Someone got a letter into today's Irish Times.
[quote:3434ey8z][b:3434ey8z][u:3434ey8z]An alert for Arthur's Day[/u:3434ey8z][/b:3434ey8z]
Madam, – Happy Arthur’s Day, our annual celebration of Guinness’s stranglehold on the Irish brewing industry for the past 50 years or more, a stranglehold that means Ireland is the only beer-drinking country in the world where nearly every one of its thousands of pubs have the same handful of flavourless, mass-produced beers.
Devotees of Guinness’s stout refer to it regularly as the “real” thing: how something that’s churned out by the lorryload with preservatives and pasteurisation can be called the real thing is beyond the understanding of this particular beer drinker.
Real beer must be microbrewed – chemical-free in small batches, as is standard practice in other countries. This process allows the flavours to develop and emerge. These days there are several small, independent breweries, both in and outside Dublin, brewing stout and other beers in this fashion – in other words, brewing the “real” thing, and that’s what this particular beer-drinker will be celebrating this Arthur’s Day.
– Yours, etc,
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www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/let ... 05923.html
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I'd have highlighted the flagrant breaking of the law via the happy hours as well as public drunkeness and public drinking for that is what really bothers me. Great letter all the same. Props to whoever wrote it.
