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from the bottom of a bottle or glass wednesday 1 july 2026 humph humphrey smith owner of the samuel smith old brewery tadcaster has gone to the great employment tribunal in the sky at the age of 81 the reaction to his death has been shall we say mixed some have expressed sadness that one of the great old pub traditionalists has departed and the industry will never be quite the same again others have said good riddance to the dismal old reactionary and are expecting those who d been at the sharp end of his decisions over the decades will be rejoicing in the streets i never met humphrey my local sam smith s pub the olde blue belle in preston see above was probably too out of the way for him to give any major attention to not even the cheapest pub on a street in rapid decline it s well out of the way for most people really whenever i went in the majority of the punters were freely ignoring mr smith s famous dictums on device usage and naughty words i kept schtum and my phone stayed in my pocket as someone who wasn t a regular i knew not to push my luck the belle has endured several periods of closure over the last decade and not all of them due to covid regular observers of the sam s scene over the years will know the drill one day things were normal and the next the front door was mysteriously shut with a notice taped to the window saying management couple required and a phone number printed below humphrey s own if rumours are to be believed this would persist for months until the next pair of suckers sorry young hopefuls came in to take over amazingly for preston the leaded windows remained unsmashed as if any potential vandal feared humphrey would charge down the road at them demand they repair the damage and the horror take over the pub themselves at the obb the latest new managers moved in just before christmas 2025 by all accounts they re doing ok what will happen now the humph regime is putatively over is anyone s guess it s presumed his son samuel will take over young sam has experience as he s run the london end of the pub estate for several years and apparently is reckoned to be more liberal on the draconian rules about mobile phones and swearing than old dad was but this is more likely due to the location after all it s one thing to lay down the law to a bunch of dishevelled locals in deprived northern towns but quite another to the overseas tourists who might wander into the olde cheshire cheese in holborn my prediction is that mr smith jr will keep things the way they are of course there is a twist on humphrey s legacy and one not too well known in the beer blog world who have narrow horizons about refurbs beer prices and megalomanical owners sam smith s owns the fitzroy tavern in soho and for many years from the early 1990s it was the main meeting place of the capital s doctor who fans and there in their dozens they would drink cheap lager and plot and plan for the day they would take over the show and make it in their image and yes the last three showrunners of doctor who russell t davies steven moffat and chris chibnall were regulars at the tav and sometimes there may even have been a woman there but sources vary as always so we can look at what humphrey smith achieved in his life the preservation of a pub estate the questionable employment practices the really cheap beer the ruination of a uk television franchise even would we all ever look back at our lives and think we d even done a tenth as much posted by lizard seer at 09 53 2 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels humph sam smith s sunday 21 june 2026 yesterday s gone i was browsing bluesky yesterday a probably futile activity i know my low engagement presence there doesn t garner anything like my former reputation on twitter did a decade ago mainly because i don t do many interactions if anything best describes bluesky it s the word beige the butterfly logo should really be replaced with that of a bowl of tapioca pudding i m not the only one to have noticed it seems that bluesky isn t you know as exciting for beer discourse as twitter was normally on bluesky such sentiments would engender rapid condemnation if not outright cancellation but not this time most said that yes despite the wholesale migration of beer twitter to bluesky about 18 months ago there is a lot less discussion than there used to be everyone is there but they re not saying much these days if you can remember the beer scene of 10 years ago everything seemed new and exciting new breweries and bars were popping up weekly especially in the places where there were large concentrations of young people out were the staid old locals dull beer and wetherspoons habituees and in were cloudy ipas street food and progressive events but like all things that were popular they eventually became unpopular as the trend seekers either grew past it or sought better remunerated activities elsewhere the world apparently can t be changed one pint at a time so as the old scene declines there is simply less to talk about craft beer is rarely discussed in the mainstream media any more unless some scandal or financial disaster happens the few remaining niche writers trundle about the remaining craft outlets picking up the last scraps of news and freebies all yours on patreon for 1 a month and the world as ever moves on perhaps one day the pendulum will swing back maybe in a decade when the next lot of 21 year olds come along and need something new to define themselves against the previous generation but the present the beer social scene has retreated back to niche it occupied 20 years ago it will never truly die completely but it won t be as visible as it was in 2018 maybe like doctor who it needs a bit of rest before a new group of people can make it relevant again posted by lizard seer at 05 15 3 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels beer blogs bluesky decline of beer twitter sunday 2 november 2025 uncertain times purple haze as befitting my approaching status as an official old man i remember the old days here in preston 2013 to be exact and it s longer ago than you think back then you would struggle to get a decent pint in the town yes it s still town to me perhaps the old black bull would have something reasonable on if you could get the attention of miserable old stan to serve you but apart from that it was either the spoons lottery at the grey friar or a 20 minute trek down fishergate hill to the continental so i used to go to lancaster which had a better offering on my trips to lancaster on the 40 41 bus i passed a place called the moorbrook and it was not in good shape owned by thwaites at the time said brewery preferred to invest in the now closed lamb packet and the now closed new welcome oh look i thought as my bus trundled up north road has the moorbrook fallen down yet around this time thwaites were seeing a limited future for town centre pubs and were flogging them off the moorbrook was deemed surplus to requirements and provisionally sold to a student housing company but and here s where the story really begins said company did not come up with the cash so thwaites passed it on to the second highest bidder who happened to be the mother of jeremy rowlands owner of the continental after a bit of basic refurb they installed erstwhile conti employee richard fisher godwin as manager if you ve ever been to the moorbrook you ll know its main problem as a pub is its location the sole survivor of a victorian terrace it s on the side of of a y junction surrounded by sketchy to cross roads and large retail units there s very little chance a bog standard pub with a bog standard drink selection would survive long there and indeed the vast majority of pubs in the area have closed down in the last 30 years luckily at this time the whole craft beer thing was taking off rich duly installed microbrewed cask ales on the pump and probably preston s first ever craft keg selection on the taps it duly opened in may 2014 to so much local publicity that even i went there for the opening preston s beer scene since has pretty much followed where the moorbrook led off the town has plenty of choice these days even the spoons upped its game the moorbrook however given said location has had to keep on offering more and more in an increasingly costly and crowded market pizzas a sheltered beer garden football away day trips food home deliveries constant menu innovations and even painting the frontage purple to stand out better whereas a town centre pub like the black horse can rely on passing trade the moorbrook has to be a destination i assume keeping all these balls in the air must get exhausting after a decade or so and a couple of days ago rich announced he was moving on from the moorbrook in january as such the future of the pub is up in the air while it s not likely to be targeted for the student housing market this time numerous blocks have been built in the area in the past few years finding someone with the required skillset to run such a pub will be a challenge they ll need someone with knowledge of drinks food management and promotional skills the moorbrook has an excellent reputation in the town and with the locals as a pub it s pleasingly non corporate but hasn t overdone the decor to the point of tweeness like is seen with a lot of independent free houses but you do wonder what might happen if someone with a different vision to richard fisher godwin takes over posted by lizard seer at 02 14 4 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest thursday 11 september 2025 you can t get there from here experiences was it ever going to end any other way one of the major bugbears of anyone travelling to a major event is why are they all in london it s a long way from me of course the rail network is specifically designed for no other reason than to get from anywhere to london quickly camra have found out why the big stuff happens in london in moving the great british beer festival to the nec in birmingham they turned a moderately unprofitable event into a six figure loss maker and based on the attendance figures it will likely be the last of its kind that sound you re hearing right now is the camra national executive tightening its belt the 320k shortfall at the gbbf has no doubt resulted in it being pulled a few more notches than otherwise intended at the start of this financial year the savings targets are what you d expect moving printed matter to digital and vague talk of being leaner streamlining and ending nice to haves if we re being honest here the financial climate in the uk has not been great for a long time so it s surprising camra hasn t seen this looming over the horizon for a while discretionary spending is down and prices in pubs have only been going up but camra s main enemy is simply the passing of time camra s membership despite the impression you d get from the literature and posters has skewed to the elderly for some considerable time i ve heard i m in the youngest 20 of members and i m 50 in three months there s always been churn as the older members well die off the problem in recent years is they re not being replaced the org s traditional recruitment method was to get people into beer festivals and sign them up to a direct debit a practice frowned upon by even the rapacious street fundraising companies but i ll let that slide for now but as beer fest numbers decline so do the potential new members average cask ale drinkers the young people by which i mean the under 40s camra want to attract rarely go to things like beer fests they have a reputation as being infested with middle aged drunken bigoted and sexist dinosaurs if the millennials drink at all it s either at home or quiet times where they can use their phones in a corner and as for camra s offer if you become one of the desperately needed active volunteers the activities offered are a combination of an oap s charabanc and a 70s trade union branch meeting as a result camra will likely be moribund within the next decade i did joke on x yesterday that maybe camra could make up the losses by sending membership forms to the uk s retirement homes and sheltered housing schemes but on consideration i think these are the only people who would seriously consider joining now posted by lizard seer at 00 54 8 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels beer festivals camra demographics friday 25 july 2025 every dog has its day i may as well admit it now brewdog and i have history this blog was making fun of them long before it was fashionable back in the day 12 years ago amazingly enough those plucky young upstarts from ellon were shaking up the craft brewing scene with stunts and other assorted attention grabbing publicity i d love to be able to say i saw straight through them from the very beginning but i just thought they were ridiculous and needed making fun of and the hipster posturing with over hopped beer and distressed typefaces was a trout in a teacup as far as targets went in 2013 the actual beer brewdog made at the time was still reasonably ok as far as i recall i ordered a few from the website navingating past the opportunity to become an equity punk of course and even visited their now soon to be closed bar in camden it was echoey and expensive but there was clearly a market for such things back then there was a formula behind it clearly but it seemed reasonably innocent and authentic 2017 was i think the point when questions started to be asked brewdog s founders james watt and martin dickie sold a large chunk of the company to private equity house tsg consumer partners at that point people began to wonder it brewdog was as punk as it claimed to be it seems laughable in retrospect really as watt and dickie were clearly on the same startup grow sell out path as all those other upstart businesses like innocent smoothies and teapigs the difference being was that craft beer is seen as a community and sellouts are seen as a betrayal it s likely that brewdog never came back from this ex fishing boat captain and friend yesterday a few years of misfired publicity a highly critical bbc documentary and the questionable antics of james watt himself later brewdog as a brewer and bar owner is barely mentioned now in what remains of the beer communication industry punk ipa is now a commodity product sold in wetherspoons and tesco the bars are much the same as they were in 2013 with their now dated menus and industrial design aesthetic james watt is virtually a pariah due to his many sins both serious and minor being one of many people using neurodiversity as an excuse for dubious behaviour and the company itself the ft has revealed that brewdog is loss making debt ridden and its shares virtually worthless is brewdog doomed hard to say they ve announced closures of 10 bars but service b...