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The Gauge and Grain

Field notes on brewfests, the beer poured there and the rail lines that get you to them

What is poured

Styles, strength and service: how to read a beer list, what cask and keg change, how tasting order works and what a brewery means by a fresh pour.

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A station buffet counter on a northern railway in the hour before a festival, enamel signal-green tiles, a chalkboard list of pours, a rack of clean half-pint glasses and a folded timetable, wet daylight through the window and no people.

AL-002What is poured

Cask or Keg: What Actually Changes in the Glass

What separates a cask-conditioned beer from a keg beer: how each one carbonates, how each one is pushed to the tap, and why a festival pours them differently.

A hop yard at mid-morning in late summer, tall bines climbing taut strings between weathered wooden poles, cones hanging in pale green clusters, low sun raking across the rows and a dirt track leading out of frame.

AL-001What is poured

How Brewing Farmland Gets Documented

A look at the crops behind a beer, from hop yards to barley fields, and at how photographs of farmland are read, credited and trusted.