Posts by Glynn Davis
Good things come in small glasses
While enjoying a beer in the Horse & Groom in Belgravia, another male customer walked in and ordered a bottle of 4.5% lager while his female partner went for a 250ml glass of wine. The exercise was repeated for the next round, with the result that he had consumed a modest three units of alcohol…
Read MoreDesert Island Pubs – Simon Wilkinson, board director at Evolv Collection and TGI Fridays
1. Earliest memory of a pub you can recall? My parents were pub people, every night after my Dad finished work circa 5:20pm we went for two hours pre the evening meal. Most pubs did not allow children in so me and my older brothers spent many an hour in a car with a bottle…
Read MoreBrewing up history and modernity
Visiting Barcelona for tours around the enormous modern Damm facility at the El Prat brewery next to the airport and then the original Old Brewery in the centre of the city, the two experiences could not have been more different. In the former the use of cameras and filming devices is strictly off limits for…
Read MoreBook Review – ‘The Firkin Saga’ by David Bruce
Back in 2001 I was enjoying breakfast with pub wizard David Bruce at Simpson’s on the Strand when he told me about his latest venture the Capital Pub Company that was fundraising at the time. But he deterred me from investing a few quid in it because as an impoverished journalist I would not benefit…
Read MoreSmaller brewers need relief
Visiting Battersea Beer festival in 1987-88 was a revelation for all drinkers present that year because it was the first time a truly golden ale had been produced in the UK. Exmoor Gold from Exmoor Ales in Somerset created a buzz in south west London because it was a lip-smacking departure from the ubiquitous brown…
Read MoreDesert Island Pubs – David Wood, business development consultant, FRP Advisory
David Wood, business development consultant, FRP Advisory 1. Earliest Memory of a Pub It would have been somewhere near Tenby in South Wales, circa 1969. I’d have been about 13, and on a family holiday. Stood outside with half a pint of shandy and a packet of crisps. I can vaguely recall the smell of…
Read MoreRise of the silver servers
When the shuttered Four Sisters pub reopened as The Pocket in Islington with an expansive beer list, I made the short tube trip south for a visit during its opening week. During this early evening jaunt when the pub was particularly quiet, I enquired how things were going to the couple of 20-something’s serving behind…
Read MoreDesert Island Pubs – Mark Crowther, chairman of Portobello Pub co., The Pub People Company and Heron & Brearley
Mark Crowther, chairman of Portobello Pub co. and The Pub People Company 1. Earliest memory of a pub you can recall? Although I grew up in Cambridge my parents would regularly take us on holiday around the UK. As a child I remember taking the sea tractor across to Burgh Island in south Devon where…
Read MoreTime to scale back on food in pubs
When the smoking ban came into force in 2007, one of the biggest impacts was the widespread move by pub operators to introduce food into pubs that had previously never ventured further into the realm of selling solids than offering crisps and peanuts. It was a revolutionary period that made the once smoky, boozy environments…
Read MoreDesert Island Pubs – Adam Mayers
Adam Mayers, managing director, Hydes 1. Earliest memory of a pub you can recall? My earliest memory of a pub is visiting the Wellington on Tranch road in Pontypool. Known under the nickname the “Sally” and now renamed as that. I remember drinking Coke from a glass bottle and may have even had chicken and chips…
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