General

When staring out the window of Pret A Manger off Trafalgar Square recently, nursing a coffee between meetings, I was distracted by a taxi passing by with a bright advertising banner running along its side. The glitzy campaign was for a new premium non-alcoholic lager called Bero, which included the image of a shiny gold…

Beer Insider is pleased to bring you a new monthly column, supported by Black Sheep Brewery, involving leading figures in pubs and brewing, along with the industry’s wider eco-system, revealing the pubs that have meant the most to them over their careers. These are their Desert Island Pubs. To add to their difficulties choosing their…

Just before Christmas, I enjoyed a very lengthy lunch at Sweetings in the City of London. It’s an institution, and I’m embarrassed to say that it was my first visit, despite working in the City for eight years in the early 1990s. Regardless of when I’d visited, it would no doubt have been exactly the…

Sitting at the bar in my local pub, the Great Northern Railway Tavern, earlier in the year, I noticed the regular guest lager produced by the brewery I co-owned, Bohem Brewery, had been replaced by a specially-brewed lager for the pub by Gipsy Hill Brewery. The deal had just been struck and the sales guy…

Reports of the death of the traditional drinking pub have been greatly exaggerated, judging by the levels of trading across the category that shows a relatively healthy trend, as drinkers are increasingly choosing the pub rather than late-night venues including nightclubs and bars. Wet-led pubs have enjoyed a 10% increase in like-for-like sales on a…