News, nuggets and longreads 26 September 2026: Toast of London

Every Saturday we round up the best writing about beer from the past week. This time, we’ve got difficult dads, hilltop beer gardens and sea buckthorn. First, some interesting commentary on some not particularly interesting news. A couple of weeks ago, Timothy Taylor rebranded, as described by Laura Hadland for CAMRA’s What’s Brewing website: “The Keighley brewer has replaced its pumpclip illustrations of white men in the role of landlord, boltmaker etc with… slightly different illustrations of white men in the role of landlord, boltmaker etc.”. As she explains, this prompted a round of culture war grumbling about how the new illustrations are somehow more “woke” than the time-honoured classic illustrations from, er, about 15 years ago. She also points out that the furore over the redesign has rather overshadowed some perhaps more significant news: In the run up to Cask Ale Week, Timothy Taylor’s has announced a £9m investment into its brewery over the next five years and an injection…