It’s a claim you will find repeated in dozens – possibly hundreds – of places: that the so-called “Hymn to Ninkasi”, a poem in the Sumerian language to the goddess of beer, at least 3,900 years old, known from three fragmentary clay tablets found in and around the ancient city of Nippur, which stood between… Read More No, the ‘Hymn to Ninkasi’ is NOT a recipe for making Sumerian beer
Warming myself at midnight by an open-air firepit over which half a cow was being slowly and expertly roasted, while 50 or so slightly drunk South American brewers sang a word-perfect rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody loudly and enthusiastically was not a direction I ever expected my beer writing career to take. Still, every opportunity for… Read More In search of a Paraguayan beer style
The sub-title of my new book, Around the World in 80 Beers, is “A Global History of Brewing”. I hope this indicates to potential purchasers that the book is considerably more than just another round-up of international beers in the tradition that goes back almost 50 years, to Michael Jackson’s seminal World Beer Guide of 1977. The idea… Read More Around the World in 80 Beers: a journey through time rather than in space
The Tipperary pub in Fleet Street, London, has reopened after four years of closure, excellent news, since it’s one of the most attractive little pubs in the City. Planning permission was actually granted in April 2020 for its conversion into office use, but one of the very few benefits of the Covid pandemic was that… Read More The Tipperary’s back but the history is even more confused
A fascinating pair of pieces of ephemera, these, because they tells us something about brewing and beer consumption in large households and by farmers, and give a clue as to why farmers who brewed sometimes became actual commercial brewers. The first is a 163-year-old bill for malt and hops from Samuel Wright of Walkern in… Read More How much beer did a 19th century farmer-brewer brew?
Frederick William Fellowes was born in Beighton, between Norwich and Yarmouth in Norfolk, in 1856, one of the 10 children of the Reverend Thomas Lyon Fellowes. Several of his brothers, like their father, entered the church. But in 1872 an older sister, named Pleasance, married Edward Jesser Coope, only son of Octavius Edward Coope, a… Read More A short history of the King’s Walden brewery
Tuesday, and we’re off travelling again, 20 miles south to Roeselare, and the Rodenbach brewery. To me, as a historian of beer and brewing, Rodenbach is a fascinating operation, since it brews well-aged ales in what is almost certainly the same way that English brewers did 150 years ago, vatted for months, or years, and… Read More If it’s Tuesday, this must be Kölsch – Part Four
One of the problems of trying to be a beer tourist in Belgium in July is that many places shut for their annual break. This was the case with Cantillon, Brussels’s oldest surviving lambic brewery, a real working museum of beer, which is why we had to squeeze in a visit as we were leaving… Read More If it’s Tuesday, this must be Kölsch – Part Three
Some of the best beer tourism happens in places that are already centres for “ordinary” tourism, with plenty of stuff to see that is nothing to do with beer. That’s what makes Brussels a great place to be a beer tourist. There are many attractions apart from breweries and bars .You can wander about checking… Read More If it’s Tuesday, this must be Kölsch – Part Two
How we sophisticated Europeans laughed at American tourists in the 1960s as they raced around our continent on whirlwind holidays in cramped coaches: the Eiffel Tower one day, the canals of Venice the next, Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin the day after. They were mocked without mercy in a film made in 1969 called If It’s… Read More If it’s Tuesday, this must be Kölsch
