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How I nearly found a brewery on my doorstep
I believe strongly in the old cliché about what to do if life hands you a ton of lemons: set to and make the very best lemonade you can. So when I wound up working in Hong Kong, I thought the worthiest...
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Doing my bit for the Surrey hop-growing industry
I’ve been invited on plenty of brewery visits over the years, but never before has the invite come with the request: “Please bring wellies and a spade.” This, however, was a field trip in a...
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How I helped design a new lager at the White Horse
Václav Berka, senior trade brewmaster, explains the secrets of brewing Pilsner Urquell in the upper room at the White Horse, Parsons Green I’ve taken part in many beer-related events in the upstairs...
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You won’t believe this one weird trick they used to fly beer to the D-Day...
Normandy, 70 years ago, and one of the biggest concerns of the British troops who have made it over the channel, survived the landings and pushed out into the bocage against bitter German resistance is...
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Is Ireland ready for a 12-handpump Wetherspoon’s?
The two Irish beer fans lowered their voices and spoke almost in awe. They had been looking through the windows of the new JD Wetherspoon pub tin the upmarket Dublin suburb of Blackrock, due to open...
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Going places the civilians don’t
I’ll be frank: one of the good reasons for becoming a beer blogger is the opportunity it gives to go places, meet people, do things that you wouldn’t otherwise get to do. (Free beer too? Well, there is...
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Second thoughts on the mysterious origins of AK
There are times when the honest historian has to put his hand up and say: forgive me, for I was wrong. Prompted by a sharp dig from Ron Pattinson, I’ve finally withdrawn a piece I wrote six years ago...
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Don’t tell London’s second-oldest brewery it’s London’s second-oldest brewery
If you point out to the chaps at Meantime Brewing Company that theirs is now the second-oldest independent brewery operation in London, they won’t be thanking you. Venerability is not something that...
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It’s not your father’s beer can – but is it yours?
Considering it was (little-known fact alert) a European brewery that first produced canned beer, in 1933, in Lorraine, France (the Americans only followed two years later) we Europeans have been...
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The 40pc leap in capacity at the Doom Bar brewery and the 2014/5 Cask Report
One of the items of news that may have shot by you recently is that Molson Coors is pumping enough money into the Cornish economy to boost capacity at Sharp’s brewery to a potential 350,000 barrels a...
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Remembering the victims of the Great London Beer Flood, 200 years ago today
Wherever you are at 5.30pm this evening, please stop a moment and raise a thought – a glass, too, if you have one, preferably of porter – to Hannah Banfield, aged four years and four months; Eleanor...
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Siren’s blast
Back in August last year, after encountering Siren Craft Brew’s American IPA at the London Craft Beer Festival, I promised: “I shall definitely be drinking more Siren.” I’ve now drunk the brewery’s...
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Place-based beers and 13-year-old Special Brew
I have a new “magic beer moment” to savour: drinking 13-year-old Carlsberg Special Brew in the cellars of the Jacobsen brewery in Copenhagen. If you’re in Copenhagen you do, really, have to go and pay...
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Place-based beer, a world-wide local movement
I gave a presentation in Denmark to a conference called to discuss “Ny Nordisk Øl” – “New Nordic Beer” – on “Beer and terroir from an international perspective” on Friday November 7. This, slightly...
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Young’s pubs sell a million pints of craft beer in six months
Craft beer taps at the Narrow Boat in Islington, a Young’s pub One fascinating statistic popped up when I was talking to Stephen Goodyear, chief executive of Young’s, this week for the day job: Young’s...
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I have found a beer women will like – and, ironically, it’s pink
Oh, irony. It’s only a very short time since I mocked Nick Fell, marketing director at SABMiller, for sharing with us, in a presentation about getting more women to drink beer, the “duh, really?”...
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Two traditional breweries: a photo-essay
Compared to, say, Roger Putman, recently retired editor of Brewer & Distiller International magazine, who has visited more than 170 different breweries in his career, I’ve really not been to that...
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Why Rooney Anand is talking rubbish on minimum alcohol pricing
I was disappointed and angry to see Rooney Anand, chief executive of Greene King, calling in the Daily Telegraph last week for minimum unit pricing for alcohol. Disappointed because the arguments for...
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Why Greene King doesn’t care that the haters hate its IPA
Hard luck, haters: Greene King knows you don’t like its IPA, you think it’s too bland, “not a real IPA” at 3.6% abv, and it doesn’t care at all. Not the tiniest drop. In fact it’s probably quite...
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How I got Mikkeller to call me a bastard
What sort of bastard goes along to a book launch just to point out to the author the mistakes he’s made? Errrr … Me. OK, it was done in what I’d like to insist, really, was a semi-joking way, and in a...
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