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Friday, 4 July 2025

What am I up to?

A Barclay Perkins Export Imperial Stout label.
Thought I'd give you an update on my current activities. Not sure of how much interest it is. But I'm going to tell you anyway.

My current long-term project is the book "Free!". Which is a history of UK beer 1880-1914. Another part of my long-long-term series covering UK brewing  1700 to 1973. These are the volumes I've published so far:

Armistice! 1914-1918
Peace! 1919-1939
Blitzkrieg! 1939-1945
Austerity! 1946-1969
Keg! 1970-1980!

I've covered most of the 20th century. With "Free!" I'll have pretty much finished it off. Plus a bit of the 19th century.

1880 to 1914 is probably my favourite period of UK brewing. When the beers were still full strength and there were plenty of different styles. My idea of heaven.

The first section, which covers general brewing statistics, brewing materials, brewing equipment, tax and licensing, is pretty much complete. The second section, which is about beer styles, is way more incomplete. All I've completed is most of Mild Ale and a bit of Pale Ale.

I've been putting quite a bit of effort into the third section, which consists of home-brew recipes. And it's coming along pretty well. With 318 recipes, I'm about two-thirds done. 

With a good tail wind, I might have "Free!" finished by the end of the year.

All my travelling is plumping out a couple of travel books quite nicely. Which I will probably publish later in the year. Not that I'm likely to sell any of those. 

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