You may have noticed that I’ve had a bit of a revamp of the left-hand side bar. The first thing I did was to add a select list of beer-related blogs. There are hundreds of these out there – see, for example, the list on Stonch’s Beer Blog – and so I have concentrated on those that are local to me, those that address wider issues than just “what I had to drink last night” and those belonging to people who have left comments, some obviously falling into more than one category.
While I do enjoy trying new and different beers (and ciders) in a variety of styles, I’m not someone who does so obsessively and, as I say here, for me there is much more to going to the pub than just the beer. A blog that is mainly about the author’s experience of sampling rare beers leaves me rather cold. I do draw on my personal experiences here, but generally to illustrate wider points. Personally I wouldn’t feel too much hard done by if I went through a month on just a routine diet of Holts, Hydes, Robinson’s and Sam Smith’s.
I’ve also added a panel of links to recent posts on various blogs that may be of interest to readers of this one. They’re a mixture of beer-related blogs and those such as The Devil’s Kitchen and Dick Puddlecote that often address issues related to the restriction of lifestyle freedom, but I’ve excluded the mainstream political blogs such as Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale. I would warn you that some tend to be rather free with the use of expletives! This is most definitely not a swearblog, although I sometimes feel sorely tempted. If you find there’s an uneasy juxtaposition between the political and the beery, then so be it, the same is true of this blog as a whole.
Edit 08/02/09: I have now separated the links to beer-related and more general blogs as this seems to make more sense.