Posts by Glynn Davis
The future of festivals
The Mall Tavern pub sits at a busy junction in Notting Hill, and on a Friday evening in late February, it had a queue of drinkers around the building waiting for the doors to reopen at 5pm for the pub’s annual two-day Liquid Dreams beer festival. Each member of the queue was personally welcomed into…
Read MoreMr Turner’s Bar opens in The Porterhouse
The Porterhouse pub in central London has launched the ‘Mr Turner’s Bar’ in partnership with The Covent Gardener magazine to celebrate the site being the birthplace of artist JMW Turner. The new bar sits within The Porterhouse building that reached its 25th Anniversary recently and still looks as impressive as when I first visited the…
Read MoreDesert Island Pubs – Ben Stackhouse, founder of PubLove
Beer Insider is pleased to bring you the latest Desert Island Pubs column, supported by Sunrise Beverages. So settle in and enjoy reading the stories behind the selection of pubs from… Ben Stackhouse, founder, PubLove 1. Earliest Memory of a Pub My family owned a pub when I was born, The Nags Head in Northend, but…
Read MoreWelcome return of the Hoop & Grapes
When working in the City of London in the 1990s I’d often visit the Hoop & Grapes on Farringdon Street that sat among various tall office blocks. When these buildings were all demolished in 2019 its doors closed and it stood precariously alone. Now it has been joined by an array of brand new tower…
Read MoreEvery day is a beer festival at The Mall Tavern
For beer fans a visit to The Mall Tavern in Notting Hill is always an enjoyable experience because this neighbourhood pub is run by husband-and-wife team Nati and Andy Perritt who are both passionate about the beers they serve. So much so in fact that they went free-of-tie after paying Stonegate a hefty sun. For this…
Read MoreThe changing face of wine bars
Yes, I admit this is not about beer or pubs but is about wine bars. It is also an interesting story about how the venues we drink in constantly evolve – whether that is pubs or wine bars. For many people, wine bars still no doubt conjure up images of candle-lit basements with wooden wine…
Read MoreSigning in again at Signature Brew
My first visit to the brewery of Signature Brew was accidental. I had cycled up to see the owner of a butcher’s business called Muddy Boots on an industrial estate near Walthamstow and on arrival spotted Signature in the unit pretty much next door. I briefly chatted to the founders Sam McGregor and Tom Bott…
Read MoreDesert Island Pubs – Tom McManus, commercial & operations manager, McManus Managed Pub Co.
Beer Insider is pleased to bring you the latest Desert Island Pubs column, supported by Sunrise Beverages. So settle in and enjoy reading the stories behind the selection of pubs from… Tom McManus, commercial & operations manager, McManus Managed Pub Co. Limited 1. Earliest Memory of a Pub I grew up in and out of…
Read MoreFront of house is front of mind again
For a few weeks some years back, I worked in Blackfriars and would walk to Holborn tube as my route home because it took me past The Seven Stars in Carey Street, behind the Royal Courts of Justice. After only a couple of nights of stop-offs in this lovely compact pub, the landlady had named…
Read MoreChild’s play
When visiting the hybrid bar/shop Indiebeer in Holloway Road in north London early one Saturday evening before Christmas with my 18-year-old daughter, we had to navigate around various prams and buggies as a large group celebrated a young child’s birthday. My overriding response was that it was good to see the independent venue run by…
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