Opinion
Topical articles and pieces from a personal point of view.
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...
Community pubs – a beacon of light in the gloom
The last few days have thrown up a tumult of events to rock the UK’s brewing scene: the sad passing of Des de Moor one of the best beer writers in the...
Cornish beer from Burton?
The global brewers have set out their priorities – to promote their lager brands at the expense of cask beer. As reported in What’s Brewing, Molson Co...
Why beer beats coffee for social cohesion
There’s a coffee shop near me that’s a relic of a time before improved transport links made this part of South-East London unaffordable for most poten...
Pub snack perfection
So, I was sat recently in my local with a good pint and a packet of a popular, crunchy, bacon-flavoured snack, which by the way is suitable for vegeta...
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