Features
How our love affair with beer has grown
Back in the 1970s the strength of beer and the ingredients used were treated like state secrets by breweries. CAMRA unlocked the doors and consumers began to learn more about their favourite brews. Beer writers started to develop a language for beer appreciation -- derided at first but now widely accepted. Pictured: Butty Bach from Wye Valley with information about strength and ingredients on the back label
Added: Wednesday, November 25th 2020
'Tis the Saison to be merry...
A once obscure beer style from the Wallonia region of Belgium has now been taken up by brewers in many parts of the world. Saison was originally a seasonal beer brewed by farmers to refresh their workers at harvest time but it's now produced all year round. The classic Saison comes from the Dupont brewery based on a former farm in the Hainaut region
Added: Friday, November 6th 2020
Hats off to British hops
A decade ago the English hop industry was on its knees as more and more brewers imported hops from abroad. But the revived British Hops Association has breathed life back into the market and has developed a new range of plants that deliver the rich, fruity aromas and flavours that craft brewers demand.
Added: Tuesday, October 6th 2020
Billy Tidy, fizz, fun and keg buster
Bill Tidy at the age of 86 has hung up his pens and sketch pads after years of tickling the nation's ribs with such strip cartoons as the Cloggies and the Fosdyke Saga. He created Kegbuster in the 1970s for CAMRA's What's Brewing newspaper where he lampooned the activities of the Grotny Hardmen and Twitbread and their lacklustre keg beers.
Added: Wednesday, July 29th 2020
Liverpool gets a love in at Love Lane
Steve Crawley has brought the much-missed Higson's beers back to Liverpool -- but there's a lot more to be found at the Love Lane Brewery in the fashionable Baltic Triangle. Pale Ale is far and away the biggest beer, backed by IPAs and Baltic Stout. And there are modern gins to please a young clientele as well as excellent food
Added: Friday, June 26th 2020
Pubs: you always miss the ones you love
The highs and lows of Draught Guinness
There's been a lively debate on Twitter about an old system used to serve Irish stouts. It was known as the two cask or high and low system. One cask held freshly-fermented beer, the second older, mature beer. The system was phased out when Guinness developed a new keg method that served the stout with a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen gasses
Added: Wednesday, May 13th 2020
Taste of history: ale brewed for the Arctic
When some bottles of beer were discovered in the cellars of the former Allsopps' brewery in Burton-on-Trent they turned out be to Arctic Ale, brewed in 1875. They had been produced for the crew of ships sent by Queen Victoria to find the survivors of an earlier attempt to navigate the North West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. When a small group assembled in Burton in 2011 the key question was: "Will the beer be drinkable?"
Added: Monday, May 11th 2020
How a little yeast gives beer some bottle
Are bottle-conditioned beers better than beers that have been filtered? The evidence says Yes. Not only are modern beers with live yeast more flavourful but some beers more than 100 years old remain in fine drinking condition as a result of secondary fermentation in bottle, as a tasting of old Bass "corkers" (pictured) proved
Added: Saturday, May 9th 2020
Duncan Sambrook is Young's at heart
Duncan Sambrook opened his brewery in Battersea when Young's closed in Wandsworth in 2006. Now Duncan plans to move his plant to the former Young's site that's now part of the Ram Quarter of housing and offices. He will restore a tradition of brewing that goes back to the time of Elizabeth the First.
Added: Friday, May 8th 2020