The most important part first: bewing water

Theres a lot of talk about "gypsum" and "mineral rich" and what it does to the brewing water. Much of it is not exactly wrong per se, but very imprecise. The natural water in Burton is rich in calcium and VERY rich in sulfate (SO_4) but low on sodium. The ratio of sulfate:sodium is responsible for the perception of hops flavour and bitterness.

BUT: "a lot of the lager brewed here makes greedy use of Burton’s gorgeous natural mineral-rich water"

This is plain bullshit. This kind of water is absolutely unsuitable for lager beer, that's why the local beer style is a pale ale.

The thing is: the by far biggest brewery in town (Molson Coors) demineralizes the brewing water and re-adds a mineral mix for different beer styles. This is also the brewery that makes tons of mass market lager beer there. (this is not uncommon in modern breweries, e.g. Flensburger in germany is publicly know to do the same while most german breweries use well water as-is. This is one of the reasons for the differences in beer styles. The german beer market has very little presence of international brands and customers are very sensitive when it comes to brands trying to close actual breweries just putting their badge on beer brewed by another brewery... exactly the type of thing that happened to Brass and other traditional Burton brands)

also: "Sure, the town is now made up of megacorporate monster-breweries pumping out half of the world’s lager"

This is again very imprecise. There is one "megacorporate monster brewery" in Burton - Molson Coors. That brewery is big but not remarkably so, comparable in size to e.g. the Krombacher Brewery in germany. And there are dozens of breweries of that size in Europe alone.

(source: I'm a hobby brewer and also interested in brewing culture and tech)

I recently learnt that a "cooper" is someone that makes wooden casks or barrels.

"The best pint in England" is the title.

Old boards with new lords?

Splintered floors? Gaps in doors?

Pay no mind – a fee will do!

Abundance for all, or at least these two.

Feudalism!