Posts by Glynn Davis
Book Review – Brewing in Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county I know reasonably well from cycling around the area but I’ve less of a handle on its brewing credentials. Until I got my hands on a copy of the recently-published ‘Brewing in Lincolnshire’ by Adam Cartwright (from Amberley Publishing) and found some surprises. The first revelation came in the introduction when…
Read MoreBrewDog taking a bite out of the Apple
Back in the early days of BrewDog, I interviewed its co-founders, James Watt and Martin Dickie, during which time every question was fielded with gusto by Watt. Dickie, meanwhile, sat in silence. When I enquired whether he ever said anything, his response was: “No. I just brew beer.” Rewinding the clock back to the early…
Read MoreSunrise Beverages comes out of the shadows
Returning to the Curious Brewery near Ashford International train station in Kent recently after some years I was still amazed at how large the place is for what was effectively a beer brand side-project of wine company Chapel Down. It only ever produced a fraction – less than 20% – of its capacity and so…
Read MoreGo big or small or go home
Many pubs claim to be the smallest in the country, and among those at the more petite end of the market are The Nutshell in Bury St Edmunds, The Signal Box Inn in Cleethorpes and The Butchers in Herne. Although the latter might be slightly too big to be the smallest at three metres by…
Read MoreDesert Island Pubs – Robert Thomas, founder/owner of Remarkable Pubs
Robert Thomas, founder/owner, Remarkable Pubs 1. Earliest Memory of a Pub In 1947 and before the IRA blew up Nelson’s column my parents emigrated to Dublin for a year or so from Bristol on an ill-fated business venture. My father had bought two shops, one of which housed the family above, opposite ‘O’Reilly’s’ pub located…
Read MoreDamm re-launches Eagle Brewery in Bedford
Spain-based family-owned brewer Damm officially re-launched the Eagle Brewery in Bedford after acquiring the historic site in 2022 and investing more than £70 million in a complete modernisation of the operation. Visitors to the re-launch, including Beer Insider, enjoyed a tour that boasts a state-of-the-art canning line and an additional brewstream that almost doubles capacity to 1.8 million hectolitres per year, with a…
Read MoreWonderful transformation of The White Horse & Bower
The beautifully tiled exterior of The White Horse & Bower pub in London’s Pimlico is thankfully matched by an equally impressive interior that shows clearly where owner Shepherd Neame has spent almost £1 million on a major transformation. The textured wall paper in the back dining room is even more of a feature when you…
Read MoreBook Review – The Good Beer Guide 2026
Fifty three years and counting. It’s that time of the year for the launch of CAMRA’s latest edition of The Good Beer Guide (GBG) when we can see if our favourite pubs have made the cut in the new publication. When I first bought the guide back in 1988 it was a slim-line 352 pages…
Read MoreDesert Island Pubs – Matt Snell, CEO of BoxPark
Matt Snell, CEO, BoxPark 1. Earliest Memory of a Pub I grew up in a pub, so all my early memories were in smoked-filled public houses, in Sheffield. The video juke box had just been invented and we had one in the games room, which made it feel like something from Back to the Future.…
Read MoreStriking out at The Sun Tavern
On an early Monday evening as the sun flooded into The Sun Tavern in London’s East End the tube strikes clogging up the city outside seemed very far away. They drifted even further into the distance after a few of the bar’s cocktails. What was previously something of an old geezers bar, I was told,…
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