If you’re resident in the US or Canada and you’ve thought about buying a copy of my new book Amber Gold and Black, the British beer styles bible, but you’ve been put off by the cost of shipping it from the UK, good news – my publisher tells me the book will be available in… Read More Amber Gold and Black on sale in North America
What did Pliny the Elder actually say about hops? Not what you’ve been told, probably – and quite possibly he said nothing about hops at all. Thanks to the chaps at the Russian River brewery in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, California, who named their extremely hoppy, strong “double IPA” after him, the Roman author, lawyer… Read More So what DID Pliny the Elder say about hops?
It’s now less than one month to go to the official publication of Amber, Gold and Black, The History of Britain’s Great Beers, the first book devoted solely to the development of beer styles in Britain, from bitter to porter, covering every aspect of their history, what they were when they started , how they… Read More Order the definitive book on British beer styles now
I was lucky, I think, in having my first pint of Bengal Lancer IPA, Fuller’s latest offering, in the Prince Blucher in Twickenham, where it was in excellent condition: a couple of subsequent trials elsewhere in West London haven’t been quite as good, so to borrow an Americanism, “your mileage may vary.” But I don’t… Read More Two horsey beers and a short kipple
Had a great session last week with two Californian brewers, Mitch Steele and Steve Wagner of Stone Brewing in San Diego, who are in the UK researching India Pale Ale for a forthcoming book from the Brewers Association in the US. Since I’m the man that has annoyed a large swath of the American beer… Read More Ordinary to Britons, extraordinary to Americans
How do you measure popularity in the blogging world? Wikio believes it has the answer: take each blogger and assess “the number and weight of the incoming links from other blogs”. It then produces a ranking of “the most influential blogs in the UK and Irish blogospheres”. But having seen my own Wikio ranking bwoing… Read More So who IS the most popular beer blogger in Britain?
The patron saint of brewers is usually given as St Arnold of Flanders or his near-namesake St Arnould, bishop of Metz. But English brewers have their own (unofficial) saint: Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury assassinated in the 12th century in his own cathedral by four knights acting on the supposed instructions of King Henry… Read More The patron saint of English brewers
Before we dive more fully into the tangled roots of the words “ale” and “beer”, we have to tackle one particularly knotted strand first, caused by the curious fact that, four hundred years before English adopted the word bier from the Continent to describe a malt liquor flavoured with hops (altering the spelling to “beere”),… Read More Words for beer (2) – was ‘beer’ originally cider?
Someone has put Carol Ann Duffy’s poem “John Barleycorn”, a “lament for, and a celebration of, the Great British Pub”, from the BBC Culture Show programme, up on YouTube: you can find it here and, if you haven’t heard it yet, I feel confident in saying you’ll enjoy it greatly. Duffy’s poem is a rare… Read More Poems on beer, good and bad
Bottled beer was invented in Hertfordshire some 440 years ago, the most popular story says, by a forgetful Church of England rector and fishing fanatic called Dr Alexander Nowell. While Nowell was parish priest at Much Hadham in Hertfordshire, around 20 miles north of London, in the early years of Elizabeth I, it is said… Read More A short history of bottled beer
