I recently learned through a Facebook post that my former high-school friend, John, is a burgeoning beer geek, and has found an outlet for his hobby in the form of a new Edinburgh-based beer podcast he co-hosts with his friend Stuart. In contrast with the po-faced musings we often hear from beer geeks – myself included – Be3rcast is refreshingly unpretentious and disarmingly honest, epitomised in its tagline of “2 guys, 3 beers, 0 clue”. John and Stuart don’t claim to be beer experts, and part of the fun of the show is following them on their beery voyage of discovery. They met through work and quickly found they had a shared passion for beer and, after several convivial nights down the pub, John suggested they start a podcast. The format is simple: for each episode they taste three beers, discuss them and give them a score out of ten. They often go off on a tangent too, such as in episode 5, round 4, the opening 15 minutes of which is dedicated to the work of Stephen King followed by a wider discussion on the horror genre. Some may struggle with this free-wheeling approach, and if you’re unfamiliar with the Glasgow (John) accent or Scottish colloquialisms the humour may be lost on you (to be fair to Stuart, while he was born in Glasgow, he was raised in the highlands and has the concomitant clarity of speech. I’m not saying John sounds plebeian or uncouth, but he does).
Being based north of the border, Scottish breweries are well represented, and as someone unashamedly ensconced in the London beer bubble, it’s been a good way for me to keep tabs on the developing beer scene in my homeland. In spite of my derogatory comments above, I feel John and I have reforged our friendship over our shared passion for beer, and having agreed to collaborate, a few weeks ago I sent he and Stuart a series of questions which they answer over the course of episode 5, rounds 1-4. I recommend you give Be3rcast a listen for any number of reasons, be it keeping abreast of developments in the craft beer scene in Scotland and beyond, discovering new breweries that hail from the cold north or simply to enjoy the infectious humour of two mates relentlessly slagging each other off over a beer or three.