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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

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

It's when the pubs are closed that you realise how much you miss them. Here's a run down of just some of the hostelries I have visited and treasured over the years. Pictured: the Boleyn Tavern in London E6 that used to stand next to West Ham United football ground

Added: Thursday, May 28th 2020

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

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

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 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

Great lager beers come from Central Europe while Britain is saddled with the mass-produced brews produced by global brewers. But small independent brewers in Britain are now making some fine interpretations of the style -- and king of the heap is Curious Brew, which uses wine techniques including Champagne yeast

Added: Thursday, May 7th 2020

The nation's pubs are shut tight and it's not the first time they have suffered during a time of crisis. During the First World War, the teetotal Liberal politician David Lloyd George (pictured) drove through measures that drastically cut pub opening hours, increased the price of beer and remodelled pubs to make them less cheerful places to visit. Massive rises in beer duty led to stronger beers such as IPA becoming a shadow of their former selves

Added: Thursday, April 9th 2020

Liverpool is famous for its pubs but it's worth wandering into the backstreets to find some hidden gems, such as Ye Cracke (pictured), where John Lennon used to drink when he was at the nearby art college. There's more Beatles memorabilia at the Grapes in Mathew Street, close to the Cavern Club, and at the nearby White Star. The Roscoe Head has a fine offering of beer and needs support in case its owners close it. For the new face of Liverpool, don't miss the Love Lane brewery and tap

Added: Sunday, March 15th 2020