Beers
Let’s rake over the take-overs…
Whilst writing my normal monthly diary, (March’s ventures are here) there was so much corporate finance news that we felt it appropriate to put into this separate piece. The most stunning announcement was that Wicked Weed had agreed to be taken over by Anheuser-Busch InBev. This is a mere 15 months after the latter’s Super Bowl…
Read MoreNever Gonna Give you Hop
Pop legend from the 1980s Rick Astley (of ‘Never Gonna Give you Up’ fame) and beer legend of today Mikkel Borg Bjergso (of Mikkeller brewery fame) came together in West London last week to launch a collaborative beer. Or they would have done if one of them had not been the regular rock star and…
Read MoreThe Craft Beer Co. remains resolutely committed to cask
Cask ale will continue to be an integral part of the offer on the bars of The Craft Beer Co., according to its founder Martin Hayes, who says he is disappointed by those brewers ceasing production of cask and suggests too many decisions in the industry are purely money motivated. “It saddens me that some…
Read MoreNew Vintage Ale House pushes beer boundaries in Balham
It seems that hardly a day goes by when I don’t either visit or hear about a bar, pub, bottle shop or even a cafe that has a beer selection that I would have travelled the length of the country to visit five years ago. The reality is that today we are inundated with quality…
Read MoreHammerton Brewery nailing it in North London
Brewing seemed like a good idea when boredom set in with the office job for Lee Hammerton in 2012 and it looks like he made a decent decision as the beers coming out of his brewery in North London are of a consistently high quality. At the time he reckoned Islington, despite its high number…
Read MoreFire in the belly at Moor Beer Company
Justin Hawke It seems is a man who likes a challenge and a bit of a scrap. Since setting up Moor Beer Company almost a decade ago he has taken on a number of battles – all in the name of producing full flavoured, consistently high quality, drinkable beers. From the outset he championed cloudy…
Read MoreSometimes only pints will do
With so many different beers to drink these days (of serious strength) my consumption of pints has dwindled. But sometimes specific occasions demand beer being drunk in this quintessentially British measure – namely a UK cask ale served in a traditional Victorian pub. Step forward Fuller’s Bengal Lancer and the brewery’s Red Lion pub in…
Read MoreInnis & Gunn expanding the proposition
So the story goes…William Grant & Sons wanted a beer to season its whisky barrels that would then be imparted on the taste of the final spirit. The subsequent ale, produced at the Caledonian Brewery in Glasgow, was originally thrown away but the workers at the distillery found it rather palatable as it took on…
Read MoreSamuel Smith marches to its own drumbeat
To many beer drinkers Samuel Smith has achieved a status that many other breweries and pub companies would very much like to attain but it takes a lot of effort to maintain ownership of a business for almost 260 years and to incredibly still be up with events in terms of trends. It’s clearly a…
Read MoreLondon Lager + Grolsch = London Lager!
Surely it cannot be true. The quintessential London brew from Meantime Brewery, its London Lager, now contains Dutch brew Grolsch. It is understood that batches of London Lager contain around 10% of the overseas brewed beer. While this is not a crime in itself it is rather disappointing that this blending of London Lager undoubtedly…
Read More