Drink

Pre-Lollards: The great pub winnovation poll!

On the Lollards show three weeks ago, we promised a poll to let you decide WHICH of the fantastic winnovations we ideated in the PUB FOCUS GROUP would most improve your pub experience. Here, at last, is that poll - please pick your favourite three ideas and we will announce the results on tomorrow’s FINAL SHOW* of Freaky Trigger and the Lollards Of Pop.

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*for now - keep an eye on FT for GREAT NEWS for all our listeners.

Hurry up Harriet!

A friend who was attending london drinker last night pointed me to this new ale. She was as gobsmacked about this as I was. It’s very difficult to think of what else to say really, a lot of my female friends enjoy their ale already, and those who don’t are, I think, unlikely to change their mind just because some 19 year-old has lucked into being able to brew her own ale. The Birmingham Post ran an article that, if anything, compounds the badness:

I didn’t actually approach the longed-for experience with the serious intention of ending up semi-conscious on the bathroom floor, but that is indeed where I found myself after a night swigging alcopops like it really was lemonade.

I can inform ms easton that a night on her beverage (at 4.2%, stronger that bacardi breezers and only just weaker than smirnoff ice) would almost certainly result in exactly the same outcome and, if my experiences are anything to go by, probably a much worse morning after…

I suppose it’s quite handy when your mum runs a social enterprise body though…

You Can Stick Your Novelty Guinness Hat Up Yr Arse

And so it came to pass that the cynical amongst us noted that this year they haved moved St Patricks Day from the usual 17th March which would have been a QNI Monday, to the far more party friendly 15th March, a Saturday. Whilst the articles and so on suggest this is just a shimmy for religious reasons - what with an early Easter and all, your important feast days can’t clash. Something has to give and you can’t exactly move the first day of Holy Week. Nevertheless a result for the marketing men of Guinness who not only get to celebrate St Patrick’s Day twice, but once on a Saturday!

Oh, and there were never any snakes in Ireland anyway.

Brandwatch AKA Snifflewatch: Lemsip Cold & Flu Max Strength Direct

This is not a new brand but Lemsip’s latest salvo in the war against the uncurable common cold (via our wallets) was new to me when I tried it yesterday. You might think that putting a couple of capsules in your mouth is pretty direct, ditto drinking some Lemsip, but these things are simply not direct enough for the modern convenience-led consumer. This is one of those products where you can see the “customer insight” clear as day: “I want to take Lemsip but I am busy and on the go and do not have any water*”. EUREKA!! Instead I will take this sachet of Lemsip powder which I will pour directly onto my tongue! Then I can get my relief from colds ANYWHERE!! … read on …

Captain’s Publog

The following excerpt arrived in my inbox over Christmas and appears to be from the journal of an anonymous Merchant Navy skipper.

23rd December ‘07

After 3 days fogbound, we found ourselves under clear skies in open sea. The navigator swiftly fixed our position and discovered we had been drifting South the whole time while enshrouded. Knowing of a nearby harbour town, we steered for land. … read on …

Night On Mare Street

If there is one thing that CAMRA seems to have accidentally, but willingly, sponsored over the last thirty years - its the ever so clever witty beer name. Real Ale’s, often been brewed as special beers, are often named thematically and the badges often have the tendency to contain DO YOU SEE poor cartoons which compliment these names. All of which is a bit schoolboy, especially when the names are of the order of “Bishop Basher” or some other inappropriate innuendo. Sometimes its just the shit cartoon on the clip that drives you to the lager - YES I AM TALKING TO YOU WYCHWOOD BREWERY. Put it like this, is the choice is between a pint of “Buxom Wench” and “Kronenbourg”, the 1664 wins it.

This does not mean that a beers name cannot be witty. And at the recent Hackney Pig’s Ear Beer festival it was all agreed that the Pitfield Brewery’s “Night On Mare Street II” lived in the acceptably amusing beer name category. … read on …

Pole Are Bare

I am sure a fuller discussion of the virtues and vices of The Golden Compass: The Movie will be forthcoming on FT soon, but a quick mention must be made of the Golden Compass QUIZZER which we saw afterwards. Fast work from IND:E games and lavish production values but ultimately not a success.

The game involves picking symbols on an alethiometer, causing the compass to point to another symbol, which determines your category. … read on …