Thanks to Griff Rhys Jones, one of the “myths” pages on this blog saw a sudden spike in hits last night and today, as large numbers of sceptics turned to Google to check out one of the claims in the gurning comedian’s new BBC television programme on The World’s Greatest Cities. The first episode was… Read More Wrecking the reputation of Griff Rhys Jones
The Publican newspaper, written for pub managers and pub tenants in the UK, is having a small panic right now because the voting in the current poll on its website is going seriously in the wrong direction – and Publican staffers are now emailing around trying to drum up votes for the “right” answer. The… Read More Publican panics as poll goes pear-shaped
If not actually unique (always a dangerous claim to make), it was certainly a very rare sight in the cellar bar at Thornbridge Hall in Derbyshire last Monday: four draught lagers on tap from four different British craft brewers, Meantime in Greenwich (its smoked bock); the Cotswold Brewing Company; Taddington, a new Derbyshire brewery, with… Read More Lager: the truth (or some of it)
My normal reason for travelling to Parson’s Green in West London is to drink at the White Horse, still a fine place to find a wide selection of beers in a congenial setting (except if the upper middle classes bring you out in a rash, of course). I was in Sloaneland yesterday, however, for the… Read More Twenty more beers before lunchtime
My life is far too deadline-driven. Fortunately the unexpected is always to be expected. On Saturday Jay Brooks, one of California’s top beer writers and beer bloggers, booted my schedule off course with an email saying he was flying in to London, arriving early Monday morning, and catching a train up to the Midlands in… Read More Why the man from Firestone was deservedly tired
This blog is currently the top result in a Google search for outsize menswear chain Massachusetts. I haven’t, you’ll guess, ever written about retailers of XXL male clothing in the Greater Boston area, but I did make a joke when I blogged on judging at the Sainsbury’s beer competition in April about the name of the… Read More Sainsbury’s winning bottled beers
Brakspear’s Triple is a regular on the Zythophile shopping list: not just because I try to support old fermentation methods, it’s a very tasty beer, marvellously fruity, toffee apples, peardrops and bananas, hints of fruitcake, sweet and bitter in perfect balance, a long and lingering tart, very dry finish, and remarkably light-footed for a beer… Read More A tasty drop: the history of an almost-vanished fermentation system
UPDATE Ha! As I wrote yesterday, researchers in yeast genetics are changing the story on the history of yeast all the time, and the day I put that post up, new findings on the genetics of lager yeast came out which, as New Scientist reported, take the hybridisation narrative further down the road to a… Read More The history of yeast: breaking news
Around 80 million years ago, when Triceratops still browsed the plains of what wasn’t yet North America, some flowering plant species developed a new strategy to spread their seeds, encasing them in a soft, fleshy cover – fruit – that became sweet and tasty as everything ripened. The fruit was then eaten by animals, which… Read More A short history of yeast
Olympic – which really ought to be renamed Icarus Airlines, since as a company it looks very likely to follow soon the trajectory of the doomed early Greek aeronaut – is manned by incompetent twazzocks. They reschedule flights which then arrive so late they take off at the originally scheduled time anyway. They cancel flights… Read More How to find decent beer in Greece
