Opinion
Topical articles and pieces from a personal point of view.
Lakes’ loss of community
Halewood Artisanal Ventures is to permanently close the Hawkshead Beer Hall and Taproom in the village of Staveley. Located on the Mill Yard industria...
Prepare to engage the enemy
There is a moment in the very wonderful film Star Trek: First Contact when Captain Picard picks up his phaser rifle and declares, with all the Shakesp...
Coming up for air
The arrival of Fuller’s Vintage Ale is a cause for celebration, the beer lovers’ equivalent of the latest Bordeaux wine from France. Vintage Ale is li...
Walking the hop walk
It’s no secret, I’m excited about British hops. Being invited to one of the Charles Faram hop walks to get up close and personal with the farms at har...
Other alcohol is available
Working as a sub editor at the Guardian around the time web stories started to become very popular – and the newspaper was losing £1m a week as print...
The Devil’s in the Draught Lines – review
We are still living in the shadow of the Covid pandemic and the lockdowns that followed. The sickness that gripped the country had a profound impact o...
Keep cask cool
Why does cask beer have a reputation for being warm and flat? I’m not talking about the feelings that exist among people like you and I, those in the...
Don't feel guilty – have a beer
Do you feel guilty supping a glass of beer? In all the years I have been writing on the subject, I have never known such a flood of one-sided and ofte...
Glass half full
How often do you think about glass sizes? Quite reasonably, it’s probably less often than I do. Yet in the blink of an eye, there has been quite the r...
The insanity of cask beer
At Timothy Taylor’s brewery, everything feels perfectly normal; full of life and as though the world is at peace. Soft summer light lends a warm glow...
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