I cannot lie, my stomach made a little flip when I walked into the union room at Marston’s brewery in Burton upon Trent on Wednesday. Here it was: the most iconic fermentation system on the planet. The only example left, out of – well, dozens, certainly, perhaps even hundreds, of unions in use in breweries… Read More Blissful unions
It’s depressing and frightening, sometimes, if you start tugging at loose threads in the historical narrative, because the whole fabric can start unravelling. This all began with the Canadian beer blogger and beer historian Alan McLeod emailing me about claims that the “Hull ale” that was being drunk in the 17th century in London was… Read More More frequently repeated beery history that turns out to be totally bogus
The “IPA shipwreck” is one of many long-lasting myths in the history of India Pale Ale. The story says that IPA became popular in Britain after a ship on its way to India in the 1820s was wrecked in the Irish Sea, and some hogsheads of beer it was carrying out east were salvaged and… Read More The IPA shipwreck and the Night of the Big Wind
In November 1799 a brief paragraph appear in the Times newspaper: “A Porter Brewery is about to be established at Portsmouth, by a number of opulent Gentlemen, who have subscribed £5000 each. The Thames water for this undertaking is to be conveyed by shipping.” The reason for the appearance of the second sentence is that… Read More A short history of water
This is not going to make me popular in Pontypridd, and it will go down very badly in St Albans. But Otley Brewing Company, the widely admired Welsh brewery, and Roger Protz, doyen of British beer writers, have got together to revive a vanished classic and brewed entirely and utterly the wrong sort of beer.… Read More Argh no! Otley and Protz in Burton Ale fail!
Really, the Burton Mail should be ashamed of itself. This is the local newspaper in what is, historically, at least, the beer capital of Britain, Burton upon Trent, still the home to two major brewing companies, Coors and Marstons, and it’s running factoid alcohol scare stories designed to pander to the latest moral panic, that… Read More Stupid scaremongering at the Burton Mail
It’s tremendous news that the brewery museum in Burton upon Trent is to reopen, though my joy that Britain, one of the world’s four or five greatest brewing nations, may finally get the celebration of its beery history that it deserves was turned down a notch by a statement from one of the people who… Read More Burton: NOT the first place in the world to brew pale beers
