It is a rare day that I do not feel that I am a little too negative. I should, frankly, find more reason to cheer up when thinking about beer. So, it was with some pleasure that I read others being crankier than me or at least turning a critical eye on good beer events and news:

• Pete Brown is the most fun, giving us a tweet by tweet update on the progress of HRH Princess Ann making her way through the opening of the National Brewery Centre at Burton including: "I just got a hard stare from one of HRH's security men. I think the curly wire ear piece allows him instant access to my tweets." Good fun - though the handful of beer nerds Royalists may take offense.
• More seriously, Andy Crouch has inspired a mass of comments at his thoughtful and critical observation of this year's Great American Beer Festival. Not sure if this means that Mr. P, a host behind the GABF, is recommending a "see no evil, hear no evil, read no evil" response to critical discussion. Sad if it were true as no one benefits an imperial approach to the topic.
• Most serious of all, I think, are Lew Bryson's objections to the trend of mistaking the skill of a craft brewer to make a claim to a new style of beer for the skill of a craft brewer in making good beer. As I commented there, I think the fault for this is somewhere between avarice and bad business modelling. I am tired of boring, clumsy, overpriced, unearned 750 ml corked bottles of confusion of or from the self-proclaimed next big thing. Why so many?

I was feeling so happy, even if unkindly, until I stacked these thing beside each other today and started wondering what was wrong. It is true. It is bad enough dealing with just one Royal or even an imperial attitude but to have a market skewing so oddly in favour of false expense and alleged expertise, well, it does get your head scratching skills going. It is not good enough to hear that it is no skin off your nose when you know there is a skinning of the wallet.