The latest, 2008 edition of Thomas Hardy’s Ale, the strong bottle-conditioned beer from the West Country, has just hit the shelves, with a special label celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first brewing of THA back in 1968. That first brew, made by Eldridge Pope of Dorchester in Devon, was itself commemorating the 40th anniversary… Read More Thomas Hardy’s 2008 versus Thomas Hardy’s 1988
After I had met Matt Brynildson brewmaster at the Firestone Walker brewery in Paso Robles, California, on his way to make a Californian-style pale ale at Marston’s brewery in Burton upon Trent, for this year’s Wetherspoon’s International Beer Festival, I was eager to try Matt’s brew. The problem with the Wetherspoon’s festival, though, is that… Read More Going for a Californian Burton
There has never been a better time to be a beer drinker: and I’d like to submit as just one plank in the platform that supports this claim Fuller’s new Brewer’s Reserve, its 7.7 per cent abv whisky cask–aged ale. Why is this the best time to be a beer drinker ever? Isn’t the dominance… Read More Reasons to be a cheerful beer drinker, part 16645
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
The Great British Beer Festival isn’t about the beer. Well, OK, a large part of it is about the beer, there are hundreds of different brews on sale. How could it not be about the beer. But for me the beer isn’t the main pleasure: instead it’s the chance to meet a large number of… Read More GBBF: not all about the beer
I’m not sure it’s altogether good to be the person whose name pops up when the question is asked: “Who can we get to burble on for 20 minutes about the history of beer glasses?”, but at least it got me drinking at someone else’s expense in the Met Bar in Old Park Lane, where… Read More Do we need new glasses?
The Procrustean nonsense of defining rigid categories that every beer must fit into is well illustrated by The Leveller, one of the brews with Civil War-themed names from the Springhead brewery, at Sutton-on-Trent, near Newark, in Nottinghamshire. The Leveller is brewed, like almost all Springhead’s beers, with Maris Otter malt, plus, in this case, some… Read More Categorical nonsense
The time is 10am and there are 20 different beers to be drunk before lunchtime. It must be another supermarket beer judging. I judged for the twice-yearly Tesco Beer Awards quite a few times, but this week’s was the Sainsbury’s Beer Competition, and although Sainsbury’s has brought in the same PR team to organise the… Read More Twenty beers before lunchtime
When Fuller’s announced in 2005 that it was acquiring Gale’s of Horndean, I couldn’t get very upset, in large part because I was angry at what Prize Old Ale had been allowed to become. This should have been a proud and heavily promoted flag-carrier for British beer, about the last survivor of the “strong old… Read More The Prize goes to Fuller’s
