One of the challenges I’m going to have to tackle at some point is the fact that, in the years since The Book was originally written, a handful of the beers on the list have been discontinued and simply do not exist any more.

I haven’t rigorously researched every beer, but it does seem only to be a few. So far I’ve identified the following beers as discontinued, and have where possible confirmed with the relevant breweries that there are no plans to revive them:

• Black Sheep Emmerdale Ale
• Castle Rock Nottingham Gold
• Castlemaine Carbine Stout
• Gale’s Prize Old Ale
• Hogs Back BSA
• Ridley’s Witchfinder Porter

There may be others, and I’ll add them to the list if that proves to be the case.

So what to do about it. Well, I don’t want to rename the blog “Two Hundred and Ninety-four Beers”. Not just because it’s a bit of a mouthful either.

Instead, what I propose to do is swap in substitute beers of my own choosing. I’ll try to make them interesting, and broadly in the same style as the beers they replace. It’ll be a nice excuse to talk about beers that excite me, and perhaps cover some of the fantastic developments that have happened in the beer world since the book was written.

I’ll only do that where there’s clearly no hope. For example, I remain fairly confident that people out there will have bottles of Gale’s Prize Old Ale cellared away. If you do, and you want me to say nice things about you on the internet, do get in touch.

I also won’t substitute a beer just because it seems “a bit hard to find”. That defeats the object entirely.

So hopefully that seems like a reasonable approach. Comments on the matter are of course most welcome.