We know that strictly speaking 'Betwixtmas' is the name now given to the time 'betwixt' Christmas & New Year, but we just like using it!

Now, assuming you've all been good boys & girls throughout the year? - here's what wonderful festive beery goodies we have lined up for you.

* Last Orders At The Bar Humbug! Lark Lane - our last farmers' market of 2006, Saturday (9am-2pm).

* New Farmers' Markets - Wirral - Heswall & Neston.

* Birkenhead's 'Celebrate Christmas' event - Wet, But Not Miserable!

* Old Beers for News - past their best-before date, by 130 years.

* Beer - A Health Food? (maybe not quite, but not as bad as you might think!)

* Betwixt - End of Year Round-up.
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* Last Orders Before Christmas - Our Last Market of The Year
- Lark Lane - This Saturday 23rd December (9am-2pm).

Stock up on last minute gifts, food and drink. We will have our 'Sunlight' plus a 6% 'winter warmer' guest beer from our chums in Cheshire, both available in our swanky swing-top bottles - perfect for presents.

We will also have a handful of our 9-pint minicasks of Sunlight, so give us a call & we'll put your name on one! (Tel - 07792967414).

If you can't make it to Lark Lane, but still need some fresh local beer, remember we also deliver - orders over 10 litres, in the Wirral/Liverpool area, prices from £30, see our beer sales page for more details (delivering up until 24th Dec & then betwixt Christmas & New Year’s Eve).

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*New Farmers' Markets - Wirral - Heswall & Neston.

We decided to try out a relatively new market near Heswall a couple of weekends ago. It's held every week at the Newhall Garden Centre (on the A540 / Chester High Road) & it turned out to be a very exciting experience - as much of the roof of the permanent greenhouse blew away in the gales coming up off the River Dee!

Aside from this upset, this is an interesting small market which is still finding its feet, but hopefully heading in the right direction. The organisers have yet to find a local veg grower to attend or even simply to supply them, so they are currently selling 'bought in' produce (if the boxes are to be believed, this includes Dutch tomatoes & Costa Rican bananas!).

The rest of the range of producers seems to be more authentic & local, including fine Lancashire cheese from Butlers - including an excellent 'Tasty' Lancs & an interesting new blue goats' cheese (also appearing at M&S, but cheaper at the market!). The rest of the produce includes fresh local soups, bread, biscuits, pastries, pies, plus a local florists & a quality local butcher (though not a farmer, he does stock local meat).

After watching Hugh Fearlessly-Eats-It-All enjoying wild teal for his tea on TV recently, we bought a couple at Newhall & they were delicious.

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Last weekend, we attended the first of a regular monthly market to be held in
Neston (South Wirral) at the Town Hall car park. The market had a good mix of producers, especially on the meat side, plus lots of parking nearby, and again, a friendly place to be. Come and check it out - 3rd Saturday of the month.

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* Birkenhead's 'Celebrate Christmas' event - Soggy But Good!

After 12 hours in Friday's cold and rain at Birkenhead's first 'Christmas Celebrate' event, you might think that we'd not be in a rush to come back! However, we did actually have fun. We hope that the organisers might make this an annual event as it was a good family-friendly event & well-attended, despite the weather. The musical aspects, including brass band, children's carol concert & samba percussion especially added to the day.

The pies from Keswick's Pie Mill were excellent (www.piemill.com) likewise, homemade cakes & Christmas puds from Wirral's own "Mary's Cakes" seemed to be selling like the proverbial hot cakes. (Mary has now returned to the superb Wirral Farmers' Market, New Ferry, every 2nd Saturday of the month).

We would perhaps prefer the event to have had more of a local/regional focus in terms of food, drink & other craft products. Some of the large Continental stalls seemed a bit faceless, with staff who didn't know much about what they were selling, which may or may not have been authentic and quality produce. Gripes aside, a good event, though we need an order for better weather next year! Big thanks to our friend Sally, for stepping into the breach and doing a top job on the stall on Saturday (while I covered the new Neston market).

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* Beer - A Health Food?

Well no, not really a health food, but following on from our piece about the Czech brewing scientists producing a beer to help women through the menopause, we happened upon an edited version of a lecture I attended a few years ago.

Dr Caroline Walker is a scientist at Brewing Research International (Nutfield, Surrey). Dr Walker talks about beer’s poor reputation, which she argues is largely unfounded. Beer, in moderation, she says has no real health worries, and may even have some benefits. Beer naturally has no fat, no cholesterol and less calories than many other drinks - from semi-skimmed milk to alcopops.

Dr Walker argues that the famous ‘beer belly’ is more likely to be caused by lack of exercise and poor diet, than by beer itself.

Beer also has some positive health benefits - as a cereal-based drink it naturally has vitamins, minerals and fibre - and these are more readily available to the body, as beer supplies them in soluble form.

Folate (a.k.a. Folic Acid / Vitamin B9) is thought to help prevent heart disease and cancer – it too occurs naturally in beer (from both yeast & barley) though much more remains if the beer is served unfiltered, as in cask beer or our Betwixt bottled beers.

The good doctor goes on to suggest that perhaps beer’s most significant health impact may be in its silicon content. Every year osteoporosis (poor bone density) is linked to about 200,000 bone fractures. Beer contains soluble silicon (Silicic Acid) which again is of more use to the body in its soluble form (3 - 4 times better than in solid form, e.g. bread).

For more information download the pdf direct at- www.brewingresearch.co.uk (Adobe Acrobat required)
Or for my notes taken from DrW’s 2002 lecture see - http://tinyurl.com/y4odyp

Obviously, alcohol abuse is also associated with the problems of binge drinking, addiction, other health risks and anti-social behaviour, but we feel that a reasoned debate about the subject is necessary to come to an understanding of the place it has in society. Let us know what you think.

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* Old Beers in News

Thanks to our friend & webmaster, John for the interesting news about some very old bottles of beer (from The Telegraph). The beer, up to 137 years old, was discovered in the cellars of the Worthington White Shield Brewery, Burton On Trent – Burton is considered the cornerstone of England’s brewing history. The vagaries of the ‘big brewing world’ means you may know this brewery as the former Bass Museum Brewery, but since the Bass company became part of a Belgian-Brazilian conglomerate (who also make Stella Artois in Lancashire & South Wales!) while the brewery itself was sold to the US Coors brewing group, it can be hard to keep up!

The article goes on to say that Head Brewer, Steve Wellington discovered the 250 bottles in the brewery vaults, but had not expected the oldest beers to be drinkable, let alone enjoyable. Publican Mark Dorber of The White Horse (Parsons Green, London) said “Established wisdom would say beers this old should taste of vinegar, damp rags and Marmite. Instead, many show flavours of raisins and sultanas, baked apple and honey. The oldest is bright and luminous like an ancient Amontillado sherry and has a meaty character like smoked partridge with hints of molasses. It's amazing it tastes this good after 137 years." (The White Horse is a great SouthWest London pub, famous for its beer and food, where I briefly worked, whilst ‘betwixt’ brewing assignments, a few years back). For the full article see - www.telegraph.co.uk

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Betwixt Then & Now.

A big thanks to all of you for your custom, support and interest in our still-fledgling beery firm. Our growth has been in fits and starts & sometimes seems to be one step forwards, followed by two back.

Over the year, with more beers, increased sales in pubs, markets and beer-fests, more successful markets, awards for our beers and customer service, plus good mention in the local press and radio, we do seem to be heading in the right direction. Thanks again for your support.

See you at a pub or market soon - best beery wishes for Christmas & the year ahead,

As always - comments, questions, recipe ideas, beer & food matches, etc are all very welcome.

Cheers!
Mike McGuigan,

Betwixt Beer Co.
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As always - any comments, questions, tips, recipes, or anything else, do drop us a line - brewer@betwixtbeer.co.uk or tel. 07792967414.