Punters like good beer shock

Pubs in decline, beer yesterday's drink and the whole country off to hell in a themed handcart serving only WKD? Only up to a point. The new issue of CAMRA's redoubtable Good Beer Guide, published yesterday, brings the excellent news that there are now more breweries in Britain than at any time since the Second World War, with no fewer than 71 opening in the last year alone.

Yes, pubs are closing at a formidable rate and beer sales in general are down but, it seems, real-ale sales are going the other way, and some pubs facing oblivion are finding that they can pull themselves back to health with the radical innovation of offering good beer.

Could it be that the crisis in publand is less a catastrophe and more a beneficial shake-out? Too early to tell, no doubt, but either way, if real ale is selling and small breweries are spreading like rabbits across the country, something's going right with the world.

More of those cheerful details here.

Local heroics

The Old Crown in Hesket Newmarket in the Lake District is earning itself a name for more than being an excellent pub with a fine little brewery out the back. It's also been the site of a small revolution that could have a big impact on publand, with the locals buying the establishment rather than seeing it close. It's one small blow by a local community against the big machines of the market, and it's unlikely to be the last. Best of all, the new arrangement is working very well indeed. Read about it here.

Brewed out the back

Running a pub is tricky. Brewing beer is tricky. Doing both is downright heroic. But when it works, as at the Plough on top of the Surrey Hills, it's a sheer delight.

Is it really good for you?

It's 250 years this year since Arthur Guinness opened the brewery in Dublin that turned into the biggest name in beer. No other beer attracts so much myth and no other has been as superbly marketed, decade after decade. Here's my feature from the Times looking at how Guinness took over the world, and finding out if there's any truth whatsoever in any of those stories.