Much has been written about Terry Jones as a member of the Monty Python team but I thought that we ought to also acknowledge his interest in real ale. He was a co-founder in 1977 of one of the first microbreweries, Penrhos Court (Herefordshire) with the legendary Peter Austin and Richard Boston, the Guardian journalist famous for his book Beer & Skittles. It was sadly short lived but it served to inspire others.
That year he presided at the opening of the Great British Beer festival at Alexandra Palace during which he poured several pints of beer over his head. Andy Pirson, of Idle Moments fame, was there and recalls, “I still remember him opening the Great British Beer Festival at Ally Pally. He demonstrated a different way of judging a beer’s quality by pouring some over his head and feeling how it affected the texture of his hair. Nobody joined him in trying the procedure though – funny that! This demonstration was put on behind the stillage for beer festival workers (and not many of us at that), after he had performed the official opening for the TV cameras.”
Terry later contributed an article to the 30th edition of CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide. It was titled My Love Affair with Beer and included this profound thought, ‘Beer, for me, is more than something I like drinking. It’s a litmus of civilisation. If the society is making good beer, then it’s a healthy society.’