As beer drinkers, we live in heady times. London now has 80+ breweries and numerous exciting venues and events. Another sign of beerâs unstoppable rise is the number of independent bottle shops that the capital boasts, bestowing upon us the gift of drinking great beer from here, and across the world, at home. It
I was surprised to receive a package of beers from Staffordshireâs Freedom Brewery last month, with all bottles complete with new labels following a recent re-brand. The brewery sent me three bottles: Organic Helles, Authentic Lager and a new addition to its core range, East India Pale. Brewed with punchy US hops, and as I am an
I finally made it to The Hopsmiths last night, Late Knight Breweryâs north London outpost. It was very quiet, perhaps understandable as it was 4.30pm on a Wednesday afternoon. The beer selection was decent (I had Weird Beard Decadence Stout and Burning Sky Arise), and I also had a good blether
With a seemingly endless array of new venues, London is a beer drinkerâs paradise. However, as much as I love the diversity the capital has to offer, sometimes I yearn for a traditional pub. The Old Fountain in Old Street is such a pub. Surprisingly, in these days of Twitter and whatnot,
It was Friday afternoon on the weekend of Indy Man, and we stopped off at Brewdog for a post-walk beer. I didnât fancy anything from the Brewdog range and the guest taps had been cleared in advance of that eveningâs tap takeover, so I scanned the fridges until my gaze settled on a
Last year I sat in work and watched with envy as the assembled beer geeks at IndyManBeerCon held a (tap) takeover of my Twitter timeline. At times the tweets seemed to verge on hyperbole, but even so I resolved not to miss out the following year. So it was on the day they were released I
I was sent a copy of Stephen Beaumontâs new book The Beer & Food Companion last week, a timely tome given the growing popularity of pairing beer and food and indeed cooking with beer. The latterâs not a new concept (beef and stout stew, anyone?), but the rise of craft beer and its overlap
This subject as been bubbling away on the back-burner of my mind for some time now, and this blog post by Matthew Lawrence (@seethelizards on Twitter) brought it to the foreground. Matthewâs polemical post was written in response to this by Boak and Bailey, which was in turn written as a contribution to The Sessions, âan opportunity
I recently learned through a Facebook post that my former high-school friend, John, is a burgeoning beer geek, and has found an outlet for his hobby in the form of a new Edinburgh-based beer podcast he co-hosts with his friend Stuart. In contrast with the po-faced musings we often hear from beer
The false dichotomy that exists between CAMRA hard-liners and craft (keg) beer fanatics is a tawdry affair, and one that is easy to get sucked in to. In my case I try not to be dogmatic about packaging and dispense methods but, ever the hypocrite, I am positively evangelical when it comes to the cause
