More Than Half A Page Of Scribbled Lines

"These are our salad days..." sang Tony Hadley on Spandau Ballet's 1983 hit 'Gold'. I've just checked out the rest of the lyrics and to be honest I haven't got the foggiest what they were going on about but I'm pretty sure he wasn't talking about the beer scene in London 35 years into the future. Because for those of us who enjoy their drink these truly are 'salad days'. The range in styles, strengths, flavours, countries of origin etc has never been as amazing as it is now and it was with this in mind I recently set off for East London. Although for this particular outing I was on a quest for dark beer. There was a time not too long since when the only dark beer that you ever saw in the pub, certainly in the South of England, was Guinness. Now hideously overpriced and over marketed to the point of destruction, it seems like Guinness are fighting a losing battle,even to the point of  seemingly giving in and bringing out their own versions