers from, showing all the countries that show up at least one in my top 5 countries of each year.

As can be seen the UK is a beer market as a whole despite Ratebeer separating out each of the UK regions. and the sheer number of English breweries ensures that they always eclipse Scottish breweries. Though the Graph does clearly show in Explosion in Scottish beer. With 2015s massive peak down to the creation of the Alpha Project beers from the Hanging Bat and the Expansion of Stewarts into there Craft Beer Kitchen range at the brewery tap. The Italian peak was due to a RateBeer gathering in Rome where i went wild. Though in the middle years 08-11 i did a fair bit of trading for US beers, its clear also from the graph(even after taking CBC into consideration) that the availability of US beer in the last few years has sky rocketed.

What I Rate

We now look at the Styles of beers that i have rated over time, again the styles were chosen on the ground of each style having made it into the top five styles for at least 1 year

Several things jump out at me, the most obvious being the meteoric rise of IPA,s  and the emergence of Saisons in 2012, alongside the rise of the American Pale Ale. What is less explainable if the persistence of Golden Ales while bitters and ESBs die off.

Who Was Best

This Table shows the Best brewery of each where i had tried at least 5 new beers from that brewery that Year.

Year	UK Brewery of the Year	International Brewery of the Year
2007	Harveys(3.7)	De Struise(4.24)
2008	Marble(3.72)	New Glarus(3.98)
2009	Marble(3.8)	Mikkeller(3.82)
2010	Thornbridge(3.85)	Narke(3.83)
2011	Magic Rock(3.98)	Firestone Walker(3.84)
2012	Hawkshead(4.03)	CigarCity(3.98)
2013	Moor(3.82)	De Struise (3.86)
2014	Hawkshead(3.95)	Cycle Brewing (3.78)
2015	Hawkshead/Buxton/Loch Lomond(3.78)	Avery/Alesmith(3.86)

Interesting to Note that Colin Stronge and  Dominic Driscol both were at Marble with Dom making the move to Thornbridge in 2010 and Colin reappearing in the chart with Buxton in 2015

What Was Best

This is where it gets messy as we often have a top equal each year. So Listed below are the Top UK and International beers for each year based on my Ratebeer Score. With multiples listed if they scored the same

 

Year	Top UK Beer(s)	Top International Beer(s)
2007	Old Chimneys Good King Henry	Mikkeller X Raspberry Brown 2007
2008	Bass No 1 / King’s Ale	New Glarus Raspberry Tart
2009	Swannay Orkney Porter	Kuhnhenn Fifth Dementia Very Old Ale De Molen Mout & Mocca (-2011) Mikkeller X Imperial Stout Calvados Barrel Aged
2010	Deeside Talorcan Swannay Old Norway Thornbridge Bolvig Saint Petersburg Deluxe Edition BrewDog Abstrakt AB:04	De Molen Hel & Verdoemenis 666
2011	BrewDog / Nøgne Ø / Mikkeller Black Tokyo* Horizon	Nøgne Ø Dark Horizon Third Edition Samuel Adams Utopias
2012	Wild Beer Wildebeest	Fanø Chocolate Lava
2013	Wild Beer / Burning Sky / Good George Shnoodlepip	Struise Black Damnation I - Black Berry Albert
2014	Siren / Evil Twin Bourbon Barrel Even More Jesus VIII Coffee Redwillow Thoughtless Swannay Barrel Aged Orkney Porter (Isle of Arran)	Arizona Wilderness American Presidential Stout Lervig Once You Go Black New Glarus Strawberry Rhubarb
2015	Magic Rock Bearded Lady Dessert Edition	Cellarmaker Imperial Coffee and Cigarettes

2012 was an odd Year as my top 2 drinks were not Beer.
But and Ice Cider La Face Cachée de la Pomme Neige Récolte D’Hiver and a Mead B.Nektar Cherry Chipotle.

But what is most interesting to me is the Lack of what is arguably my Favourite Beer, the Old Chimney Good King Henry Reserve. Knocked out of the Top spot by My First Experience of the Kulminator in Antwerp and the 1981. Now ive had the kings ale a few times since and never enjjoyed as much(though generally very good) but on that first encounter in that place it was clearly the beer of the Year. So sadly the GKHR loses out.

Summary

Whats very interesting is that Before i researched this and for the last few years if pushed to pick my favorite breweries it wouldnt and couldnt be a short list but the first two id mention would always be Hawkshead and Highland (now Swannay) So its interesting to see them both appear Prominently in the lists but in totally different ways. Hawkshead dominating my Best Breweries List and Swanney appearing most in my best beers list. Yet neither appears on the other list.

Its nice to know my gut feeling backed up with hard figures all be it with a twist.