From the Source

 Home-beer buying has come a long way over the 40 years I've been doing it (oof, that's a long time...).

Quality has always been part of it since my first introduction to the stuff.  So there's never been John Smiths Smooth, or Ruddles County.

But availability was always a bit of thing since the right place to drink beer is a pub, and the right dispense-method is cask.  Now, obviously, that's no longer true - at least for me, but it has to be said cask is usually my chosen first beer, if there's a good one on hand.

We used to get weekend 4-pint fills from the Brown Jug in the Chessels (Bedminster) and a polypin at Christmas.

When they closed it might be a couple of bottles of Sam Smiths Old Brewery Bitter from the independent off license around the corner but there was rarely anything interesting in the local supermarket.

Then we started getting home-delivered groceries (driving to a supermarket has never really been a thing in my life) there were a few half-decent bottles (Waggledance, London Pride, 6X..) but even then beer for home consumption didn't really feature in a major way.

When we moved to the place 5 mins walk from Bath Ales' first pub (Hare on the Hill) - beer was mainly drunk in there with the odd 4-pint takeout and (yes) polypins at Christmas.

When the BBB arrived in my life beer availability had improved so grocery deliveries might contain a few bottles from a good brewery (not usually local, though) but Bristol Beer Factory arrived around the same time (along with Arbor and Moor).

No 4 pint takeouts then, but still the occasional polypin to take on holiday or whatever. Getting the beer from BBF was a bit of labour of Hercules since they were always really keen, and very pleased to see you but no matter what you'd ordered, or how much notice you'd given them - it wouldn't be ready and there was a confused scrabble (did you want it bright or with bottoms...I'll just fill one now for you...)

When we moved to Eastbourne we would get the occasional beer subscription box which were very much a mixed bag, to be honest.  Supermarket deliveries were better, with a wider range but it wasn't really the same. Then came the pandemic.

Looking online to buy beer was time-consuming and often didn't yield satisfactory results.

Thankfully there were enough off-the-shelf e-commerce platforms to ensure that even the least digitally confident brewery could get something going and by the end of the lockdowns we were buying beer directly from the brewery from almost all the Bristol breweries.

It's now standard for me to order a case or two of a mix of cans from any brewery I come across and beer is almost always in the fridge.  We travelled back from Bristol to Eastbourne yesterday (again slightly earlier to dodge the worst of the next heatwave) but before I left I'd ordered a couple of cases from Arbor (permanent fixture on the bar in the fridge) and one from Burning Sky - this latter because I want some more "Bubble" before it all goes.  I also included their delicious cherry/raspberry gueze/farmhouse beer because, again, it may not happen again and it would be a crime to miss it.

The best place to drink beer is still a pint of crisp, fresh cask in a good pub but really good beer from a can, bought from a brewery we know and trust gets a lot closer than it used to.