Cooking with beer helps prevent cancer – well, it’s in New Scientist magazine, so it must be true. Normally I’m deeply sceptical of “eating/drinking X gives you/prevents Y” stories but this one was so wonderful I had to repeat it. A lady called Isabel Ferreira, an assistant professor at the Department of Bromatology* at the… Read More Cooking with beer helps prevent cancer
We don’t leave sherry out by the fireplace for Santa on December 24 in our house: not that I dislike an Oloroso or Amontillado myself under the right circumstances, but this is a beer-oriented home, and anyway I reckon the old boy would like something refreshingly hoppy after several tens of million glasses of sweet-and-sticky… Read More What ale will you be leaving out for Santa?
The name of the Hilton London Tower Bridge is a triumph of marketing over geographical accuracy, since it’s actually far, far closer to London Bridge, in the More London development, about a minute from London Bridge station and easily 12 to 15 minutes or more by foot from the more iconic Gothic bascule job down-river… Read More The XXX factor
To be “intoxicated” means, literally, to have been shot with a poisoned arrow, thanks to a roundabout philological journey involving the old Greek word for bow, toxon. The same root led to the made-up word “toxophilite” for people who practice archery for sport. Early in the 19th century the Royal Toxophilite Society used butts (that… Read More A religious experience in a restaurant
At the top of the (long) street where we now live is what used to be a pub called the Lord Nelson, the middle one of a trio of boozers with Napoleonic names between Hampton Hill and Twickenham Green. (The other two being the now-closed Wellington and the Prince Blücher, which is named after the… Read More Loch Fyne could be finer with decent beer
If you’re going to build a rant, the foundation needs to be dug out of solid, properly researched facts. Which is why Tony Naylor is being a prat. I’m very sorry to diss a fellow beer writer and freelance journalist, especially when he was writing on the Guardian‘s drinks blog with such excellent intentions –… Read More Why Tony Naylor is being a prat
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
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
Big cheers to Alastair Gilmour, who has now pulled off the unique feat of winning four Beer Writer of the Year gold tankards at the Zythographers’ Union annual awards bash in London – nice man, fine writer. This does mean, however, that the UK’s top beer writing trophy has been won by only 10 different… Read More The sixth-best beer writer in Britain …
They’ll be cracking open the bottles of Young’s Double Chocolate Stout in Bedford today at the news that archaeologists in Honduras have discovered that chocolate was originally just a by-product in brewing beer. What’s more, it looks as if chocolate-flavoured beer, like DC Stout, is one of the most ancient beer styles in the world,… Read More Chocolate beer is 3,000 years old
