I’ll never forget the first time I had a Velvet Hammer. The Anvil in Dallas, now sadly closed, was a Texas approximation of an “English-style” pub, which in practice meant dark wood interiors and an absence of the American kitsch that usually adorns the walls of dive bars on this side of the ocean. Before moving to the US in my mid-twenties, I thought beer was fine—a lubricant for hanging out and getting drunk, rather than a thing of pure beauty. But the US beer scene and the beer s...
