Now that is what I call Salient material!

Salient columns aplenty today, with the first being on my favorite guilty beer secret, bus stop beers!

The big 500ml cans of very strong lager are sometimes dubbed “bus stop beers” because that is where they are frequently and usually furtively quaffed. Often concealed within the least effective form of surreptitious drinking camouflage (a brown paper bag has never fooled anyone), these super-lagers have a lower-class to no-class reputation even in their spiritual home of inner city England.

Then a radical shift in direction to Low-Carb beer:

A student drinking a light beer makes a bold statement. That statement is generally either, “I’m the designated driver, can we go already?” or “I don’t really like the taste of beer but I do enjoy going to the bathroom a lot!”

Uniquely, light beer has a poor reputation with both students and beer anoraks. The student body tends to deride it for its lack of alcoholic content while the anoraks lament the general absence of taste.

Finally, a column about proper beers - Pale Ales!

The quest for proper context was my excuse at least for eating gourmet hot dogs and watching the opening match of the NFL while sampling the first bottle of Emerson’s American Pale Ale (6 per cent). The star-spangled label would outrage Nick Kelly and Keith Locke - always a huge bonus. It pours a deep burnished gold which would not be out of place in Fort Knox.

This is a big, strong and independent beer with plenty of rich orange and grapefruit notes – like snogging a Californian fruit salad - before a unilaterally firm finish. The day this beer is released each September should be a public holiday. No one would really miss Labour Day.