Opinion
Topical articles and pieces from a personal point of view.
A healthy respect for beer
What is it about the British that we treat beer, our national drink, with such lack of respect? I spent several days in Belgium last month on a work a...
Review: Desi Pubs – good for beer, food and society
Can a book about pubs be heart-warming? It can, as Desi Pubs is about more – far more – than beer. It’s about multiculturalism and tackling racism as...
Is Keykeg the way to open up the world of real cider and perry?
I recently spent a weekend at FyneFest, the annual festival run by lauded Scottish brewery Fyne Ales. The event has been running since 2010 and, since...
Welsh rarebit with Manchester Brown Ale
Imagine if you will that you are a landed Edwardian and you are close to finishing your 10-course dinner. The hors d’ouevres, soup, fish, roasted join...
Hop on board the sustainability train
I recently sipped a new release pale ale from Bristol’s Wiper and True. Upside Down (5 per cent ABV) positively explodes with tropical and stone fruit...
Stranger things have happened
The buzz word on Beer Street is collab. It’s short for collaboration and means a beer produced by two or more breweries that share malts, hops and yea...
Use it or lose it
The news of pub and brewery closures continues apace this year. Independents and freeholds that were battered by lockdown and then a wave of price inc...
Beer-battered monkfish bites with coriander chutney
Spring is in the air and soon more and more of us will be making trips to the seaside. While I don’t do deck chairs or donkeys anymore, I am still par...
Hasta la vista heritage
The American writer Mark Twain famously observed when a newspaper published his obituary “reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated” and real...
Ladies in the lounge, gentlemen at the bar
Having moved to Shropshire recently, one of my new locals is the Loggerheads in Shrewsbury. A quirky, historic and reputedly haunted (aren’t they all?...
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