Opinion
Topical articles and pieces from a personal point of view.
Perry’s act of rebellion
After reports of “perry is dead”, a rebellion rose from the ranks of makers and enthusiasts alike. A campaign led by the Three Counties Cider and Perr...
Hop into spring
I came across an interesting website quite by chance the other day. Run by homebrewer and software engineer, Christian Scheb, Beer Analytics provides...
Chinese beer duck
The one thing I want to do when writing this column is show beer’s virtuosity as an ingredient in cooking. When doing this I endeavour to use a beer t...
Did BrewDog put cask beer back a decade?
It genuinely does feel like cask beer is having its moment on the bar. Bass, Boddington’s, Landlord, it feels like they’re everywhere. Dare I say it,...
Artisan cider makers must rise to challenge of cheap supermarket rivals
I grew up in the North. Cider wasn’t something I rejoiced in during that time. Plastic bottles of carbonated, from-concentrate, fermented apple drinks...
Beauty and the yeast
The levelling up of brewing science is a constant source of fascination for me. I talked about hop extracts in this column last year. Before that, I w...
Beware of fake news about pubs
You may have seen the headline screaming “Government tells pubs to serve warm beer” to counter rising energy costs. This, of course, looks like anothe...
No room for complacency
“There’s no room for complacency” – they were the wise words of CAMRA’s national chairman Joe Goodwin when he addressed annual meetings in the 1970s....
Threat to life and limb
Many of you will have heard of the London Beer Flood of 1814. At least eight people were killed by a veritable tsunami of beer that was released onto...
Manchester’s better
The Hare and Hounds serves two beers on cask: Ossett White Rat and Holt’s Bitter. The latter – brewed less than a mile away at the Joseph Holt brewery...
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