John Boyce of Mighty Oak brewery in Maldon tells me of a way he’s found to stop the spout on a tap dripping. For those of you unused to gravity beer you drive a tap into the cask then attach a pouring spout. After filling the glass with ale you turn off the tap and take it away… …but sometimes the spout isn’t properly empty and a glob of beer splashes into the drip trays. This wastes beer and makes a mess.

All you do is drill a 3mm hole at the apex of the curve in the spout. This is small enough not to spew beer out of but large enough to admit air after the tap has been turned off and break any air-lock effect.

The other day I was asked what my personal philosophy was.
Discriminating in that I’ll weigh people and things up and leave well alone or find out more.
Accommodating follows-on. Once you’re talking to someone who hasn’t been ruled-out then at least give them enough rope to hang themselves.

This combination works well in pubs where in my opinion there are people best left well alone, while the rest have all sorts of weird ideas and mis-conceptions. If you believe in organised religion then you won’t get a moment of accommodation from me.

What we are always forgetting in East Anglia is that there are lots of people just on the other side of the water who are dying for a weekend of wonderful East Anglian pubs and ale interesting ale. Something should be done to invite beer tourists.
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Good news for Sudbury

The Black Adder Brewery Tap is well worth a visit.

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Last week’s visits to Clacton beer festival reminded me of the times I used to be an unofficial greeter and meeter. those were happy and useful times and it is nice to go back and have many people come up and say hello and extremely pleasing when they say things like You were the first person who introduced us to …
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Wherever you go the automatic taps, the ones that you press which then operate for a few seconds before shutting off, they squirt out at full bore. This wastes water but more importantly soaks the operator unless they stand well clear.

This appears to be a universal problem. WHY?

How long does it take to reduce the pressure by turning the isolating valve a bit?

If the problem is with the tap design then why doesn’t somebody redesign it?

This is so dispiriting. Civilization seems to have run out of progressive energy and appears not to be interested in fixing easily fixable problems. OK, publicans may not always be the brightest in the class, but this doesn’t take time or special tools to fix.

How long will it be before practically all pubs, in the country at any rate, close all day on Monday?

There are very few other businesses that stay open seven days a week, and pubs have a lot of out of hours work to do as well. Wouldn’t it be better to have Monday closing as expected. I don’t think trade would suffer in 99% of cases the few people who do turn up are likely to be in there on other days of the week.

Is there any other country in the world where it is illegal to play a musical instrument?
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How many times do I have to tell pubs that if they want me to stop as I’m passing then they have to tell me what ales they have.

Is a blackboard too much to ask?

I assume that if a pub won’t advertise its beers then it is too embarrassed.