News, nuggets and longreads 11 July 2026: Bee Speaker

Every Saturday we round up the best writing about beer from the past week. This time, we’ve got Dortmunder, Helles and Obatzda. First, some rather surprising news: the 1984 murder of a real ale enthusiast has been solved and two men have been convicted of the crime. We first learned about the murder of Anthony Littler when we were researching our book Brew Britannia c.2013. He was a member of The Society for the Preservation of Beers From the Wood (SPBW) and was killed in East Finchley, North London, on his way back from a meeting of the group. Brothers Michael and Anthony Stewart, who were 15 and 18 at the time of the murder, were finally caught, 40+ years later, after a police undercover operation, and were sentenced at the Old Bailey on Friday. If you want to go to Munich and drink nothing but Augustiner beer – honestly, that’s not such a bad plan – then Franz D. Hofer has you covered with his guide to Augustiner outlets, from gardens to pubs, and from brewery-owned to…