Features

Norwich's great beer bonanza, City of Ale, returns at the end of May for another great celebration of beer and brewing in Norfolk and its capital city. The brainchild of Dawn Leeder and Phil Cutter, City of Ale is more than a beer festival but is a rolling programme of events in pubs and breweries, with talks and tastings by local brewers and beer writers, including Adrian Tierney-Jones and Roger Protz

Added: Wednesday, May 17th 2017

Cumbrian Legendary Ales is content to remain a small brewery supplying its locality with cask ales, including the award-winning Loweswater Gold. But Hawkshead is forging ahead with plans to expand sales following a deal with a large drinks distribution company to sell bottles and cans internationally. But founder Alex Brodie stays firmly in charge and there will still be a strong emphasis on draught beer

Added: Sunday, May 7th 2017

The Red Lion at Histon near Cambridge is a shrine to good beer, decked out with memorabilia of the hey-day of brewing in the 20th century. But landlord Mark Donachy isn't living in the past as the Red Lion serves a wide selection of cask ales from today's independent breweries, mainly in East Anglia. Not surprisingly, The Red Lion has just been named Pub of the Year by the local branch of CAMRA.

Added: Saturday, April 29th 2017

There's a quiet beer revolution underway in Hungary with some 70 craft breweries bringing choice to a country dominated by global brewers. The driving force is Eleszto -- yeast -- a complex of bars and restaurants that features many craft beers and organises tours of the best bars in the city. There's even cask beer available, the results of a collaboration between the small Hubris brewery in Budapest and Signature Brew in London

Added: Tuesday, April 18th 2017

Siren Craft Brew in leafy Berkshire is pushing back the frontiers of beer-making with a range of challenging brews. some of which are aged in oak casks. Its annual vintage is Maiden, aged in oak but topped up each year with fresh beer, following the Spanish sherry solera system. As well as IPA and oatmeal stout, Siren also conducts collaboration brews with the likes of Cigar City in Florida. Pictured in the cask storehouse are (left to right) founder Darron Anley with brewers Kyle Larsen and Steve Hoile

Added: Wednesday, March 29th 2017

Colin Dexter, who died on 21 March, had a life-long love affair with good beer, starting in his home town of Stamford. He took that love with him to Oxford and it helped inspire his great creation, Inspector Morse, In this interview with Roger Protz in May 1990, Dexter spoke of his favourite beers and the crime writers he admires.

Added: Wednesday, March 22nd 2017

Publicans packed a meeting in St Albans this week to launch a petition to halt punitive rises in business rates. St Albans with 50 pubs has the biggest number of any town or city in the country -- but 20 could close unless rate increases are halted. The meeting was convened by Sean Hughes (pictured) who runs the 15th century Boot pub

Added: Friday, February 24th 2017

Alex Brodie, founder of Hawkshead Brewery in Cumbria, brewed more than one million litres in 2016 -- and 65% of the total was cask beer. He describes himself as "bullish about cask" and plans a rolling programme of session beers for 2017. He welcomes new wave young brewers but says cask ale is unique to Britain and needs to be treasured

Added: Monday, January 30th 2017

Maigret returns to TV on Christmas day and two more films are planned with Rowan Atkinson playing the famous French detective. Penguin Books is relaunching the whole Maigret series of novels and his creator Georges Simenon, in an interview with the Toronto Star in 1953, explained why a Parisian policeman preferred beer to wine

Added: Monday, December 19th 2016

Veteran pubs campaigner Mark Dodds is back doing what he enjoys best --- pulling pints in a pub. After a long losing and bruising battle with pub companies in London, he is back in the North-east, reviving the fortunes of the Brown Bear in Berwick. He is also planning to raise crowd funding money to help save other community locals

Added: Sunday, December 11th 2016