Guides, postcards, essays and notes — nothing sponsored, nothing astroturfed, no SEO farm slop. Written because the pint deserves the thought.
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22 May 2026 · EssayAnchor Brewing looks to be coming back. The 2021 rebrand isn't.Construction crews at Potrero Hill, twenty months of silence from a billionaire owner, and a homepage in May 2026 still wearing the 1896 logo — not the 2021 mark drinkers hated. Anchor's revival is moving from rumour into pre-brewing infrastructure. What's coming back, on the evidence, is the older Anchor.Read the essay →
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20 May 2026 · EssayUnder the Hood: How PINtDEXTER Picks Your PintThe engineering follow-up to the recommender essay. The four layers PINtDEXTER stacks under the hood — preference capture, manual sliders, per-beer LLM-inferred flavour DNA, and venue-aware scoring — and the misclassified pale lager that exposed the most recent fix. For the data-science curious.Read the essay →
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16 May 2026 · NoteSave Our Pubs, In One Pub: The Bell at IngatestoneWe walked into the Bell to claim a free pint of Telegraph Ale on Saturday. PINtPOINT's Financial Pressure Index also flags the same building as Struggling — rates up 74% vs 2023, FPI 44.38/100. The campaign's structural argument, made personal, on the bar in front of us.Read the note →
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16 May 2026 · NewsFour Pubs a Day Are Closing. The Telegraph's Answer Is a Free Pint.Saturday 16 May is the Telegraph's National Pub Day. Renegade Brewery — the West Berkshire outfit that took on the West Berkshire estate after the 2023 collapse — has brewed Telegraph Ale, a 4% cask English bitter, for over 250 participating pubs nationwide. The campaign sits inside Save Our Pubs, the Telegraph's response to a closure rate of roughly four pubs a day.Read the news note →
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14 May 2026 · EssayFrom Half of British Beer to Half a Percent — What Happened to MildIn 1959 mild was still half the beer Britain drank. By 2011 it was 0.5%. How Britain's everyday beer became a rarity — and why Mild May is trying to bring it back. Pattinson, Cornell and Boak & Bailey on the collapse; the modern fork between stalwarts and craft revisionists.Read the essay →
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8 May 2026 · NoteThe Sparkler Question — A Field Guide to Britain's Quietest Cask ArgumentA small nozzle. A 140-year argument. Mostly a Northern tradition, with London outposts at the Queen's Arms and the Punch Tavern. From 14 May the Whippet adds a sparklered Boddingtons to the Liverpool Street commute.Read the note →
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5 May 2026 · NoteThe Whippet: Why This Could Be One of London's Most Interesting Beer Openings of 2026June update: The Whippet still is not pouring Augustiner, but it has quietly built one of the more unusual lager line-ups near Liverpool Street — Bitburger, Kutna Hora, Tegernseer, Benediktiner and more — alongside Boddingtons cask with a sparkler.Read the note →
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1 May 2026 · NoteRadio City Turns 7: 7 Cans, 7 Sins, 35 Launch Venues — and One Big Saturday in ChelmsfordSaturday 9 May 2026 — Radio City Beer Works in Radley Green throws its biggest birthday yet, preceded two days earlier by the nationwide can launch of the Seven Deadly Sins. Lust × Black Iris (Strawberry Vanilla Pastry Sour), Wrath × Ampersand (Southern Hemisphere IPA), Gluttony × Vibrant Forest (Imperial Stout 8.4%), and four more. Full launch-venue locator inside.Read the note →
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1 May 2026 · NoteBlackhorse Beer Mile 4th Birthday: All 10 Participating Venues with PINtPOINT LinksSunday 3 May 2026 — Walthamstow's brewery-district mile turns four with an all-day, free-entry, family-friendly takeover across 10 east-London craft venues: Big Penny Social, Exale, Signature, Borough Wines, Burnt Faith, East London Brewing Co, plus 40FT, Hackney Church, Renegade and Pretty Decent. Every venue with a PINtPOINT deeplink plus the canonical Hall of Fame crawl.Read the note →
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30 April 2026 · NoteAugustiner on Draft, Finally: Seven Confirmed UK Pubs Pouring ItAugustiner Helles landed on UK draught in November 2025 via James Clay & Sons with no public venue list. PINtPOINT cross-references public Untappd data to confirm six — King's Arms in Bethnal Green, Café Beermoth and Society in Manchester, Bavaria Brauhaus in Glasgow and two more — with a seventh, the Whippet, opening 14 May outside Liverpool Street.Read the note →
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