Munich’s new mayor needed two blows of the hammer at noon today. If that gave you ideas: thirty-four British Oktoberfests, six of which pour actual Wiesn beer — and one “all six” claim that names five.

The 191st Wiesn opens tomorrow at noon, and the beer in the tents is not the beer the festival started with. Munich changed it, America kept the old one, Britain borrowed the words — and twelve of the sixteen days fall in September.

Cask Ale Week runs 17–27 September, with a record 10,000 pubs signed up. What cask actually is, what the plaque on the door promises, eleven pints worth chasing this week, and the numbers behind a revival led by drinkers in their twenties.

The five bar empires that ran the Square Mile in the 1990s: Balls Brothers, Corney & Barrow, Davy's, All Bar One and Pitcher & Piano. Two died in name, one sold its bar arm, one refused to change and outlived most of its imitators, and two arrived late as the daylight revolution that undermined everyone else. Claret, red braces, three-hour lunches — and what's left of them now.

Baddow Brewery stopped brewing in 1927. Nearly a century later, 30 of the 61 pubs associated with it are still serving drinkers — from Great Baddow itself out to the Essex coast. Fourteen have been replaced or converted, fifteen have gone, two remain honestly unknown. On the old brewing soil, Chelmsford Brew Co brews again: not the same company, not the old building, but new beer on old brewing soil.

British beer is having a revival revival. Old names are back on the bar — some painstakingly reconstructed, some entirely new beers wearing dead men's clothes. Diageo is now DNA-sequencing yeast from an 1864 shipwreck bottle. A field guide to what's actually being resurrected: recipe, yeast, water, brewery, people, badge, or nothing but the name.

Founded off the Strand in 1870, Davy's still trades eleven sawdust-floored subterranean wine bars across London — plus three El Vino sisters brought in in 2015. In 2007 the chain had 37 sites; more than half of the family-name ones have gone since. Bangers, Bangers Too, the Crusting Pipe (closed just before Christmas 2025 after a 45-year run), the City Boot twice, City FOB, Skinkers, and two different lives of the Tappit Hen. The story of a chain slowly editing itself down.

News this week that James Blunt has bought a second London pub — The Carpenter's Arms in Hammersmith — is a decent excuse to ask the only useful question about celebrity-owned pubs: which are actually worth the pint? Verdicts and PINtPOINT deep links for Ian McKellen's Dickens-listed Thames boozer, Blunt's Chelsea local, Guy Ritchie's Fitzrovia gastropub, Jeremy Clarkson's Cotswolds farm-pub, and seven more.

On 1 January 1876 the world's first registered trademark was granted to a beer — Bass Brewery's red triangle, UK Trade Mark No. 1. A hundred and fifty years later — to the year — PINtPOINT needed a shape to single out the best pub around. What else could we pick? Why the geometry, why green not red, and why on a small screen at the end of a long day the fastest way to say 'this one' is still a triangle.

Untappd is a social network first and a beer database second. Its tap lists only get fresh when someone posts publicly about a pint. PINtPOINT lets you improve any tap list with one tap and no check-in — because contributing to shared data shouldn't demand personal consumption or a social broadcast. Why fresh tap lists shouldn't depend on social posting.