Unsolicited advertising

Picked up a some new beers today and I've just enjoyed one of them with my supper. They are output of a local company called St Peter's Brewery. The three I got are a Golden Ale (4.7%), an Organic Ale (4.5) and a Best Bitter (3.7). The bitter, which is the one I've tried, isn't as substantial as I'd expected but has interesting notes and reminds me of something I haven't yet put my finger on. The retail price is highly competitive, this is a local brewery which almost but not entirely is grounds enough to buy the product. I like the fact that they're not scared to shift down the alcohol content rather than weigh in on a par with some of the more familiar ales.

Finally the stuff comes in gorgeous bottles. The only shame is that they can't be returned. I think the brewery should be supplying the store selling the stuff with a crate and providing some kind of incentive to consumers to return the bottles. I hate to think of them going into the district recycling scheme where they'll be pulverised. Or even worse, going to land fill courtesy of indolent householders who can't be arsed to separate their waste.

When I was a kid pensioners going around the MCG after a big match with sacks for all the cans was a very familiar sight. When I was very young you could still take some containers back for a few cents a piece.

Then we all went to plastic and tetrapak. A long time later the milk people reintroduced milk in glass bottes. Not those dated pint bottles with the foil top birds could peck through but elegant bottles with metal screw tops. Retail milk is never better than out of glass, and moreover when kept in an air-tight container so that the milk isn't tainted however slightly by whatever else you've got in the fridge.

Within weeks of the glass bottle's reintroduction the supermarket I shopped at would be cleared out before mid-morning of the glass bottle variety, leaving slugs to slope out with their foul tetrapak version.

Ok this turned out to be as much of a rant as a pat on the back. Sorry. The bitter's got to me, I guess.